Part 7: Chapter VI: Here Be Dragons

Before I go on, I'd just like to give PoliteMachineGun a shoutout for making my family think I'm a complete nutjob. It's hilarious and I love you for it.

Chapter VI: Here Be Dragons

Challenge: Physical attacks/skills ONLY, this means no healing/attack magic

So by virtue of you guys voting, Ken is now being apprenticed to Bunyan. Bunyan, as you can probably figure, ups your physical stats while lowering your magical ones. The AP loss is a killer, though, especially later on. And it doesn't help that the best Skill he teaches costs 12 AP to use. But for now, he's great especially since Ken's got boosted AP from Mygas.



Also, offscreen, I fished for more Skill Ink. The game gives you enough to get through the game, but the Manillos are the easiest way to get more, and the one here is the easiest. 1 Trout and 1 Rainbow Trout for 1 Skill Ink. In Breath of Fire IV, they made Aurum (the equivalent) much more common. Here's how it works:



First of all, any Skills learned by Rei and Teepo are thrown into the camp Skill list. Once you use a Skill Ink, you can switch Skills around as much as you like until you back out the menu. It's pretty straightforward. The important thing to remember is that you can switch as many Skills around on your eventual 6 party members with 1 Skill Ink as long as you stay on this screen. Hit left and right to switch characters.

For now, I leave Ken with Influence and Frost (for demonstration purposes only). Meditation and Magic Ball go into the Skill list for our next party member, and Typhoon for the character after that.



Also, if you let Eye Goos be for 10 turns, they use Snooze, a Skill that restores a small amount of HP and AP, but puts you to sleep. Learn it. Don't use it yet though.



Yes...Ken is already shaping up to be a great character. Although to be fair, it's REALLY hard to make him completely beyond redemption.

Rejuvenate is the next level up from Heal. It'll be your standard healing spell up until the end of the game. The 9 AP is fairly steep now, though so stick to Heal.



Bunyan's first Skill is Risky Blow. It's a chance to get a critical attack at the cost of a severely reduced accuracy. Might be useful later, but definitely not when we're alone.



This is our next "road" dungeon. Also note the region change. As far as you need to know, it's purely cosmetic. But if you're curious, when you enter the World Map, it only fully loads the region that you're currently in. This includes Fishing Spots and the like. It's not a major deal, but I guess it helps save the game from having a longer load time when heading to the world map. It'll load the entire appearance of the map, but nothing you can enter, which I guess takes more memory (I really don't know much about computers, I'm a film guy so feel free to correct me on that)



And here's our stats going in. Level 12 is normally overkill for this area, but we're doing something a little special in this update, which we'll need at least 70 HP for. This is one of few times when HP actually matters. Defense is much more important.



Mount Myrneg. It has the same music as Mount Glaus. Nothing too exciting here, but there's a treasure you wanna get, plus a few new enemies.



The Nut Family. Nut Mages cast Flare (but only once). They're very slow, and if you kill them before they cast it, you get a free Molotov (which is a free cast of Flare).

The Nut Troop is important for one reason:



They teach the normally difficult to learn Double Blow Skill. I got it on my first try. You do two attacks at 75% damage for 2 AP. Exceedingly useful throughout the whole game.

And it's also worth mentioning that the entire Nut Family (there's one member we can't meet here) all have 5 HP but incredibly high evasion. IF you have the Burn skill, you can OHKO them for 1 AP each, since they're all weak to fire, being nuts and all.



And here's our last friendly monster. He gives a hint about using Blind on Eye Goos, fire on the Nut Family, and then asks us not to use ice magic on Tar Men (his species). Behind him is an Icicle, which is a free cast of Blizzard, the strongest ice spell in the game.



We wanna head east to get the treasure. Typically, when referring to directions, the upper left will be north, upper right is east, lower right is south, and lower left is west. You can't change the camera angle like in Breath of Fire IV, so it's not really important, but "east" sounds better than "upper right".



There's a tiny little path along the east side of the mountain.



Bruce Wayne seems to have dropped this. It completely prevents Blind. It stays on Ken for a while.



And here's why I brought Frost along. Pay attention GarrBear. Tar Men have incredibly high defense, to symbolize your character hitting a pile of tar. You won't do more than 1 HP of damage. But there's a trick our friend at the bottom of the mountain hinted at.



Cast Frost and...



Ta-da! It's frozen solid. It can no longer attack, and it's defense is lowered to a more reasonable number. You can thaw it by casting Burn on it, but there's no point to it. I run from this one to keep as close to the challenge as possible (I just wanted to show this off, since it's a Neat Thing), but normally they give Ken 70 experience, making them good for grinding.



This is a short place. That Tar Man was our last fight.



...Oh FUCK. Well, maybe we can sneak behind him.



Sunder: OK, bro, let's go... hm...? You're not my brother!! W -who're you? Wait...You're supposed to be dead!



Balio: Ghost!? What're you talking about?

Sunder: Help! Help me, bro! Come quick! Lo-look! He's dead! I mean, I mean...



"zombie" shakes left to right here.

Balio: This is a surprise. Is he really alive?



Sunder is an idiot. Which is something we'll use to our advantage soon.

Balio: Maybe we didn't finish him off...?

Sunder: No...No, he's dead... you dummy!



WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!



Balio: Did we get him this time...?

Sunder: We killed him! We're the strongest!!

Yeah, this sack of crap is celebrating being able to literally stab a child in the back.



The music stops. But all of a sudden, we hear a heart beat faster and faster, and something starts happening to Ken.



The sword pulls itself out and land besides Ken.




Sunder: Hey, bro...! Wh wha's happening!?

Balio: ...He's not human... Is he invulnerable?

Sunder: Yikes! C'mon, bro... Let's get outta here!

Balio: Wait! Hold on, bro! I have an idea...we may have just found our golden egg...




The brothers take Ken to Castle Wyndia.



And here's the royal family of Wyndia. This plays during this scene

King: And it be in truth a dragon?

Balio: It certainly is... Your Highness.

Sunder: It's for real! A real dragon!

King: Hmmm...If what you say is true... It is a most serious matter...no?

Balio: Indeed--they tried to destroy the world...

Sunder: Hey, bro--I think it's gonna work...

Balio: Your Highness, I give you... the dragon!



...Oh shit.

Sunder: Uh, bro...

King: What's this... ?

Balio: Oh no! He's gone back to being a kid!

Sunder: Let's try hitting him again!!




The Queen and Princess aren't too thrilled about this.

Balio: Hey! Kid! C'mon! Why don't you change? Huh!

King: Enough!! Explain yourselves, charlatans! Arrest these con men and their 'dragon'!!




Sunder: Shut up! Stop yer crying, you brat! It's all your fault! If only you'd turned into a dragon, we wouldn't be down here! We're gonna miss the Contest, man...



The princess enters, with her accompanying them which is a particularly good one.



For anyone whose played the first two, you know what this means. She's our next party member.

: Hello there, I'm Nina

Sunder: T... Thank you!? Hear that, bro? She says she'll let us go!



Balio: We wouldn't do that, Princess Nina... I swear, we won't pick on him again So.........if you could please open the door...

: .........Really?



: All right then...



Balio: Thank you, Princess

: And you won't pick on him again, right?

Balio: Oh, no... We won't do anything to that kid again...




Coll chase music called "Chase" plays

These guys are just the worst. And they're unicorns. Unicorns are supposed to be magic and awesome and cool.

Sunder: Way to go, bro!

Balio: Besides... who needs that freak... when we have a princess? She's worth more money anyway!

Sunder: Time to hit the road, eh?

Balio: Yep... You carry her... Imagine the fat ransom she'll fetch!




VOTING TIME! Do we yell for the guard or break the door down?































I recently had to fire on of my delivery drivers for repeatedly using his car to take naps while on the clock. I know that it's a pizza place, but a jobs a job, especially in this day and age. There's no reason to not do your best on the job.

So instead, let's charge the door.



...Let's try that again.




It worked!




Fortunately, they didn't make it far.

: Let me go! Let me go, I said!

Sunder: Sorry, princess... No can do! We've got to get our ransom money first!

They see Ken

Balio: You again!

Sunder: Oh no, not him again!

Balio: I've had it about up to here with him!

Sunder: Me too! Enough is enough! This time we kill him for sure! But...Bro... What if he turns into a dragon again...?

Balio: We've got the Princess! He won't try anything stupid while she's with us!



CHALLENGE SUSPENDED FOR THIS BATTLE AND THIS BATTLE ALONE

This battle is special. Unlike the one in Cedar Woods, you can actually beat them here. It's just not required. But today, we're gonna kick their asses. It's actually pretty simple as long as you have 70 HP (35 really, but 70 in case the somewhat randomness of Agility decides to work against you), a few healing supplies, and the Agility to go first (11, should be easy to get. Remove some equipment if you have to).



Remember how I said Sunder was an idiot? If you cast Influence on Balio, Sunder will attack him the rest of the fight. This works on any enemy with 0 or 1 Intelligence. And, even thoigh you now can, don't transform. It'll cancel the effects since the code since Ken and Dragon!Ken as two different characters.

Balio still uses Lightning, it does around 35 HP. That's why the HP counts. At this point, there's no way to lessen that.

And then...attack Nina



It'll wake her up. She'll smack Sunder and run away.



After this, just stay healed. Ken here is in critical HP and fortunately I used a Vitamin before they finished me off.

Also, fun fact, this is the only battle with dialogue like this.

Sunder: Bro! The Princess...!!

Balio: Leave her! First we get rid of him!

Sunder: Uh, Bro... I don't think this is how it was supposed to work...

Balio: We don't have the time for this now! We've got more important things to worry about! C'mon we're getting out of here!

He flees.

Sunder: Wait for me, bro!

And Sunder follows.



And Nina comes back.

: Did you beat them? Really! Wow! That's good... I thought they were going to kidnap me... Thank you so much for helping me... Um, what's your name? ...Ken? Thank you, Ken. Come on, let's get out of here. We should be able to get to the city this way.

Nina joins the party!

Note: Nina will be remaining unconscious until after the next boss fight, because she is the first character whose growth plan is set in stone. Sorry guys. Her write-up will be in the first post in a few minutes.

BONUS CONTENT!

If you hack the game and come in Mount Myrneg from the east entrance, you see this.



It only lasts for a second or two, so you'll never see it if you come in from the other direction. It's just a joke from the developers.