Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure Part #30

Part 30: Apocalypse Myao

Time to finally say goodbye to what is, by far, the longest chapter in the game.

The Temple of Gama is relatively short for a Heartstone dungeon, which is probably for the best. It has a lot of rooms, but you can get through it by basically holding forward the entire time.

Unless you want to find this guy at least. Unlike Duke and Chiba, though, finding Albatross is blissfully easy. Considering he's the final* puppet, I guess that makes some sense.

_{* He's not the final-final puppet, but the last two (which are obtained simultaneously) are unacquirable due to a glitch.}

: Are you Mustaki's descendant?

: Y-

: Then, die!

Albatross is harder than Chiba but easier than Duke to fight. Unlike those two, however, he's the only one who actually uses attacks of his own element! He can throw around a few fire spells, but they aren't particularly dangerous. Considering he's wielding a BAZOOKA you'd think his regular attacks would be threatening, but... they really aren't. He doesn't have any tricks up his sleeves, so he doesn't pose much of a challenge.

: Your courage has renewed my faith in humans, but do not fail me. I shall join your party if you play your horn.

You may have noticed that I've given Albatross some equipment. Why, yes, I will be using him, even though he's horribly underlevelled compared to the rest of the party. I could grind him up to a decent-ish level (i.e. 20) but that'd take too long and this place isn't particularly fun to grind in.

Anyway, there's nothing else here that's remotely interesting so let's go fight the actual boss and get this over and done with.

Okay... the Centaur. Remember how Portrait occasionally threw out an instant death spell that was single target? The TOADS in this fight have a multi-target version of the same spell. That alone increases the chance of it successfully killing someone. Even if that never used, the damage output the Centaur, on its own, can produce is far and away greater than anything else in this dungeon. Even still, this fight ranks - to me at least - as being the second hardest boss fight. It is by far the hardest fight to date (it's one of two boss fights to ever give me a game over!), bar none, but with one caveat. Both the Centaur and the Toads are water elemental. Just throw Flames of Hell, Laevateinn and any of Albatross' spells around and you're done way, way too fast. Conversely, if you don't use any Fire attacks you're going to be at it for a bit too long due to the sheer HP these things all have.

But, hey, we're done. This makes all 5 Heartstones but you don't actually get the Earthstone proper yet, since Michael needs it and all. So, back to the castle.

King: So, did you bring the Earthstone?
Michael: Yes.
King: You have done well... As I promised, I'll approve your marriage with Caroline...
Michael: Th...thank you very much!

I'm sure it's not so bad, right? I mean it's just burglary, albeit of a castle, so he's going to be looking at... oh... 14 years indictment. Not too bad, all things considered. But, no doubt it'd be more if that wasn't the maximum sentence.

...Of course, Frogburg probably has a slightly different legal system, so it might be a tad longer or maybe even less depending on the life span of a Frogperson.

King: And you also killed Centaur, the guardian of the Frogburg Kingdom!

Okay, no, wrong on so many levels. That can't even be considered an aggravating factor since that wasn't Michael. In the slightest. Plus it was self-defence!

Caroline: What!?
King: You must be punished for your crimes against the Kingdom.
Caroline: Father! That's not what you promised!!
King: I've kept my promise...Forgive me...

Um, wow... the king is a fucking dick. Goddamn man.

: What the...?
Caroline: What have you done!!?

: You monster!
Caroline: Michael!!!! My true love!! I'll never forgive you!! I have no father now... Sob...Sob...
Queen: Caroline...
Guard: What a tragedy. It's hard to believe that the king would execute his daughter's true love. Cherish every moment you have with the ones you love...You never know what might happen. Here is the EARTHSTONE.

We can go finish this chapter any time now, but with this fifth resolved there's one last thing that should be possible now. Emphasis on the "should be."

It's the last time we'll ever have to come here, and it's the last time we'll ever have to see the idential cave walls for the rest of the game!

Elven Fire is idential to Fairy Fire but multi-target rather than single. It might deal a bit more damage too but the difference is barely noticable, if it even exists. That might just be random variance

Now that Michael has been killed, we can come here to see his grave. But it's not just his grave. To completely cement the "we ripped this off of Romeo and Juliet" impression, immediately after Michael died, Caroline commited suicide.

Anyway, Michael and Caroline are supposed to be the final puppets (in this order). You acquire them by coming here, examining the grave stone and sitting through another generic scene. The catch? The entire thing is bugged. Completely. The instant you examine the grave, the game crashes. It tries to keep going, since the music continues, but nothing else happens. A text box might appear if you're lucky but just the first frame of it; nothing will appear in the box. Michael and Caroline subsequently won't spawn.

I know this isn't just a problem I'm having, though I've had it everytime I've played, but I might just be overlooking something painfully obvious like not talking to a specific NPC or something inane like that. I mean, if that's supposedly the problem with getting the Snow Herb then I don't see why it wouldn't be the same here. So, I went back to Frogburg and Kerokero. Spoke to everyone in both places and then came back here. Same problem.

Well, no matter. Let's just go meet with Polin and find out what the heck we need these things for already.

: I don't have to go look for them.

: Meow! Miss Myao's a genius!

: Of course!

: What do you want?

: I've told you what I need! Hand all your stones over to meow!!

: Why?

: MEOW!! Don't make me repeat myself!! You're doing this on purpose, right!?

: Uh, yeah...

: I'm mad now! I ain't gonna forgive any of you!!!

: Watch out, Cornet! I think she's getting mad or something!

: Of course, Kururu.

This fight? Yeah, this fight is the worst fight in the game. You cannot win this fight. You must lose this fight. This is not immediately apparent. By all rights you should be able to just trash these guys and walk into the tower. You cannot even hurt the cats. Your attacks will always miss. Their damage output is mostly abyssmal, with the exception of maybe one or two of Myao's spells which she won't even use most of the time. Hell, a lot of the time the cats will deal maybe single digit damage... presuming their attacks even connect. If you have the Robe of Healing equipped (which I do, since I forgot it was still on Cornet) then this fight is going to take forever unless whoever is wearing it gets poisoned. Poison will, thankfully, take off more than 30 HP at this point. Just stick this fight on auto, put the game down for a while and go grab a snack or something. Even then you might not have been beaten by the time you're done. It took about 6 minutes for me to lose this fight. For a fight in this game, that's probably around 30-40 turns if not more (since it was on auto the entire time).

The screen flashes white, and Kururu... transforms from puppet into... uh...

That's... that's an angel. What the hell? Is Kururu from Celestia or something? Jeez.

: Meoww!... ...Retreat!

: ...

: That face... I thought I recognized that face... I should check it out.

I'm sure it's nothing though, since just as quickly as it happened Kururu reverted back to normal. Not sure that's all about though.

: H...huh? Where is... Where are they?

: They yelled, "It's time for lunch!" and went home.

: Huh? Lunch? Figures... Well, at least nobody got hurt and the stones are safe...

Nothing left to do but go speak with Polin since that IS why we're here and all.

: So we can undo the spell on the Prince with this, right?

: Huh? Uh, well... It's just... That alone is not enough to break the spell...

: Excuse me? Could you run that by me one more time?

: What? You didn't hear me the first time? Alright... I'll repeat it again, so listen carefully, okay?

: TO BREAK THE... SPELL! ...Got it?

: What!? Then why did we have to go through all the trouble of finding these stones?

: Get a rope!

: No, no, hold, hold on!! Let me finish!!

: When you place the stones on the altar, you'll be able to enter the castle!

: Jeez! Why didn't you just say so? Ya got us all worked up for nothin'...

: Well... Maybe if you listened once in a while, you would've heard me! Anyway, in order to undo the spell on the Prince, you'll need true love.

: True love!?

: Yes. The spell can only be broken by one who truly loves him.

: By one who truly loves him?

: And how do you suppose I go about doing this? Should I just go up to him and say I love... him? Or...

: Oh, much simpler than that..All you need is a... ...KISS.

: A ki..!?

: Yes, a kiss indeed!

: A kiss...but...I couldn't possibly...We haven't even been on a date! Heck! We haven't even talked for more than 5 minutes!

: I think you're qualified. You wouldn't be here if you didn't love him. It's just a kiss. It's not like you have to marry him right then and there.

: Then he'll have to take care of you! You can't get somethin' for nothin'! Alright! Now that we know how to undo the spell, let's go to..C..ape Ho..pe...