Part 12: Nehemiah

So, let's head to Terra and take down the Gaia Masters to reclaim the orbs and end this (confusing) plot of theirs once and for all.



: The monsters are waiting in Terra.



Time to take on Vae- actually, um, since he has just shy of 5000 HP (4680 to be exact), and has some good stats to go with it let's not actually do this yet. No, rather, let's reload to just before entering Terra and do some real preparation since Belial is much tougher than Mephisto.



We'll start by going to the Monster Nest as we can now talk to plants and there's one here we can speak to in order to make things easier on ourselves;



: Do you remember me? This is Hata.
: You must have come here seeking the power of the "Force." Go back to Ramuh and obtain the Light Dew from the Sacred Tree.

So, wait... that Hata guy is Michael?! That... sure came out of nowhere actually. The fifth and final Gaia Master is just a guy who was hanging around with a fairy this entire time? Seems rather anti-climactic, doesn't it? He's not evil but he's still a Gaia Master, so naturally we won't see him do anything in the main plot.



: You're the Gaia Master who was enlightened by the Force. Now, take this Light Dew with you.



What we have this for is really unclear, but if we head to an island just east of Atlantis we can find the one place where we use it. Fortunately, this isn't a random guess; the manual tells you this. A few people in-game comment on the place we're off... but don't tell you where to find it, unfortunately.



Nova is one of two optional towns in the game, and it's the only one really worth detouring to because there are so many things to get for free here. Just north of the entrance, we can find Hata... er, I mean Michael who'll give us the first of them.



: You're the kind of person who should obtain the Force.



It's not quite the Force, but Shock 2 is still quite nice. It's not as good as a spell Enkidu's going to get just north of here but it's good for what it is.



Yes. Holy 3... the most powerful spell in the game for raw damage. It will deal 900+ to anything, but of course it takes ages to charge. 4 turns for one powerful blast of damage isn't as effective as it sounds when you're getting almost outdamaged by one person alone in that same time period. Holy 1 was quite nice when we first got it, since it went off every other turn and would easily outdamage anyone else in the same time period.



Inside the one building just west of Michael, we can find the best equipment and they're all for Samuel. Not that I'm being a jerk and giving him this just because he's the main character or anything, but because he's the only one that can actually use them.



Here's that Solion guy Cerberus mentioned when we spoke to him a while back. We've seen Solion before, at Ramuh like he implies, but we didn't bother to speak with him because it wouldn't have achieved much of anything beyond "ohey you can talk to animals now. That's cool."

: I was dying until Michael saved me. Now, Cerberus and Orthrus, return to your original body!



Okay, so when I said they couldn't fuse that was technically a lie; this is the only real time a fusion occurs without using the Combine spell. You could argue the zombie vitality restoring thing is fusing with itself... somehow... based on the animation, but that's really stretching it.



Solion is quite nice for how long you have to wait for him. There's no reason to not use him since he's better than most any other demon you have access to, and Spark 2 is what he'll mostly be using. Note how he has both Heal 3 and Heal All 3... he literally makes non-zombie Amon functionally superfluous just by existing. Spark is better than Impact, in every way, and he even has Holy 2 to boot. Holy 2, as you'd expect, takes 3 turns of casting to perform the spell for around 3-500 damage a pop. Not bad, but still takes too many turns of doing nothing for my liking. Spark 2 is a quick and instant 2-300 (in most cases) so it'll deal either similar or outright more over the few turns it costs to charge and cast Holy 2.

Entering the room behind Solion lets Samuel get his final two spells, and one of them you'll know already. The other kinda sucks, but both it and Shock 2 are made useless by the other anyway.



Anyway, the other sprite here is unique so they must be an important character. They most definitely are, and they're someone we've potentially seen a few times by now.



: Gaia is power... The Force is harmony. When these two are combined, the universe will shine again. Now, go on with your quest... Samuel! May all the life in the universe watch over you!



...What? You thought I was kidding when I made that remark about becoming a Jedi? That'd be silly. Samuel can literally control the Force now. Gonna Force Choke Vader Lucifer.



I think we're ready now. There's nothing left to do this side of the Petrography, so let's go on and meet Belial head to head now that we can take him down reasonably quick.



: But I still can't give you the Orb.



Okay, so Belial (Vaerial is just a really, really bad mistranslation) is probably the second hardest boss fight in the game. Dude is strong, fast and resists magic a fair bit; even the Force deals less damage than just outright stabbing him. Still, this is the one fight in which having Solion use Holy 2 is actually beneficial and it's also the only time Amon is more useful than Dragon. In spite of resisting magic, he resists ice spells a bit less than anything else from what I can tell so having Kirin spam that deals a bit more damage. Holy 3 completely massacres anything, and Belial is no exception. The fight takes so long that casting it is legitimately beneficial. It doesn't shave that much time off in the grand scheme of things, and Belial will try and inflict fun things like sleep and death so it's still risky due to the annoyingly long charge time.



With Belial put out to pasture, we make it to Terra which is an entire island large and has all of three attractions; the pink cave, the blue... thing and a hidden cave.



The pink cave by the blue thing is a free healing spot. The one downside to it, is that it doesn't revive anyone and some random encounters here really enjoy throwing Curse 2 around.



The hidden cave over is to the northwest of the other two places and you could walk it if you really wanted to. The random encounters on the Terra "world map" are easy enough too; you never fight more than one thing at a time. It's like they're trying to lull you into a false sense of security.



This Shrine of Monsters serves exactly one purpose; to give your other party members their ultimate gear too. The Omega stuff is for Kali, and there's no shield because she can't use one. I guess that makes sense, but she's only been able to wear a handful of robes for armour until now. I guess she needs something a bit more sturdy to take on the prince of darkness.



The Alpha stuff is for Enkidu, as you could guess at this point. There's no shield for him, because... um... the game kinda forgot? It's as good an excuse as anything else I can think of. Poor guy's just stuck with the Photon Shield for the final fights.

Anyway, heading back to the blue thing we can find out that it is the final dungeon;