Part 15: Chapter the Fifteenth

Chapter the Fifteenth, in which many items are discarded and a fairy is a complete and utter bitch.



Before you is the sum total of the world after Edo, the optional dungeon of Final Fantasy Legend. Optional, you ask?



Immediately upon entering there's a fairy present, who's too lazy to actually check as to whether or not we've actually opened the chest next to her. She just kind of assumes we're going to take it, like we're a band of roving thugs who beat people up and take their MAGI or something.



And with that we're perfectly free to just pick up and leave, going on to the next world. No fuss. But why would we do that?



With the Pegasus we've got a very powerful tool. It lets us go to any place we've been to in the game thus far instantly, regardless of where we are. There's literally no limits. The first thing we do with it is warp back, sell some extraneous junk, and then come back. This dungeon is full of treasure, and we'll need every scrap of inventory space before we're through.



Almost immediately upon returning we get the other benefit of this dungeon. It's full of powerful monsters, which means many upgrades for Zoid. The first one turns him into a high level ghost, with a lot more HP and some nice attacks.



Right here you're pretty much seeing the main distinguishing features of this dungeon. Large and varied groups of monsters and branching pathways with no real indication as to which one you need to take. Enemy groups can easily reach 15 or more monsters in this dungeon.



The Ogre axe and Dragon armor are actually pretty bleh. The ogre axe is a fairly mediocre high end weapon that does bonus damage against a few classes of monsters including demons, while everybody who wants some already has dragon armor at this point.



Permanent stat increasing potions are a much better treasure, the more so because they don't take up inventory room.



Zoid changes a good few times throughout the dungeon. For what it's worth, the Firemoth isn't a bad form. Stunner has a chance to paralyze an entire group of enemies, and a group attack like flame is nothing to sneeze at. Warning is a very useful passive, but the problem with this form is that it has no other direct means of attack.



More support for any theories that this dungeon is hell. Roving packs of demons are not a good sign.



This dungeon is also full of false walls and hidden paths. Quite often they're pretty obvious, but it's possible to miss a few.



More stat enhancing potions. If only there was a way to get more of these... next playthrough 



A fine example of the kind of branching you deal with all the time in here. Off to our right are the stairs down, but if you choose the wrong way you're going to have to go back if you want whatever you've missed.



I find it interesting that they went with Killer as the next enemy in the martial artist line. These guys actually use chainsaws and axes, so it's a pretty good name for them. The chainsaw has been pretty much fixed in this one, so it's moderately useless.



Lamia is another good upgrade for Zoid. By the time you reach this level in the game, almost any monster you can get is going to be at least moderately useful. Fire and Ice magic between them manage to hit a fair number of enemy weaknesses, and charm can at least slow enemies down if nothing else.



Most of the items in the upper floors of the dungeon are storebought, and might be worth skipping if you really need to. I actually stopped at one point here to burn off some inventory.



Somebody asked about the Gae Bolg line of monsters earlier. Here's one of the better examples, with W-Attack doing some decent damage and the rest being at least something to burn up a turn. Between ODamage and OChange it's also strong against practically everything. I ended up going back to Lamia after this one, but decided to include it.



Elixier (nice spelling there..) works as a full restorative, including restoring magic charges. It's handy on longer dungeons like this one. Another Laser? Sheesh, I'm practically swimming in these things.



Jyudo is actually pretty high up there on the martial arts scale, and I ended up deciding to use this one. A free dragon sword isn't a bad thing to find either. This is about the point I went to use up some of the items I'd found. With the way the stat increasing system in the game works, you're usually better off using equipment than selling it.



Fry gets his own tank as this point! Pretty much because I had nothing else to really do with it.



Surprise attacks are a constant threat in this dungeon. If 15 monsters get the jump on you, a result like this is not only possible, it's probable. Notice that Bndr is still at full HP.



I almost think they should have made this place look like some kind of military base with the amount of hardware laying around.



This goes to Fry to replace that old Army helmet he's been carrying around. It's actually handy since it blocks paralysis, which a number of enemies in this area love to use.



They kind of let their designers loose on this level. This corridor alternates between these two views every few steps.



Our very own Muramas! After we've pretty much run out of humanoid enemies to use it on! This is about the point where the treasure becomes items you can't buy in a store.



The wizard staff can wipe out an entire field full of enemies, although the success rate isn't actually very good. If it works, it simply kills entire stacks of enemies at once.



The Selfix is a valuable item for Bndr, giving him the ability to regenerate a percentage of his HP at the end of each round. It's worth discarding the shield he's been carrying around, although this does lower his defense drastically. Being in the back row, however, this isn't much of a problem.



Like the Tank, the Defend protects the user from incoming attacks in the round when it's used. Not only that, but it's about as powerful as the Dragon Sword.



Another samurai bow? Yes please!  I will never actually use this. 



The bottom levels have a whole new group of monsters. Anything at this level is about the second most powerful version of its form that you will ever encounter.



Arthur armor is a good idea that never really sees the light of day. It's got the best defense of any armor type item and protects against stone, but that's really not all that useful compared to the elemental protection of Dragon armor.



Why, it's Christmas!



The Vampic is an interesting weapon that drains the enemy's HP and gives it to you. The effect is reversed with undead enemies, and uses mana as the basis for its damage. The PSI gun is nothing short of awesome, doing mana based damage to an entire group of enemies.



The parasuit is probably the best armor in the game. You can't wear any other piece of armor while using it, but it provides a defense of 73, +15 bonus to strength and agility, and makes you strong against pretty much everything except thunder. This goes to Fry because he's catching most of the attacks and because if he takes it I can get rid of four pieces of armor.



Zoid's final upgrade in the dungeon is to a Nymph. It's just too good to pass up, with all the abilities of the Fairy form, more HP and mana, and a whirl attack that hits every enemy on the screen.



Okay, at this point the dungeon is just screwing with me.



Naturally because this game is made in Japan, Karate is the best martial art. I'll be using this. The Sun sword is about the most powerful single target weapon in the game and does critical damage to undead.



The Hyper is a 3 use "I Win" button for any non-boss fight. The success rate is 100%, and the number and status of enemies doesn't matter. It's also possible to put it on a robot and have a continuous supply of said I Win Button, as long as you don't need it more than 1 time in a row.



This is actually the dungeon throwing you a bone. A Tent restores all HP and abilities anywhere. Naturally we're using this immediately.



About at this point you're going to be seeing this screen a lot. There's just too many monsters to really fight in here.



Dead end cul-de-sacs with no treasure are proof that the programmers want you to suffer.



Okay, I'll bite. What the hell is a Ridean?



The final floor has a nice four way split to explore on the way out. At this point if you think about it, I've far exceeded my inventory space. I've actually been chucking items for a bit now. The general rule is that if you can buy it in a store, throw it out for something irreplaceable.



This is actually kind of funny considering that we've run into Odin. The Gungir spear does strength based damage to an entire group of enemies, and can easily do around 700+ damage at this point in the game. One of the nice things about this game is that they didn't gimp multi-target melee weapons.



There's a nuclear bomb just laying around in a box in here? We'll be saving this one.



The glass sword has been fixed in this one. No matter what your stats are this weapon will do more than 1000 damage to a single target once. It's definitely something to hold on to for a while.



Another book of Flare. I already bought one of these, but 50,000 gold worth of spells is pretty handy. Spells like this are never going to be profitable, so they're best used in cases of actual need.



At the end of the dungeon the fairy from the beginning is standing between you and the exit. If I have to kill you to get out of here, I won't hesitate!



She's got a question for us. The correct answer gets you this:



Essentially she just wants to say "I told you so."



If you say no, she throws a fit and teleports you back to here:



Actually, I kind of wish I did have to kill her to get through here.

Next time: Keeping a promise.