Part 147: Brinan Plateau

Aside from the addition of Vanish, Kung-Fu Master and Gargoyle are literally just recolors of previous bosses with higher stats. Slug Fish would fall into that category, but the Lure's Entice can inflict confusion.

Twin Typhoon is completely unique to Leviathan, though. At least, I think it'd be kinda unfair for the Squid King to unleash an attack like that.

Honestly, I'd say that the Lord's Ghost is probably the most unique in that you don't encounter the boss he's a palette swap of until you can no longer do the bonus dungeons. But that's still a ways off.

Also: to clear up a misconception, the April Fool's update wasn't about a dummied-out debug area in the game, but rather the intro of Grandia Digital Museum, a separate game for the Saturn that basically functions as a debug museum.

I do plan to show it off in English, but kinda have to wait until the end of this LP. What with the casual spoilers and all.

Also: update.

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Welcome back!



Finally, we can take the next step towards Laine.

And, uh... kinda steamroll our way through the rest of the game, what with nothing left to distract us and all.





: Y'all are used to warm places, Rapp, this'll be a mite intense.

: What? There's no such mountain that this Rapp can't cross.

: If'n y'all's so tough, all right! Well, let's go!

Thankfully, the Brinan Plateau is much shorter and more forgiving than our previous escapades.

To start with, every monster here is weak to fire. All two of 'em.




Snow Boars can use Paralyze Fluid, which causes paralysis, and All Together!, which summons a few more boars.

Mountain Apes can attack normally, attack by throwing a snowball at one target, or attack a small area by smashing the ground.

They, uh... they're not particularly interesting.



Yes, Milda is now doing more than 250 damage per hit. Granted, that's because she's exploiting an elemental weakness with an endgame weapon, but still.



Turns out that the Scales aren't an equippable accessory, like the Etheral and Astral miracles. Just keeping them in a character's inventory activates their effect, but only for monsters killed by that character.

Thankfully, killing things is what Milda does best.



Splitter at +4 power is just insane.



I'll try to find an excuse to chuck this at someone.



These, though... Mountain Apes can drop Mikeroma scrolls, which heal the whole party for 50 HP. Not the greatest, especially when you've got someone trying to train up their water magic.

Still, they'd've been great to have earlier.



The first area here has a little frozen lake. With monsters sliding around all over the place.



With a thematically-appropriate treasure, I guess?



BA-BOOM!. For when you absolutely, positively must explode every last motherfucker on the battlefield. It's a little bit weaker, but also a little bit cheaper, MP-wise, than DragonZap.

Which is important, because it means Feena can actually cast it.





Like most level three nukes, BA-BOOM! kind of annihilates things, especially if it hits a weakness.



Justin, however, does have the MP to cast DragonZap.

I'm not sure if Feena is programmed to have a lower chance of gaining level 3 MP, or if I've just always been unlucky with her.



Also in the same battle, Rapp finally hits Earth 6 and learns something besides Diggin' that he can spam for earth XP.

With a few more water levels under his belt, Rapp'll round out his level 1 spell list and start to actually be useful, magic-wise.



In a later battle, Rapp gains a level. With Feena so far ahead in Wit, and Milda so far behind, Rapp and Justin will be jockeying for second place. At least until one of them picks up a sword and/or starts spamming fire magic.

... y'know, for someone without access to maces, Rapp's doing pretty darn good on the vitality front.



Crap, crap, crap, I keep on forgetting about these things.



The place is pretty linear, though. There are a few side paths, but they are all either short dead-ends with treasure, or quickly loop back to the main path.



The gimmick of the second areas is that there are these snowballs. Push them, and they'll form bridges across narrow gaps.



Leading to stuff like this.

I'm sure this would have been far more impressive if we hadn't just raided all the bonus dungeons, though.



Aww, jeez, another one?



This one, though, would be more impressive if Magic block was worth using.



Towards the end of the area, there's this monster-filled loop. That you can completely bypass. If, y'know, you're into that sort of thing.



This one might actually come in handy. Maybe. At some point.



Rapp hits Water 5 and picks up this little number. Poizn, as the name implies, attempts to cause the poison status to a group of enemies.

Anything worth using it on is probably immune, but at least it's an offensive spell that grants earth XP.



And, shortly thereafter, we finally find ourselves at Laine Village.

This game does a pretty decent job with gradually increasing the scope of our adventures. Back in Parm, taking a train to the mines just outside of town was a big deal.

Once we got to Elencia, it was again a pretty big deal to go to the nearby dungeons, but we were doing so on foot, and having to deal with the intervening terrain.

Once we crossed the End of the World, though, the trek from Dight to Gumbo just got a brief "Oh yeah, it'll take a few days, let's have dinner" mention, despite crossing the majority of the continent.

And now, our journey to Laine went from one end of the continent to the other, across the desert and mountains, and nobody's even batted an eyelash at it. Sure, without the bonus dungeons, it's a bit shorter than it wound up being, but still...



We really did just cross most of the continent. In fact...



According to Mullen's globe here, Zil Padon, at the north shore of that oddly-circular bay, lies just about on the equator. This would put Laine solidly in the southern hemisphere.

In case, y'know, that's important or anything.

See you next time!

: +1, +1, +1

: +1, +1, +1, +1

: +3 +1, +1, +1, +2

: +1