Part 28: Nasty Dungeons, Oh You Nasty Dungeons (Part 2)

Back again?

Yep. Had to deal with a pretty nasty dungeon.

How nasty are we talking here?

Miss Dungeon if ya nasty.

Daaaaaaang.







Okie done, guys. Let’s try to be a little more careful this time.

No way, we can—

Heather, if you say "We can take them" one more time, I am going to forcibly gag you and stuff you into your own rucksack.

I'd like to see you try.















Why would you keep all your mythical creatures in one place? It seems kind of risky.

_{mmf hmm ffhm hmf}

You said it, Heather!

Okay, joke’s over, guys. We need her to get through these fights.

How’d you even get her in there, anyway?

Can’t hit what you can’t catch.




Here we are in the back half of the Nasty Dungeon. If you thought tengu were the worst we'd see, oh boy, are you in for a surprise. I mean, let's leave Chimeras aside. 3-Heads hurts like hell, and I don't even care about that.







_{can I go back in the sack now}




Well, I mean, our party might. Me, not so much.

No, there's much worse down here...










Find not the watchers.

Fight not the watchers.

Block not the watchers.

Zap not the watchers.

Rip not the watchers off.

Watch not the watchers.

Doesn't that last one cause a paradox?

Interrupt not the watchers.




Tributes to The Dark Id aside, I want you to remember how bad watchers' beam attacks exploded our shit when we fought them as a miniboss. This section of dungeon knows how much you loved that, so now you get them as a regular encounter! Isn't that generous? Doesn't that make you want to chew your own face off? Or is that just me? No, that's probably a normal and healthy reaction.

Anyway, you can run from watchers here, because they're not a miniboss this time. Do it. There is no compelling reason to fight these things. There's better hills to die on if you want stat boosts. (Or not die on, as the case may be.)

Joining them in the rotating list of baddies are cockatrices, nagas, and conjurers. Shouldn't the plural be naga? The singular seems like it would be "nagum," but it's also a borrowed word. Anyway, all three of those monsters do this.







Huh. I haven't seen one of these elf guys since—










Like, how does that even work?

Beats me.




So, yeah. Near the end, the Nasty Dungeon approaches Wizardry levels of "we hate your stupid face." Bring plenty of soft potions!







Hey, buddy! You okay now?





Ghldghalneaf.

Sounds like a yes to me!




I think the game is as confused as us as to how a robot got turned into stone. Entering and exiting a menu fixes it, but not before we all have a good laugh at Roy's misfortune.

I'm going to skip most of the fights from here on out, because to be perfectly honest, I run like a coward from almost all of them. There's just no compelling reason to constantly get wrecked fighting them. I chip away at single parties of dragons or chimeras every now and then, but for the most part, the stat boosts just aren't worth it.

On the other hand, there are some high tier monsters down here, which makes some magic things happen. Literally.




Eesh. We're taking a real beating down here.

We can't keep taking damage like this! I got gored by a dinosaur!

Oh yeah? I got bitten by a chimera!

I scraped my knee!

...

What? I have low pain tolerance.

Wimp.

It's a medical condition, okay?

Hey guys! Wanna see something neat?

Sssssure?

Etwas klasse!








Who's da man? I'm da man!




Zero picks up several useful abilities down here. One is Cure. Zero learning Cure is huge, because at his mana levels, he can even heal Roy for a healthy chunk of HP.

The other ability? O-Weapon.

O-Weapon is a big deal because it automatically halves any damage taken from non-magical attacks. The Ninja gauntlet also grants O-Weapon, and Roy is apparently a solid block of impenetrable tungsten, so that's at least three characters we have on defensive lockdown.

But wait! There's more!







Man, whatever's in here better be worth our time.








Woah. What is that thing?

And how do we use it? Like, I know you put it on, but...

I first battled the metroids in the Nasty Dungeon. It was there that I foiled the plans of Pixi to use the creatures as dungeon monsters.

Omigod, that looks ridiculous.

Maybe! But I'm not really sure how to take it off, so there you go.

I'm not even sure how you got it on. What's it do?

Dunno! There's a bunch of buttons on it, though.

Ehn. Just start hitting them until something happens. It usually works for me!

'kay. *beep* *boop*








_{Oh my Saw. It's full of stars.}




Act now, and you also get a Parasuit, free of charge!

The parasuit is a piece of unique legendary armor in SaGa games. Whether you call it Parasuit or Power Armor, it still works the same. If you try to equip it right away, nothing will happen. In order to get it into your equipment screen, you have to remove all your character's armor—including shoes.

That's okay, because you don't need anything else. Check out what the parasuit grants:

• +15 Agility
  
• +15 Strength
  
• +73 Defense (!!)
  
• O-Fire, O-Ice, O-Quake
  
• O-Stone, O-Para
  
• O-Weapon
  

It is ridiculous. Ridiculous. And it's custom made for mutants, because it only takes up one slot. Equip one, and suddenly you have a rampaging monster of a fighter with four special abilities, three weapons, and a whole lot of not taking damage.

This is what we're down here for. This is the reason to put up with the high-tier enemy bullshit. The rest of the treasure chests from here on out are on similar level. However, this is one of the main ones we're here for. Sara was an okay fighter before but a glass cannon when it came to receiving punishment. Now? We could probably swap her out for Heather on the front lines and not really lose much.

What else do we have down here? Let's take a look, shall we?







Hey, what's that tag on it say?

"Property of Brad Dharma."

Weird.














Wow, that thing is totally giving me bad vibes.

What does it do, though? I mean, all the other stuff down here does things. Shouldn't this one?

At least it doesn't talk this time.

I VANT TO FIGHT YOUR ENEMIES BLAH BLAAAH

Blah.`







I'll take that one.

You're already wearing armor!

Yeah, but I can put it over my other armor!

Wait, you can do that?

Apparently?




Of the three, the Vampic is probably the least important—it's still a unique mana-based weapon, which makes it good for someone like Zero, but HP drain in JRPGs has always been hit-or-miss in effectiveness. The Psi Gun, though? The Psi Gun is terrifying. 100% hit rate, attacks entire groups, and is the only gun in the game that uses a base stat—namely, mana. There are only two in the entire game, though, so you have to make them count. (And believe you me, we will.)

The Arthur armor, on the other hand, grants a cool +26 Defense and O-Stone. Since Stone is the only one-target attack Roy is vulnerable to, we equip it on him. Combined with the Dragon Armor, he now has just about everything except O-Weapon! Yes, equipping two sets of armors is totally cheating. SaGa allows it for robots, though, so we're gonna roll with it.







Seven! Seven floors! AH! AH!

...













It's impressive, I guess? I dunno, we're running out of room for legendary weapons here.

I know! I've been throwing out trash drops like Dragon swords since a couple of floors ago.

Wait, you've been doing what?

Well, it's not like I was going to use them!



















Ooh! What's this thing do?

Looks like some kind of gun.

Wow. Like, where would we be without your totally killer insights?

I don't know, Heather. I just don't know.

Well, whatever it is, it looks awesome. I'm gonna try it out!








Let me just power it up...

*bweeeeeEEEEEEE*







...well. Well that was a thing that just happened.




Let's all welcome the Hyper Cannon back into our arsenal!

For those of you who weren't here for FFL1, the Hyper Cannon is the end-all be-all instakill weapon of SaGa. When you fire a Hyper cannon in FFL2, there is one check that happens for all enemies, and that check is whether or not the enemy is considered a boss. (Not a miniboss. A boss.) If the monster passes that check, nothing happens. Otherwise, it dies. Doesn't matter who, what, or how powerful it is. It doesn't matter what tier of enemy you're facing. Not a boss?

Unlike FFL1, they're unique treasure; you can't buy them this time around, even for ridiculous amounts of gold. Each Hyper only comes with three shots, and I think there's only two in the game. Notice, however, I said three shots. A simple bit of math tells us floor(3/2) = 1. And what significance does that have?

It means Roy can equip it and it becomes an ability. If he can last until the end of the round, Roy is now equipped with our party's "Oh Shit" button—one that we will be mashing in the upcoming chapters with immense satisfaction.







GOOD GOD HOW IS THERE STILL MORE













You know, out of all the monsters we've fought so far, I think the giant frogs surprise me the least.





Everybody's doin' the Michigan raaaaaaaaaaag~

Okay, everyone is seeing this, right?

Seeing what?

Omigod I can't get the song out of my head







Curse is a nasty status effect that can sneak up on you. It doesn't appear to do anything at first glance, but like almost all JRPGS, getting cursed punches your offensive and defensive stats square in the butt. Since it's rare, you probably don't have a Curse potion on hand, either. Your best bet is a mutant with the Heal ability, but more than likely, you'll have to suck it up until you get to the next town.

Note that O-Weapon and such still works when you're cursed, so it's not all bad. Still, taking full damage instead of half damage is not something we want to do right now.







Oh man. I hope we find the exit soon.

I know. Heather's singing is getting really obnoxious.

Hello my baby, hello somebody help me my darling, hello my ragtime seriously I can't stop myself gaaaal~

Is it wrong to laugh at this? It feels wrong.

We've done so much worse.







Somebody gon get messed uuuuuuuuuupppp~




The eighth and final floor of the Nasty Dungeon has the best gear—and keep in mind it's the best gear relative to what we've seen so far. This is where they stock the big ticket WMDs, so grab a bag and load up.

Flare needs no introduction. You are bad at the RPG if it does. Also down here is...







I'm just wild about that spear, and you'll give that spear to meeeeee~

Should that even be held by mortal hands?

Don't you have an instant death cannon grafted into one of your arms now?

Haters gonna hate.




And, of course...














Oh now that just seems excessive.




You don't exactly need a manual to know what the Nuke Bomb does. Of note, however, is that nuke damage completely ignores all defense stats and defensive abilities. The enemy can't even use mana as a resistance stat like they can with Flare. Add in big-time damage and a guaranteed hit rate, and it's a great weapon to fire off against major bosses. Again, there's not many in the game. Use them wisely.

And before you ask, no, we can't give it to Roy. Its usages would be rounded down to zero if he tried, which would make it disappear from our inventory. We need this thing, so we're not doing that.
















I don't want to jinx it, but I'm pretty sure we found the exit!

*huff* *huff*

Guys?

Look... some of us... have lungs... okay?

Jeez, you'd think you'd be in better shape with all the fighting we do.







Well, look who finally showed up.

Pixi? Is that you?





Nah it was a'ight.

What.










...

Zero. When someone asks you, "Was the dungeon nasty?", you... say... YES

Totes my bad, dude.







Come baaaack to floor four m'boy, m'booooooy~




























See? It was nasty like I—

YES

Hee hee.




And that's the Nasty Dungeon! You have to answer "Yes" to get through the exit, otherwise the faerie tosses you back in. Moral of this story: Do not fuck with Pixi. She rules this world with an iron fist.

Anyhoo, let's take a quick look at where we're at after that mess!









Roy's got an eighth of his HP left, Heather is both Blind and Cursed, Sara is on death's doorstep, and Zero is a stone statue. Yeah, that seems about right.

What you can't see, though, is how much we leveled up going through it. Heather's HP is hidden, but it's right up there with Roy's at 800-850. We gained a ton of stat-boosting gear on top of that, and our weapon loadout is literally legendary. Heather is wielding the Sun Sword and the Norse Allfather's spear, Roy has an orbital satellite laser strapped to his arm, Sara has become Samus Aran, and Zero has a Flare spellbook and a revolver powered by his mind. The Nasty Dungeon is a gigantic pain in the ass, but it is worth every second you spend down here. Take the time to plow through it. It's a crucible, and you'll come out the other end nigh-unstoppable.







Well, guess that wraps it up. Let's get the heck out of here.

I'm with you. I never want to see that dungeon again.

Oh, thanks for the Soft potion, guys.

No sweat.

One thing's still bugging me, though.

Yeah?

Why didn't we just use the Pegasus magi after Pixi teleported us?

...

SON OF A—




Next Time: Ragnarockin'