Part 25

Update 4

Now that we've completed the Edo section, it's time for the optional dungeon. But before that...



The Pegasus magi is handy enough for getting around, but the more important thing about it in this run is the number of MAGI it brings us up to.



See this, and see it well. Here Rune has 8 Power magi.



Going to the item screen we click on the trash can twice as though to use it..



This brings up a selection screen. Click on Rune ends up giving him an agility boost.



And now Rune has 7 power magi. What the hell just happened here?

What you've just seen is the infamous trashcan bug. The trashcan is...buggy. As I understand it, it actually exists as a 17th item in the inventory. The identifier for what item the trashcan is seems to be linked to the number of MAGI you have. 68 is the identifier for an agility potion, making this an extremely useful number. Other notable numbers include 29 and 30 as cure potions, an X-Cure at 36, and a strength potion at 67... meaning right before getting the Pegasus MAGI you can also do this trick.

Most of the guides I've read about it indicate that the number of uses is rather finicky, always being a multiple of 8 and never higher than 72. According to a few of them, in order to reach a time when the stars are right you should equip the Prism, Speed, Aegis, and Power MAGI on your four characters in order. This should theoretically give 72 uses of whatever you're using. I think this might be 72 total uses of the bug in a game, rather than at a given number of MAGI. It's an entirely valid strategy to get some moderately leveled up characters to this point in the game and then use this bug to improve their stats.



In this game, however, you can't raise your stats above 99 using potions so there's only so much it can do.



One really weird thing that can happen is that after your last use your MAGI will be set at 99. This can be used to sequence break the game, since it will actually allow you to open any of the doors between worlds in the Celestial Path. There's one big risk, though...



If you get any MAGI with your counter at 99, it'll reset to 1. This can essentially strand you in whatever world you picked up the MAGI in. The good thing about using this for agility after the Nasty Dungeon is that post Odin none of the doors have MAGI requirements. The game doesn't care how many MAGI you have if you go into where Apollo is waiting, it just takes them all.

Speaking of, let's just say that none of this happened because I'm happy enough with my stats after a bit of grinding, during which I found a few interesting things.



I think Wren isn't going to be going any higher with agility. I have to de-equip this one.



If you want to raise magic and have a problem where your magic user is killing everything in sight, prayer books are an alternative. They do damage to undead, but when used on regular creatures they're harmless and still gain you mana.



Going through the Nasty Dungeon I figure I might as well mention that these weird fences here are actually tiles you can walk behind.



The agility I have at this point is becoming utterly unfair to the monsters. That's my HP after this enemy group ambushed me and got a free round of attacks.



I give the Arthur armor to Wren, rather than throwing it away. Additional defense and OStone are useful enough.



Wren also gets these items. As the highest single target sword the Sun Sword gives +32 to strength, while the Gungir also gives +32 to strength and is of nearly equivalent strength to XCalibr.



Do you know how many fairies I've killed in this dungeon?



Passing through Odin's palace this is probably the only significant treasure we find.



This is the first time we've passed through this door in this run.



Odin's a little funny if you haven't actually gotten killed. I wonder if the programmers somehow thought that you would be almost certain to die? He doesn't actually have any dialogue if you talk to him, it just goes directly into a fight.



Alys has been working on her magic, by the way. She manages to strip Odin of his escorts in a single spell.



Rune cracks four digits for the first time with Flare immediately afterward.



Demi shows that she's quite the little murderbot...



And that's all she wrote. Hmm. Great, what am I going to do with two of these things?



You also receive no dialogue for defeating Odin if you haven't died. It just goes straight into the MAGI.



Knowing it's coming up, we still can't avoid it. By the way, here's the stats we've got at this point:




As you might well imagine, those 99s on the robots are patently false. They're actually pretty close to 247 on Wren and 249 on Demi. Since Alys had long since maxed out agility, I put her into magic as part of the long term plan. Rune...well, he's Rune.



And the horse you rode in on!



It's pretty amazing that the Minion actually takes magical damage better than Odin did.



A full power Jyudo does wonders even on enemies like this one...



While Demi just tears the thing open. I think we have a new record.



That makes two boss battles in a row that Wren hasn't actually participated in.



One thing I didn't check is whether this is a set message or if Apollo will actually read the number of MAGI you have if the game is bugged somehow. I doubt it, though.


to the first boy who actually pays for dinner rather than offering to go dutch.

Er... yeah, nevermind.



Dad offers this rather helpful tidbit of advice on the world map, by the way.



You might remember from the final dungeon that there was a section with a stairway hidden behind a false wall. If you explore another area on that floor, you can actually see the stairway from another room. This makes it somewhat obvious that they didn't have many ways to layer space in this game.



That's...that's not actually a bad one to get. You can also get ODamage and even OAll on a mutant.



XCalibr goes to Wren as well, adding to his total strength to give us a figure of 96. Combined with his agility, that's pretty sickening.



That done, let's take care of this turkey.



I can't remember if Rune got better in this short interval with magic, or if WarMach just has lousy magic. Probably the latter.



Alys is capable of 4 digit damage on ordinary opponents now, while her Dad is rather less impressive.



Wren is oh-so-close to doing over a thousand, while Demi continues to shred the robot to pieces.



Interestingly enough, the robots seem to have an interesting amount of HP considering that this is the round just after the missile had hit. The fact that Wren is only at 964 after taking 300+ points of damage shows that HP limits are rather higher than one would think possible.



Damage starts out well on the second round, showing how much of a range of damage some attacks can have.



Somehow, though, the Warmach manages to skip ahead of team members and go first.



Demi makes sure this doesn't do much good.



And so he ends, butchered by another robot.



I think we're about ready to go on with the show and finish this.

Next time: Sudden heart attacks, fuzzy coconuts, and some dedicated farming with tricks to be shown.