Part 4: Numbers

: We need to know what they really are.



We don't know at the moment what we need to do with this, since we haven't wandered into the one other place available right now. It stands to reason, however, that we need to go there.

Oh, and if you talk to the other guy then he tells you that he took the kids back to Moila. So, they're safe and don't need us to bail them out of trouble again.



The West "Shrine" is a ridiculously linear cave that takes somewhere in the region of 10 seconds to traverse and doesn't even have random encounters or anything. It's our only path through the mountains, though, so we have to put up with it.



With the Pass, this guy will move out of the way. He's just an arbitrary roadblock to stop you from getting even more overpowered equiment, or, more realistically, he's here to stop you getting eaten alive by the monsters past here at like level 3.



There's a town right by the cave because, um... it's good for tourism? I'd be more inclined to believe that, though, if they had a stuffed Flamesaurus. (Spoilers: They don't have a stuffed Flamesaurus.)



Harappa is a super boring town. It only serves to tell you about the plot hook for this next part of the game. I mean, come on, there's not even a shop or anything!



It does, thankfully, have an inn that we can use. We might as well, since it's cheap enough.





Well, that was easy. Now, where do we look first to find Uranus?



: Ramuh is a beautiful town located on the other side of the South Sea.

You would think, that at this point they'd be just taking random mythology names out of a hat or by throwing darts or something, right? Actually, no! Ramuh is a mispelling of Ramah, and since it's mentioned to be a city there's only one thing it can logically be referencing; a city of ancient Israel;


I might be imagining this one, since no other town we've seen (mentioned) so far references anything but I can't help but think it was intentional at least on some level. If I'm completely and utterly wrong with this, feel free to correct me.



The town to the south is a place that's been mentioned before, though it was by an unimportant NPC so you might have forgotten it.



As you may (not) remember, Meruha is the place a female NPC in Arrow said her sister was.



It's a nice bit of detail that we can, indeed, find her sister in Meruha waiting to get home. It's a shame we can't do anything about this ourselves, but at least its there. I guess by ensuring that peace returns eventually, or at least doing the grunt work so the higher ups can do that, we're kind of helping in this regard?



What, you really thought that a section of the game based around rescuing a character named Uranus was just going to leave that as is and not bring up something else relevant to Greek mythology?



: Obtained $600

In some random house that's empty we can find the first two treasure chests that are ripe for looting. The Magnetite will possibly come in handy later (depending on whether or not I remember to use it), but we can't do anything with it for a while so I'd store it in the Bank to save on precious inventory spaces.



I, er, I think that Zord is a mistranslation but I really don't know for sure (nor can I guess what it'd be a mistranslation of). It just stands out as being completely random and doesn't make sense otherwise. Maybe someone who's played the original version can explain this one, because I don't have a clue.



The armour store (there is no weapon store) has some nice new things we can buy if we're willing to grind for like an hour. I'm not, so I just buy a Wolf Shield for Enkidu and eventually pick one up for Samuel as well before moving on. The Shock Armour would be nice, but it is way too goddamn expensive to be worth it right now.



The item store actually has some nice things in it for once. Pana are expensive for a reason; they restore MP. I get that, for whatever reason, MP restoration is a rare thing in RPGs and whenever its not the items are far more expensive than they have any right to be. I get the logic, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about it.

Silph Wings take you back to the last town you used an inn at. Good for fast travel, I guess, but pretty useless in general. Also they drop from Harpies if you really want one so badly.



I pretty much picked this guy up for fusion fodder later, since he's nothing to write home about.



He does, however, allow me to bench Harpy at last though since he can heal better than she can, hits harder than she can and can even heal Poison. Unfortunately, the last one isn't as useful as it sounds since, other than unconsciousness, no status ailment persists after battle.



Just south of Meruha is another... new... town...?



Nah, it's the Shrine of Hypnos. We need to use this to reach Ramuh, somehow.



The Shrine of Hypnos takes you through the Corridor of Dreams. There's being heavy-handed with your references, and then there's this. I don't get why they're spelling this one out so blatantly; so any younger players get that it's a reference, maybe?



Contrived complaining aside, we're actually on a new continent now! We can go back and forth between the two whenever we want to by using the Shrine of Hypnos, just in case you want something from earlier for whatever reason. I guess getting some of the monsters from back there might not hurt, but the ones here are just plain better.