Part 2: Chapter the Second

Chapter the Second in which our heroes swat some flies, fail to foil a fearsome scheme, and destroy an out of place Umbrella facility

Picking up from where we left off...



Here's the Big Rock in the Southern Forest that Ki was talking about. The game isn't sophisticated enough to require you to follow a specific path, but just in case you forgot...



There's a nice memo option that many games do not have and that I wish they did. The memo has information like this in nice, easy to digest snippets that are usually fairly handy. It really works for a portable game where you might not play it for a bit.



For relics of the ancient gods, these places are in pretty darn good shape. Kind of palatial, in fact.



Almost immediately inside there's a whip in a treasure chest, which is an item type I rarely if ever use. They're not necessarily bad, but I find that bladed type weapons are usually better.



One of the small engine changes that shows real improvement is that it's possible to have doorways that open into interior spaces without being whole new rooms on a pseudo-floor. That makes for much easier dungeon design.



You also get to see larger stacks of enemies in this game. Lizards actually have a pretty cool design, and they're weak to ice so Lela can tear up an entire stack.



Similarly, the dancing Toads also share this weakness and show up in the area.



Continuing there are a number of empty treasure chests, which are meant to clue you into the fact that you're not alone here. It'd be interesting to see a game where they actually had empty chests throughout an area that didn't have another person at the end. It'd be a bit more atmospheric in an ancient ruin.



I also like the flies because they're incredibly Ice disposes of them nicely...I suppose the take away here is that if you get Ice as a mutant power in the First World, hold on to it!



Seriously, ancient ruins supported by fine columns that are still standing? I call shenanigans!



To the left of the stairs is a Cure potion, which is less useful now that Lela has a Cure spell. A rather nice touch to this whole dungeon in my mind was the fact that treasures off the direct route through the ruins are left alone.



Somebody's been opening my chests... and they're STILL HERE! They flee, but they've already cleaned everything out.




In hot pursuit, we stumble upon an un-looted treasure room with three MAGI. Success! ...kind of.



Unfortunately the enemies escape before we can do anything, and are never heard from again. In a later game, they'd probably be quirky minibosses that you'd see again and again.

We are Guardians, sent to stop

Ashura's men... took... the.. M...MA...GI...

Which would be kind of nice, as they're tough enough that they evidently killed two people in the three seconds it took us to follow them through the door. Pretty impressive. Now we've got another group on our radar, the Guardians.



Magi can be equipped to your party members in order to dramatically raise their abilities, making most of the game much easier. Fry gets Power, while Lela gets Speed. When Zoid gets a form that can use it, he might get Mana. Other Magi can be used like items or, when equipped, act like weapons or armor.



Lela goes from doing damage in the mid 20's to being able to one-shot any enemy in the starting area with just one Speed MAGI.



We are going to the Ashura's Base.

I'm coming with you. I must save this world from Ashura.

Hasn't Ashura already got everything he possibly can from this world now? I fail to see why he's a threat now.

Do you want my help or don't you?



Ki is useful, but not nearly the "I Win" button that Mr. S was. Our characters are approaching her level of power as it is, so what she brings to the table isn't all that impressive except for her Thunder and Cure spellbooks. Unfortunately we can't yoink those for ourselves. It's kind of hard to see why Ashura doesn't just show up and squash her like a bug.



Pressing B when you have a guest party member results in them giving you a message. This one makes no sense, making it very typical for the feature.



On the way North is another town, which inexplicably has much better equipment than the one that's a five minute walk away.



I love the way that the fly seems to suggest that Ashura is doing this under some kind of persuasion. He doesn't want to rule the world, oh no, but he's willing to do it.



That's...nice? This is kind of like seeing a person on the street and having them randomly say "Highway 5 leads to Seattle." out of the blue.


that Ashura's base!

This almost suggests that there was free travel between the two worlds before Ashura showed up. This would make them far more connected than any two other worlds.



That's okay, we're not ordinary people.



While we're there, Bndr gets a shiny new SMG. A lot of the better guns in this game have group target, and this thing will probably be useful for the next 3 worlds. It's worth every cent of the 6800 gold it costs.



I see what they mean about Ashura's base. It looks like a weird fusion of a barn, some silos, and one of Dr. Wily's castles.



The inside, however, looks like something out of a Resident Evil game. As one would expect talking to the zombies results in a random encounter, but none of those actually involve zombies.



Running into a skeleton provides a nice example to about how the monster system works in this game and how it got kind of nerfed. Eating skeleton meat puts Zoid into the jelly family, which has no monsters at the level 3 tier (where a Silver is). At level 4 the slime family has a Jelly, while at Level 2 it has a slime. Final Fantasy Legend looked up a level first, so under that system Zoid would have become a Jelly. Instead, in the sequel it starts looking down first and so Zoid would become a slime. The only way to become stronger as a monster in FFL2 is to eat the meat of a stronger monster. We don't want a slime, so this never happened.



For some reason this base has monitors, although there's no indication they actually display anything. Part of the schizo-tech that these games have going on.




Looting montage, go! Speed potions raise Agility permanently, shortcutting the normal development process. The Silver gauntlet is a nice upgrade that goes to Lela to boost her defense, while the Axe is a handy strength based weapon that will be used by Fry.




This is our party before facing against the boss of the base. I've done a bit of grinding offscreen, and you can see that Fry has been gaining HP like a beast. Lela, on the other hand, has been getting better stat increases. Bndr has the best defense of anyone in the group, while Zoid hasn't changed. You might be wondering why Bndr has a shield when I said they were useless. In order to let the others get a chance to fight enemies, I had to give Bndr something to use when I didn't want him to obliterate the enemies.



I'll say this, he doesn't waste




Only half of our attacks do anything, but with the boss's weakness to Ice and Fry's MAGI assisted attack that's enough.






Ashura's hands!

So...were there more than 6 MAGI here? We have 3 and the people raiding the Ruins already made off with 3. Confusing.



For some reason Ki wants to go into a door that's blowing up. Maybe she meant that everything but the door was exploding?




On the way out we grab 3 more MAGI. More on what the elemental ones do later, but at least two of them have their effects switched. I believe it's Thunder and Ice.


MAGI and assail you again...but that's your problem, suckers.

We'll go get him before that!

Good idea. If you make him chase you he'll just be angrier.



That is one GIANT bean sprout, which leads to...



An extremely interesting area that links between worlds. There are no enemy encounters, so you can enjoy the area with all of its weirdness. I still wonder if this is some kind of extra-dimensional space or if this is more like a space bridge. Either way, it's pretty cool.



Naturally Ki buggers off, which is a bit of a relief. She's actually weaker than our characters as far as being able to absorb damage so she'd really be more of a liability.



Next time: The Desert.