Part 9: I don't kick Dadaluma's ass

Chapter 8 - I don't kick Dadaluma's ass



Before we go with the party you guys chose for me, let's do some optional cutscenes first.



First, we take Sabin and Edgar to Figaro Castle to do their cutscene.











Namely, the moment the former king dies, and the aftermath.





Sabin isn't taking things well, of course, pissed at everybody for how they're handling this.











Edgar, being a total bro in more ways than one, uses his fancy double-headed coin to let Sabin live his dreams while he takes the burden of leading Figaro.



It never really sunk in for me that these brothers have been separated for ten years. They seem so casual when they first see each other again, like they see each other on holidays or whatever rather than Sabin living his dream of owning a cottage, drinking tea, and suplexing bears.

Still, it's a nice scene that shows how much the brothers care for each other while kind of putting a cap on further development, considering they don't really get anything in the World of Ruin besides Sabin learning Bum Rush and Edgar freeing his castle later.





Also, there's no more discount anymore. And I forgot to buy the new tools here, not that it matters since I'm not using Edgar right now.



Now for Locke's tragic backstory.



Namely, how he's keeping his ex-girlfriend's corpse preserved in the off-chance he finds a way to bring back the dead.



...WHAT THE FUCK!?







Really cool stuff, probably. I hear there's a Main Gauche here, and a Power Glove. Those would really help with my offense. But first, let me walk onto this bridge that looks ready to fall apart and-



If you didn't just push me off suddenly, the bridge probably wouldn't have broke!







Rachel's spill ends up getting her amnesia, causing Locke to leave and forget about her.



And then she dies, driving Locke nuts and leading to him preserving Rachel's corpse and being obsessed with protecting women.





So I decided that the most logical action was to take her corpse and have the local nutjob preserve it until I could find a way to raise the dead.
Isn't that a little...fucked up? Like, maybe you should accept that she's dead and move on from this?
What do you mean? I thought everyone preserved their loved ones' corpses.
I've got our parents stored in Figaro's basement.
Hey, you really do care!
Northerners are weird...



Enough of that. Let's get to our party. You guys voted for Sabin's scenario 2.0, so here we are.



And that guy's basement would start getting pretty crowded if I had to stuff her corpse there, too!



Narshe doesn't really have much in the way of new items, having around the same stuff as Nikeah but less. We can pick up this Switchblade, which boosts Speed by 5 and lets the user randomly steal things, plus there's another Magic Cube which may come in handy once we finally get magic.



The only new weapons are the Boomerang and Flail, both of which enjoy full power from the back row, and both of which offer no stat bonuses. The Boomerangs can be dual-wielded, while the Flail can instant-kill an enemy. However, our current party can't equip them, so they're of no use to us.



To Kohligen!



First, we gotta go to Kohligen to recruit Shadow.





Kohligen has some new stuff. The Poison claws can randomly cast Poison and are Poison-elemental. Since Zozo is full of humans, these are fantastic upgrades for Sabin.



The Mythril Kite is a nice shield upgrade, though hilariously my party has the three characters who can't use shields, so only Gau likes it. This is also the first time we can buy Head Bands, which is literally a Bandana which also boosts Vigor by 3.



Colosseum guy has a Bolt Scroll instead of a Hero Ring now. Meh.





Switchblade's auto-steal is only worth it against humans, of course.







I decide to go to the Veldt to learn stuff, but apparently there's nothing new right now. Oh well, live and learn.



Though I did get to do one of Shadow's dreams in Nikeah, where he dreamt he was a soldier trying to seduce a singer before his leg cramps screwed him over.







Undead die when their MP hits 0. Mindblow does a flat 500MP damage, and most regular enemies only have 500MP.



Exocite rage can use the awesome Plasma ability as its more common attack.



There's nothing quite like suplexing a bird. Besides suplexing many other things, of course.





I'm kind of overleveled right now, to the point where I start running from encounters just so I don't gain more. Fire Dance hasn't changed that much, though Empowerer now absorbs HP and MP while inflicting Seizure. Of course, Cyan can't do more damage than he can drain, but it's a nifty way to both drain and inflict Seizure.



I play with the Repo Man rage, which casts Step Mine and inflicts Vanish on the party. Handy against a physical-heavy overworld.





More enemies that I'm steamrolling at this point. The Buggers can cast Haste, which is annoying.







Jidoor's still full of snobs, but the equipment's great.



The Tiara and White Dress give hefty Magic and magic defense bonuses, though they're female-only of course. Mythril Vests give more defense, which Sabin would rather have thanks to Black Belt, while Ninja Gear give more evasion, which Shadow and Gau prefer.



Kikuichi can cast Stone, though I never really notice it since I just Dispatch everything in Zozo thanks to its double damage to humans. Kodachi can cast Wind Slash on everybody, which is handy when you're dual-wielding them. I alternate between Switchblade and two Kodachis for Shadow.



Even the item shop is overpriced! The DaVinci Brush is random since only Relm and Gogo can use it.



The Hyper Wrist gives auto-berserk, though no stat boosts. On the flip side, the Stat Stick does nothing but boost stats, but it boosts everything by 5 and also gives 1/8 boosts to HP and MP, though the HP/MP boosts don't stack with other equipment.

Relic-wise, I end up having Shadow with the Sprint Shoes and Knight Cape because 94 evasion, Gau with a Magic Cube and Stat Stick since he has nothing better to use, Sabin with the Black Belt and Life Bell since Cyan can drain HP now and Sabin likes regen more, and Cyan with the Jewel Ring and Power Glove because he likes overkill (especially with 312 Battle Power at this point).



And with that, let's tackle Zozo.





Welcome to Zozo, the greatest place in the world!



None of the enemies are human, so poison and Dispatch won't wreck their shit as bad!



Also, Wind Slash sure isn't great against groups here!





And Cyan? Still doing pathetic damage!







The clock puzzle has been overhauled so it isn't just the same solution as the original except with Roman numerals!





The Slamdancers are actually beefed up considerably, casting the more-powerful Fire 3 now, and not a weaker Fire spell to make them less deadly.





Don't forget that everyone in Zozo always tells the truth. And the NPCs do not still mostly give you hints about solving the clock puzzle. Newcomers are screwed!



Here's what the the Thief Glove doesn't do: Change Steal to Mug and boost damage by 1/4 while giving sizable Vigor and Speed bonuses.

Here's what the Thief Glove does do: Suck.





Gone is the Gigas's deadly Magnitude death move.



The Hell Claw isn't that great thanks to a very low power boost and random Berserk cast, but it's definitely worth using against the upcoming non-human boss over two Poison Claws, which is why I equip it.



See, even Dadaluma is kind enough to let us get to Terra without beating us up.





Hey...he was lying!

Lying gimmick over, let's go over Dadaluma, who's apparently been a big roadblock for a few people in this hack.



His first move was Shock Wave, which he only bust out that one time. Apparently, all his other moves can be cheesed with Vanish through the Repo Man rage, though I don't do that here.



Standard procedure is to inflict Seizure on a boss through Pummel or Empowerer.





Cyan is a beast now thanks to that Power Glove.



I have Gau go Vaporite rage for Regen, though casting SlowX also helps when it hits, plus Blaze isn't too shabby.



And of course, Suplex because it's Suplex.





Slim Jim is a Dried Meat that grants Regen, and here lies the trick to beating Dadaluma. It's going to be hard to beat him in a damage race with freaking Regen there, right?





Also, after eating a Slim Jim he jumps on a character.



But remember, Regen and Seizure override each other. The trick is to re-inflict Seizure after he uses Regen. After taking a nasty hit, Cyan has a good excuse to use Empowerer, regaining his HP and inflicting Seizure again.





Shocker inflicts damage and Stop, which is pesky.



Anyway, I have Sabin use two Poison Claws still, as they do big damage, especially when Poison decides to trigger. These wreck the shit out of his regular blitzes here.





Dadaluma will also summon Fighters, but they're scrubs.



In the end, it's Seizure that does him in.





Anyway, a bit more cutscene to go.





What?
I do believe she suffered a bit of a fright and panicked for a brief moment.
Oh, okay.



You don't look like a monster or anything.
We can look human, too. Of course, I ended up looking like an old geezer, so I got kinda screwed in the looks department.



There's unique dialogue here depending on who's the "lead." Usually it's Locke, but you can bring only Gau and actually see him have unique dialogue here if you really wanted.

Also love that tiny bit of foreshadowing involving that woman Shadow once knew.

We lived together for awhile, but things didn't really work out due to people wanting to kill us and take our powers, so we got a new place and chilled there for a thousand years or so. At least until that dickbag Gestahl came in and started kidnapping us.





What about Terra?
She'll be fine once she learns to accept who she is.
I mean, she's lying in the ground and stuff.
Well, pick her up and put her back in bed. I'm an old man, I can't lift her myself or anything.



You didn't have to throw her on the bed.



But you guys should really free my friends at the Magitek Research Facility. I'd appreciate it.
Eh, why would I bother doing that?
You could use their corpses to cast magic.









Fuck yeah!



Ladies and gentlemen, we have espers.



This is the big feature of this hack, and one that was previously thought impossible or at least crazy-difficult to do. Now, only certain characters can equip certain espers. For instance, Cyan can only equip Kirin.



Espers themselves have been overhauled. Now they'll boost multiple stats by 1, or one stat by 2. Some can also increase HP/MP by static amounts rather than a percentage of the HP/MP gained that level. And spell lists were overhauled so each one only gives a max of three spells, though learning rates for spells only go as low as x2 to learn rather than x1.

Let's look at the espers we've got now. Characters are the ones who can use the espers, while the number next to spells is its learning rate. All this info is gotten from the Printme file.

Name: Ramuh
Characters: Celes, Locke
Stat Boosts: Vigor +2
Spells: Bolt (20), Bolt 2 (4), Demi (2)

Name: Kirin
Characters: Locke, Cyan
Stat Boosts: HP +30/Stamina +1
Spells: Cure (20), Cure 2 (4), Life (2)

Name: Siren
Characters: Celes, Edgar
Stat Boosts: Magic +1, Speed +1
Spells: Mute (10), Sleep (5), Slow (4)

Name: Stray
Characters: Sabin, Gau
Stat Boosts: Stamina +2
Spells: Imp (10), Bserk (5), Muddle (4)



Anyway, everyone else came and decided to not really do anything to help.



More than four people in a group is just weird. I can't stand talking to more than three people at a time.





Only on the condition that you don't keep my corpse if I die.
No promises.
Shit.



And by that, I mean only two more people. Five or six people going somewhere together is just weird.
And don't forget to equip these rocks to learn magic spells from.





What an odd fellow.



While I could have you guys vote on a party, I'll choose this one myself. Since Sabin and Gau both share access to the only Esper they can currently equip, it wouldn't be wise to bring both along, and since Sabin can suplex and Gau can't, Sabin wins. And then Edgar sat out last time, so I'll bring him along as well. And of course Locke and Celes are required because plot.

So basically, the same party most people would probably take to Vector.

Next time, magic, opera, a gambler, and an octopus. Yes, it's the renowned Opera House scene.