Part 18: Meat Casa Es Su Casa

Part 18 Meat Casa Es Su Casa

The Land Unknown (Pixel Remaster)


Last time we suffered a great loss in the party. Galuf sacrificed himself to save his Granddaughter and his friends from Exdeath's crystal fueled powers.

One final look of this King among men. o7

Galuf's stats:


And now his successor as the new Light Warrior.

Krile's stats:

Krile exchanges Galuf's high strength and HP for high agility and magic.

Faris before mastering Bard:


Faris after:

After mastering Bard the already speedy Faris gained even more agility and has almost 50% more magic stat than before.

Now that that's out of the way let's get another thing out of the way. We're fast approaching another point of no return, so if you're going for the cheevos these are the enemies that I did not show off and their general locations.

...Well that I didn't show off yet, a handful of them will be shown off in this update.

Exdeath's castle continent
Devilfish
Treant
Strapparer

Gloceana
Kuza Beast (southern section of the continent)

Underground River
Lesser Lopros

Moore Forest
Wyrm (area before fire trigger)

South Archipelago
Sleepy
Triffid
Hedgehog

Also remember to get Catoblepas and visit that chocobo forest.


In the SNES or GBA version Krile arrives in the party as Freelancer, here she immediately joins in as the job and equipment Galuf left in. Krile arguably has the best battle sprites, Catzerker and White Mage being S tier don't @ me.


On the peninsula south of Moore Forest (which the mountains have now cracked open permitting the wind drake to get in and out) has a few enemies to grab. Land Turtles are a source of Turtle Shells if you need a top off for !Mix.


They also serve as a great volunteer to show how Mystic Knight has grown in power since the -aga spells have become available.




Being a turtle they've got an Ice weakness. No damage numbers, just set to dead.


Yes... Ha, ha, ha... YES!


Sleepy are far off the beaten path, They're found on the island chain southeast of Exdeath's castle.


Their main source of offense is just casting sleep.


The Exp and ABP isn't too bad for the hassle.


The archipelago also has more Sickos.


And very big woody triffids. Like mammons they can berserk themselves.


Next on the "I missed this earlier and even though I listed where you can find it so I didn't have to go and show it wait why am I showing this now?" tour. Returning to Gloceana sourth of Kuza castle. Last time I spent like 30 minutes without it showing up. So I'm showing the spot where I got it to trigger. I remember it happening on the badlands tile set south of this, but couldn't get it here this time.


When you first get here the Kuza Beast is a big slab of HP and access to ??? to really punish a party for trying to kill it.


Not heavy though.




Despite Galuf's passing, basically Kelger is the only one to acknowledge it.




Bal Castle has the dialog of these two guards change, but no one else.




Ghido just tells us to get on with things.

So let's get on with things then.

The Four Dawn Warriors




Urgh... So strong...
Sock Exdeath one for us!
Exdeath just waltzed through. We were completely powerless against him...
Exdeath's on the top floor...


Reminder that there's the healing spring here.


Starting on the third floor we start getting encounters. Blind wolves are blind. They also have a special attack that can inflict blind on someone.


The third floor also has the first treasures, an ether and this.


Twin Lizards are just as baffling now as Doublizards were several updates ago. Reflect Mages are thieve's new best friend if you're playing a fiesta run or a means of casting reflect yourself.


Deal with it.


Oh yeah, the whole reflect thing.


Without a doubt, we're the deadliest thing here and the biggest risk to our own success.


Did I say these jerks were going to be our best friend? I meant worst nightmare.


Putting Faris to sleep before they rip the nerd's face off.


3 minutes for reflect ring steal. I don't even need it, I can quit anytime I want.


The next floor seems to be a dead end.


The game expects you to run around this large room, then when you turn around it triggers this. But like meeting Kelger in Quelb you just need to take one step in and back out.




No, there is... All of this is an illusion created by Exdeath.
What? Are you certain?
Grandpa, give me strength...

Reminiscence




I see... Galuf has fallen as well... Dorgann, Xezat, and Galuf have all shuffledoff this mortal coil... *cough cough* I fear I haven't much longer either...
Lord Kelger!
The time for the longest of rests draws closer...




...Galuf? Galuf, is it you? What!? Krile is...?




Galuf... I understand. Everyone... Lend me your strength!
Lord Kelger!
We must tear down the illusion Exdeath has created! This is my last wish and final command. Send all your power to Exdeath's castle!
Lord Kelger!




\o/ \o/ \o/ \o/




There's absolutely no good reason why Krile doesn't recognize Kelger.


Their power... Everyone's power is...




Ladies and Gentlemen...

Exdeath's Castle (It's a Proper Noun Title to a song so its capitalized)


Meet meat.




This whole recording session didn't go very well, this first bit here was 3 short recordings, I teleported back out so have returned to the first floor. The soldiers are gone... Well if they're lucky they're gone and not assimilated into meatfort. With its true form all floors have encounters turned back on.

Also now that the true face of the castle has been revealed, have the first part of the map.




The entrance has the same enemies we've already seen.


In the initial releases of the game the backgrounds of meatfort were animated. Technically they still are but only the torches flicker. I miss the breathing columns. The GBA release at least had the excuse of cropping most of the background so there wouldn't be much to see. But here its a letdown.


These teeth or claws are our doors now.


With Exdeath's Glamour broken, the healing spring is revealed to be hot dog water. Seymour is now too grossed out to drink of its theraputic juices. I suspect that all the healing springs we've seen so far have just been the leftover water from boiling hotdogs, but their enchantments aren't broken so everyone has no hangups on drinking deep.

So while doing prep work to make sure I've covered everything I've been checking between the in-game bestiary, the wiki for if they have some interesting notes. But for final definitive say is this document.

Imagine my surprise when I saw what you find in the room filled with therapeutic hot dog water.

Wait no, that wasn't phrased well to maximize interest or impact, I can do better. *ahem*












This is a tame fight. Veterans of the series might recognize that anything with "coeurl" in the name is bad news, and these guys are true to their name. Blaster can paralyze or just kill. The fact that one is being escorted by a pair of blind wolves allows you to focus on the one real threat.


We've already met the Red Dragon. The Blue Dragon is new and basically the same threat level as the Red Dragon, minus the undead flag. Still heavy and immune to petrify though.


Remember what I said earlier about the threats things pose in Exdeath's castle?


We're the deadliest thing here. The first time was me being lazy, this was me forgetting white wind shifts default targeting to the party.


Faris would probably have survived even without the lucky block.


The fact that everyone else died was fortuitous though.


Faris is now level 30. I'm retroactively declaring that everything has gone according to plan. Rumors of me being owned were greatly exaggerated.


Moving on we have Iron Fists, they punch hard.


A little bit later I get the fight I want.


Seymour is putting !Control to good use. Also since I haven't gotten a full kit of equipment for melee classes after pawning everything to buy spells and robes in Moore means Seymour is also wearing the Hypno Crown.


The next step requires the Red Dragon to have reflect.


When !Controlled they can use Level 3 Flare. However it is force targeted on the enemy party, so reflect needs to be used to launch it at the party to learn. Since it's only targeting the Red Dragon it is a craps shoot if it hits the right character.




Craps.


But we got what we came for.


We're climbing back up the castle again, this shows up on the fourth floor. Time to get more stuff... when I put Faris back into a controllable state.


This is a switch. The fortress made of meat has a regular ass looking switch, not the skull ones most other places have.


This opens the way to an Ice Shield.


Now that Faris can sit still for more than 20 seconds I can learn another Blue Magic. Magic Dragons can cast Level 2 Old without being !Controlled, but it takes considerably longer for them to get around to it. They can also cast Aeroga if you haven't picked it up.


Note that I have kept Krile as a thief for the moment.


Despite having Find Passages on by default,this passage doesn't show up. I presume because the meat is so busy and the wall is too narrow so it screws with the transparency overlay.


Same thing as this wall, but this one isn't as useful to know about.


Another floor, more enemies. The Hellraiser's can cast Arise on death, so try to kill them first. The PSX version called them A Rages, I presume because whoever was doing the translations accidentally looked at their spell list rather than their name. "A Rise? The hell is that? A Rage it is!"


Black Warlocks can be a problem. They can cast Break and Death. They aren't especially durable or anything but usually they come in pairs, and usually pal around with a Reflect Mage, making multi targeting spells risky.


Here they choose to just be annoying rather than deadly.


This is why I said that passage below was trivial, as there's another passage up here. I guess going by step count this would be the more efficient use of movement, I always use the lower path though.


It might be hard to parse, but the ledge immediately to the left of the stairs and the lower right corner of that 2x2 square to the far left are steps. We're going to take a dip in gravy. It's boiling so cast Float or use a Geomancer to avoid the damage.


The reason for the swim is this hidden chest, the Hayate Bow randomly executes !Rapid Fire.


Even if you don't care about the treasure the little dip saves several steps of going around the whole upper edge of the room. The chest on the 3x3 platform contains an Elixir.


New floor, new gimmick, Seymour is standing on a skull tile (you can see another one on the other side of the chasm), this tile caused that bridge to pop up, and it cycles from left to right and back until we step off.


If you stop the bridge in front of a chest or the stairs, you're free to walk up and take your prize.


Stop in front of a wall and you get a forced fight. These can be Imps from Moore Forest, Jackanapes from Walse Castle, Abductors, or another imp like enemy that we'll see later.


The bridge doesn't need to stop directly in front of the stairs to proceed.


At long last a save point. It's been a long time since we've had a mid-dungeon pit stop.


There isn't much left of the castle, but Exdeath's best has yet to come.


Next floor and new monsters (if you didn't take the detour earlier, as of now we've seen all of the castle's enemies.)


Here be dragons.


...I need to change up my jobs for a moment.


There that's better. Gravity is all I need for the Yellow Dragon.


I mentioned when we picked it up that the Kornago Gourd improves !Catch so that it succeeds at 1/4 HP, I was mistaken, it's 1/2. In my defense 1/2 is ridiculously broken.


After the Dragon floor we weave up and down a few flights of stairs, this is the next real floor though.


The game really wants me to get more Dragons.


At the far end of the au jus is a stairway leading to this single chest.


In their native non first floor habitat Blue Dragons usually flock in groups of 3. Like the Blue Dragons in FFIV, but they don't stack on top of each other here.


We now come to the main portion of the 10th floor.


This skull switch blocks the way forward.


Switching Seymour to Geomancer briefly to show the pitfalls between you and progress. The chest contains another Twin Lance.


The bottom skull switch restores the path to progress, this leads to another area.




I've switched Seymour back to Mystic Knight.




Carbuncle seems to be under a perpetual identify crisis. Usually tiny, sometimes furry, sometimes scaly. Maybe with a fivehead. He's had sneakers once for some reason. Here he's a pogging hellbeast.


No matter what he looks like, Carbuncle is all about reflect. Here he bounces spells onto random targets.


Seymour is going to do all the heavy lifting.




Carbuncle reflects 3 -ra spells for his first 3 turns.


On his fourth "turn" he just causes the ATB to lag briefly.


Technically this turn changes him into a different enemy, like Siren was so long ago but without telegraphing it with a palette swap. If left alive Carbuncle would cast cure on himself (reflect is dropped, as is his high defenses) for a few turns before cycling back to bouncing magic off his innate reflect again.






We head back down stairs and stand on the skull tile...


And show up on this little ledge nearby.


We resolve the puzzle and proceed to the next room for a savepoint.


Since the Yellow Dragons were biting earlier may as well take them up on their offer to fight.


If I wasn't trying to show off completion this side room of treasure can be skipped. The other chest is a Fuma Shuriken which is a good throwing weapon but then you're throwing something that isn't a scroll. The Partisan is an upgrade from the Javelin I guess.


LONE WOLF!!!


Oh, its just Greg.


Ah geez, not Gilgamesh again!
Ha ha! Looking for something? Well, guess what? I already took the treasure! Ohh, you guys are sooo burned!



Battle on the Big Bridge



So Gilgamesh doesn't show up unless you open the chest, he's completely optional here but you want to fight him bec-

Ooops.


Be right back Greg.


Once more with feeling.


Like the previous fight, this Melee on the Meat Mound has a treasure to steal. Just... not right now.


Obviously Greg doesn't have any crippling status vulnerabilities so Seymour is just going to go with Drain Blade to keep his health topped off.


There's a few Blue Magic spells to pick up if you haven't gotten them yet.


When summoned Golem takes physical attacks for the team. He'll keep taking hits until damage exceeds (20 + Summoner Level)*50. So at least 2500 HP for now.


It still shows as damage but the targets HP doesn't drop. Since Seymour is doing about 650 HP of damage a swing even if Golem didn't take the hit he'd be fully healed on the next strike.




I must say, I quite enjoy these tussles.


Once Gilgamesh starts talking the fight is basically won. He'll still throw out some attacks but there's little risk of failure. Well, for a given value of failure.




An understanding that
I will pound you silly! Ha ha!


He still throws out some attacks so you still need to pay attention.




what happened to that spry old fellow?




...I see.



...








I'm surprised they kept this line in when they've changed some of the more problematic ones.




I forgot how the game behaved with the enemy transitions when they pop down and come back up like the Pages in the library. Krile here was supposed to be stealing but didn't. So I sit there wasting precious time.




Excalibur? Yeah that big gold sword sure looks like an Excalibur alright.


That was a lucky dodge.


And thankfully Golem still has gas in the tank.


Really glad I've got Blink up.


Well this sucks.


See you again in about 3 minutes.


Another crack at Time Slip if you didn't get it in Barrier Tower.


That's better, the Genji helm is probably the best piece of Genji gear, as there are fewer things that a heavy armor user might want on their head, unlike the gloves getting in the way of a fabulous cape.


But let's worry about our treasure after we survive Greg's attacks. I don't have Blink on anyone now.


Golem is still up though, at least for now. Gilgamesh was doing about 500 HP an attack before doubling in size and becoming King of England so that might not last long.


...okay


Hey Greg, do you need a minute to limber up your 4 new arms or something?


We'll wait for you to get in the game.

Ehhh!? Why, I've been had!

I feel so betrayed!

This is far from being the strongest of swords!




Erk!






















Well there's your problem. Also known as Excalipur or Excailbur, depending on how sadistic the person who localized it is.

The Excalipoor has "high" attack power, but it does single digit damage when used to attack. The fact that Gilgamesh was able to nearly do 50 damage with it is a testament to how bad of an ass he is...

how much he was.

Actually, Gilgamesh saved us in a way. If he didn't take this sword, Seymour would probably immediately equip it and go fight Exdeath. That's actually almost certainly what Exdeath planned by putting it in a box in the middle of the room.

Not since Final Fantasy II has there been this much of a body count.

We must put a stop to this.