Part 26: The Frontier.

You know, it's been a long time since we've taken a look at our characters' stats. Let's take a look before we head out to the Frontier.











Everyone else seems to have largely caught up with Alex in level, especially Nash. The ladies definitely fell behind, with poor Jessica being eight levels lower than Alex. You may also notice that Alex currently has less attack power than Nash. That won't be true for long, as Alex will gain attack power as he levels and Nash will not, but that's still kind of sad. We'll have to remedy that.




"You're going to activate the spring again? Great! Now I lose my favorite sleeping spot!"

Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.





With that done, let's head to the Frontier!





Oh right first we have to do the Dark Cave.

The Dark Cave is completely absent from the remake, as is the second transfer spring. As I have mentioned before, you fly there instead.

And in that version, it's also the moment Nash betrays you.



I always find this part interesting. Not only does Nash's betrayal have way more consequences in the remake (first most being that he's out of your party for longer; as a matter of fact, you don't have him for pretty much the entire Frontier), it also raises some questions about his "betrayal" in the original too. In the remake, Nash admits he's been feeding information to Ghaleon and his goons for this whole time. It's explicitly not a double-cross like it is in the original. But it leads me to wonder if in this version Nash intended it to be a double-cross the whole time. How similar/dissimilar are the situations? We never get an answer, so it's all speculation.

But enough of interesting things. Let's focus back on the Dark Cave. So. Dark Cave.



There is both an ascending and descending staircase. We start on B4 and are trying to work our way up, but we start on the wrong side of B4. So the correct answer is the descending staircase that conveniently is just north of the starting position. The ascending staircase leads to a fucking Mint Essence. That's it. (It cures sleeping and confusion for the whole party if you remember, and I don't blame you if you don't) Furthermore, you have to go further out of the way to get it. That's going to become something of a theme in this dungeon.

Anyway, you go down a floor and up to the other side of B4. From there, just head up to B3. On B3, head immediately to your left and go up the stairs. Or go all the way down and to the left to find some treasure that's totally worth it. By which I mean a Silver Light and a Calm herb.

Anywho, head up to B2. Again, you go directly left back down to a different portion of B3. From here you just head left again, go up to B2 (again!) and it's a pretty easy path to the end.

So, yeah, that's how you get through the dungeon. Constantly go up and down stairs (usually going directly to your left) until you reach the end. Or you can search for shit treasure and get yourself lost.

Actually, there is one piece of... fascinating treasure. When you first arrive on B2 you can go down, across, and up the stairs to an isolated section of B1. All to find...



An item that increases encounter rates.



By the way, it does work. Works quite well. So I got to fight my fair share of-



The same damn enemies I fought in The Demon Who Shall Not Be Named's Cave. The only differences are that those weird face motherfuckers with tons of HP appear in larger numbers, the Slicers are gone, and there is one new enemy.



Spider Crabs. Are not worth talking about. Also, the Cursed Faces were called Slice O' Dead in the previous dungeon. Consistency!

There is one upside to this whole dungeon, though.




Yes, Mia learns four spells in this dungeon (she learned the fifth one outside of the dungeon, but I'm including it anyway). She also gained five levels. Her spell procession is a bit fucked up. Ice Wall (which she gets at level 37) and its upgrade Blizzard (level 38) are multi-target spells. Yeap. And she went nearly ten levels without an upgrade to her all-target spells earlier.

Spill Attack and Spliter also deserve some mention. Both are single-target spells, Spill Attack coming first and costing less. Spill Attack also does more damage. I've heard some speculate that perhaps Spliter was meant to be a multi-target version of Spill Attack, but their animations are completely different, so I don't know.

And Wind Blast... is an MP-sucking spell. I haven't tested it out yet, but it's certainly unique in that few other Lunar games have MP drain spells.

Now for Jessica, both Holy Defender and Magic Defense are single-target protective spells. Not terribly great. Rest Litany, however, is her long-await upgrade to her single-target heal spell. Despite being the designated healer, she's not been much better at it then anyone else, but finally she's starting to get better healing spells.

Nash's single spell isn't all that interesting, just another multi-target spell. What is notable is that it is his last spell. That's it. At a mere level 41.

Glow Beam is another all-target spell for Alex. I neglected to mention it, but his Dashing Flame from last update is the last single-target spell he will get in the game.

Whew, that's a lot of spells. But that's pretty much all there is to say about this dungeon crawl. Let's just cut to the end.




Welcome to the Frontier.





Pretty soon we meet the new enemies. These guys are... not too tough. It's actually a nice breather from the Dark Cave. The birdies are fast with decent HP, but not too strong. The lizards pack a wallop, though.

Still, you might be hurting from the Dark Cave, and the only healing shrine nearby is an HP shrine to the north. So we head south instead.



Fortunately for us, there lies a settlement to the south. Not sure what quite to expect of it.

Before we go in, I probably need to mention something. Any of you who played the remakes are probably a little confused at the moment. Why?



This is what the Frontier looks like in the remakes.

It's not just the vast aesthetic difference that's striking. That picture I showed you? That was pretty much the entirety of the Frontier in the remake. Now, the world map in the remakes is much smaller than the Sega-CD games simply because they removed enemies from the world map. Even still, the Frontier is noticeably small in the remakes. That's certainly not sure of the original.

(You also can't use the Dragon Wings on the Frontier in the remakes. You can in the original, and thank goodness you can.)




Despite the ominous music and the fascinating abundance of beast men, it looks... normal.



Welcome to Cadin.

In addition to being smaller, the remake's version of the Frontier had less towns. As a matter of fact, it only had one area that one could consider a "town." Although Cadin exists in the remake... kind of. They basically took a single building that existed for a single scene and called it Cadin.

Essentially, though, it doesn't exist in the newer versions. So what is this town like the original?


"The light from Althena does not shine here, so the land is barren. Be careful, monsters of the Vile Tribe are everywhere! On the Frontier, our only hope is to survive to see the next day..."


"The life we lead is barely human. We must forage for food and remain on guard against attacks from the Vile Tribe. The strongest man in our village serves Ghaleon. That's why we're relatively safe... But, other villages are suffering because of this arrangement."

But you could have guessed that. Although they must not be that bad off, considering they sell Herbs of Althena in the store.


(seriously)

As you may have noticed, these people are not Vile Tribe. Despite this area being so barren it was where Althena decided to banish the most evil of beings, there are others that live there. This raises a number of questions. Furthermore, it's especially odd that they're all beastmen. Or are they reformed Vile Tribe, or a splinter group? Maybe we'll get more insight as we move along... In any case, in the remake the only the Vile Tribe lived on the Frontier.

Still, kind of curious about this "deal" they've struck.


"My father is the strongest soldier at the Talon mine. Some people are saying my father's making it hard on the miners of Talon. I don't believe them. My dad's too nice a guy to cause trouble like that."


"If he does what Ghaleon says, Cadin will be spared Ghaleon's wrath. They say he even forces women and children to work. He really is nice, though..."

Talon mine... we've heard that name before. Both Xenobia and the demons that posed as Alex's parents mentioned Talon mines. As a matter of fact...


Well then. I think a trip will be order. Although... what are they mining there?


"They run on coal... but they're made of iron and something called steel!"


"They say he's making them build a gigantic castle of metal!"

The original has sort of... I don't want to call it "environmentalist theme" but technology and its misuse plays way more of a role in the story than in subsequent versions. Taben's machines running on coal, for example. The idea hasn't really been explored much so far, but you're going to see more of this conflict with technology later on.

But the mines do exist in the remake, and once we reach Talon I'll discuss probably one of the biggest differences between the two versions.

For now, let's discuss another new name: Ruid.


"He founded the town almost ten years ago..."

I see... wait, ten years?


"Here, he has always been known as the Magic Emperor. I guess now he's 'out of the closet' worldwide."

Ten years... That's not that long after Dyne's death. It didn't take him long to go to villainy, did it?

Well... enough of this heavy world building stuff. Let's go for some silly nonsense.


: Why you little abscess! Where did you learn that nonsense?!
: What do you mean, abscess? That kid was just trying out a great line... Y a can't blame the little stud for tryin'! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!


"But it seems that lately the condition of the land has worsened yet more! What's going on?


"... ... tell me, man!"


"But, his singing sucks. Have you ever heard him attempt to sing that 'ABBA' medley he loves? Yeeechhh!"
: Oh, is that how he kills those that won't submit to his evil rule? He sings them to death?

I think it's canon (at least in the WD translated games) that Ghaleon loves ABBA-


: Thanks for that info, little miss! I just hope it's not too late...

I believe it's time we hit the road.



But we're making a little stop first.