Part 32: Everything Falls Apart (Part 1)

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, goddess?

Yeah! I thought you were supposed to be Isis?

...yup, that's me! Isis!

But you said your name was Rezen.

I go by my middle name sometimes!

Then what's your last name?

Uh... Isis.

Isis Rezen Isis.

LOOK THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW THINGS ARE SHAKING

The hell with things! What about—

Oh right! Sorry, you don't...





I got this.





... zzzzzzzzzzz

Woah. That's it?

You... you really are a goddess!





You guys've prrrrrrobably figured this out, but the whole world isn't supposed to be shaking.

Can't you, I dunno, wave a magic Goddess Wand and just stop it?





I have to get to the center of the nacelle if I'm going to fix this. It's a rough trip, though, and I'm not sure I... Ooh, wait! You guys! Why don't you come with me?





What? What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of saving your father's life!

...



































Here we go! This should head down to the center of the world.

(Maintenance. Staff only.)

Do we get an elevator, or...?

Oh my God you guys are precious.





We have to take the stairs? From space?!

ehn ehn ehn, doot doot doo, deet deedle-deedle dee~

Now that's a rockin' tune!




Welcome to FFL2's end game! For those of you who weren't here for FFL1, you're in for a treat. I mean, I'm not, but you are.

In case you're not in on the joke, Rez is singing something from the original FFL. As a result of doing that LP, I will never get that song out of my head when climbing stairs (or any other time, for that matter). I mean, there's worse things to have stuck in your brain...












BAH DAH-DAHT DAHT DAH, BAHT DAHT DAH-DAH DAH

   












....but not by much.







Huh. These guys are new.

No sw—

don't you do it don't you do it





*fling*

Now I could've told you not to say that.

Then why didn't you?!




You need protection from everything down here: elements, status, O-Weapon, whatever you can get your hands on. Roy's tank is great here. We can shove him out front, watch attacks harmlessly bounce off, and then explode everyone's face in the same round. Really, with the appropriate preparation, you can deal with the non-stop fuckery.

And that's good, because you can't run anymore.

That's not hyperbole. It's not that enemies down here are so fast you can't run away. You literally cannot run from any fight down here (save one, which we'll get to later). It will automatically fail. That means you're going to need to get to the center in one go with whatever gear you have in your inventory. You can use Rezen Isis' Pegasus ability to back out and reload your guns. In fact, it's pretty hilarious, because the entire world continues to shake no matter where you are. Since you're not on a timer, you can just wander around and listen to people say the same things they always do. Guess the impending apocalypse really isn't all that pressing?

Regardless, you'll have to get to the bottom in one trip. If you haven't done so already, stop by Final Town and pick up a bunch of tents. It's going to be a long and bumpy ride.






































And she's like, "Oh my God, I'm just gonna shake it."

No.

She totally was!

Hey, guys! What're you talking about?

No clue!

Cool, cool. Sooo, I was wondering. Why do you need our help? You're pretty powerful by yourself.

After that jerk in the top hat screwing with everything and a couple millenia of evolution, it's gonna be a madhouse down in the control center. Besides, I do eventually run out of spells!

I hear you. After casting all day, I have to eat like an entire platter of nachos just to get my energy back.

You'd do that without the spells.

Mmmmaybe.







Well, Rez (because fuck it, she's Rezen now) may need our help, but she can still hold her own in a fight. You can see here that her HP is maxed out. You can also assume her stats are—

























MEIN GOTT IN HIMMEL


This is what happens when someone puts those superpowered pebbles back together as one person. Rez comes with Masamune, Pegasis, Aegis, Heart, and TrueEye. (TrueEye does absolutely nothing, but at least it's consistent.) She's also packing Flare and the ultra-rare Revive ability. With 99 mana and agility, Flare is basically an "Instant Win" button against random encounters, but she can only do it five times before needing to recharge. Use judiciously.

Of course, the fact that she still needs all four of our guys as backup should terrify you. I know it does me. I mean, I complain a lot about having to play through hard dungeons, but this is a gauntlet of crotch kicks all the way down and there's a lot of floors between here and the control panels we need.

Speaking of which...




















The heck is this thing?

Beats me.

Well, we can't get past until someone moves it.

I'm gonna poke it!

No, don't!

I'M GONNA *poke*

*hatch*









You have impulse control issues, you know that?

Yup!

well, at least I can relate.




Here's TianLung, the first of our minibosses. It's a bad localization of Tian Long, a Chinese celestial dragon. He's no Sei-Ryu, but I guess he'll do.









He has Tornado. Minibosses here have Tornado. Random mobs have Tornado. Everyone has Tornado. Nothing but nonstop F5s all dungeon. It's like Brock Lesnar threw up in here. Kill everyone as fast as possible at all times so you don't get your entire party sucked into a vortex for good.

That said, it's not all bad news. For instance, TianLungs aren't considered boss fights.







Well that was anticlimatic.

It's kind of my thing!




Fire the Hyper and move on.

(Well, it's not quite that easy; Roy's our slowest party member, so we have to get him to the end of the combat round. Once we do, though, )












Aww. What's up, sadbrains?

I dunno. It's just... the Cult of the Saw has always been against the existence of Isis. If you're here, that means all the prophecies were lies.

Really? Lay one on me.

...

C'mon, I've seen all kinds of weird stuff wandering around through the multiverse. You seem like a good kid. Let's hear what you believe in.

"And lo, the Bearer of the Saw shall come / and she shall chop down the trunk of the mightiest tree / and all will know that she is annointed with the Holy Motor Oil."

Pfft. I've written worse prophecies than that.

Hold up. How did you write prophecies if you were split into magi?








Huh. That explains some things.

It still doesn't explain how she, like, got turned into stone in the first place.

...




































(← Floor 1043    Ground Floor → )













It bears repeating: Even with Rez on the team, you need serious business firepower to get through here. If you don't have O-Weapon (and there's no excuse not to when Ninja gauntlets exist), Rezen can use the Aegis to get the same effect. Otherwise, she's stuck attacking single targets with the Masamune most of the time. I have reason to believe Masamune goes right through O-Weapon, because it does 550 damage against protected monsters. I remember noticing the same thing when it was in Heather's hands, but it's also just as likely that Rez's incredible stats don't give no fucks.

Offense-wise, Roy and Heather are doing the heavy lifting here. Roy's tanks will shut out everything but magic, and Heather's XCaliber cleaves through entire groups with one swing. Zero can knock out groups with his Thunder magic when we're dogpiled. Meanwhile, Sara continues to fill the role as Designated Gadget Character, as her Samurai bow, Catclaw, Heal staff, and high agility let her fill multiple roles at once. We're able dish it out as well as take it, which is no small accomplishment down here. Now it's just a matter of pushing forward until we're out of gas, using a tent, then repeating as necessary. Easy!

Well, maybe not that easy.













IT'S A TIGER I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ANY OF THIS WOOOOOOOOOOOORKS




See this motherfucker here? In Norse mythology, Fenrir is the wolf that'll kill Odin during Ragnarok. In Final Fantasy Legend 2, he's the single hardest miniboss in the game. Yes, I know we fought Watchers while severely underleveled. But, if you pause and consider for a moment, you'll realize that fuck you this is way worse don't argue with me.

Fenrirs have Tornado and are fast. They also have well over 1500 HP and an attack called Fang. You will most likely not see Fang, because they will cast Tornado twice at the start of combat and obliterate Roy (along with everyone else). You wouldn't think this would be a problem, right? "Ha ha, SaGa," you may say, "I'm on to your tricks. I'll just cue up Heart so Roy can take more damage than he has HP, and then the Hyper Cannon wins!" To which SaGa says, "Fuck you and good day, sir."

Rezen is the only character that can act before these things. Her 99 agility means she'll go first for the vast majority of attacks—which means she can't do anything with Heart until the second turn, which brings back everyone just in time to get murdered by Tornado again. Hooray! I swear sometimes this is actually a Puzzle RPG. But anyway, there's not much of a solution here except to keep trying until one of the Fenrirs beats Rez to the punch and leads off with Tornado. After that, it's Heart, Tornado, Fang, Hyper Cannon, end of fight. It took me a good ten minutes of fiddling to get this to work, which is probably longer than I've spent on any non-Apollo encounter. It is pure, refined, weapons-grade bullshit.










Is it just me, or is the shaking getting worse?

The nacelle's not going to be able to take much more of this...

What's a nacelle, anyway?

Flat planet! Believe it or not, there's a ton of them out there. VARN, CRON, XEEN...

What's ours called?

"Dilithium Organic Nacelle Group."

...I see what you did there.

Heh heh.







Alright, yooz mugs, let's get to that control center!

What if we don't make it in time?

Relax, total global devastation doesn't just happen in like fifteen minutes. We should have plenty of time to—

Warning. Warning. Tectonic vibrations approaching resonance cascade. Nacelle destruction imminent in T-minus 15 minutes.

...huh.

Well, at least we'll die the same way we lived.




Next Time: Everything Falls Apart (Part 2)