Part 11: This Could Have Been Worse, Just Saying

11. This Could Have Been Worse, Just Saying



Freeing the Crystal of Fire means the earthquakes in Fireburg have stopped just in time for us to never come back here for an extended period of time. It also opens up this Battlefield



wherein you will be ambushed each and every time and all the enemies are either Iflytes or Stehnos. The reward is a measly 1000 EXP so it’s not really worth being petrified and instantly getting a game over more often than not.



But getting back to business. With another coin comes another door to open in the Focus Tower.



And another elucidating visit from this fine fellow.



“Seriously, who is Captain Mac?”



Tucked away down those stairs is a secret area of the tower and this lovely thing. Aero is the strongest and last Black magic spell. Like the others before it will come in handy for the next area.



Outside of the Focus Tower, we can see that there is apparently a huge gaping hole taking up a quarter of the world that people aren’t very concerned about.





The Rope Bridge, unfortunately, isn’t a mini-dungeon.



But it is host to talking zombies so that’s kinda unique?



What? Why?







See, Reuben, that’s how it’s done. Shrug slides down the vine after killing the dumb thing in one hit like he would have if you weren’t so stupid, Reuben.



Spoilers: he won’t





Not sure if Shrug is confused about the music or still perplexed by how Reuben fucked that up.



Whoa, let’s not go nuts here. “Acquaintance”, maybe. Maybe.





I have mixed feelings about this.





I know Reuben was sort of a whipping boy, but real talk, Tristam is probably the worst party member. He’s dealing about half the damage as Reuben was and is stuck with Life as his only spell. The only real difference is that we’re not stuck with him for nearly as long nor do we have to pick so many fights with him at our side. If memory serves, he’ll be around for three fights at the most, all of which are made into total jokes by Aero, if you so choose. Plus Tristam is going to do something very cool so I can forgive it. He’s also not a complete idiot, which helps.





I guess you could say Alive Forest is our first dungeon but that wouldn’t be completely right since we’re not going to really explore it at the moment. With Reuben gone, we’re switching back to the numbers for our health unless that’s really a problem.



But we’ve got some new enemies. Specters are upgraded Ghosts in that they can counter with confusion now. That’s it, as far as I know.

Mummies, similarly, are beefier Zombies. They can put you to sleep, poison, and petrify. They’re both pretty easy to kill, and Specters are weak to Tristam’s ninja stars and Shrug’s Aero.

Like most undead enemies, they can multiply so... they can be a nuisance, maybe?



The Alive Forest has trees with those teleporters on them, which allows us to access incredible goodies such as Cure Potions and Heal Potions.





These totally inconspicuous trees hide the corresponding teleporters. All that this one leads to is some Refreshers. Yahoo.



South of the Libra Crest tree is something that is totally worth it though.





Our final tier axe, the Giant’s Axe is an awesome upgrade. If Shrug were a little higher level, his attack would be comparable to Reuben’s. This is hardly bad though. As an added bonus, the Giant’s Axe won’t be obsolete within a few minutes of getting it.



The color of the axe also changes in battle. Neat!



Huh? We were looking for the king of the forest? Since when?



The results are predictable.



It’s not like Shrug was at all polite about that so I can understand.



How would you know about this?



Yeah! She must be in Aquaria by now...

The Wind section of the game sends you back and forth a lot. If this game had an actual world map it would be terrible but fortunately it’s just a little bit of a hassle. I’ve got to be honest though, this is probably my favorite section of the game in spite of that. I like the next town a lot, we’re getting the badass treasure now, and the big dungeon is pretty interesting though it has its frustrations like all the others.



I guess she’s still dealing with that whole ‘evil tree’ thing from way back when?



Well then why the hell were you digging this stupid tunnel in the first place if you could never reach him??

By the way, who’s that with you?



You don’t say. Listen, I heard a rumor about some amazing armor...


He just totally forgets about Mac, the tunnel, everything.


Let’s go!



You realize that Shrug’s also treasure hunting? No? Well, alright, whatever, I guess.

Later!



“This is bullshit!”



Rub it in, why don’t you?



I’ll give you this Dragon Claw. Don’t worry, it’s on me. Bye!



Well, I guess if a guy gives you a sick grappling hook you kind of have to forgive him.



In any case, that was it for Tristam and we’ll never see him again.



Hey, yeah, wow, that sounds like an excellent idea and nothing could go wrong.



Now an expert on explosives, Shrug would know.



Something went wrong.



Something went very wrong.





What was the point of all this then?



Yes, but did you hear about my dad?


I—uh, maybe??


Yeah, Spencer told me. He said I should see Otto in Windia, and I was hoping you’d come too.





Kaeli, who has apparently traded in her green dress and armor for something much more impractical, returns and she is a huge step up from Reuben and Tristam. She’s tough and can withstand a lot of punishment, hits like a truck, resistant to petrification and can handle more than one threat at a time. Aero is a great spell and Cure will restore a good amount of health to both characters.

I like that the Magic Ring is apparently just called “Ring” because that’s about what it amounts to in the game anyway.



And while we’re at it, let’s look at the Dragon Claw, which is super great. While it doesn’t even have the punch of the Mega Grenades on a single target, it has the benefit of an absolute status effect deluge coming behind every swing. Confusion, poison, paralysis, blind, sleep, petrification, you name it, it (probably) does it.

What’s better is that petrification is an effectively an instant death for enemies. Yeah, this is an excellent weapon.

Anyway, now that Kaeli has rejoined, we can chat up the tree again.



Being polite really was the way to go about this. We probably didn’t even need to fetch Kaeli.



Ha ha, Shrug is so sick of this.




Next time: A familiar premise?


I knuckled down and skimmed through that very bad and very loud LP of Mystic Quest Remastered and I can pretty much promise you that it's better than nearly everything in Reborn. I don't want to be a jerk or anything but the Bone Dungeon is pretty bad and the Alive Forest/this upcoming dungeon are even worse. The difficulty curve there is basically a brick wall.

E: ^^^ Oh dang, didn't see that post! I guess you'll all get to see everything wrong with the Bone Dungeon pretty soon!