Part 78: DS Still Babil-ing Nonsense

DS Update 21: Still Babil-ing Nonsense




Welcome back everyone! Last time, I believe we had a dungeon to finish, yes? Let's do that.


We wrap around a looooong way to the southwest. Why, yes there still random encounters in this room. Why do you ask? (Still no Flamehounds, though. I know they're out there, somewhere, waiting for their chance to strike! )

When we start heading north, we stumble across a scene.


Now who's this suave motherfucker?

There is no need for concern. Eblan's castle has already fallen, and its ninja forces with it. I trust matters here to you until my return.


Well, whoever this guy is, he apparently defeated a nation full of ninjas. Clearly, not someone to fuck with, if the cloak of fiery death didn't tip you off.


The other guy immediately throws his head back and starts cackling maniacally to the stylings of Dancing Calcibrina.




Seriously, it's a little creepy.



Shh!

Rosa, I'm pretty sure your shushing was louder than Rydia's whispering. Not helping!


Ah, crap.


See, even Cecil agrees with me!


Mad Scientist Stereotype slooooowly strolls up to the party.


Toadspittle? Do toads even make saliva?


You tell him, Kain!


Do you have any idea to whom you're speaking? I'm Dr. Lugae! I may not be one of... them, but Golbez made me his chief strategist for a reason! I can keep this tower clean of vermin like you!


Aww yeah, time to rumble!

Oh ho ho! You will! My beautiful little boy will have your heads for playthings!

And so, we throw-down.

(Dancing Calcibrina continues to play throughout this next bit)


We face off against the Good Doctor


and his "little" boy.

Actually, this is no mere boss fight we have on our hands! This is a boss rush! It's a nasty surprise for the unprepared. Fortunately, thanks to me you will be prepared!

Go, Barnabas! Crush everyone to bits!

Uhhhngh!

(Real eloquent, this Barney guy, huh?)

The Good Doctor has 5,872 HP, and no elemental affinities, unlike his purple friend. Barnabas (Barney, for short) has 9,664 HP and a glaring weakness to... lightning!

It's alive! It's aliiiiiive!


This means Rydia will be the main damage dealer for this fight, and she'll need to prepare herself accordingly.


Meanwhile, Rosa casts Slow on Lugae,


and Barnabas. (I love you, Dualcast!)


Kain decides to act like he's real scared of these two, to make them drop their guard.


Meanwhile, Cecil does his "Protect the party" thing,




and Yang and Kain do their usual.


Now, like I said, Barnabas is weak to thunder, so flinging Thundara (or better yet, Thundaga, if you have it already) is a good idea!


In fact, You'll want to focus all your energy on Barney. If you defeat Lugae and leave Barnabas alive, he'll self-destruct, probably KOing someone. (Such a thing would deprive a character of sweet, sweet EXP, and you don't want that, do you?)


That said, I'll be taking Barney out first.


And, since the party hasn't taken any damage yet, Rosa gets to try out her new bow!


It... still doesn't do very much damage. Oh well!


Oh look, Barney finally hit something!

Er...


Them! Over there! Got it?

Uhhhngh!

Show them what a strong boy you are!

A few more rounds of pounding on Barney later...


Kain brings us home!


And the monster is down for the count!

( Naturally, this duo is based on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Note well: "Frankenstein" is not the monster. Dr. Frankenstein is the creator, not the monster. The monster has no name. He's usually referred to as "Frankenstein's monster" or simply, "The Creature." Conflating Frankenstein with the monster is one of my biggest pet peeves, so I felt I had to point it out.)


Now, if you beat Barney and The Good Doctor within moments of each other, the fight ends right here.


On the other hand, if you futz around a bit...


Lugae has more to say.

I guess I have no choice. I'll control him myself!

The Good Doctor fades away...


Begin Phase 2!


You only fight Barnabas-Z if you defeat Barney and leave Lugae alive. I could have avoided this if I'd kicked Lugae's teeth in earlier, but that wouldn't have been very sporting of me, would it?

Since this is technically a new boss fight (even though your status, and the music, doesn't change), you have to renew any debuffs you might have cast.


Kain puts on his "I'm so scared!" act again.


Meanwhile, Rosa Slows him,


and casts Blink on Cecil. Since the boss' only attack is a basic physical attack, the party is now invincible. (So long as Cecil doesn't get knocked out. If I keep Blink on him, that ain't gonna happen!)


The only drawback is Cecil won't get any counterattacks this way. Meh. He'll still be dishing out plenty of damage!


Yang does his usual,


as does Rydia. (She still had a Bluff leftover from before.)


Barnabas-Z is still weak to lightning, so Rydia is still the main damage dealer 'round here!


No one's getting hurt, still,


so Rosa's free to regenerate some of our MP. This is a rather good idea, for reasons that will soon become apparent!


Pictured: the party being completely invincible.


And once again,


Kain takes us home! Hell yeah, Kain!


A flawless victory for the party,


and a level up for Rosa!

Learned Float

Ah! That will come in extremely handy before too long! I'm glad she learned it.


Of course we're not done yet! I did say this was a boss rush, didn't I?




Now we fight a proper boss (complete with proper boss music).


And it's a real doozy. Let me tell you!

Look upon the face of fear!


Oh boy. Here we go! This is Dr. Lugae's true form. He has 12,642 HP, a lightning weakness... and a gimmick. One hell of a gimmick.

Full disclosure: this guy beat me, about six fucking times!

I hate this asshole. Hate, hate, hate!


The reason I had so much trouble was this. This is his gimmick.




Reversal Gas hits the whole party with the unique "Reverse" status.


Then, he immediately follows up with this.


Looks, and sounds, like a healing spell, doesn't it? Well, that's because it is! However...


Under Reverse status, healing spells and items will hurt you, while anything that does damage will heal you.

The same rules apply to Lugae, by the way, meaning, under Reverse, your weapons are completely fucking useless! The FAQ I was following gave me the (mistaken) impression that only elemental weapons would heal him. Lies! It's any damaging effect at all, elemental or no. That cost me a run right there. Thanks, Gamefaqs!


Ordinary buffs and debuffs still work like normal, though, so have no fear of that! (This time, Kain's tears are genuine, after 6 goddamn attempts at this!)


Cecil throws up a Shell, hoping to mitigate the damage from Restore. It's a problem, you see, when he has such a powerful, full-party attack and I can't fucking heal!


Or... at least I can't by normal means!




A multi-target Blizzara heals the damage from Restore, and then some!

In previous attempts, I had tried to make do with an -ara level spell, to conserve MP (since Ethers will drain your MP under Reverse status), but they weren't healing nearly enough damage. And that's a big, big problem, for you see, while Reverse Gas is in effect, Phoenix Downs and Raise don't work! It's absolutely impossible to revive anyone when they're Reversed. This is bad. Very, very bad. Therefore it is imperative that you keep everyone's HP topped off. Let anyone get knocked out and they're down for good.

Or until Lugae decides to cast Reversal Gas again, changing everything back to normal. He can do that without warning, sometimes when you're in the middle of charging a Blizzaga on your own party!


If you slow him, that means he has fewer chances to screw you over with a timely Reversal Gas. Make sure you do that!


And Protect still works fine, so use it!


In my half dozen or so attempts at this fight, I concluded that your victory or defeat is up to the whims of fate. If Lugae gets really Reversal Gas happy, you'll probably lose!

Yep, this battle's entirely down to luck. Ain't that fun?


Since the boys' weapons will heal the asshole, they're reduced to chucking Hi-Potions at him.


Remember Palom and his Item Lore-boosted Hi-Potion shenanigans on Scarmiglione? Yeah. I really miss that...


Dr. Lugae can also do this as a counterattack.


However, thanks to Draw Attacks, he'll only do it to Cecil. No problem!


Lugae hits us with another Restore, but thanks to Shell, it doesn't hurt as badly this time.


Yang starts building up Focus, just in case Lugae decides to hit us with Reversal Gas again.


On opposite day, our magical nuke is the heal-bot,


and our healer is the best damage dealer on the team! (Twice.)


The boys continue to fling Hi-Potions at him,


and Cecil continues to get Sleeping Gassed.

By the way, if you have Elixirs to burn, you can chuck one of those at Lugae to do a cool 9,999 damage to him. I opted not to do this, but I probably should have...




Rydia continues to keep everyone healthy. I just hope her MP holds out.




Meanwhile, Rosa keeps Curaga-ing him to death.

After way too many rounds of Yang and Kain chuck Hi-Potions, Lugae uses Restore, Rydia Blizzagas the party, and Rosa Dualcasts Curaga, (during which Lugae never used Reversal Gas again. Ever.)


the asshole finally goes down!

Good. Fucking. Riddance!


Asshole.


You did good, kid.


You were helpful too, I guess.


Rubicante has already moved the Crystals to the spire above. All that remains is to annihilate those accursed dwarves with my cannons! Wee hee hee!


Creepy asshole.








Oh no! Looks like we have some dwarves to save! King Giott is going to be pissed off enough without us getting all his buddies killed. Let's go!


We regain control... right where we left off!


This is the teleporter thing that Rubicante used, but it appears to be inactive now.

Of course, the crew has some thoughts on this latest development:


I think they'll need a bit more than luck, Cecil.




Hasn't this been going on already? What's changed to suddenly make this a life-or-death situation for the dwarves?


But sadly they'll have to wait!


Seriously, the dwarves were holding out fine up to now. What happened?!


Well, there's nothing more up here to the north, so it's time to head back down.

Yes, all the way back down to B9. On foot.


Getting jumped the whole way.

One long walk later...


I make it back to the second save point!


I save and heal up, and breathe a sigh of relief. Now, even if I get ambushed by Flamehounds, at least I won't have to do the Dr. Lugae fight all over again!


I fight a few more golems, which can apparently drop Mythril Shields. Interesting...


One last level up for Yang, because...


we've reached our destination.


We head down the middle pathway again,


and get jumped again...


And, we're here. This is it. *sniff* This is it.


Yang is going to be... leaving us. I have to take his stuff.


Why, game, why? Why must I be robbed of my favorite Asskicker?

Seriously, I really like Yang! This just isn't fair.


With a heavy heart, we approach the locked door once again.


Only this time, we have the key!




This is it. There's no turning back now.


Inside, we find the cannoneers. A bunch of goblins.


Enter the party.

You!

How did you get in here!?

Slaughter them!


And so we have a fight on our hands, against 3 ordinary Goblin Captains.

They all attacked Cecil, and were one-shot by Counter. That's it.



You can't stop us!


The goblins run back to the control consoles.


They do... something, and two of the goblins fade away.


There's no stopping the cannons now!


And he, too, disappears. OK...




Are we just gonna take their word for it? Come on, guys! I bet Cid could fix this thing!

Oh... right.


Polsy version

Yaaaaaang!


Yep. That sucks.








This is true. You may recall Yang jumped overboard to try to save Rydia from Leviathan.


Well, all that's left is to get out of this awful place. We can't Teleport out, either, so we have to hoof it.


We get jumped along the way, of course, but at least the experience is profitable.

Learned Firaga

Very profitable, in this case! Now Rydia can burn things even more!


Cecil has no more spells to learn, but he's still getting stronger all the time.


We're back on the lowest floor! We're almost home, and still not a Flamehound in sight!


Oh. Oh no. Not here!


Nononono!


Not now!


We're so close, damn it!


This sucks.


Welp. Game over.

That's what I mean about being left at the mercy of the RNG. These things don't always use Scorch, and the only way you have a prayer of winning is if at least one of them doesn't!

Now, I hadn't saved since right after the Lugae fight.



Given that, I mashed the "save state" key the moment I saw these things,


and I had to load...

several times...


Finally I was able to get am move off. About fucking time!




So, yeah. Fuck these things. Fuck them hard.

And finally, I get a lucky break!


The third one uses its normal attack, instead of Scorch!


Cecil barely survives, but it doesn't matter! He's alive!


And the Flamehound in question eats a Counter for its trouble!


And because of that, Rosa is able to fire off a Curaga in time!


And Berserk one of them, just in case.


But that doesn't matter, because one Summon of Shiva, and it's all over!


Damn. That was way more difficult than it had any right to be!



And you see what I'm talking about? I only managed to win because the third Flamehound opted not to use Scorch.


I've had quite enough of being slapped around by the RNG for one day, thank you very much!


Oh, damn it, what now?!





Mice are wont to play while the cat is away. But I'm afraid our game of cat and mouse is at an end. The time has come for us to part ways.


The camera pulls away and the screen begins to shake violently. Uh oh...


Oh shit oh shit oh shit!


But what's this?


From out of the blue,


our savior has arrived!


My hero!




The best Cid. I defy you to disagree!



Hmm? Where's Yang?




If only Cid had been there...





Who's that one?

That's Rydia, a survivor of Mist.

But Cid doesn't get to comment on this development, because...




So we have...


This is Cid we're talking about! Of course he can-


They must have made improvements to the Red Wings, too!


Uh oh! They're gaining fast! What're we gonna do?


Polsy version


Well. Goddamn. I mean. God. Damn! That's two of our most badass characters down, right after another!

What the hell, game! This isn't right; it isn't fair!


I'm going to need some time to recover from that... I'm stopping here.


Next time, we do this.




Good questions, both.


And another good question!


And that's it for today! Next time, we'll try to pick up the broken pieces of our lives.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my birthday and I'm going to go enjoy it!