Final Fantasy Legend II Part #3 - Kickin' Ass and Takin' Magi (Part 2)

Part 3: Kickin' Ass and Takin' Magi (Part 2)

Yo check this tune out!

Some overworld music for you! Pretty swanky stuff for just walking around outside.

Okay, Ki said we can find some magi to the south. We'll want to keep an eye out for—

SPIDER

SMASH KILL DESTROY

Uh, Heather? It's dead. You can stop now.

Seriously, what is with you?

I don't like spiders. They're creepy!

They're more afraid of you than you are of them.

They are now, yeah.

You're not missing out on a whole lot as far as fighting goes—whole lotta bugs and the occasional conscripted Japanese farmer. It does seem that our guys are slowly getting better with their respective weapons without actually gaining stats. I don't know if weapons do more damage the lower their use count goes or if we're just fighting monsters with lower armor. At any rate, we definitely need the stats, so we're stuck with poking monsters with sticks at the moment.

Hey! The big rock!

Like, it's about time. That desert was awful.

Yeah, but think of the tan you'll get.

Hmm!

Wait. Do you hear that?

Nnnno?

...

_{They're everywhere}

Uh oh. Do we need to take her back to Ki and get her oil changed?

Ack!

I tried to tell you!

Whatevs. It's not like we haven't killed them before.

Yeah, one at a time. This is an entire pack!

Do jaguars even travel in packs?

I... don't know, actually.

A group of jaguars is called a "jamboree."

What, seriously?

*nods*

That's dumb as heck.

Less talking, more KILLING

*roar*

...

Right, I'll mop these guys up. You two drag Heather to safety.

I call left leg!

Aw.

As you can see, Heather just ate a crapload of damage and keeled over. This is to be expected, as she and Roy will be taking most of the punishment over the course of the LP. Roy's basically bulletproof right now. Heather... isn't.

Party member death in Final Fantasy Legend 2 is so much more merciful than other games. It's not even death; your guy just gets clobbered so hard they're out cold. (The official status is "Stun.") If you get out of the fight with at least one character surviving, all your stunned party members come to. Granted, it's with 1 HP, but you have no idea how hard this can save your ass if something goes horribly wrong.

Best of all, you can get stunned all you want as long as you win the fight. No heart limitations or Houses of Healing here! Just chuck a healing potion at them to deal with the concussion and be on your way.

Heather, what were you thinking?

Uh, glorious death through combat? Duh!

Am I seriously the only one worried about having a bloodthirsty lunatic in our party?

I am not a lunatic!

And the rest?

Guilty as charged.

Okay, here's the big rock. Now we go east...

And south...

Wow!

No kidding! If Ki didn't give us directions, we never would've found this place.

We're gonna raid a lost temple for ancient treasures. This owns!

So there's magi here?

Yep! Probably not out in the open, though. We'll have to search the place.

Great. My feet are already killing me.

Pfft. I'm barely tired!

That's because you have tank treads instead of feet.

Which reminds me: Why do you have tank treads instead of feet?

Born lucky, I guess!

And behind door number one...

Ooh! Gimme.

Seriously?

Hey, everybody! I'm Simon Belmont!

...

Who?

Mushrooms are walking around? This place seriously needs a janitor.

I HATE FUNGUS IT'S GROSS

Isn't it fungii?

Fungi.

I thought that's what I said.

No time for talking! Face the Mushroom Killer Whip, scoundrels!

...That sounded so much better in my head.

Protip, duder: "Scoundrel" isn't the word to use if you want to sound cool.

FJKADLGJKALEJFKLEA

How about that one?

Prrrrobably not that one, either.

Whips are our first hybrid weapon. They build agility, but they use strength to determine damage. It's fairly dumb and makes them hard to use except by trained fighters, which means they probably have a better option available anyway.

However! Whips have one advantage other weapons don't. If you successfully do damage, they can paralyze. You can do any amount of damage to trigger the check; it has the same chance whether you do one HP or a thousand. If it succeeds, you get the fairly incomprehensible "Winded the whip!" message, which means that enemy is paralyzed for a single turn. I assume it means they got tangled up in your whip and you can start punching them in the face without resistance.

It's my completely unscientific opinion that whips have a much higher paralyze rate than other special weapons and/or spells. I have not tested that because I know I'm right.

But, it still doesn't work on enemies immune to paralysis, like robots and undead. Probably. I mean, I'm just throwing stuff against a wall at this point, it could be wrong or right.

Jawsome. What's in these?

Man, what a ripoff.

Wait. Remember what Mr. S taught us?

quote:

The thing to remember, children, is that treasure chests always have treasure in them. No one knows how or why, but whoever gets to them will always get something from them.

Mr. S? Who put the treasure there in the first place?

Ah, yes. The chicken and egg conundrum. Did someone put the treasure in the box, or did the box put someone in the treasure?

That doesn't make any sense!

Go sit in the corner, Mr. Sigma.

Yeah, not to interrupt his lectures.

I think you took the wrong thing away from that class. Anyway, if these are empty, there's someone else here!

Great! I'd totally love to kill them. Meet them! Meet. Also kill.

You have some serious rage issues.

Looks like they beat us to these, too.

Look out!

There's too many of them!

Perhaps today is a totally rad day to die.

_{Okay. Set, focus, channel energy...}

Zero?

Check this out, guys! Der Zwerg ist in meinen Hut!

Holy butt!

What was that? Magic?

Kinda! I can't do it that often, so I save it for emergencies. Plus, mom really doesn't like it.

Why not?

Well...

quote:

ARGH THAT WAS MY FAVORITE LAMP WHY WERE YOU CASTING SPELLS IN THE HOUSE

Jeez, mom, I'm sorry. It was just an accident.

HAROLD TALK TO YOUR SON ABOUT FREEZING FURNITURE

ARGH THAT WAS MY FAVORITE HUSBAND

Yeah, that'd do it.

...

Sara?

Mother said magic is evil. It was created by the Hat.

And you believed her?

I do. Well, did. At one point.

Well, Zero just saved us with it. That means it's not really evil, right?

...

Zero has mutant abilities! He actually comes out of the box with Blizzard, and Blizzard is ridiculous for this stage of the game. It's a 40-60 damage attack that hits everything. As in, every enemy you're facing, not just a single group. Right now, that's enough to knock some serious chunks through multi-monster ranks. Even better, reptiles of all types are weak against ice! It's basically a "win" button against the frogs and lizards in this area.

He only gets 15 uses before he has to recharge at an inn, so we have to use it sparingly. Also, we don't want to spam Blizzard all fight erry fight, or we'll end up with Zero at a billion mana and everyone else with horrible stats. (Remember when I mentioned nuances in SaGa combat? This is one of them. You have to sandbag your strongest guys so the others can grow.) When the number of enemies you're fighting goes past 3-4, however, it's time to bring the pain.

Looks like the floor collapsed in here.

I'm not surprised. These ruins are pretty old.

_{(The chest was a cure potion. You didn't miss much.)}

                              me irl
                                 |
                                 |
                                 v

I know I'm not covering much about monsters, but other than the lizards' weaknesses to ice, there's not a whole lot to say about them. The mushrooms will punch you for laughable amounts of damage if you don't kill them first. That's about it.

Kung-fu mushrooms are not the most SaGa thing we'll see on this journey. Not even close.

Uh.

There was someone here! I knew it!

They took the magi! We have to get it back!

I think they're hiding in here!

Oops! Maybe not.

...

C'mon, we're losing them!

Shiny... so... box-like...

Roy?

Must... open!

Magi! Did it call to you or something?

Nah, I just like opening treasure chests.

Excuse me. I don't mean to be rude, but maybe we can go back to catching the people who stole the powerful relics before they can use them for evil

Spoilsport.

ARGH!

Oh man oh jeez oh crap there's like a million of them

You were right. They've got magi. Time to die, kids!

... _{leave us alone.}

What?

Leave us alone. Go away.

Bwa ha ha! That's rich. I think I'll start by killing this one.

Leave us alone. Leave us alone!!

Zero?

Yeah, Roy?

I'm starting to feel like our party members are bad influences on us.

In our defense, they're the only ones that would take the job.

In contrast to Zero, Sara starts with Flame. It's the exact same as Blizzard except, y'know, with fire. This does indeed mean we can spam Blizzard and Flame every fight and take down entire hoards of monsters while we laugh—laugh—at their ineffectiveness. But, again, that would catch up to us real quick later on. So, we hold back for now.

Not pictured is Zero picking up O-Poison, because that's boring and no one cares.