Part 30: Return of ...

Dad! What?! HOW?

Don't look so surprised, kiddo! Your old man's tougher than you think.

We're glad to see you and all, Mr. Butte, but you kind of died.

Er. But I didn't?

But Magnate's ninja! He said...

What, that guy?








...and he didn't even check the tree a foot away from him.

Dang. He dumb.

Sara? Shouldn't you be freaking out right now?

Hmm? Oh, I'm fine!

But we, like, just gave all the magi to your religion's incarnate of evil.

Oh, that! Pfft, that kind of stuff can't happen in real life. Clearly, this is all just an extended lucid nightmare.

...

Yup. Just gotta wake up. Gonna wake up any minute now. Juuuust gotta wake up.

<sub>How long does this take, usually

It changes every time</sub>







Is it even going to matter? Like, how do we stop someone who has all of them?

Not all of them...

Wha? Mr. S said there were 77 magi! We found all of them!

I even counted 'em twice!

_{That's reassuring}

The "77 magi" was a rumor the Guardians spread as our ultimate failsafe. In case someone collected all the magi, we needed one last ace in the hole.

You mean...?

Exactly. There's a 78th magi. And it's here, in this world.

So the Hat doesn't have all the magi after all?

Nope!

Oh thank Saw I can finally stop the screaming in my head










Stay back, son! I'll handle this!





...





...well. You've been busy.

Not gonna lie, it was a pretty nasty dungeon.




Dad's back! And this time, it's personal.





He comes equipped with even more ridiculous stats, a pistol, the Defense sword, and a chaingun. I can't imagine Indiana Jones just kicking down a door and going all Wolfenstein 3D, but SaGa sure can.

It's good that he's packing heat, because the monsters here on Final World are about what you'd expect. You'll see the usual suspects from Odin's castle, plus a few extras from the bottom of the Nasty Dungeon (i.e. Dragons and Watchers). From here on out, the game is done taking it easy on you. Good luck! You're going to need it!










I bet these guys have seen some shit.

Zero!

Dude, we've murdered gods. I think we've earned the right to swear.

Fuck yeah we have!

Let's not push it.




Hi! What's up?





Shuh. That was so two worlds ago.

Oh yeah? Well, I bet you didn't know it works the same as a Door!

Why would it work the same way as a door? Can we go through walls with it?



Doesn't make sense!







...the pillar in this world.

Wow. That sounds like a really important place.

It is!

What's in it?

No one knows.

...then how do you know it's important?

Just listen at that name: "Central Shrine."

Checks out.







Alright, we've talked to the locals. You all know what to do.

Son, I'm impressed. You're a natural born leader.

Roy. It's Final Town. You're gonna have to make the hard call.

I know, Zero. I know.





We're gonna need frappés on this one.

*gasp*

...




The Coffee Shop at the End of the World is utterly uninteresting. There's one guy who will cheerfully tell you the boss of the Final Dungeon is immune to every status effect under the sun. (Well, no shit, Sherlock. Any other obvious statements you'd like to make?) It does help build up a sense of dread about the boss, though—and there's a lot to dread about what's coming.












Since we're bearing down on end-game, you can pick up pretty much anything you want from Final Town. We... don't need to worry about gold, so we can keep our front line guys equipped with a steady stream of ogre axes and catclaws. That's a baseline that will work very nicely for us. If we need anything heavier, we've got legendary weapons gathering dust in our inventory. Gear won't be a problem from here on out... which is good, because things are going to ugly very, very soon.







Caramel ribbon crunch?! Heather, it's not that bad.

Odin's dead, Roy. If I'm going to die for real, I want to go without any regrets.

I hear you. Life's too short to go without those little crunchy things.






























This isn't going to be any fun, is it?

With a name like "Final Dungeon," I'm not sure what you expected.

I wouldn't say "expect," dad. Maybe "hope."

Hope? Totally the falsest of human emotions.

Well aren't we Little Miss Nihilism today?










Let's teach these scrubs a lesson!





Ow ow ow

And that lesson is, "hubris doesn't pay."

Don't worry, Roy! I've got him!





...

That's not good.





_grk

why are our weapons not working what is going on

Apollo took the magi! We've lost all our juice!




That's right—your guys are doing this au naturel. Hope you didn't need those stat boosts! Just kidding, you totally needed those stat boosts.

The sole good thing about this is that our chances of levelling a stat actually tapers the higher it is. That kind of makes sense on multiple levels—both biological and mechanical—but without the magi, your guys can get back to pumping up their stats. Plus, we're not exactly defenseless! We just need to be a little more careful, because we can't one-shot everything anymore, and our safety net is gone. You fuck up from here on out, you're restarting from your last save.

(Which, by the way, isn't as bad as it sounds. Like all SaGa games, you can save anywhere you can pull up your inventory screen. Still, nothing like getting cocky and putting in 15 minute sessions only to get party wiped and sent back to start. )













Whew! Good thing we still have that Dragon Armor, huh?



...dad?

_{so cold. so very cold.}

Guys, I think we need to bail out and buy some things before we end up with a dadsicle.

...

Sara?

I'll get the ragweed.




One big problem is that, despite all his stats, Dad only comes with Battle armor. That's great for defense and absolutely lousy for protection. Fortunately, Sara teleports! A few sneezes later, and...










One dragon armor, please!

Sorry, son. This suit of armor was given to me by my first CO. I'm not getting rid of it.

You... you have washed it since then. Right?

...huh.




That's the other problem. Once an NPC is equipped with something, they won't cough it up. Again, makes sense—it's their stuff, plus it keeps you from plundering their inventory before you boot them out. It makes life more difficult, though, because Dad isn't fireproof like the rest of us. Iceproof. Whatever. The point is, we're gonna have to get creative.




Okie doke. Try #2!

I can't believe you were able to afford all this stuff.

And the best part is, we won't have to take student loans when we're finished!















Ready, son?

Ready!














Now that's what's up!






There are two things going on here, only one of which you can see above. The Dragon Shield, once used, gives all of your guys O-Damage until the end of combat. It's not a passive ability like dragon armor, but Dad is fast. The chances he gets it off before anyone else goes is pretty good, and at the very least, it'll protect you for the rest of the fight. Besides keeping Dad safe, it also adds the few elemental protections Sara's parasuit doesn't cover and prevents us from wasting Dad's big weapons like Defender and Vulcan. Plus, they're cheap! At this point, a Dragon Shield probably costs half of what we're spending on base weapons.

The other thing (which you can't see) is the Ninja Gauntlet. These are available for sale in Little Edo and Final World, and they grant O-Weapon. Giving Dragon Armor and a Ninja Gauntlet to each character (save Sara, because lol parasuit) goes a long way towards evening the odds here. You have O-Damage, which gives you immunity to every elemental attack under the sun, and O-Weapon, which halves any physical attacks. Best yet, since you're not replacing any of his gear, you can equip Dad with one! Now that we aren't getting rocked with every single hit, we finally have a fighting chance.



















What, just one group of them?







Yup, saw that coming.

Roy! Look out!





... I'm not even sure how that works.

You'd be amazed what six inches of blast-proof armor can do.




Apparently, squatting inside of a tank blocks magical status effects. Who knew? Also, we forgot to bring soft potions again. A quick sneeze, buy three soft potions (at 4 uses each), and we're back for try #4! Try #3 was off camera. We were attacked by a tengu/sprite group that immediately used Tornado and then Whirl. That didn't go so well.










Eat death wyrm spawn








oh god oh god nerd cooties get it off me

Gabba gabba one of us!

nooooooo

Quit picking on Heather, you two.

awwwwww




The Rune Axe boosts... mana? Yeah, no. We replace it with the Muramasa because that's not what we're doing with Heather shut up I have a plan okay. However, if you have a fighter who needs some mana resistance, now's the time to boost it. it won't help
















Radical. Now maybe he won't die if he's hit by a stiff breeze.

I don't get how this supposed to help!

Should we...?

No. No, let's savor the moment.




Another parasuit! We give it to Zero. I think that's all of them that are in the game, but boy howdy it couldn't come at a better time. With two more slots freed up, we equip him with a pair of Psi guns to complement his Thunder spellbook and existing abilities. Technically, one pistol gets 30 uses, so you only need the one—but if you think I'm passing up the opportunity to have a mage in a power suit duel-wielding pistols powered by psychic ability, you either have chronic attention span issues or you need to start from Chapter 1 instead of here.















Like, that is way too straightforward.

Agreed. Nothing comes that easy in a place like this.

Good thing we have a solution for it. Zero?

Move, wall, get out the way









You know he's going to do that to a real wall one of these days. Right?

Yup. Until then, let's make the best of it!







Hey! There's writing on this one!

"Whosoever draws this sword from this chest shall be the Rightful Ruler of Final Dungeon."

Dibs








Well dang. If I knew it was that easy, I would've done it first.




You can easily miss this one if you're not paying attention, and that's something you don't want to do. This is XCaliber, which is SaGa-ese for "shit's going down." It always shows up in the end game, and it's a welcome sight just about every time. For one thing, it's unlimited use, and that's enough right there. For another...







Behold the Goddess Empress of Final Dungeon






Strength based. Attacks groups. Massive damage output. There is literally nothing bad about XCaliber, and we're going to superglue it to Heather's hand from here on out. It's not an Instant Win button, but against random encounters, it's pretty goddamn close.

By the way, Heather is now wielding Odin's spear, Excalibur, and the Muramasa katana. If that's not a hell of a loadout for a fighter, I don't know what is.













What, another one?

What do you mean, "another one"?!













That's a long hallway, dude.

I get the feeling we're about to find out who runs this place.



No, I mean who really runs this place.

Aw boo.

Here's your sunscreen, everyone. Drink up!

I don't even pretend to understand kids these days...








































Woah. That's one gnarly robot.

It's pronounced—oh. Oh! Robot! Yeah, that makes more sense.

Voice print recognized. Activating physical shell. Bootstrap commencing.

Augh! It's waking up!

...

Roy?

I... I know that voice from somewhere...

War Machine AI online. Ah. RY-29. This was most unexpected.

R-who-what?

Who are you? Do you know me?

Of course I do. You are the RY-29 Super-Adapter, the result of many years' worth of planning and construction. You are able to assimilate any combat technology into your exoframe. We had considered you lost until these humans and espers returned you to us.

This is where I came from?

Affirmative, RY-29. It is where your construction took place. I saw to it personally.

I don't understand! None of this makes any sense!

I see. How to say this in terms you will be able to parse... Ah. Of course.








Welcome home... son.








Next Time: Everything Comes Together