Part 10: Destination Ashura

Update 9: Destination Ashura

Alright, now it's time to give Su-Zaku what its got coming to it. To do this, we have to go to the building off by itself in the wasteland that we saw earlier.



This dungeon is very liberal in its use of non-standard tiles like doors as parts of walls.



There are also transporting platforms, reminiscent of the pathways in Final Fantasy Legend II.



There are even fake walls with hidden passages in them. All in all it's a fun little dungeon.



The dungeon also includes a 3 use get out of a fight free card known as the Hyper, which can be bought at the bazaar for an absolutely insane price.



Spikes. Got to love ground spikes. They really pulled out all the stops on this dungeon. It's actually much more interesting than the final one.



On this floor the stairs down are actually hidden among a bunch of identical tiles. If you imagine that these are incredibly realistic drawings or patterns on the floor, this place would be trippy as hell.



In the end you actually find yourself in a subway, with a helpful person telling you where to go to find Su-Zaku.



This person is not so helpful and actually triggers an encounter if you talk to her.



At the very end Sayako is being held prisoner by a nefarious monster. I was actually very confused for a moment here...



Right next to that enemy I ran into this group and thought that was the encounter the armored figure was representing. When I destroyed it and the enemy hadn't moved, I thought that the game had bugged somehow. The actual fight wasn't nearly as interesting as this one.




A lot of people have mentioned the use of the saw, which can be used to instantly kill some enemies. Sadly, as far as this version of Su-zaku is concerned we can't actually use it. Both Vyse and Aika have about 150 or so in their primary statistic, however, and that's more than enough to deal with Su-Zaku.



As you can see from the damage they're dealing to it.



It tries to strike at us, but gets nowhere with it. I should have mentioned this before, but when So-Cho dies, he gives you a piece of headgear called the Band which functions much the way as the Ribbon in Final Fantasy. That is to say, it gives you a resistance to everything. Vyse is wearing it at the moment.



One more hit from Fina finishes Su-Zaku off. I like the twisting disappearance that signifies an enemy death in this game.



Why does Cupi get all the credit? It just stood in the back and did nothing! Is she confusing that with being in charge?

Also, your brother might be in Hell. Don't make any assumptions here.



She stumbled upon the item we need to get out of this world. Hooray! Time to go!



Before that, though, let's top off our HP before going on.



You're not hallucinating, by the way. With everybody at 999 hp, there's still 184 HP left to be healed. HP, like Strength and Agility, can go beyond what the game can display. I'm not sure what the maximum is on this...I figure that 1200 HP, about twice as much as the game expects you to be able to get, is a pretty good number. Working on the theory that stat caps are based on what bosses can have, it might be as high as 8095 since the highest HP total of bosses comes in at about 5000.



Unsealing the red magic the first treasure we find is a Door. These are probably one of the most useful things for hunting for meat and items, as they allow you to teleport to any floor of the tower 3 times per door.



I'm not sure what's going on with these people. They say that they're busy and rich, but the room looks empty. Are they living in an illusion?



There's a bit of a byplay between Ashura and the Creator that I find interesting, with the idea that Ashura might be powerful enough to be blocking the power of a deity. Way to play him up.



Pfft. Magnum. Barely worth carrying.



On the next floor is a real gut puncher, a room full of dead children. Wow, talk about suddenly dark.



Down a set of stairs is either a last will and testament or a suicide note saying that these people have barely made it to a refuge and are running out of supplies. The writer apologizes to the children and hopes for the best for them...I think we can safely say that didn't work. Most disturbing of all, it ends with a plea for the Creator to look after the children...

Somehow this ends up with us acquiring a pocket nuke.



On the next set of floors we get the AEZIS shield, which is one hell of a weird spelling that was presumably meant as AEGIS. As a shield it's useless, since I could be using that turn to kill things.



This entire length of books say that Ashura is being controlled, although not by whom. I've heard that in the original Japanese they held names of people who had come this far, with the disturbing implication that none of them survived.



Behind one of the bookshelves is a hidden book of Flare, which I actually missed on my first time through. I used the magic of a door to get this shot. Not having it didn't hinder me very much.



One door leads us into a field of flowers, which is decidedly bizarre. I believe there weren't any encounters here.



Inside, an old man is waiting in bed to give us a gift that he has been told to hold for the people climbing the tower.



He gives us XCLBR, which fills a rather unique role in this game. Rather than attacking single enemies, it attacks groups for a smaller amount of damage. In some ways it's very much like the Noble Phantasm from the Fate/Stay night game, just very weak.



More interesting is the Glass sword, which is meant to be a single strike weapon and is probably the most powerful single hit in the game. However, due to issues with the game it appears that it got 50 charges, making it broken as hell. Every attack gives a message that the sword was destroyed but it's still there.



Next time: Let's go. Ashura, and Cupi's transformation.