Part 17: Wherein I Try Not to Make a Kingdom Hearts II Joke

Chapter 14 - Wherein I Try Not to Make a Kingdom Hearts II Joke

Last time we got some meteo frags and beat up this guy who was riding a dog. We don't like anyone who even resembles something from World of Warcraft, do we? Anyway, what I did off-screen was commission the blacksmiths in Pidona to make me a Kris Naga (epee) and a Kris Knife (accessory).

The accessory kind of sucks, but apparently it has status ailment resistance. I, uh, already have my inventory full of things that are better accessory items such as the power glove and silver hand, as well as fucking guard rings. Guard rings rule for anyone wearing suits and shit because you can only don a shirt and then other items.

About the weapon! As most of the blacksmith weapons early on and sometimes later, the item has a built-in skill that you can learn. It's really unimaginative and I guess it's alright. It gives you the ability Snake Sword, which is an area attack. I guess it's good if you don't want to use Firecracker or something. Who cares, it's a 37 attack power epee which means it's the strongest.




Here we are! This place is our destination and if you want me to guide you through the jungle now you're shit out of luck. I would suggest just running left and right on entrances until you pop up at the palace entrance, because holy shit I already went through the jungle to get the fairy and found this palace 5 times.


Now, this place is really goddamn easy. There's a lot of fixed encounters with weak magma guys and goblin mage types with boars. I'm pretty sure you can complete most of the dungeon at like 500 HP if you wanted to.

To the left is a stairs down to some treasure which I believe contained Flame Beast armor. Where you really want to go is the path to the right that leads up some small stairs and then through the door.






From there on it's terribly linear and I'm sure you'll enjoy the fixed encounters of the goblin mages. They drop a shitton of gold considering how easy they are and almost always drop sands of mars. This place is awesome for getting non-poor and fast. When I was getting my blacksmithing items done I would come here and gather about 20 sands of mars before heading back to Pidona and then would sell them, and repeat the process about seven more times as or as long as it took to get to where I reached the special material weapons and armor (which got me the Brave Lancer and Flamberge pretty early. They are powerful weapons before the Ice Sword and Holy King Spear and are piss easy to make!)


Going up will naturally lead us onward in the dungeon, but the stairs down on both sides lead to treasure. The stairs on the left here lead us to the awesome Nitingale epee. It only has 12 power but it acts like a life cane in that you learn Nurse Heal from it. This is handy for Fat Robin because he didn't have a heal before. Now, the chest from the stairs down to the right has I believe 3000G, which is not too shabby at all.


The goblins here are showing you that, man, you really fucked up when you crossed into their turf! Really, they're piss easy but the one blocking is a fixed encounter.


What a really weird fucking name. Triomagen is not too difficult (read, can be normal attacked on turbo speed and you will win) and the only gimmick he does is continually summoning enemies to block your reach to him. Continuing on you'll come to a rather branchy room at the end here..


This is a treasure room. I believe you get the Firebird armor here which is okay for magic defense, but not much more.


Going to the door on the right will net you treasure, something like a Barrier stone? I don't remember because once again I saved in the middle of this dungeon because I needed sleep and then I came back to redo my directions because I don't have this game's maps completely memorized. If you don't like it, well,

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The door up to the left after the stairs here leads you to a treasure area, with 500G in the chest all the way to the right, but something much more special when you get the one on the left here.


Crimson Flare!

Crimson Flare is the Romancing SaGa equivalent of a recurring spell that is almost always the most powerful incarnation of the fire set. It was the best in Romancing SaGa 2 and Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song for fire spells for single target damage. I don't remember if it is in the first Romancing SaGa... In here it is a good spell to cast for damage, though most multi techs, after a while, start to always hit for 9999. It's not so bad I guess but when you can do around 4000-5000 per character it does lose its value.





Now, go back out the door and then go to the right, past the demons camping between the pillars. You'll go to the same room/area that you found Crimson Flare in, but it's on a separate grid section. You'll get some more minor treasure before you come to this spot.



This is the first warning that you are coming to the point of no return here! Going inside you'll spot this little flicker.


It is a fixed enemy encounter again like before, but it's something different!


A hidona! What's... a hidona? Is it a hydra or something far more sinister? Either way it goes down easily, and well, continuing further is Aunas' gate himself.


Is this a good idea you guys?




Aunas: You are all dead.

Aunas is honestly more annoying than he is threatening. He has a constant fire barrier that will counter your melee strikes for a nice chunk of fire damage. Wearing the Flame Mantle (which you get from him) or any other means of fire protection is optimal, but I don't really go berserk in my showing of the fight. I want to show you how a lower end party might be able to handle the fight even if I am absurdly over-levelled for this.

Aunas - The Abyss Gate of Fire ( Vimeo )

The trick is to use techniques that have a long range variant or don't involve any sort of contact with Aunas, or they have an innate ability to bypass counters. You'll also note the awesome weapon the Gladius being used here. The Gladius is special because it allows epee users to have access to normal sword abilities. The normal sword ability (which I gained using Poet in my party before completing the Shinon Secret) bypasses counter barriers. It's one of the only ways I knew for Fat Robin not to become flamin' hot barbecue.

Other than that he has some status ailments, the annoying Gale Sword special which Fairy is always weak too, and an instant death attack he can use. He's pretty easy otherwise.

There is another way to beat Aunas, and it's extremely funny to do. By funny, I mean it's a noble fucking sacrifice and you should worship the ground the Snowman waddles on, you heartless bastards.

Youtube Sacrifice / Vimeo Martyrdom

After this you won't be able to get Snowman in your party... ever again.

You know this song and dance now. Let's head over to Lance to see what we've picked up.


This is one of the most RIDICULOUS spells in the game. The description is fairly inaccurate because what it does is that it acts like a reraise spell or life 3 from Final Fantasy 6. When you die, you are revived automatically. You still lose the LP but you regain all of your lost health.

Now, let's go over the various fire spells...

Air Slash - Basic fire spell. Damages one enemy and then later upgrades to damaging a vertical row from that enemy. Can be useful and does more damage to flying creatures I think.

Hard Fire - Agility up for one character. It also makes a few characters look like they are letting loose some hot gas from down under.

Feather Seal - Renders a target invisible. I don't know how long it lasts, and I imagine it's to keep from being targetted. I suppose it would work like Escape Out from the Golden Bat.

Fire Wall - Protects against heat and cold damage and then will damage an enemy row at the end of a round.

Self Burning - Places up a barrier that will instantly counterattack enemies who hit you in melee. Can be nice if used with Phoenix Dance, but I don't know if it cancels your turn like the Flame Mantle and Ice Sword auto barriers, nor do I remember if it lasts more than one strike.

Bard Song - I have no idea what the hell this does. Apparently it's supposed to 'enlighten all' which means to say it would improve intelligence. It supposedly reduces magical damage too but the way it looks, it seems as if it does damage to everything on the screen.

Reviver - One of the most invaluable spells in the game and extremely broken. You will auto revive on death with full HP, but still take the LP damage of death. Useful for the final boss or any low HP challenges and whatnot.

That's it for this update!