Part 23: Finally, going towards a Finale!

First off I need to apologize to everyone as I should've done the whole voting thing after checking and making sure I would be able to enter Loanne. It appears that the game's bugged because Byunei was the final abyss gate for me or something and well, I can't enter the castle.

Chapter 18 - Finally, going towards a Finale!

I really did try, folks. I honestly, truly did!


See, look! I'm going to Loanne right here! I really am! See, watch me go over to the guards here...


Katrina: Hey guys, how's it going? Mind if I get through here?
Guard 1: Gee... I really don't know about that this time.
Katrina: What? Well, why not? Mikhail told me to come back when things were done!
Guard 2: I don't see your name on the list. I suggest you take your things and leave before we randomly run around the place and put you in jail.
Katrina: It wouldn't be the first time I was in Loanne's jail...


Well... No shit.

Sorry guys, it glitched up on me apparently. I know it feels like crap and the vote was for nothing, but regardless we shall press on! Let us go back to Xuan City and talk with Yaaaan.





Don't worry, I'm not going to do something silly like make a joke about fighting games and post a sudden movie of a match of some game. If I did, though, you can sure as hell bet I'd post something about Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike!




Heading over to Huang City shows that it is indeed deserted now that Yan has raised that flag to insult the soldiers. This is the point of no return, folks. Once you go through one of the stairways here, you cannot go back out! Also, once you enter through here, you trigger a horrible battle mode that is absurdly boring. It really is.







Welcome to the Mass Combat mode of the game. I was going to cover this on a separate section all of its own, so I won't go over too much here. The point of this minigame, at least, for this battle, is to stall time.


This is the defensive formation of course. Your heavily armored troops are in front to soak damage and morale from the enemy side.


Attack Wave is alright sometimes. I don't generally like to use it unless the enemy has weaker units in front.


As you can see we are vastly outnumbered in this fight, but it is alright. It's okay even if you just outright lose this fight, but the goal is to stall.


Basically, I let Yuchun's forces get up near me and we meet in the middle here...


Activate this and watch as they attack you and their morale drops. Your morale will drop as well, but not as fast. If you want to make some more time pass without a lot of morale passing down through the gutter, you can check out the Intel commands. They're actually pretty neat and useful in the normal Mass Combat campaign.








Now, some of your heavy troops ninja the fuck out here...


I wish I were able to say I photoshopped this to show the bad grammar, but this is the truth of the matter, folks.


This is not the best intel to use for this mission, but it does work for stalling time. Go back to All Defense and wait for the time to roll around...




Hooray! We've stalled for one hour! Now, let's keep up the all defense...




Oh boy! This is a bad message for you to see but you will see it in this fight. There's a way to fix this, by the way.






This makes them cancel their retreat and sit there defending. Once the Intel wears off, they will go back to attacking and not thinking of retreating for a while.




No way to avoid this one as I don't have anymore Intel uses. However, 5 hours is a nice bit of time stalled for Katrina. I don't remember off of the top of my head of what the stalling does. Perhaps it lowers the amount of monsters in the dungeon ahead?




This game makes me sad sometimes when I see the horrible wording. Regardless, the boring Mass Combat part is over! Let us go forth to normal dungeon crawling and awesome battle music. If you can find a soundtrack for Romancing SaGa 3, it will be listed as something like 'Gen's Castle Battle', and it is very, very nice.


Katrina stands there for a moment before bravely running to take on this monster of a... monster.


The toughest of the Dragon Rulers, Mister Red! At this point of the game though he isn't too tough, and he falls easily to the combined might of my ultimate techniques.


Try as you might, there is nowhere else to go but through the door that the Red Dragon Ruler was guarding.






That was pretty linear, wasn't it? Here's a spot you can miss. To the left is treasure which is pretty useful and valuable for later, and going down will lead you further along the dungeon and make you unable to return back to the previous room.


This is a pretty easy battle, I didn't even screencap it because lamias are chumps at this point of the game. The room beyond carries two seriously items: A barrier stone, and a life cane. Let us continue on our adventure down, now!


The place is pretty linear, though the main problem is that if you miss treasure you cannot return back to the room you had left. I suppose it's to give a sense of urgency throughout the whole place? I mean, the upbeat music for the dungeon would suggest it.




Here starts the miniboss area with enemies that are normally seen throughout the game being in your way. They're not really worth mentioning other than here, and shown in screenshots outside of the battle. They are -really- easy.




The only thing special about this fight is this is the only time I've ever seen five Sword God enemies in the same battle. I guess it would suck if they all used their multihit attack, but really I've killed them too fast to even warrant any worry otherwise.

Now, all that's left for this section is to go up these stairs, here...





The door down is a dead end view area, so don't worry about getting lost here. Just beat up the Mantis God blocking the door here and continue onward!




The demons here block some decent treasures, a power boots pair and a set of War God armor. The War God armor has excellent physical defense but awful magic defense, so uh... use it at your own risk.


KILL THESE GUYS NOW. These are the Wang Trio (you think I'm kidding? Look at their in-battle names.)


See? You should have believed me from the start, you know? Now, the reason why I am so vehement about you killing these guys is because the treasure behind here is some of the best stuff in the game.




The Gold Dragon armor protects against instant death and gives an amazing +1 to all stats, while the Duel Master glove gives +1 strength and +1 dexterity. It's too bad Fat Robin is already using the Silver Hand and Dragonscale Armor, otherwise I'd pass the stuff to him. As for now, Fullbright gets the armor and gauntlet since Boston can't wear any better chest armor.



Exiting the last treasure room there at the bottom left area (the only doors we can go through I think ) leads us to this stairway, which is pretty simple to follow up. The only thing guarding the doorway past here is a group of three dragon zombies. You'll continue downward through another room with two entryways and eventually get to this spot here.


The area to the left is guarded by a Cerberus, but to get there you just go out of the room downward and run across the rooftops and enter through the window area.






Do you smell that, folks? That's the smell of the home stretch of this dungeon. You know things are going to get fucked up when you're treated to an outside view at nighttime.


Heading up here, we will reach the end of our adventure.


That guy's running off with Shonen now! We have to go and catch them, so the logical choice is to run out after them without consequences given as to whether or not it is a trap.




Tao Gao: ... the power of the Abyss will be mine! You nuisances! Be gone!

Tao Gao gives us a friendly little greeting in the form of a plot fight!




This guy isn't too tough considering we had to fight a Red Dragon Ruler earlier at the start of all of this mess. He has an area sonic attack that can be kind of mean and he likes to use Poison Claw, but he's usually dead in a few turns.


You know, I just keep laughing every time I see this picture now. Tao Gao says something really lame like 'heyyy' or something, but this is the best I could capture because I was turboing through the battle with the Abyss Naga.


Sara! We're coming to help! I know exactly what to do now because this is the end of the game. It's okay for retarded plot events to occur! Guess what I'm going to do?


I'm... going to... jump off of a castle rooftop! It makes perfect sense!




It may not be readily apparent at first, but what Shonen is going to do here is that he is going to open up the gate further and make it transport everyone to the Abyss. How can he do this? The Power of Plot prevails.


Slowly, each of my party members walks into the red and disappears...


Katrina and Shonen are the last ones to go, for dramatic effect. Also, just in case the portal fucked up and everyone else died, they were going to leave them for dead.


Where are we going from here, huh?


This is it, folks. This is the last dungeon of the game: The Abyss itself!


Tune in next time for this amazingly short place, because I know you're just going to eat it up!