Part 16: I See a Pattern Here..

As we head off toward Gold City, it seems like a pretty nice time to look at the World Map feature that Flammie has. It's a nice touch that it's a globe.. although I'm going to have to do some testing to see if this game actually treats the world as a globe. Its probably a donut, but that's okay.




Our destination is a small island that's entirely covered by city. It's kind of weird how often the whole "city made of solid gold" shows up in Japanese games. They did it in Breath of Fire too.




Gold City is dying in several interesting ways, although the bit about how everyone has gone north to the Ice Country is kind of funny. It's been ages since we destroyed the resort there, and nobody has come back. Obvious supposition: eaten by howlers. Or Santa Claus.



It seems as though the Empire has better security on their Golden Tower than on the Imperial Palace..



But the guard was in fact speaking literally. No one can enter because the damn thing is locked. They probably wouldn't care otherwise.




There are two promising avenues of investigation: the King, who's kicking it in a hotel, and a coffee house which we now know is the international code for Secret Resistance Base (shhhh)



Before that, though, Watts has crossed the line from stalking to squatting. I can only imagine how being around all this gold is affecting him.



Golden City is also home to some of the best armor in the game. Everything is pretty much on the must buy list, with most of the equipment almost a two-fold improvement over what we're currently wearing. It's all the best or second best armor you can buy in the game. Anything better is going to have to be bought from Neko or gotten from rare drops.



Looking in to the Inn first, we find actual gold diggers in Gold City. It kind of reminds me of a youthful bus trip through Chicago when I looked out the bus window and saw a lady of the night plying her trade. I was so startled that I exclaimed "Holy shit, a real hooker!"



It turns out that the King is a blithering idiot who's distracted by shiny things. This should have been expected.



We do, however, have an explanation as to where all the gold is coming from and why it's threatening to sink the island.



In a shocking twist, the coffee house is actually not a secret Resistance hideout.. so.. what to do?




As somebody mentioned, the actual key is to climb up on the city wall, follow it all the way around to the north end of the city, and find this guy to tell you that the reason nobody can get into Golden Tower is because a spy stole the key. Just once I want to play a game where the solution to this kind of thing is to just blow the damn door apart. Well, Krissie should know what's going on!



Or be completely useless. One of the two. She also mentions that Phanna is still recovering, which I believe is a code for "will never be involved in the plot again."




If you've got a good memory, you might recall that our friend Crazy Mara's husband was a Tasnican spy. She's actually the person you need to go to for the key, which she's happy to give to you if it'll ruin the Emperor's day.



Returning to the Golden Tower, a step inside pits us against Beast Zombies, which are for some reason bright pink wolves. I am suspicious of whichever necromancer created these zombies.



For some bizarre reason they also put an orb RIGHT inside the first room of this tower.. yeah, we'll be right back.



Our upgraded spear has a good chance of putting targets to sleep, which is both a blessing and a curse. It can get them off your neck for a minute, but many enemies use their invincibility frame as their sleep frame so it can lengthen fights as well. One solution is to blast them with magic when they're asleep. Anyway, back to the dungeon.



Seen here is a Dark Ninja in full camouflage. It's an odd choice for the Golden Tower, but I suppose it demonstrates their versatility. I suppose I should mention that this tower is very limited in its architectural stylings. The other side is a mirror of this with a set of stairs.. which I should probably have saved at. At the top of the stairs we have an old friend waiting for us.

Boss Battle: Blue Spikey

Blue Spikey Battle Video



Spikey Kitty is back with a recolor and a much larger arena to play around in. No Elinee, but that's probably a blessing as much as anything.



Blue Spikey only retains one of his flame based powers, but in order to compensate the damage has been amped up. Fireball is actually is most threatening attack, but that's not saying much.




He's also got a couple of special attacks to throw at you, but I don't believe I actually saw either of them connect and do anything. That's probably due to our shiny new armor as much as anything.



Just to throw a bit of a fakeout, after you've done enough damage Spikey Blue fakes his own death. You can tell by the fact that his head doesn't appear to be attached to his neck, although I'm not sure what that implies. Did we destroy the head and he grew another one?



A few more hits and spells will result in a second and permanent explosive death. Now that we have magic, the simple solution is to pelt him with Earth Slide when he climbs up on the towers. He's weak to it, although not as weak as some bosses are. For continuing our animal abusing ways we get a Boomerang's Orb.



This is followed by an Axe's Orb in a chest at the top of the stairs as a gimme. By this point you might realize that this will be a very short dungeon indeed.. as inside that door is our next boss battle.

Boss Battle: Gorgon Bull

Gorgon Bull Battle Video



You might remember Gorgon Bull from such places as the Fire Palace, where he went under the alias Minotaur and was also a complete joke. The good news is that not much as changed.




He's got the same earth based magic powers, meaning that magic is probably going to be your best bet if he gets that Defender off. Earth Slide can be completely ignored as, even at level 8, his magic power is so pathetic that it only does one point of damage to us.



The real danger the Gorgon presents is in his charge attacks and habit of slamming characters on the ground. Still, stay away from him and it shouldn't be an issue.



Fitting with his name Gorgon Bull also has a petrification attack but it seems to have a remarkably poor success rate.



The key to success here is to use Thunderbolt for quick damage and attack on his sides and from the rear whenever possible. He's got some decent stamina and HP, but after a little while the Gorgon Bull will fall. Our prize is a Bow's Orb, for everybody's least favorite weapon.




After that rather anemic set of boss fights we go directly to the Elemental Spirit Lumina, who seems pretty set on serving us. I'm not going to argue. She's also the source of all the gold in the city, which suggests that we might want to skip town before the king gets wind of this.



Before that, however, we need to get some power. If they weren't aware we were up here already, I can only imagine the light flash from this will be alerting people as far away as the mainland.



As the compliment of Shade, Lumina gives her powers only to Kid. Lucent Beam is an expensive attack that we'll be using a great deal later, while Lucid Barrier helps on a defensive level.



From Watts we have a new round of weapon upgrades:

Were Buster - Strong against animals, birds, and beasts
Elfin Bow - Raises intelligence/wisdom
Cobra Shuttle - Poisons enemies. Also, is less of a boomerang and more of a shuriken.




With no sign of Joch anywhere in the Golden Tower we have to make the tedious climb up the mountain to see Jehk again. I'm almost ready to believe that Jehk has no idea where the Sage is and just keeps telling us things to make us go away. I also have a strong feeling that the actual answer is going to be worse.



At least he's good about giving directions to our next destination, which is more than I can say for half the NCPs in the game.



You can't really miss the Sea of Wonders flying around on Flammie, but you also can't really land on it. Instead, we have to go out to the edge and find a good space.



At the very least, however, the view is interesting. I'd love to know what's going on with the fallen stars and the glimpses of space. Is it a glimpse of space, or supposed to be black sand with the same fallen stars?



Our ultimate goal here, however, is a very weird boat that's parked among the sands.




It's clearly a reference to Charon's Ferry taking the deceased across the River Styx, although how that follows isn't exactly clear. Still, the little guy is kind enough to give us some information about the palace.



There's a few buggy things of interest about Karon that we'll be looking at later, by the by. I'm sure you can guess the source of a few of them just looking at him.



The Moon Palace, which is the only direction we can really go, is overrun by strange jellyfish like creatures. They're actually kind of assholes, as they're one of the few enemy types who can steal your MP. Best dealt with quickly and violently.



Karon wasn't kidding about empty space, either. This room is effectively endless, looping around if you go far enough to bring you back to the beginning whichever direction you go. The only plus side is that it's sparsely populated.



If you go just a bit north and then head straight west, however, you'll soon find yourself at the first orb we've seen in a bit.



Triggering it (so much simpler when you only have one spell that can be targeted) drops you in a large open space that looks as though it should host a boss battle of some kind. Sadly, we're going to be disappointed although I believe the next update shall make up for it.




Luna talks like Yoda and just kind of hands her power over to us. Things are getting a bit too desperate for testing and other shenanigans I suppose.



This is the point where the game goes a bit crazy with handing out seeds and magic left and right. This is a major factor in my decision to put off grinding and do it all at once.




Luna's a very supportive magic, with no direct attack magic even for Boss. I'll have to play around with this one a bit just so see what they mean by "curious things." Taking magic from enemies seems pretty useful as well.




Naturally, no sign of Joch. Next time we're heading to Tasnica.. which is the Republic.. so that means that those twits on the Sandship weren't just friends of Jema (Remember him?) they were actually working directly with him. And this also means they're slaving assholes. This should be fun.

Gold Diggers