Part 80: DS Ninja Locksmiths, at your Service! part 1

Update 23: Ninja Locksmiths, at your Service! part 1


Hello, folks! Who's ready for another dungeon crawl?


Well, I'm not! At least, not quite yet. There are a couple things I want to grab, first. See that unopened treasure chest?


We couldn't get to it before because Plot.


But now we can slip through yet another secret passage (surprised?),


and grab it!


Nice! These always come in handy.


Now, the exit is up here, but I'm not going through yet. Why? Two reasons.

1) Notice the lack of "map completed" message? There's a little bit of the map left to fill out.
2) I want another Giant's Glove for Edge.


Speaking of Edge, let's check the boy out, see what he's made of!


His normal attack is... not too great, to be honest. Better than Rosa's, at least!


However, Edge has other attacking options! He can Throw old weapons... and Shurikens! Finally, we have a use for those things. Let's see...


The wind up...


The pitch! (Yow, that looks painful!)


K'pow! Those are much better numbers! That's almost on par with Cecil, when he's not hitting a weakness!


Just look at that victory pose! Acrobatic fellow, isn't he?


Level up for Rydia! Also, it's nice to have a full party again.


Level for Edge, too! Generally, Edge will get stronger, faster, and... not much else! He knows what he's good at, that guy!


There's that chunk I was missing!

Obtained 3 Decoys

Decoys cast Blink. Useful to have around, I suppose!


Oh, right. I didn't mention this last time, but Edge has another unique command. He's the only character that can Steal! In general, stuff you can Steal is garbage and the success rate is too low to bother. There are a couple of major exceptions to this, which I'll be sure to point out when they become relevant. Most of the time, Edge doesn't need to be able to Steal.


This is his other unique ability.


He has these Ninja-y abilities at the moment. Flame is a fire elemental attack against all enemies (which Edge so expertly demonstrated against Rubicante). Smoke allows the party to escape from battle, instantly and without fail, and without losing any money! That might come in useful if we run into any more Flamehounds... Shadowbind casts Stop on one enemy, and Mirage is a self-target Blink. Considering Edge is fragile as hell, Mirage is a real blessing! It's probably his best Ninjitsu skill.


We head back to Eblan so Edge can check in with his people.


Eblan has suffered loss enough as it is without being robbed of its prince as well.


I also do a bit of shopping while I'm here. I can use... a lot more of these things! They're Edge's best offensive option for a good long time. It pays to have a healthy stockpile! Now I can fling these around pretty much willy-nilly!


After resting up at the Inn, Edge decides he needs a little alone time.


He whips out one of these and...




I... have no idea what just happened!


My hunt for a Giant's Glove leads me all the way back here.


The Steel Golems seem to be a lot more common in this first area.


I fought a few of them, and this happened.

Learned Curaja

All right! This is the most powerful healing spell Rosa has at her disposal. Now she's even better at keeping our asses alive! She still has a couple more White Magic spells to learn, but as far as straight healing goes, this is it.


A nice variety of healing spells, for all occasions!


Yeah... I killed quite a few of these things...


But at last, my efforts are rewarded!


And Kain levelled up, but that's just icing on the cake.


There! That's just what he needed. For those keeping track at home, that's an additional +5 to his Strength, and a whopping 8 points to his defense! Edge should be covered for quite awhile!


While I'm at it, I'll show off some of his Ninjitsu.


The animation is the same as a Fira spell.


And the damage is... not that bad, actually! Considering that's against all foes, and hitting an elemental weakness on the Skuldiers, it ain't too shabby at all!


More level ups. I swear, the game has just been hemorrhaging exp lately...


Stronger, tougher...


Faster, stronger...

I can't complain, really!


(One last level up for the Murderess on the way back.)


OK, now it's time to move on.




Welcome to the Tower of Babil. Again...


Of course, the Tower's denizens couldn't wait to welcome us. We're not even in the dungeon proper yet, and already we've found some new enemies!


We have our old buddies the Coeurls, which we fought back in Eblan Castle. They get added to the regular roster here. In case you forgot, they have 2,015 HP and no glaring weaknesses.


His buddy here is new. Ghost Knights are a palette swap of the Flame Knight that darn near cleaned my clock in our last foray into the Tower. They're weak to holy and have 3,571 HP to burn.


Now, see the chubby fellow in the back? I never got a chance to scan one of those, because,


He decided smacking Cecil on the nose for piddling damage, thus incurring a nasty counterattack, was a worthwhile use of his time.

Cecil one-shot him. The suicidal fellow was a Sorcerer. They have a mere 1700 HP and no elemental weaknesses. Being a spellcasting type of enemy, you could probably siphon some MP from them with Osmose to refill Rydia's stock, assuming they live long enough!


Having beaten the welcoming committee to a pulp, we can now figure out how to get into this place.

Heh. You forget you're with a ninja!


What kind of Matrix-shit did you just pull, Edge?!


I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Fine, fine! I'm sure the party has something to say about that display:


I'm sure he'll find us with no trouble. He always does!


Ninjitsu is actually a thing. It's a martial art that emphasizes stealth. Practitioners of Ninjitsu (a.k.a. Ninjas) were employed as assassins and spies, primarily.


I know, right? We got ambushed before we'd taken more than five steps in this place!


Coming from you, that means a lot!


Rosa is very astute. Edge's Ninjitsu runs off his Intellect, just like Black Magic would.


Anyway, let's get down to business, shall we?


Namely, looting! Unicorn Horns can come in mighty handy. They're essentially a full-party Remedy. There aren't many situations where you would need to use one, but for the few times you do, these things are a godsend!


Wrapping around to the southeast, we find a door, but I'm ignoring it for now.


Because we're not done with this floor yet, are we?

Obtained 5 Bomb Fragments


Well, I've demonstrated how useful these things are. It's always good to have more!


Another Sorcerer suicided itself on Cecil.


But I got double level ups out of it, so it all balances out, I guess. (Also, make sure to keep an eye on Cecil's HP if you're using Draw Attacks...)


Her Spirit stat keeps ticking up, as well as her MP.


Faster, stronger. I'll take it!


I decided to take some advice from folks in the thread.


Namely, not burning so much of Rosa's MP. Cecil can heal his damn self!


See? A couple Curas and he's back on his feet.


And now we head through that door to the next floor. Er, hang on. Aren't we supposed to be going up? That is not how basement floors work, game!


Oh whatever. As long as there's loot to be had, I don't really care!


Mad Ogres are another of our friends from Eblan Castle. They still hit pretty hard... on anyone not named Cecil, that is. Since they'll be attacking Cecil exclusively, they're hardly a threat. They still have 6,812 HP and no glaring weaknesses.


Oh yeah, and guess what?


Sorcerers- still suicidal.

You'd think something called a Sorcerer would be more inclined to use magic attacks, wouldn't you? Thus avoiding counterattacks? Just a thought!


Edge decides to use these things for target practice.


To great effect! Mad Ogres have pretty beefy defenses, so expect battles with them to take awhile.


Their magic defense is especially high. Look at that: Edge almost out-damaged Rydia!


To the south, there be treasure.


Booby trapped treasure. Well, what did you expect?


Pfft. Whatever.


One nice thing about those Ogres, they drop a ton of EXP! Triple level up!


More murderous.


More tanky!


More... pretty much everything! Not bad, Edge. Not bad!


After that little bit of rampant murder, I'm free to admire my prize. The Ogrekiller is a damn fine axe. Massive boosts to stats that matter, minor penalties to ones that don't, and a whopping 15 Attack over Cecil's Icebrand. Plus, it's effective against "giant type" enemies (like Ogres). Yes, please!


And Cecil got a level up next fight. Just lookit 'dat axe!


That's another floor complete.

Obtained 3 Bomb Cranks

Bomb Cranks cast Fira when used in battle. Booooooring!


On to the next floor!

This dungeon is going a lot more smoothly than the last time we were here, isn't it? I figure the main reason for that: no fucking Flamehounds! In fact, Flamehounds aren't even in the encounter table this go-round. Thank fuck!


Ah, a new enemy has come to play!


Lamia Matriarchs are stronger versions of Lamia, as you might figure. They have 3,781 HP and no elemental weakness.


She goes down without much fuss.


Once again, there's the door, but I'm ignoring it for the moment.


Oh, more new enemies!


These are the next member of the Bomb family. They have 2,624 HP and no particular weakness. They can also drop the Bomb Summon, the first Bomb type enemy that can do so. I... didn't realize this, so I didn't get it. This time. Don't worry; I nabbed it later!


In other news, the Storm Anima is related to those pathetic Leshy that have been kicking around since the Antlion Cave. They're a bit more respectable, with 4,760 HP. Oh, and they're weak to holy.


But the boys beat her down before I could exploit that weakness.

One thing about Edge. Well, two things. One- he's blazing fast. He'll get two turns for every one of your slowest party members. That translates to a lot of Shuriken-chucking! Two- he crits like nobody's business! Seriously, he crits more than Cecil and Kain combined! He may have laughable defenses, but he's fast and he hits hard. What more do you want from a physical attacker? Just keep him in the back row, for the love of all that is good! Shurikens aren't affected by row placement, so even without the Reach Augment (which he should have anyway) he can still do full damage from the back row.


And I finish running off my mouth to get... this. Funny getting one of these after fighting what I just fought! (Yes, I know that the Lilith enemies aren't related to the Lamia family; shut up!)

(You can see there's more to this floor, over there, but we can't get there yet.)


Time to move on to the next floor.


And get more level ups, I guess!


I hate it when I can see a chest I can't get to. Yet. I just know it's taunting me!


Another level up for our ninja friend. No Strength this time, but he got faster and tougher. Your Stamina still sucks, Edge. Don't bother.

Learned Tremor

Oh, but this is interesting! That's a new Ninjitsu skill.


Have a look. It's an earth-flavored counterpart to Flame. Might be worth using on enemies weak to earth. Maybe.


Ah, here's the chest I saw before! It contains something even more worthwhile for Edge!


One reason Shurikens do so much more damage than Edge's Kunai is, Kunai just suck! This will help his damage output a bit. Gradually, his weapons will start to catch up to Shurikens, but for now, I'll still be mostly relying on them. They're pretty cheap, so I don't care!


You can just tell the Ashura is a better weapon! It looks like a proper sword, rather than a piddly little dagger.


We haven't completed this floor yet, but we can't get to the rest of it at the moment. Moving on!


Tower of Babil is a bit of a headache if you're going for 100% map completion (as you should be). You bounce around between different floors a lot, so it's easy to lose track of which floors you've completed and which ones you haven't. If you end up missing your 100% map completion by the end of the game (as I did my first playthrough), chances are, you missed something here. The fact that this is a one-off area doesn't help either!

Anyway, I told you we'd be coming back to this floor. Now we can explore the rest of it!


Smack dab in the middle of the floor is this interesting setpiece. It doesn't do anything; it just looks neat. I'm guessing this is where the lower teleporter leads. We must be getting close to Rubicante!


What with all the level ups I've been getting, we should be strong enough to beat him! I hope...


Ooh, two doors? Decisions decisions...


The door on the left leads to a save point, so that's the logical one to take!


I heal up, as usual.


I think that's also a logical place to end this update. We still have a good chunk of the Tower yet to go through, so I'll save that for next time! See you then.