Part 7: Puzzle Dungeons? In MY Mystic Quest? It's more likely than you'd think.

Alright, so we should probably get to that whole "Saving Aquaria" business now. First stop?



If you guessed "not the Libra Temple" or "a Battlefield," give yourself a pat on the back.



First of only two new enemies this time is the Desert Hag. Why they put the Desert Hag here and not his pallet swap, I don't know, but that's a story for another time. Desert hags can do a small amount of damage with Double Hit and Bite, and they've got an attack called Water Gun which does alright damage, but their unique attribute is that they can counter.



If you attack him with A) something that doesn't kill him and B) something that directly hits him (so not the bombs or magic), he'll do a small amount of damage to you when he gets hurt. It's never much, just enough to be irritating if you like to stick with the axe or something. This particular battlefield only has Desert Hags in various arrangements.



Cleaning them out gets us a very nice prize this time, but it's still no piece of armor or anything.



Now that we've got the Libra Crest, we can make use of this little do-hickey.



Stepping on it warps us over to the Life Temple where there's some more Plot^TM in store for us.



That's a hell of a spring. I think we might drown just by being here.





Someone inside? Who could possibly be hanging out in this place?



I mean really, we're on a fucking cliffside.



You get no points for correctly guessing Captain Exposition, by the way.



Even CE is sick of Phoebe's emo bullshit at this point.





Well, now that we've got that handy little thing, let's get back to Aquaria.





Save the Cheerleader Plant, save the town!



So Art, when did you get a look at the script?



Before we can go there though, we've got to get through the Falls Basin.

Music: Falls Basin





As Phoebe's comment implies, this is the first "puzzle dungeon" in the game. It's a very short dungeon with about 7 or 8 enemies in all, including the boss. The challenge lies in the fact that if you screw up and push too many of the columns into the wall where you can't get them out, you have to leave and come back, making all the enemies respawn.



First off, take the column you start with and push it up to here so we can jump on top of it to reach the other side.



The other new enemy this update is the Lamia. They can confuse and put you to sleep, but their physical attacks are weak and they're weak to Thunder. The only threat from them is Phoebe deciding to Thunder both of you.



Second column goes here, so we can jump over and get the last one. After killing the other Lamia, we have to set up two columns to reach the boss.



First one goes here, just above where we got the third column.



Second one goes here, to let us over to the boss (and that treasure chest).



And with that, we're all but done with this dungeon. But first, treasure!



Now we have the Heal spell, we don't have to worry about our stock of Heal potions nearly as much. It also does fun things to enemies, as we'll see next update. Make absolutely sure you grab it though, because once you leave the Falls Basin, you can't come back in.



The Snow Crab can be dangerous if you're coming into this fight hurting a little, but otherwise he's not bad. He starts the fight with two Desert Hag flunkies, so take them out quickly. He's weak to axe attacks, but immune to Fire, so don't try that. Thunderspamming's almost always better anyway.



He's mainly dangerous because he hits like a goddamned truck. His physical attacks do about 200 damage a pop, and his Water Breath attack will do 120 damage to Phoebe despite her being strong to water (which reduces damage by about 50%), and will wreck your shit because you have no such protection. He also has Gaze for confusion, because being able to do a lot of damage simply wasn't enough.



Because I forgot to show it off last update, here's the Bow of Grace.



All things considered, he's not too bad as long as you don't get unlucky with criticals or confusion.





Phoebe, once again proving that she's a bitch, decides we've earned some better explosives now that we're about 2/3's of the way done with the region and AFTER we've beaten the boss.



The Jumbo Bombs replace our regular bombs, and give them a much needed upgrade in terms of firepower. They have about double the power of the regular bomb, and make a slightly different noise when they explode, but that's about it in terms of aesthetic differences.

Next Time: Save the Crystal, save the World! Again!