Part 12: Making Up For Lost Time

Now that we've jumped through all the required hoops, we get an option to just sail directly from Jad to Palo. I'm more than glad to take it and escape the golden road.



Unfortunately, we aren't going to get a chance to rest at the hideout or anything like that. This silly bint is blocking the way and won't be moving anytime soon.



"Yeah, I think the only thing creepier than a gape-mouthed statue is one that inexplicably moves by itself."

"Could you imagine hearing a noise, looking out your window, and seeing one of those things watching you?"




The main gimmick in this dungeon is that you have to change the direction of the wind statues by hitting these green buttons. It's not terribly challenging or confusing, and there's often multiple ways you can reach the same spot.



There's also a few off-shoot rooms with circular wind currents and a few enemies. I won't say no the experience, though. So far I haven't been grinding, and this is resulting in me just keeping pace with the enemies for levels. I'm not sure if I should change this or not.



At any rate, just keep moving in this cave and you'll eventually reach your destination: the first Mana Stone we've actually seen.



"Soon, it will be released from the stone, and the world will return to darkness…"

"…I see."

"You know, you seemed awfully.. anticipatory when you said that the Mana Beast would be released soon.."



"It's not like I'm resentful of a bunch of crawling apes despoiling a perfectly good planet and managing to nearly wreck the entire place every couple of generations."

"Let's find Jinn! He should be close by.."



"Should there really be footprints with a wind spirit?"



"Makes perfect sense to me."



"Lise, I don't think he's the kind of guy who's going to just quit tormenting one of the 8 elemental spirits out of politeness."



"Although I suppose I could be wrong."



What's that you say? A boss fight? Don't mind if I do.

Boss Fight: Tzenker



Tzenker Battle Video

Tzenker's introduction is quick enough that you'll miss it if you blink. Overall I think she's got a pretty cool looking design, and is very much thematically appropriate for something related to the Wind spirit.




As you might expect she's got air magic for attacks, which can be used to attack single and multiple targets.



Occasionally she'll pick up your characters so that she can drop them and put them to sleep. It's occasionally annoying if Tzenker does it two or three times in a row.




After a while she pulls out the buffs and debuffs to prolong the fight a bit. Tzenker can increase her already considerable speed as well as stripping away your defenses. It's not enough, though..



Since like all Seiken Dentetsu bosses Tzenker is composed of explosive materials.



"Jinn, hang in there…"



"Wait, you know healing magic? Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?"

"You didn't ask."

"Oh bullshit. You just didn't want to do the work."

"Hey, it's in my best interest to help you, remember? I'm stuck with you, unless you should happen to die…"



"Who was that knight?"

"Dunno! I was minding my own business when he attacked me!"

"He took my energy, and used it to summon Tzenker!"



"Jinn… we need to ask you a favor… can you help us?"



"Good. I'm going to need you to put a bunch of ninjas to sleep using magical flower pollen so that me and my Amazoness friends can murder them without a struggle."

"…I was expecting something considerably less bloodthirsty, but I guess I can do that…"




Naturally we've still got a long trip back down the mountain to the hideout so that we can continue the game. on the way down I was amused to catch a few animations I'd missed before. The way the Armor Knight's eyes bug out is hilarious. Also, they have a multi-target attack that they can pull out on rare occasions.



"Wait, the meadow? Why the hell did everybody go there?"

"What are you looking at me for? Nobody tells me nothing."



"That's weird. Why'd they remove the cannon?"

"I'd hope it was so that they could load it up and use it on the enemy in the castle, but that'd be expecting too much."



"Yeah! Just watch!"




The blue wind howls...



And the ninjas patrolling Rolante castle get a dose of their own medicine.



It's not as simple as that, though, so we've got to go into the castle now. The items in the barrels aren't anything special, but there's nothing wrong with some healing items.



"I'm so impressed that your troops are up to murdering men in their sleep."

"At this point I'm not willing to cut ninjas any breaks."



Moving onward we start to encounter enemies who are still awake. Whether this is because the pollen didn't reach this far or because they have a previous exposure is never explained, so pick the explanation you like best.



"See?! This is why you can't trust those sneaky bastards."

"I really am starting to think that you guys are only the best Amazon army in the world because there aren't any other candidates."



If you weren't expecting a dungeon, this can come as a bit of a nasty surprise. It's only the first such surprise, however.



The only new enemy in the entire place is the Evil Sword, which we've seen in previous games. Being so low level, though, they aren't terribly threatening.



Rolante castle is actually fairly extensive, but you're looking for this particular dead end. You'd think that enemies would jump out at this point, but it's a bit more troublesome than that.

Boss Fight: Genova



Genova Battle Video

The actual boss battle is against, of all things, the fireplace. I don't know why he's called Genova, but I suppose it's as good a name as any.



The small blue figurines you can see are shape shifters, who can take the form of just about any enemies in the game including those we haven't seen yet. Genova boosts their attack for good measure.



Genova's main offense is using random traps on your characters, although the real threat comes from the shape shifters.




Genova can also use fire magic on your characters, which makes a good deal of sense considering that we're dealing with an animate and apparently sapient fireplace.



At least with this fight the fact that he explodes afterward makes a certain amount of sense.



If the shape shifters are left alive after you've finally defeated Genova you still have to kill them. It's not too bad, though, since they aren't very dangerous when they aren't being continuously reinforced.



"Who was it that doubted we could solve things by just talking through them? Carlie?"



"Looks like I was right this time, though."

Boss Fight: Bill/Ben



Bill/Ben Battle Video

Bill and Ben practice the art of manly combining for this fight, explaining the / in the video title. They'll sometimes go back and forth between being one target and two. This is actually a really tough fight if you're not on the ball.



They can use shuriken on either single targets or the entire party. With the entire party this can do about 50 damage to everybody, and they sometimes decide they're going to drop this attack 3 times in about as many seconds.




Other than that, they mostly use elemental attacks that are referred to as jutsus. The funny thing is that eventually Hawk could possibly learn these attacks… we're just getting an early preview.



They've also go a few single target attacks they can pull out, although it's fairly easy to keep up with the damage race if they're just attacking one person.



"Wait.. Bigi-who?