Part 21: Your Mother Smelt of Alderberries

Alright, starting from where we left off there's a tiny cave opening to the left of the gate. I feel a bit bad, all things considered, as this appears to be the only entrance.

Boss Battle: Red Dragon

Red Dragon Battle Video



Mainly because if you look at the size of this guy, there's practically no way he'd be able to get into or out of the cave. He's trapped in here, waiting for someone to come along and kill him in order to make their way to the Mana Tree.




The Red Dragon comes with the generic set of dragon attacks, although I should probably point out that like the Snow Dragon his breath attack has a secondary effect. Where the Snow Dragon could turn you into a snowman, the Red Dragon's breath inflicts the engulf status.



There's a small chance he can put you to sleep with his attack, but it's not terribly likely at this point. Even if it is, putting a single target to sleep isn't going to really slow us down very much. He does have access to Exploder, but isn't actually very fond of using it.



Your best bet is to layer a few freeze spells on him for big damage. He's only got about 200 more HP than the last dragon we dealt with, so it might take you all of one extra cast to take him down. His offense is better, but a few cure spells will make up the difference. Prize: Glove's Orb.



Moving onward, there's scattered bits of masonry scattered around the screens. It really reminds me of the last dungeon in Final Fantasy Adventure in a pleasantly nostalgic way. Not quite as nice is that on occasion we just kind of walk right in to boss fights..

Boss Battle: Thunder Gigas

Thunder Gigas Battle Video



Like Thunder Santa here. This completes the Gigas Trio for the game, although I have to wonder if he's some kind of mythological creature as well. Santa Claus and the Frost Gigas is a pretty easy link to make, but I'm drawing a blank here.




Strictly speaking he isn't a Thunder Gigas, since his element is as much wind as anything else. He's got most of Sylph's catalog, although these two are his particular favorites. Thunderbolt stings a little bit, but that's not the real danger.



In actually, his Blitz Breath is an absolutely brutal attack that can do more than 400 damage to your characters. Not pictures is Boss dying in one hit after he got this shot off. You actually have to watch out for this one and try to keep your characters HP up just in case he gets it off.



Like the Frost Gigas he's clever enough to cast Thunder Saber on your weapons to put your damage in the basement, but he only casts it on one person at a time. You can counter with Stone Saber.



That's pretty much the main counter for this battle, really. Like any lightning based creature we've dealt with thus far the game here is to stick as many Earth Slides down his throat as possible while having your melee characters hit from the sides when possible. The biggest problem is when he feels like being incorporeal. 4500 HP later we collect our final Sword Orb.



... So. Many. Bosses. Fully 1/6th of this game's bosses are located in this one dungeon, slightly more if you don't count the Biting Lizard types. It is very much an unapologetic boss rush. With that said...

Boss Battle: Blue Dragon

Blue Dragon Battle Video



I hope I'm not spoiling anyone's fun by saying that the Blue Dragon is the last boss in the dungeon. That said, all things considered he's not really as bad as all that.




He's got the same Blitz Breath that the Thunder Gigas used, but it's not nearly as dangerous for some reason. Breath Wing can hurt a bit, but if you stay scattered it's not a real problem.



For a status effect he's got Confuse, which isn't terribly damaging if it hits whomever you're controlling. It can shut down spell casters for a bit and make your AI controlled team mates act like idiots.



Naturally he has Thunderbolt, but getting a screen shot of the spell name was a bit difficult. Just as a note, as you can see at this point you do have a weapon that's strong against dragons and should probably be using it.



Your best bets here are things like Earth Slide and Stone Saber, since he shares the same weaknesses that the Thunder Gigas suffered from. As Earth is one of the elements that we've had the longest, it should be strong enough to be of use. I can't help but think that the Boomerang Orb we get from this is a bit lamer than the Sword Orb we just got.



Following the battle, we find ourselves on a high peak overlooking a valley far, far below us with only one point of reference.



This image looks familiar, possibly from the opening...



Boss is all about getting down to business, but there's more important business here.




Before we can power up the Mana Sword and go about saving the world, we have to stop and reminisce about how meaningful the journey has been. Kid seems awfully emotional for someone who just hopped on board to search for her missing boyfriend.



Reason #643 why Boss is awesome.




Boy's got a bit more of an excuse to be maudlin about this stuff, but at least he's got his eye on actually finishing this thing. I think it's a bit problematic that the tree still appears to be miles away from us, but that's another issue.



Hopefully the Tree has really good ears, as there isn't an obvious way to get down there from here..



Wait.. what?




Yeah, it wasn't going to be as easy as all that. I have to give credit to the Empire, since weaponizing Mana Energy and using it against its source takes a special kind of lunatic genius.



When the light fades, the party is unconscious in front of a giant talking tree stump.



Oh, it's around Boy.. there's some over here.. and over here.. and a bit off that way..



It would pretty well have to be Thanatos's doing, since we've systematically exterminated the rest of the Empire's high command.



In some ways, the world just keeps getting darker in this game. Right now, the source of life for everything has been pretty thoroughly destroyed.



That's not to say, however, that it doesn't have a bit to say.

I Won't Forget - Tree's Theme



For starters, it turns out that Mana is a finite resource that can be used up. I have to wonder if it would be possible to balance expenditure with replenishment to keep an even balance, but it doesn't look like that's going to be an option.




The Mana Beast is pretty much an automated system to prevent such things from occurring, but the process isn't without its problems.




I think uncontrollable rage is the kind of design flaw you want to iron out of your repair system, lest it end in repeated apocalypses. It could be a problem of the nature of the threat, but this seems to be a re-occuring issue.




So did the Mana Beast come before the Sword, or was the Sword created to deal with a haywire control system? This is also the first that anybody has mentioned the Tribe of Mana.



Big Reveal #1. It's been hinted at several times, including people noting his resemblance to "someone" and the fact that Serin disappeared about the time that Boy would have been born. Still not much of an excuse for Jema not at any point saying something like "You know, you look just like my best friend in the world did when he was a teenager."




The world building in this particular sequence is fantastic, because it outlines that this entire thing has been going on for longer than most of our characters have been alive. The whole conflict between the Empire and the Republic takes on a whole new dimension once you realize all this, and the paranoia about spies and the like makes sense when you consider how many times they've probably tried it over the past couple decades.



Boy's expression is priceless at this point... and he's not going to lose it for the rest of the conversation.



... this probably bears further explanation, especially if you're not familiar with the ending of Final Fantasy Adventure. This also very much implies that the Mana Tree was destroyed 15 years ago as well.

I Won't Forget - Mother's Theme




The Mana Tribe is evidently fairly small, as there's no indication that anybody else in the Tribe could pick up after Serin left off. I think a bit more being fruitful would probably be a good idea here.




It's very possible that the energy beam we saw earlier led to the shields being down so that we could storm the Mana Fortress. As long as they left an open exhaust port, we've got it made. As a note, what just happened was that our magic ceiling got raised to level 8.99... no change to the sword.



Keep in mind that whole bit about "with the last of my strength." This is pretty much her first and last conversation with her son.




If you don't feel something at this point, I'm sorry.



I'm with Boss here. Ghost Dad, secret Tribe of Mana, mother's a tree... this is absolutely insane.




Oh. No, he's just planning on kicking Boy in the nuts by rubbing the whole "You're an orphan" thing in his face. I can't decide if Boss is the best kind of friend or the worst kind.



Boy takes it fairly well, all things considered..



Then again, Boss does kind of have a point. There's bigger issues at hand and it's not like Boy hadn't written off that whole parents issue some time ago.



Still going with the "Boss is kind of a dick" view, though.




Let's just hope that Kid isn't right about this. It'd be a bit weird to have two of the main characters be siblings and never know it. At least there hasn't been an overt romantic angle to make things even more creepy.



As you can imagine, we have some weapons upgrading to do. Kakkara is the easiest place to find since it's directly south of Pure Land.

Dragon Buster - strongest normal sword, good against Dragons... which we've killed off.
Great Axe - Effective against plants and fish.
Doom Bow - Raises critical hit %. Also, very doomy.
Shuriken - Also raises critical hit %.
Dragon Dart - again, great against the dragons we won't be finding from this point forward.
Griffin Claws - inflict poison status on enemies.

Boss Continues to View Us as Manual Labor Part 2