Part 14: Rusty! Is this junk the legendary sword?
For those of you not up on your archaeo-marine biology, ammonites were an ancient order of mollusks that resemble the modern nautilus. The name comes from Pliny the Elder and refers to the ram god Ammon. This, then, is the Ammonite coast.
It's kind of hard to miss the wide river that Cibba mentioned. It's a good thing our Chocobot appears to be fireproof.
A closer look at the weird enemies we saw earlier. Thanks to the excellent bestiary that was linked, I can now see the resemblance of the monster in the top left corner to a griffin's claw.
There's a healing spring within a few steps of the pier. I'm inclined to think that somebody just drew a blank about what to put here and said "The hell with it, make it a healing spring."
We might have just gotten the ice sword, but the chain is coming in a lot handier right now.
We've found the store we observed on Chocobot! Time to check out the goodies.
Ice armor, ice shield, we just got an ice sword.. could the game be trying to tell us something? The armor and shield provide us a nice boost to defense and allow us to block fireballs. I'm kind of wondering if I missed a helmet somewhere..
The path actually winds around quite a bit here. We're going south past the mouth of the river now...
We've now reached the Floatrocks, which can be demolished with our morning star. The enemies here are turtle knights, which can also be demolished with our morning star.
We're actually just north of Wendel. The shop here is nothing special, just standard adventurer equipment.
Yet another twist in the road going up and down opposite sides of a river. I think you travel about 10-15 screens to move south a total of 3 or 4.
And here's the other shop we wanted to investigate.
Inside is another weapon upgrade. Alas, Ice Sword, we barely needed you. I think this is one of the last actual purchases in the game.
Our fourth shop this trip is actually a magic shop, but we don't have the room in our inventory to pick up any.
There's actually a dead end here that resulted in a bit of scrambling. Running around desperately avoiding fireballs while waiting for moogle to wear off was pretty hectic.
At last, we've reached our destination... kind of.
This dungeon actually has ocean water so that it can feature the fire-breathing sea horses.
Along with poisonous rats and a rather obvious secret passage.
There's also a few rather nice dead ends, especially the second one that looks like it should have a secret passage.
Another room that's simpler than it looks. You don't have to turn anybody into a snowman, just smash some rocks and step on some switches.
You'd never guess it, but the top wall of this room is actually destructable. Well played, sir.
After the last time, I'm sure Rock would be thinking twice about this bridge... and he'd be right to.
MiniBoss: Kraken
Kraken Miniboss Battle
No sooner do we step into the next screen than this monster calamari shows itself. Kraken is a bit of a tough mini-boss since there's no angle to exploit here. You have to expose yourself to his attacks in order to win. The best technique I could find was to try and tease out an attack, then sneak in and throw a spear through its head. The thunder spear is probably the best option here.
Once the sea creature...explodes
... an opening appears and we can continue.
We emerge to find ourselves on a very small island, interestingly enough. A two-part dungeon, which I find a rather novel idea.
The cavern itself has some new residents. The bees aren't very threatening, but the monsters sinking through the floor (ice elementals, supposedly) can be annoying and are actually surprisingly tough.
Back to obvious destroyable walls. Poor little pumpkin.
I kind of feel bad about these monsters hanging about, who are far too weak to be opponents here.
This place is actually kind of tricky. After a while you get used to checking every single wall you find.
This is another room where you're likely to run into problems if there's not enough knights. Luckily the scythe is such a weak weapon that we're unlikely to destroy them without meaning to.
I'm not sure what to make of this area... an underground cave, perhaps?
The lava here is a major hazard, which you pretty much have to move straight across. A single unprotected step in the lava is enough to take away around 100 HP. You get mercy invincibility, but if that wears off...
A room like this presents a significant problem. Luckily we've got enough magic power that a will bar boosted cure can let us cross this lava with about 15 HP to spare.
Our reward is a room with two duck guards...
The Zeus axe is the most powerful weapon we've come across so far, but unfortunately most of the enemies in this dungeon are immune to it.
There's a lot of divisions in this cave, making for a bit of a break.
And this healing spring is more than welcome.
You can't look at this room and expect that there's nothing hidden in here.
Three doors might seem a bit intimating, but...
The left two are connected in a loop. We want to go right.
You can drive yourself crazy in this room sitting on the corner spot and waiting for enemies to wander onto the switches. An ability to pull snowmen would have made for some more interesting puzzles... luckily you can uncover the stairway, destroy a snowman, and go down the stairs without a problem.
Finally in this curiously designed area we come to our goal.
Boss Fight:
Iflyte Battle
How the hell do you get Iflyte from Ifrit? I chose this form for the first picture since when I fought Iflyte he spent most of his time in this form. It's very annoying, since it's actually a bit bigger than it looks. There's a very faint corona around Iflyte that can damage you if you're just a bit too close. You can still hit him with attacks, but they have to be dead center.
Occasionally he'll uncoil at the top of the screen and allow you to stab him repeatedly in the face. And trust me, you'll want to stab him repeatedly in the face. Iflyte is immune to the Zeus Axe, so the Thunder Spear is the next strongest weapon we can use on him. The Ice Sword is another acceptable choice.
At last, a monster whose explosive death makes sense!
Well, let's see how legendary it is...
Okay, I'm with Rock on this one. It's a piece of junk... for now.
Next time: The ultimate magic!