Part 29: Legendia
26. Legendia
The next three floors are, like the ones from before, more dungeon crawler related. Our first one even happens to be the... maze-ish room from the sewers beneath Baron. Not a particularly good start.
The fights here aren't even all that interesting or anything. The Coeurl Regina is the only thing here that comes from the Lunar Ruins and we've seen that alreaddy.
If I didn't know better, I'd think it was trying to setup a trend here. This floor's one of the later areas from the waterway dungeon way back from the start of the game.
Its enemy selection is unremarkable and disappointing, but this Blue Fang being the only item is probably worse.
And the last floor this time around is from the Tower of... Babil? I think it's Babil, anyway. That it and Zot look similar doesn't help.
At least it gives us two new enemies in a single fight. The dragon is remarkably uninteresting, but the Palace Guard at least has one trick up her very small sleeves.
Whenever you hit her, she casts Protect. Doesn't matter if its a spell or physical attack; everything triggers Protect.
Next trial's up, and it just happens to finally be Edge's. This is probably my (and most people's) least favourite.
The entire thing is a giant mess, riddled with random encounters.
At least it's nice enough to drop Edge down pits. Repeatedly. It's very cathartic.
Even still, just trying to figure out how to get through this place isn't worth the hassle. So I just looked on GameFAQs for how to do it the quickest way possible.
Due to the nature of this place, we do still have to fight at least twice before the boss. We need to win two fights that contain at least 1 Palace Guard.
During this trial, and only this trial, Palace Guards will drop Keys with a 100% drop rate. As you might've guessed, we need two of them to actually finish this thing.
At a couple of points, there's also some pots that exist solely to restore MP. I guess that's something nice, but it's not really needed. If it was, then they're too far apart to really be useful either.
We also really quickly find the Lunar Eidolon. As you can probably guess, this isn't quite the end just yet.
At least he's nice enough to drop Edge straight down a hole for our troubles.
After being dropped down the hole, we have to run most of the way back to the Lunar Eidolon again. Of course, this time we can't make it there so Edge needs to jump through a hidden passageway...
And straight into another hole.
This also leads to the main... puzzle...? area. It's kind of the main part that's a confusing mess, but it mostly boils down to running over cracks in the right way...
Navigating invisible paths that are told to you by a note right next to it...
Occasionally falling down the right hole, just because you have no alternative...
And also the occasional hidden passage, that you actually need to navigate correctly without any hints. Doing it wrong drops you down a hole you don't want to, with no indication of whether you're doing it right or not.
We also need the first key at this point, very close to the end of the area.
The second key is needed and used almost immediately afterwards. It's sort of pointlessly redundant.
And of course basically straight after the second key door, we're at the boss fight anyway.
[Music: Fighting of the Spirit ~ Xver.]
In a disappointing break from the pattern that seems to have started up, Lunar Ifrit is in fact Not Difficult.
Much like Shiva and Odin, he has a weakness we can exploit. He also has a bit of a counter for if we poke it, but it's not as big a deal. He's also generally weaker on the whole, especially compared to Asura who came just before.
His strength is the usual 190+ but that's not effective enough to warrant it being his main method of attacking.
Of course, his low magic defense combined with our almost guaranteed 99 Intelligence (and at this point I do have 99 with the penalty from Minerva's Plate) makes it really easy to smack him for 9999 damage.
Unlike Shiva, his counter to being poked with Ice is to hit you with Glare. His damage with it isn't bad, in fact it's pretty good, but it's not really enough any more.
At least his unique stance here gives a Flame that isn't 10% proportional damage.
It's 20% instead.
As usual, Sylph either mitigates his biggest attacks or heals outright more than he can deal anyway.
Glare's damage might seem threatening because it's a not terrible number and you might be inclined to hit him with Flare or Bahamut instead.
This is kind of a dumb idea, since they're both capped at 9999 for 50, or 60, MP. Blizzaga + Sylph is 55 MP and deals a consistent 11,000+.
You might instead opt to use the Protect Ring, and then laugh forever. I mean, c'mon, he can't even break 1500 with his biggest attacks any more.
He also has Fira, which is hilariously worthless and out of date.
Firaga too, but that's a token gesture at best. He'll never even try to use it to heal either. Shame, because that might actually be something reasonable.
Oh, and once he drops low on HP he stops using Flame. He instead replaces it with Flame Thrower. This goes about as well as you might expect, considering it's never dealt more than 1 HP of damage at the best of times.
Really, my biggest problem with Ifrit is that for a fight in the latter half of the ruins he's a giant disappointment. The difficulty curve is completely out of whack, and this point encapsulates it the best.
When I'm really half-considering just skipping your trial because it's too much hassle without the boss, then the boss should not be boring and mundane.
The problem isn't that it's easy, in and of itself, but how easy it is for how late it comes. What makes that even worse and more apparent is what it's bookended by and that, really, it's just Rubicante. Again.
Doesn't really help that our reward is just some gloves for Edge anyway. Better than the repeat reward, though, which is a... Magazine.
Bugger this, let's just go solve crimes in Baron.
Next time: we go solve crimes in Baron.
Optional Bosses Fought: 24
Optional Bosses Killed: 24
Success Rate: 100%