Part 18: The Timeless Blade

Our next dungeon today is a bit of a long one, so buckle in!

Underground Sewer



Off to a great start.



Goblins are incredibly weak. 146HP, but absolutely minimum physical and magical defenses, plus their attack is pathetic. Bellbirds are bog-standard except being able to inflict Chaos.

This encounter is pretty simple.

Delightful Spekkio





So what I assume is the Legendary Hero just ran away from a measly-ass Goblin.



It dies effortlessly.





This guy is a bit different.



Same HP as the Goblin, however their defenses are sky-high and they do much more damage. A NPC gave us the trick to these guys, though.





A simple fire attack burns their hammers, and they then turn into regular Goblins and thus die to a breeze. As you may have guessed, Lucca is highly recommended to have here.

Underground Sewer





The fourth and final enemy type here is the Free Lancer. Pretty plain enemy, though they can counter-attack and can survive a normal physical, so you might want to magic them away. Eventually I have Marle throwing Ice spells on them while Lucca and Crono focus on other foes.



This area is all about visual cues of upcoming encounters. Some, like this guy who rushes in from off-screen before retreating, can be easily avoided. Others are harder to avoid and are more giving you an idea of what to expect.

Combine that with the four enemy types that teach you how to prioritize enemies (Ogans should be burned ASAP, Goblins can be ignored until last), and this dungeon serves as an intermediate tutorial on combat management without, you know, actually being a tutorial.

There's also a bit of resource management here since this is a pretty long dungeon.



Otherwise, there's lots of goofy scenes of goofy enemies doing goofy animations to break up the monotony a bit.



Not much in the way of equipment, but there's a second Gold Helm for Robo.



Another "Freelancer wakes up an Ogan with a rock" scene. The final one.





This guy is a jerk and throws rocks at us, dealing 5HP a hit to Crono (but not the ladies).



Then, this section throws us into four encounters in a row.



Again, this is a mini-test to see if we learned target prioritation, resource management, and whether or not we're actually using our damn techs.



Yeah, it's tedious, but it's a nice way to make sure you know what you're doing, because the upcoming boss isn't exactly a picnic in the park.



As you may expect, I blow through the encounters easily.



Seriously, I love the animations in this game.





There's a secret path if you head to the southwest corner. Two nice items to find here.



The SilverStud reduces MP consumption by half. It's not really important yet since we're still in the realm of Techs costing 1 or 2MP, but we're close to unlocking fourth techs for everyone, and that's where MP costs start climbing up, so this will be useful shortly.





The Silver Earring boosts Max HP by 25%. It's not really as useful, though it can help a weaker character survive an attack, or maybe let you get away with beating a foe you probably shouldn't. At least it's a step up from most of our accessories.





And this guy is just rude.



So we beat up him and his friend.



Finally, Tier-4 Techs! Crono picks up Spincut...





...which unlocks a pair of Dual Techs with Lucca and Marle.



Oh, and there's this guy.



Seriously, look at that view. These backgrounds are amazing and don't get enough love.



I would imagine!



You know how you should always talk to people multiple times in some RPGs?





It's also a good idea here.



Tucked in the corner is a very valuable Speed Tab.



Right after the save point, there's a one-way drop to the final area. As an added insult, the chest contains a Shelter.

There's a nice encounter here to show off our new toys!



Spincut's description test is "2x damage", and...that's pretty accurate. It essentially does double the damage of a physical attack. The only issue is that it's a pretty pricey 4MP.



Fire Sword combines Lucca's Fire and Crono's Spincut. It's (C_ATT * 5) + ((L_LVL + L_MAG) * 5.5), which roughly translates to 25% more damage when used together compared to apart.



Ice Sword uses the exact same formula, except with Marle's stats instead of Lucca's. These two techs are the first real time that two characters deal more damage together than apart. These should get decent use for a bit.



And just like that, Lucca learns her Tier 4 Tech, Napalm.





Rock-Throwing Jerk from before knocks us back. Time to give him a bloody lip.



Napalm's damage formula is (LVL + MAG) * 4.8. It ends up slightly stronger than Fire, but the big thing is its AoE, which is a small circle but still a handy way to damage multiple enemies for Lucca. 3MP isn't terrible for it, either. Unfortunately, no Dual Techs make use of it.



And with that, we're finally done with this dungeon! Other than the boss, of course.

Manoria Cathedral





...uh, ok.



Well, looks like we found what we were looking for.





Sure are!

Thought so... Wait a second, okay?







Not again!?



Humans are so...silly! It's how you USE the sword that's important...not who owns it!
You can't even understand something as simple as that. That's why you're human.



The usual...test them. You can entertain us for awhile.



Boss Battle 1





Meet Masa and Mune. Masa has the green collar, Mune the purple collar.



Each has 1000HP and standard defenses.



However, attacking Masa will result in a X-Strike counter. Mune doesn't have counters, so you're better off focusing on him.





Otherwise, the two have standard physicals and can inflict Chaos.



The fight ends when one falls. All in all, it's not a bad fight once you pick up to target Mune exclusively.

Manoria Cathedral



Only Cyrus made it this far.
What should we do?
This time it's for real!



Yeah, we're not done yet.







So...



Boss Battle 2



This is the combined form of Masa and Mune. This is also our first battle with the "Big Boss" music.

This is another fight that can be a bit tricky if you don't know the trick.



MasaMune has a whopping 3600HP, and other than Lightning resistance, has standard defenses. It'll take awhile just to plow through his high HP.



Of course, he's not going to stand around while doing this. He can hit pretty hard with his physicals.



Also this sprite always confused me since you only see it briefly, but what I thought was a weird belly button horn is actually his foot, albeit at a very odd location. At least this LP helped me solve one weird childhood mystery I had!



MasaMune also has a hard-hitting tornado attack.



So once again, we've got a counter phase.





Attack MasaMune during this, and he'll deal a Slash attack as a counter.



However, this just isn't a counter phase. This is also a "Charge a powerful damage attack" phase.



and it hurts.



As I said, though, there is a trick to make this significantly easier. It's just that due to the weird translation of a certain NPC, you may not figure it out naturally.





Crono's Slash attack will cancel out the Tornado energy and thus both stop the counter phase (without triggering the counter to boot) and prevent MasaMune's big attack.



The rest of the fight is Crono alternating between Fire Sword and Slash. Marle heals/Ices when necessary, and Lucca pairs up with whoever's available.



Eventually, we manage to take out MasaMune's combined form with relative ease.

Manoria Cathedral



They beat us, big brother...
That was fun!
Will they fix us? Will they find us an owner?
Yeah, it'll be all right.



And so we've finally earned the blade able to defeat Magus.



...or what's left of it.



But it looks like it's been broken for ages.



Well, a broken Masamune is better than no Masamune.







Longing of the Wind



At least we don't have to backtrack.



Our first order of business is to find this "Legendary Hero" and see just what's going on here.



I thought I'd sell it, but then everyone started calling me a "Hero." I couldn't beat to get rid of it!







Surprise, Tata wasn't a hero after all, just a kid playing pretend. Also Guardia is a country of morons.





Actually, pretty much everyone in this era is a moron.



He secretly told me, "My next goal is to command the Super Legendary Space Ship, XR-RX!" Hahahahaha!!

Seriously, the kid was playing pretend hero and everyone freaking thought he was a real hero, including his own freaking parents. No, there's nothing suspicious about this child randomly having this symbol of bravery and courage. He clearly earned it!





Then where's the real Hero?



It's time we gave the real Legendary Hero what he needs.



So you can battle the Nu if you trigger a battle with it in the vicinity.



Also, the Gnawer "Eat a frog" counter I missed earlier.



The Nu does (Current HP - 1) damage every time. So if you're already at 1HP, he's powerless against you.



He also drops a whopping 30TP.



Since I swapped in Robo, the two pick up this Dual Tech. I'll show it off in the future.



It's time for Frog to be the Hero he truly wants to be.



Aye... Then thou hast seen the lad. Yet there's nary a thing I canst do against Magus. The legendary Masamune is required to fight Magus. And I've no right to wield it.





This unlocks access to Frog's chest. Inside...

Manoria Cathedral



Frog had both the Hero Medal and the hilt of the Masamune. How did he get both of these...?

Something is written in archaic script. I will translate...



Roihclem?





But...Melchior's from 400 years in the future from now.



At any rate, seems he may be the key to reforge the sword needed to slay Magus.





Th, this sword...it's the Masamune! How did you get it?
Why would your name be engraved on the sword?

DON'T CLICK OR TALK ABOUT THIS MUSIC LINK



It's a...long story.



Japanese version has him saying along the lines of, "But that's not important. You probably want to know how to fix the sword, right?" Obviously dodging the question of how he is associated with a sword forged four hundred years ago.



Is it possible to reforge it?



Dreamstone? Where can we get that?
You can't find it anymore. It was a red stone that was once used as money. Unfortunately, it hasn't been available for a very long time.



So we're probably not going to find any Dreamstone around here. If only we had a way to go back a very long time when it was more plentiful...

The Brink of Time



I've heard of it, of course. It's a prehistoric mineral... You might find it way back in the prehistoric era.



Now this era is finally relevant.



Next time, we travel to the very distant past to find a rock to forge a sword to help a frog slay a wizard to prevent the apocalypse. Yeah, it's still a jRPG alright.