Part 43: Kaiser
Damn that's some good rum! Are you stoked for more draconic murder? I know I'm stoked for more draconic murder!Three down and who knows how many left to go, and here's a new area and I love it because it's not a generic cave.
"When the door is opened,
the Red shall be awoken."
There is a hidden switch. Push it?
or we could turn back and forget this dungeon exists and do something that does not crush my will to live and
what
no?
all right, fine, I'm pressing it
The door won't save you now, vaguely pink dragon!
The game misses no opportunity to feed us redundant bullshit.
Except when it would be useful.
Well, I guess it wouldn't be redundant, then. But it would still be bullshit because it always is.
Also, there was a blue dragon here.
It's gone now.
(I honestly have no idea what his gimmick is.)
This time, it opens a path in a different looking cave! I'm all for it as long as it's not that one tileset again.
nanananananananana turtle ride
Hey, random enemies!
And now they're gone!
Blue Dragon: The Last Stand drops the ridiculously named Save the Queen. Comparing this to the weapons we've picked up so far, it's actually pretty good. I understand one of the devs had the biggest, most embarrassing nerd boner for Meryl, and it kind of shows.
It's still not as good as the Lightbringer, but it comes pretty damn close in every way that matters and actually matches it in magic.
God DAMN that's a lot of fiddling for a useless item!
Tell me, how do these things work again? I forgot.
It's red. And glowing. Very mysterious.
You know what else is red and glowing?
A dragon with a dumbfuck gimmick!
You cannot harm Red Dragon Redux.
Trust me, that's a third-level spell he's weak against from a character with 100+ magic. If that doesn't do anything, nothing will.
So what's the point, then?
Endure. And in enduring, grow strong.
The fact that you have to survive this bullshit is yet another reason why I had Robin pick up Reraise last update. Put on fire-draining equipment, hope he doesn't use physical attacks too much and re-raise everybody, and he'll kill himself eventually.
The Apocalypse is a sword for Aeris and it's worse than the Save the Queen in pretty much every way. Strength she's never going to use, attack power that will never matter, and half the evade, and of course there's no reason to use it over the Lightbringer either.
Cryptic bullshit in a jrpg? Why I never!
More random enemies! Are we sick of them yet? I know I am! Fuck's sake, they're not even trying any more!
But it's not like I have to try particularly hard to get rid of them, either.
This looks fun, doesn't it?
What if I tell you we're going to have to deal with the green fuckers from Gogo's dungeon a bit further up?
Well he's bloody well going to have to swim closer then, inn't'e?
ABSOLUTE
FUCKERS
Wow, I got a kind of fuzzy feeling right in the middle of all that rage. Must be the alcohol working!
Lookie lookie. Time for more pain!
That's a... unique death animat
...now they tell me?!
Not even Robin takes off more than ~700 points per rasp. Meanwhile, Skull Dragon II: The Quickening pelts you with ailments, including Zombie. Did I remember to equip Ribbons? Of course not!
Our reward for finally killing him and dissolving the "seal of darkness" is stairs.
And this.
I, uh, it certainly is, well, that is to say... next, please?
JUST YOU WAIT YOU GREEN LITTLE FUCKERS THE DAY OF RECKONING IS NIGH
Hey.
Weird thing.
Let's poke it.
Palette swaps!
Nothing but physical attacks!
Invisibility!
Death!
There's more things.
There, that should teach him to
what
GO AWAY
All of my hatred.
All of it.
How many of these things are there?
Abyss Worm uses Gravity Bomb.
Robin uses Ultima.
Advantage: Robin.
Look, another palette swap!
Fuck off.
I have nothing even remotely interesting to say about this thing.
Just die please okay thanks.
Here's a teleporter that will take us back to the land of the living.
And the land of little green fuckers who kick people off bridges and can not be killed.
I'm not sure I want to go back.
What the hell is this doing here?
Oh, wait, did you remember reading something somewhere about inner eyes?
I believe the industry standard for this message is "heard a distant noise..." but I'll let this pass.
Because I don't have a choice.
Unless I want to hack the game again.
And I don't.
Look, it's an item I could buy endless copies of!
Look, it's a dragon I could kill endless copies of!
That aside, Holy Dragon: First Blood Part Two is a bit of a dick. He likes to spam Saintly Beam (or a move called something along those lines at any rate) and he'll randomly do it up to three times per round.
He also has a good chance to cast Curaga on himself any time you hit him, for 6000+ recovery.
But he can't counter when he's frozen in time, and it just so happens that stopping time is my favourite method of dragon-slaying.
My favourite method of everything-slaying, really.
The reward for breaking the "seal of heaven" is the Zanmato, a holy-elemental sword for MrThou, who is sure to find it usefuhahahahahahaha sorry I just can't
ahem
let's move on, shall we?
CAVE TILESET
and in my days our hidden treasure boxes actually had something useful in them!
...
...nah. Must just be the rum making me see double.
Anyway, there are three more stones and they have, in order THEK, INGO and FDRA written on them because just putting the last one first is surely enough to confuse your average JRPG player. And above them -
nnnngh are you even trying
all right, fine. Gold Dragon 2: Dragon Harder is under permanent Runic status.
Do you remember what Runic does? I know I haven't mentioned it in forever, but I actually used the skill once, honestly, it's true, it's in the archives somewhere.
(I mean, it would have been useful in a certain tower, in a fight against a certain magic master against whom it would have been nice to be able to absorb things like, oh, say, ULTIMA except the fight took place in a location that locks off all commands but items and magic so we couldn't use it.)
But he's still weak against water damage and Flood isn't affected by Runic meaning the quickest and easiest way to kill him is completely unaffected by his stupid gimmick OOPS.
We get the Zwill Crossblade for killing it, and I'm not even going to bother to show you the stats because it's not as if it's ever going to see use.
Now we're given the option of carving something here and of course we're going to carve THEK INGO FDRA GOONS no wait fuck
that's the ticket. It's bullshit, of course; I already have Bahamut in my pocket and whatever I'm about to bury under this rock is only a pale imitation.
Anyway, writing the right words opens a door to the right. I wonder what would happen if you had to get this far by trial and error. It's kind of hard to ctrl-Z on a stone tablet.
A door behind which there's more stairs than I ever want to see in one place ever again.
But at least it's not a goddamn cave and hey, look, a teleporting thingy!
I take it back, stairs are cool!
Top left: Ribbon (you know what this does). Bottom left: Bone Wrist (you don't care what this does).
Top right:
He casts Doom on everybody the first thing he does. Oh, it's so cute, he actually thinks the battle is going to last 15 seconds!
Finally, a piece of equipment for someone I give a fuck about! Pity it sucks. Same Magic boost as the Magus rod, better attack (because I really care) and a speed boost... but it lacks the +30 M-EV bonus, which is something I'd much rather have.
Last remaining chest... oh, good.
Holy shit, Cat-Ear Hood!
Also, Gungnir.
Like Tim's "Lance of Longness" or whatever it's called, it lacks the "is actually a spear" flag because the only way Square Enix can make a decent video game is if they stumble into it completely by accident.
It's actually not bad for Galuf, though; he can't use swords or rods so it's the best Magic boost he's going to get.
Also: holy shit is that ice shield redundant. Thanks, auto-equip.
And here, completely unguarded, Alfred's special weapon.
Like the Angel Brush, it wants to be a Magus Rod and fails miserably. It does have a chance of dropping a meteor on the enemy if you hit someone with it, though!
(insert standard "why would you attack physically with anyone at all ever and especially with goddamn alfred of all people holy shit how useless can this weapon get" message here because I can't be arsed to type it up all over again)
Want.
Obtained.
Crystal Orb, Genji Glove...
...don't even ask.
Just get them the hell away from me.
Fast.
Cat-Ear Hood!
Also, they drop an Oborozuki.
This is... a weapon that doesn't actually completely suck! That's some nice physical evade, and Batman (who is the only one who can use this weapon) can't use the Lightbringer anyway.
This is entirely unguarded.
It puts even the cat-ear hood to shame! If it weren't for the minor detail of who can use it and how likely it is that I'll ever have him in my party again.
This is proper usage of a secret optional dungeon.
Hmmm... now, doesn't this feel somewhat familiar...?
Don't ask how Galuf ended up on the left side instead, it is a long and boring story involving far too much running around caves with recycled tilesets and little green douchebags.
Holy shit, I actually made it past level 40!
Oh hey, you're using Ultima Weapon's sprite.
You slaughter my brethren, and befoul their rest with the profanity of your continued existence...
You should not have come here.
In the name of all dragonkind, I shall grant you the death you so desire.
I am the dealer of destruction...
I am the font from which fear springs...
I am Kaiser...
And your time is at an end.
No.
Fuck you. Your time is at an end.
As soon as Gambit stops sucking so hard.
Batarangs!
Okay, that's better. Good job, Gambit.
And of course he knows Ultima, and of course he finishes with it before dying, is anyone honestly surprised by this?
I'm actually somewhat disappointed at how easy that was.
Kaiser has 65000+ HP, but recharges when he "dies" and you have to deplete it five times.
He uses some generic attacks and keeps using Barrier Change to change his weakness, but no one cares about weaknesses any more.
Our reward is the last esper.
HP +100% is pretty impressive.
Gravija is new, and hits enemies for 7/8 of their HP.
This might have been useful if you could pick it up earlier, but probably not.
They say there's a shrine on an island to the west of Mobliz where the souls of fallen monsters dwell...
If you've already finished your main quest, why not pay it a visit sometime?
Well then, please enjoy the rest of your adventures!
to you too, tutorial imp! I was kind of hoping you had died when the world ended.But what's this about another new dungeon? You're telling me I haven't suffered enough?
I'm... going to need more rum.