Part 15: Industrial Zone

Update 15 - Industrial Zone

Welcome back. Last time we fought our way past everything Zeno and the Rangers could throw at us. We rejoin the party immediately after Ryu’s collapse at the end of the previous update.





Music: Origin



*Heartbeat*





















The screen blanks out. When it returns Ryu is slumped against one of the crates, Nina and Lin by his side.



: Are you OK?



: Something…a voice…







: I just want to help Nina!





: One thing’s for sure. It’s finally time…



: Wait! We’re going to Trinity? But I’m a Ranger!



Ryu has no answer. The cutscene ends, and we regain control.



We start in the storage area, which has been completely trashed by the trio of epic battles we’ve just fought. Our next destination is Trinity’s hideout, but first let’s take stock of our situation.



First up, our inventory. I bought 10 Heal Kits, 40 Aid Kits and 10 Med Kits before heading into this area. After fighting through the Rangers, Asmiov and Zeno I’m left with 10 Aid Kits and 6 Med Kits.



I’m also left with a ton of skill items that Ryu and Lin managed to steal. I’ll list them briefly here:

Dent Weapon: A Lv. 1 Skill for Ryu, stolen from Battler Captains. Attack power of 80%, debuffs enemy Attack by 5%.

Third Eye: A Lv. 1 Skill for Ryu, stolen from Lead Gunner. Ensures the next attack will always hit.

Take This!: A Lv. 2 Skill for Lin, stolen from Asimov. Attack power of 60%, but ignores enemy defence. Basically a better version of Fang.

Valor: A Shield Skill, stolen from Zeno. Automatically revives a fallen character once per battle.



We’ve also got some unidentified items and vendor trash to sell off, so it’s a good idea to make a quick pit stop downstairs before heading on.



Before we do that though, there’s something else we need to take care of.





Zeno’s sword lying there isn’t just for show. We can pick it up and claim it for ourselves.





Claiming and then identifying the sword turns it into the Violet Blade, a powerful weapon with a huge number of empty skill slots, as well as the Violet Death skill Zeno used against us. It’s a very solid and versatile sword that can easily carry Ryu through the rest of the game.



Before we head on, there’s something else to point out. There are two locations in Dragon Quarter where it’s possible to grind out levels very quickly. This area right here is the first.





The method is dead easy, but it requires that you resist the (probably overpowering) urge to save after beating Zeno. Stash everything valuable in Jaju’s lockers and use SOL Restore to return to the last save point, which should be the one directly before the boss rush.



Once that’s done, simply climb the ladder into Storage, skip the cutscenes and head straight into the boss rush. Don’t worry about stocking up on healing items or anything like that.











The trick here is to immediately D-Dive and shred everyone in sight. Don’t worry about the D-Counter, just go bananas and annihilate the Rangers as quickly as possible.



You see, this battle actually gives out Party XP. We didn’t get any the first time through because the battle dragged on for over ten turns. However, with D-Dive it’s possible to finish the fight in two turns or less. This gives us a huge Ratings Bonus, boosting the modifier into the stratosphere and granting us thousands of Party XP.



Asimov is up next. Before we had to chip away at its tough armour while doing our best to avoid being swarmed by the horde of Annexes it summoned.





Good news - we don’t have to do that this time. Four stacked D-Charges and a single Hurricane is enough to reduce Asimov and its little helpers to scrap. If you don’t want to deal with the self-destruct sequence, that’s fine too. Just attack Asimov one more time in dragon form and it’ll die immediately without blowing up.



There weren’t as many enemies that time so the experience payout is a smaller but still very respectable 518.







The final fight is pretty much identical. D-Charge up and smash Zeno’s brains in on the very first turn.



You don’t get much Party XP from her, but it ends things quickly.



I had about 6,000 Party XP sitting around before doing this. Now I have nearly 11,000. Since Party XP carries over when you use SOL Restore it’s possible to re-run this series of battles over and over again to rack up tens of thousands of experience points. Doing so will also reset your D-Counter, so you don’t need to worry about that either.





The experience gain from one go-through plus the Party XP I already had is enough to boost everyone up by three levels. I’m not going to do it more than once, but it’s a useful trick to keep in mind if you really find yourself struggling to win fights.



Anyway, now that that’s done let’s get on with the update.



There are several rooms leading off from the storage unit. There are the two lift rooms that Asimov and the other reinforcements came out of, which are empty, and this side area full of gold crates.





There’s a save point in the next corridor. Kind of pointless since there’s one back down the ladder in the Frozen Road which has the added benefit of being near the vendors.





Music: Industrial Sector





We find ourselves in Sheldar’s industrial zone. As the name indicates it’s where all the factories and other heavy industries are situated.



Music: No Regrets



A new area means new enemy encounters, and now that we’ve progressed far enough in the plot we get a swanky new battle theme to go with them. This is something that happened in other Breath of Fire titles, where the battle theme and world map music would periodically update to reflect the player’s progress.

In this battle we’re up against two Bandits and two Highway Stars. Both are annoying for different but thematically similar reasons.



Bandits have an attack called Pickpocket that lets them steal a random item from your inventory. This is just as frustrating as it sounds, especially if you’re playing the NTSC version and they steal your one remaining Save Token. You can get the item back by killing them, but if you aren’t quick they’ll run away and use Escape to despawn.





Highway Stars won’t steal from you directly, but they will snatch up any items dropped on the field. Like the Bandits you’ll need to chase them down if you want those items back.



The catwalk divides shortly after entering the area.



The upper level leads to a small room with three Odd Hychees. Very useful after the extremely tough boss medley.





The lower level leads to a generator room with several large bats flapping about.



These bats are Ebonfires. They aren’t too hard to kill, but they do have a Drain attack that heals them for 100% of the damage dealt.



Accompanying the bats is a Baphomet, a large demonic enemy that has the potential to complicate the battle immensely. It can cast fire magic like Flare and Fireblast, but that’s not the main problem.





Its most annoying tactic is to hang back and spam an area of effect Silence spell. Silence seals all skills and takes several turns to wear off, so if you don’t have any status cures you might find your party reduced to inert punching bags.



The trick is to either catch the Baphomet on its own (hard to do since it’s in a crowd of Ebonfires) or kill every other enemy before it can act. If you do it’ll become frightened and run away instead of attacking, allowing you to pull it back with Lin’s ‘C’mere’ and beat it to death with sword and spell.



Killing it rewards us with the Fireblast spell, giving us more options for elemental damage.









On the next floor we encounter yet more new enemies, bug-like robots called Capeks.



They can push you around, but they don’t have Asimov’s inch-thick armour plating so they die very quickly to normal attacks.







They do give me a chance to show off Lin’s new skill, which involves her doing her best Macross impression.



Killing the Capeks gives us access to this floor’s Treasure Chest. Of course, without the key we can’t-









Meet the Wonder Box, the latest in the mimic line of enemies.



Like Jack Pods, Wonder Boxes are gimmick enemies whose drops change depending on the player’s actions.



While the Jack Pods gave out Zenny, Wonder Boxes give out items. At the end of the initial turn the Wonder Box will explode, depleting whatever Hit Points it had left. The lower the Hit Points, the better the item.



If you accidentally kill the Wonder Box you’ll just get a measly Heal Kit. But the other rewards can be pretty good. I’m not sure of the exact thresholds, but you can receive Save Tokens, weapons and armour accessories from these guys.





The best reward, however, involves lowering it to 10 Hit Points or less.



It’s tough, but doing this rewards you with another skill for Lin.



‘Keep at it!’ is a fantastic skill. If you’re being diligent in acquiring her language commands, this is the part of the game where Lin begins to come into her own as a damage dealer and battlefield controller.



There’s a D-Ratio Door behind where the Wonder Box was. Maybe we’ll see what’s behind it in New Game+.





Moving on we come to a big room with a walkway around the edge and a ramp leading down to a lower area underneath. The walkway leads to the next area but as always, it’s worth taking the time to examine every nook and cranny before progressing.



Doing so reveals that the lower area holds a number of item crates, along with several of these insectoid enemies.



Petrophages are the latest enemy in the ‘phage’ line, on from Rustphages and Kanaphages. They are incredibly weak to fire, but casting Flare or Fireblast at them will cause them to ignite and explode, dealing massive damage to the party.



Here’s Lin’s ‘Keep at it!’ skill in action. It’s basically a giant laser that hits everything in a line.





Fittingly, you can steal the Explosion skill from Petrophages. Reducing an enemy to 1HP is nice, but losing your shield is a pretty awful downside and with only three shield slots you really can’t afford to haul around a bunch of trash-tier shields to use as sacrifices.



The Treasure Key appears when all the Petrophages are dead, allowing us to move on.







The next room contains another large area with catwalks, lower decks and a raised control room full of Fire Goos.





Killing the Fire Goos gives us access to the Treasure Chest, which contains yet another skill for Lin. It’s similar to ‘Blow up!’, but hits enemies in a circle rather than a semicircular spread.



A bunch of Goos hanging out on the bottom level gives me the chance to show it off.







Huge area of effect and decent power even when unboosted. Nice visuals too.





The next room contains two HighwayStars and a Bandit offscreen to the left.





Here’s Nina’s new Fireblast spell. It has a shorter range than Lightning but hits enemies over a wider spread.





The next room starts us off in an old control room with a D-Ratio Door to the right.



Outside we see this room has a lower deck crawling with Petrophages and Bandits. There are a few gold crates down there, but nothing essential to our journey.







Music: Imminent Crisis



The first room we set foot in on the third floor is a Danger Room.



There aren’t any enemies inside the first room, but a Baphomet and half a dozen Ebonfires are waiting to ambush you as soon as you open the door.











Defeating them all yields no rewards apart from experience.



Sharp-eyed viewers will note the sudden 0.47% jump in the D-Counter between this screenshot and the last. My inventory was getting cluttered so I ran back downstairs to do some selling and identifying. The only items of note were the Flame Cannon, a fire-based variant of Lin’s Ice Cannon, and a Light Robe for Nina that marginally increases her speed and defence.





This next room is weird. It’s got a small enclosed corridor that leads to the next room but also a long catwalk around its perimeter that ultimately goes nowhere.



It also has a winched up box that you can stand on. I know what you’re thinking, but no, you can’t cut the cable and drop down to a hidden area. It’s just a piece of scenery like the many control rooms we’ve seen so far.





Leaving leads to a very large room infested with Capeks. Those red lights are emitted by their antennas, but while it makes them look like they’re scanning the area it doesn’t seem to enhance their field of vision or make them more aggressive or anything.



Killing them all causes the Treasure Key to spawn in one of the many side rooms leading off from the main hall. Happily, the Treasure Chest is right behind it.





Fireball is Nina’s second Lv. 2 trap rune. Useful for things that resist ice.







There are a number of other side rooms to explore. The contents of crates are usually randomised, but these ones always give you explosives for some reason…





The next elevator takes us up to IndustTwo, the second part of the Industrial Sector.



We enter another large room, but…something’s wrong.









There are dead bodies everywhere. And judging by their weapons and uniforms, they’re all high-ranking Rangers. Who, or what, could have done this? Tune in next time to find out.