Part 23: Return to White

This room is pretty much the point of no return in the Mana Fortress. It's probably meant to give you a respite and a chance to heal, change equipment, or what have you. Either that, or it's a location where a boss was cut.




I hope you're ready for some dialogue. Thanatos is waiting, and can't resist monologuing about his ultimate plan.



The qualifications he claims for Dyluck don't really make very much sense, and I feel like there's some backstory about Dyluck missing here. This does pretty well cement the idea that Dyluck would have been a potential hero in his own right, though.




The thing that ultimately strikes me is that Thanatos entire plan is to rule over a dying world. I suppose you could argue that a hellish ecosystem will arise as more of the underworld leeks out, but it seems to me that completely ruining the world is a counterproductive strategy.



I.. don't think that'll work at this point.




Not pictured: Kid shanking the hell out of Thanatos body and essentially making it uninhabitable. This would probably be absolutely chilling to see in a more detailed game.



She should really know better at this point, all things considered.



A more effective strategy might have been to grab Dyluck and run. It really seems that all Kid accomplished was to move up Thanatos time table a bit.



I'm pretty sure he just did, but...



Picking someone for your next host who have sufficient power to rule the world means that you're taking an awful lot of risk.




This is another one of those poignant moments. A lesser game might try to convince you that it's all going to be okay, but Dyluck accepts that no matter what you do it's going to be too late for him.




The information about what Thanatos actually is sounds very interesting, but it's really more for flavor than anything else.



The one thing Dyluck isn't giving us is advice on how to kill him or a secret weakness or anything like that.. although once you think about it, it's fairly obvious.



Part of me wonders if this was meant to have a comma instead of a colon, as Dyluck is the only person whose dialogue was rendered this way. If it's Kid speaking, though, that changes the emotional content of the scene a bit.



It's a manly promise between two men, understand me?



That brief period of lucidity is all that Dyluck gets, as Thanatos comes to the fore once again.



He undergoes a monstrous transformation, although the bit about having to withdraw doesn't make much sense. He also wants our bodies instead of Dyluck's for some reason.

Boss Fight: Thanatos

Thanatos Conventional Battle Video

Thanatos Sword of Mana Battle Video



The second to last boss is everything you'd expect from an ancient, bodiless sorcerer. This is definitely one of the best boss fights in the game, and it can actually be difficult even at this level. What does Thanatos have for us?




As you might expect, he's got just about every status effect in the game available as a targeted attack, with a bit of damage thrown in for good measure. The only one that's really worrying is petrification, and having Faerie Rings can neutralize a lot of his nastier attacks.




He's also got access to just about every type of magic attack at level 8, and plenty of power to back them up. These four seem to be his favorites, but I wouldn't necessarily rule out anything.



Occasionally his body will fade and you get these two hands rising up through the floor. You can't damage him physically during this stage, and contact with the hands causes unconsciousness. It's really easy for your AI teammates to get stuck on them and die before they can get up and move away. Occasionally his head will peek up between the hands, giving you a narrow attack window.



His death animation is absolutely awesome. Lucent Beam and Thunderbolt work well for attacks, and although he has high defense the addition of Light Sabre and Moon Energy can help even the gap. As you might expect he's got 6,666 hp to deal with but it's pretty doable.



We've now got access to two more spells in Dryad's selection, but more on those in a second.



He didn't really have a chance the entire time we knew him.




The entire place starts to shake, although Boss seems more affected by it than anyone else. It's probably a bad sign when the most magically sensitive person is having neurological problems.




Escaping the fortress, we've got bigger problems. I'm not sure what the exact link here is, but I suppose a dragon is a pretty cool choice for your apocalyptic doom beast.



Boss, the foul-mouthed mini action hero, has his heart in the right place.




This is fortunate, as Boy has become a raging hippie out of left field. It's like he skipped over that whole "If the Mana Beast attacks the fortress it could destroy the world" thing his tree mother told him.




Being worried about Boss is a bit more understandable, and it's the only point that Kid actually feels like chiming in on. "Screw the Mana Beasts, what about Boss?"




Seriously, Boss is the best character. I've come to like him more and more as this game goes on.




You get the feeling that just maybe Boss isn't entirely sure about his survival but is pushing for this anyway. The immediate (we can talk about long term later) fate of the world is on the line and that's a bit more important.




This entire section is pretty much Boy turning into a hippie and Boss kicking him in the ass to get him to actually finish the job and save the world.




We transition over to this tiny screen and they explain what's going on with the new magic we just received. When both Boss and Kid cast Mana magic on the sword it gets upgraded to the highest level that we saw in the glitch. That's kind of the gimmick for the final boss battle.



It's certainly sparkly. The thing is.. for two of the three ways I fight this battle, we're not going to be using it.

Final Battle: Mana Beast

Mana Beast Conventional Battle

Mana Beast No Mana Sword

Mana Beast Permanent Mana Sword




The first thing you're going to see of the Mana Beast is his ass flying away from you. I think they really wanted to use the Mode 7 graphics capabilities in this final boss fight. He comes back in a flaming spiral, which contrary to its appearance is a physical attack. This can do several hundred damage to each of your characters, so it's important to note that Lucid Barrier can block it. He'll also do another charge, but it looks like a giant flash of purple on the screenshot.




He's got a mix of Dryad and Luminaire magic, and loves to drop Lucent Beams all over the place. Wall kind of shuts off any thought of using offensive magic, but this is a gimmick fight so that's already out. While he's hanging here casting spells, that's your window to attack.



After a little bit he'll do a quick flight from side to side and repeat the process all over. While the fight has an interesting gimmick, I'd almost be inclined to call Thanatos the real final boss fight.



When you do enough damage (around 9990) the Mana Beast will turn white and recede into the distance, looking almost two dimensional. Boy's your main attacker in this battle, so the strategy here is to cast Mana magic on his sword, buff him up, and let him go to town. The fight isn't terribly difficult if you know what's going on, but the Mana Beast can do some nasty damage if you don't know how to deal with it. One thing I will note is that you don't need to cast Mana Magic to make the boss vulnerable or make it appear. If you wait a moment or two it'll fly in whether you're ready or not. The only thing that prevents other weapons from doing damage is the fact that they don't have enough attack power to get through his defenses.

Secret of Mana Credits/Ending




Somehow Boy and Kid end up on a plateau miles away from the scene of the battle, with Boss nowhere in sight. I can't believe someone actually screwed up a line break in the ending of all places.



Dyluck is an afterthought to Boss. I think thats a pretty good indication of Kid's maturation as a character and how she's connected with her friends over her crush.



... I don't even know how this works. I can only hope that this is some kind of method of spreading Mana out evenly over the world to slow the decay a bit. As some people have mentioned, the world is pretty well screwed. It hasn't been played up very much, but we know from Final Fantasy Adventure that an active Mana Tree is necessary for a lot of natural processes. Without that, the world is going to slowly die... and as far as we know, Boy is the last member of the Tribe of Mana. I suppose it's possible that if he had a daughter she could become the tree.. assuming the world lasted long enough.



On to more happy things, however, Krissie and her resistance group are actually doing pretty well for themselves now that we murdered the entire elite class of the Empire for them.



Jema, having accomplished nothing of note, is back in Tasnica. I can only imagine that Boy has some hard questions about his father for him.




I can only hope that Joch is going to send the Scorpion Army on an even longer set of wild goose chases than we went on. It would serve them right, but if they also do something awful to him, like using him as machine components, I'm okay with that too. In a sense, everybody wins.




Our friend Sergio is back to work as a sailor, and the Sand Ship has hopefully stopped picking up lost travelers and press ganging them into the engine room. I wouldn't count on it, though.



Children can believe in Santa again... until the remaining Mana fades from the world..



And King Truffle's mustache is as magnificent as ever. They don't mention it as such, but based on how many places we're going I have to assume that Flammie is still around as transport.



If there were cherry blossoms flying, this would almost be a stereotypically romantic ending... but they never do go into detail on that.



Even Elinee seems to be doing well for herself, with her dancing chairs and such to keep her company.



All the Cannon Travel Brothers together in one place. I guess maybe the demand for Cannon Travel has died down, or perhaps they're just on vacation for a family reunion.




The third and fourth richest people in the world say goodbye to us. I know Neko cleared about 300,000 gold from us, and Watts collected more than 375,000. Of course, at the end of the game I was sitting on around 7,000,000... which with a 50/50 split makes Kid and Boy first and second.



Kid finally reunites with her father. At least now they're not going to be fighting about her marrying Dyluck.. although we can only hope that she doesn't end up married to the fat dumb ass her father wanted her to marry.



It's very much a case of going backward in time. Luka's palace was in some ways where the actual adventure got started.



All of the people who kicked Boy out of his village are waiting for him. What do you even say in that kind of situation? "Sorry about being a giant bunch of assholes, thank you for saving the world."



The Mana Sword goes to sleep again until it's needed...



And a shadowy Boss (really, he looks ghostlike in the actual game) watches everything approvingly. He did say he wouldn't kick the bucket so easily. And with that...



Thank you all for reading!

Dyluck's Special for a Different Reason