Part 16: More Fun Than Independence Day Jokes

After some more dice-rollin' and typos flyin' around in the IRC channel, the conclusion came to me that we have to do Earth, guys. I will now cover this.

Chapter 13 - More Fun Than Independence Day Jokes

When last we left off, we'd done a lot of fun things and gotten a nice spear, some game-breaking armor (because only one of it should exist. Leonid! ) and a stupid message from someone who couldn't proofread their own game.

Seriously, Mana Sword, Slit Hammer makes no sense. I'm willing to bet the translator misread the katakana and it's supposed to be a Solid Hammer.

What the fuck's up with the Brover axe too? I've heard of a bullova, but not a brover and oh my god ...

Fifteen minutes later...

So yeah guys, let's play some Romancing SaGa 3 okay?


This is where Johannes spoke of the Earth Abyss Gate residing, in Pidona. More specifically, this is also where we need to use the royal ring.


Remember this shortcut, right? Haha, get it? It's to the right...

Anyway, jump over it (you'll need to run) and head back down. Go up the amazingly difficult path to the straight north and totally demolish all of the enemies in your way.


Unlocking the big door with a satisfying switch press sound from Final fuckin' Fantasy 6 will get you to this room. Don't be scared and step into the teleporter.


Now, all you have to do here is just walk down. You can handle that, right?


Welcome to the Earth Abyss dungeon! This one has decent music and an okay if repetitive design on things. Most of the time when you come here you will find four routes:

- The way you just came from
- Minor treasure room
- Treasure room guarded by a more powerful enemy, usually a fixed encounter and the treasure is useful.
- The way continuing to the next segment.


Here's a little shortcut for you if you are massively stupid and impatient not interested in any treasure. Just run up into this glowing crystal here and then take the next area up. You'll be right at the boss's doorstep. I really don't recommend it though, there's a Meteo Fragment as well as one of the best multi tech scrolls to be attained here.

Anyway, speaking of the patterns in this room, left and right lead to treasure rooms while going up results in you heading to the next segment pathway.


Noting this here, but sometimes the enemies are confined to mirrored floors. It's easy to avoid them as you can usually stay off of the mirrored segments. The door above on the stairs here contains a treasure room with a demon belt, and the door down below will lead you further along.


Another example here showing the mirror room. Really, it's easy to avoid them unless the entire room is a mirror floor. Just... walk on the non reflecting surfaces. Gimmicks!


Most of the areas are blocked off by fixed enemy encounters of Arakes' soldiers, but once you clear them it's usually showing that the segment of splits is up ahead.


To the left leads to another area for a chest. A fixed encounter will await you for this turn.




What lies behind this dragon thing?




Back in the center room split, going to the right is more treasure, and going down gets you to the next screen.


There are some chests here, the one going straight down from the entrance nets you 500g, and the other one attained by going around the left path will net you a crappy White Tiger armor. It's probably better if this is your first Abyss Gate, but with the Shinon armor, it's nothing special.

The way to continue on further is to the right, and it's fairly linear. (Read: extremely linear.)




Alright, minor treasure is through the right path this time again, and going up leads to a more difficult area with a more rewarding treasure.




A red dragon! This is pretty useful to train your characters on if you can take them out more reliably. In either case, this guy has a meteo fragment behind him as well! Wheeee!

Now, the way to the left is the way to victory this time! GOOOOOO to the left, and you shall continue further.


Doesn't this look familiar? in either case, the exits to the bottom and right are the treasure areas, with the exit up getting you to the boss area.

There's one really important treasure here!


Light Wall! This one RULES.






Super Edit: What I had originally thought as not working was just me being dumb because I haven't used group spells in a while. Light Wall sets your AP to 9 when it does its end of the round attack of sorts.

This is me being dumb, it does happen but we can get over it.

Now, what's to the right?




Shiiiiiiiit giants! This guy is also nice, and if you have Stealing Hands and the Phoenix Dance formation, you can use this to your advantage to steal Triple Swords from the giant.

Again, behind this guy is a Meteo Frag! It is very nice.

Now, let's continue on through the path up here!


Here's your last chance to heal up before... well, the game asks you if you want to engage the boss.


Terry Bogard: GET READY!


WELCOME TO EARF.


More wavy backgrounds that like to fuck up videos on Youtube and Google. Here we go, folks! This is Arakes, the Abyss Gate Boss of Earth.

Abyss Gate of Earth - Arakes ( Vimeo )

He's fairly easy to be honest. He has a melee attack that hits three times for okay damage, he has Dagger Crash for slightly more, and Terra Voice to give your party the red mess status which will sometimes cancel out their turns.

His signature attack is called Big Rotation ( ) which is a decent area attack on your party. For some reason, I've had characters spark the evade for the skill during the battle quite easily, as the battle drags on.

He's meant to be defeated around the 450-550 Hp levels, and he's not at all very difficult.

You know the drill now. Let's head back to Lance and we'll see what we have unlocked!





This makes Fullbright useful now! He has a big damage move that can be used with his higher than average intelligence.

Now that we have the entire earth set, let me go about listing them there Earth spells,

Stone Ballet - Besides having a dumb, more than possibly mistranslated name this is the basic earth damage spell. It starts out hitting one enemy and graduates to hitting the entire group.

Berserk - Get power of the Beasts . Actually, this raises a person's strength, and it's one of the most useful earth spells. As it raises strength, it won't improve the damage of Epees or Bows, or Magic .

Stone Skin - Raioses your defense, but it can be cast on self only.

Earth Heal - A good heal as heals are always nice to have, especially ones that don't require you to go to the Eastern Villages to get them. This one has a chance to heal confusion as well.

Touch Gold - I think this is an instant death spell. Either that or it causes enemies to drop gold when they die. I really don't know because I've never used it often and it doesn't show any sort of effect to me.

Crack - An unfortunate name for a decently useful spell. It will hit enemies who are not flying or immune to ground attacks and has a chance to stun.

Super Gravity - This is the best damaging magic attack in the game, not to say that it's super awesome or anything. It also lowers enemy agility, which is nice.
That's it for this update!