Part 43: Episode 42: Old Tin Sorrows

So we defeated Lloyd, mugged him of his goodies, and are off to rescue our fair maiden in distress. This seems like a good time to detour to an area that has very little to do with our plot for the moment and pick up some schwag.


I don’t often show off the world map for good reason! But once we take the Snowfield exit(the one that jerk Rose wouldn’t leave the glacier from before fighting Lloyd) we are officially in Gloriano. May ring a bell because Rose said the Emperor Diaz of old went by Holy Imperial Gloriano way back on disc one.


The snowfield itself is pretty much a straight run for where you have to go. But there are some kind of obnoxious to get items and a whole extra area of some import dangling off.


Lloyd: "It's about Diaz.

Dart: "I see. With this blizzard.... It's not a bad time to take a break."


Lloyd: "Regeneration...of the world?"

Legend of Dragoon writers and/or translators. Masters of dialogue.


Diaz: "The world now is rotten, like a fallen fruit. It has the same smell as the world ruled by Melbu Frahma, the Wingly dictator. The world...where inertia is considered to be peace, and the easy path leads to devolution. The overture to the destruction has already begun."

Lloyd: "'Devolution'... You are saying that is the reason why our magic power is deteriorating?"


Emperor Diaz is already practicing on making grand gestures over insane phrases for when he goes big time.

Lloyd: "Now, how can we regenerate the world?"

Diaz: "You Winglies are merely the 107th species. The great will, the creator Soa prepared the last...the 108th species. The last species is the last god, which will regenerate the world and lead us to utopia!"


Lloyd: "the Moon Child descends to the earth and shall give a holy blessing to the world.' The 'Moon Child' of this legend is the last species. It is the god that gives holy bliss to the world."


Lloyd: "It is the truth. Then why does the Black Monster continue to kill the Moon Child?"

Rose: “...”

Lloyd: "That devil wants to stop the evolution, after imagining himself scorched to death by the blessed light brought by the last species."

So who wants to place a bet on who is right in this conversation? Any one?

Dart: "Lloyd. What is the relationship between the Divine Moon Objects you have been pursuing, and the birth of the Moon Child?"

Lloyd: "The ancient Winglies feared their status as the supreme species would end, and sealed up the 108th species. The keys to dissolving the signet are the gem, dagger, and mirror named after the moon."

Albert: "You were going to release the Moon Child, in other words, the 'God', using the Divine Moon Objects."

Lloyd: "If I don't do it, somebody else will. Even the last god cannot escape from the fate determined by Soa. That's all that I wanted to tell you. The rest will be told by Diaz."

Ah yes. The good ol “Well, SOMEBODY was going to release god to purify the earth. May as well be me!”


Dart is still having some anger issues over the whole “dead friend” and “captured love interest” thing. I dunno what his problem is!



Lloyd: "All the truth will be told in Vellweb."


And we are now free to move around. And slip right down the side of a cliff. Woops!


Here is where all that sweet loot is. You need quick reflexes and to move in a certain order though to get it. I’ll get back to this after I take care of some other business though because I am lazy.


Meru: "Oh!? These are the ancient characters of the Winglies! Let me read it. 'Winglies, ouch, mos.' Oops. It's too hard to read."

Dart: "Can't you do better than that? There are some Human characters too....

Kongol: "Gigantos too."


I love this spot. “Pff, can’t read your own people’s writing Meru. … Fuck”

Dart: "Can you read some of them, Rose?"

Rose: "'The cursed land where the decline of the Winglies began. Nobody is allowed to touch the door. The judge Nomos of the court of Zenebatos.'"

Dart: "'Zenebatos'...?"

Rose: "It was one of the most prosperous cities of the ancient Winglies."

Dart: "It's over there?"


Because, uh, I just heard about this place. Around. At bars. Where librarians hang out.

Rose: "But Vellweb is up there. Let's go back quickly."

Dart: "Okay.

Fuck that noise. We are going straight into Fort Magrad. This is actually a completely optional area. But it also has some nice back story AND Dart’s ultimate weapon. So we are knocking this right out.


Meru: "Yoo-hoo, Dart!!"

Meru runs into the ruins and immediately falls flat on her face. How is someone so ungraceful a dancer?

Rose: "I thought we have no business in here?"

Dart: "But, look at Meru. Let's give her a little break."

World hanging in balance, girlfriend kidnapped, but by god we have to let Meru have some fun.


Our reward is a snowball to the face. I love Meru.

Meru: "You said this is Fort Magrad. Is this one of the Winglies' ruins too?"

Rose: "No. It belonged to Humans. It was the land where Diaz declared war against the Winglies with tens of thousands of soldiers and seven Dragoons."


You know. With those bar librarians. Just can’t shut up about 11,000 year old human ruins.

Meru: "Dart!! Let's keep going!!"

There are a few status effect items in here but nothing to write home about. The area is really only a few screens.


Dart: "Rose?"

Rose: (Dragoons are descending here in this place again.)


This line was a lot better when it was in Braveheart.

Liberation Army of Humans: "God bless Diaz!! God bless Gloriano!!"

Diaz: "I am to bring light to the Humans' future! I am to pass judgment on the past of the Winglies! I am Diaz!!"

Liberation Army of Humans: "God Bless Diaz!! God Bless Gloriano!! God Bless Diaz!! God Bless Gloriano!! God Bless Diaz!! God Bless Gloriano!!"


Dart: "Rose. Is anything wrong?"

Rose: "No, nothing.... Let's move on. We don't need to stay here any longer."





Diaz: "There is no guarantee of coming back alive."

Zieg: "Even if one of us dies, our bonds of affection are forever."

Rose: "Zieg."

Diaz: "Your eyes are already looking at our future! Then I will realize it for you!"

Well, we all know how THAT turned out for her.

Rose: "..."


Even our dense as a brick party is slowly starting to believe that Rose is PROBABLY just a little bit more than she lets on.

Rose: "I am...just me."


Rose: "Because the Dragoons made an appearance. It seems the souls of the soldiers who died in the Dragon Campaign have awakened."


And here is our boss for the area Polter Armor. It’s actually three distinct parts hanging together in the shape of an armored ghost warrior. The helmet uses command block which stops an ally from using one of their commands. This DOES stack so it’s possible to get someone really locked down. However it has no way of dealing damage. The Armor casts some nasty dark spells for some serious damage and is the main normal threat.

And last but certainly not least is the sword. It’s attack is pretty weak, but any time a part of the armor dies(including itself) and the sword is around it performs an instant death attack on a party member.


Dart opens up on it with a good ol’ fashioned Crush Dance on the chest piece. My main focus is going to be taking this out to gimp the damage output.


Rose works on finishing up her Hard Blade uses. She’s getting pretty close to unlocking Demon’s Dance, her last addition.


With a howl and a sudden pall of darkness things suddenly turn a bit ugly.


You hear clawing and general animal noises as slashes and small lens flares go off for about 10 seconds. Dart has my Legend Casque on so he just dodges this shit. Rose takes a pretty stout 900 despite being resistant. And Miranda gets gouged for a massive 1700 of her 2000 HP.


Luckily Miranda is up next and hops into her Dragoon form. I like it better than Shana’s because while it doesn’t have armored pants, the entire top is actually solid and not showing off her fleshy midriff.


I use her to drop a White-Silver Dragon. All three opponents are Dark and her magic score will make this roll pretty good.


Each part ends up taking 1100-1200 damage from it and my party is topped back up to full health.


Other than the mysterious wolf attack in darkness the Polter Armor doesn’t have very exciting attacks.


Now that I have some hits in on the enemy I transform Dart into a Dragoon to lay some smack down.


Jesus christ! This is the animation for when the Helmet uses command blocking.


Oh god my Dragoon can’t use her items(this actually becomes relevant later in the battle)


Miranda only has 20 MP so I hold off on using a spell in case I need to do some healing. Look at that damage output!


Dart Final Bursts for the 400th time this LP putting the armor into the red.


And here is part two of my fuck up this fight. Part one was starting with the polter armor. The FAQs assured me that when an armor part died the person that got the killing blow was the one with the instant death counter attack towards them. However they are a damn dirty liar. I had the Talisman on Dart and intended for him to finish off the armor. Rose and Miranda shifted aim towards the sword.


Dart swings in for a solid Dragoon addition, but it’s not quite enough to end thing armor.


Who counters with a pretty generic hit all enemies dark spell


I’m pretty positive the armor has basically no HP left so I use explosion to soften up the other two while finally knocking the armor out.

My reward?








I’m pretty sure this is Karma for using the Talisman to cheese Lloyd so hard. I’m also pretty sure this is the first time I’ve had a character KO’d since Shana got one shotted by Kongol at the end of Disc 1.


Dart properly focuses on the sword with a perfect addition. I’m finally getting these damn Dragoon additions down.


This time when I kill a part it properly focuses on Dart and whiffs against his Talisman. Rose continues to lie dead on the ground until Dart gets a non-Dragoon turn. Poor Miranda still can’t use items to raise her. From here on out it’s a cakewalk because the helm has absolutely no way it can harm us.





The animated sword drops dead to the ground and fades away. I assume this is Soul Eater but Dart or anyone else never makes any motion to pick it up. Also even for ultimate weapons this damn game doesn’t have unique weapon sprites.

Rose: "I cannot complain that people bear grudges against me."


Soul Eater is pretty sweet...but kind of has a powerful downside. It has 31 more damage than Dart’s next closest weapon. But every turn it eats up 10% of your health. You are pretty much forced into burning a SHIT TON of healing items or strapping one of your Therapy Rings onto Dart while he’s using it. This loadout is usually the way to go with him but if you are fighting a water element boss you are better off using a weaker sword and something to boost his magic.

Next time we’ll pick up one of the best accessories in the game and start heading towards dramatic reveals!