Part 56: Episode 55: Highway to the Danger Zone

Rose: "Yes. The moon has not set yet."

Someone clearly wasn't paying attention this whole game It never sets! I don't care what these "experts" with their "knowledge" way will happen if we fuck up at the signet.

Rose: "The Signet Sphere is still safe."

Dart: "It means Shana is still safe."

Rose: "Once we go up this road of souls, there will be no return. We are climbing up."

Dart: "Yes. Lavitz showed us the way. I have no hesitation. Let's go!"


I was expecting this to be a portal or something, but instead Lavitz installed a sweet anti-gravity elevator for us.


If the pictures are to be believed only Rose and Dart get to go. I’m sure they can handle things.


We make our landing way the fuck up in Mayfil and get a spectral flash! I’m pretty sure I don’t really bother using this at any point, but hey free stuff.


Dart: "It was safe."

Rose: "That Signet Sphere is the last barrier to protect the world."

Albert: "If it is destroyed...."

Rose: "There will be no other way but to deal with god itself."

Dart: "When Shana crosses to the Moon That Never Sets, the God of Destruction will be born...? I won't let it. I'll finish it here!"


I thought things were going just a bit too smoothly here. It’s been about 4 updates since we totally cocked everything up.

Dart: "Dad!?"

Zieg: "I'll finish the world here."

Rose: "Reveal yourself!"

Zieg: "I don't hide.”


Finally Zieg bothers to pop into existence instead of just being a disembodied voice.

Zieg: “We don't need weapons. A fight is not appropriate before the celebration of a birth."

He's only saying that because thus far he's worn plot armor.


Dart: "I won't let you!!"


I just noticed Dart doesn't even bother to draw his sword here. PRO STRATS.

Dart: "I, I won't let you."

That declaration works way less after you just got your ass handed to you. Again. Dart just can learn attempted patricide just doesn’t pay.


Rose actually bothers to check out how Dart is doing after getting smashed so hard he drops dragoon form.


And then Zieg blows up the last Signet Sphere. We’re boned.

Zieg: "The arrow has already been released!! To the finale of the world!!"

And with that dire proclamation Zieg gets the fuck out of dodge, probably to go hang out on the Moon That Never Sets with his son’s girlfriend. Not awkward at all.

Rose: "The moon is falling!"

Albert: "The, the world is ending. Does that mean that Humans cannot revoke the will of the creator!?"


I missed sooo many nice animations they did while playing through the game normally. Definitely never caught Dart leaning on his sword like this before going through captures for the let’s play.

Dart: "Don't give up!! It's just the signet of the Moon is broken!!"

Rose: "Yes. We can still struggle. The moon has not obtained Shana yet!! Let's go pursue Zieg!!"



Dart: "Is this a dead end!?"


Damn it Coolon. You just said you couldn’t fly here like, 2 hours ago. What is the deal you god damn winged jerk.

Dart: "The wings of Savan!! Take us to the moon!!"


The active party hops on its back and off we goooo!


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They really weren’t kidding about the Moon falling. It decided its moment had come and fuck even pretending to orbit the planet.


Mommy, how is a god of destruction born? Well, you see, son, when a planet loves a moon very much...


That energy that was presumably from the last Signet breaking gets the Moon VERY excited.


So much so it decides to blast Endiness with a space laser.


Unlike most space lasers, this one explodes into a God Tree not seen since a boring cut scene on disc 3.




It’s looking a bit more worse for wear than it did back at the dawn of creation though.


The Moon That Never Set’s keeps plummeting downwards and breaks through the cloud cover just over the newly reformed Divine Tree.




The tree does not appreciate orbital bombardment and most of it collapses away from the main trunk.


With impeccable timing one of the more random parties you could bother to render in a cut scene flies in on the back of Coolon.




Apparently gigantic space embryo’s are covered in numerous sphincter like orifices. That’s...pretty awkward.


It gets even more awkward when a Virage climbs out of it.


Make that Virages.


Make that LOTS of Virages. Didn’t the original Dragoons have giant fuck off Dragons on their side when fighting these things in number before? This is going to go SO well.


Hundreds of the bastards take to the skies over the Moon to guard in from pesky invaders.


This goes about as well as one would think considering not long ago Coolon was like “oh no spirits flying around Mayfil!!!”


After a bit of dodging he’s pretty much promptly hit.


And goes spiraling into the Moon trailing smoke like a damaged plane because MAGIC.


To make things even more awesome we seem to have landed somewhere in the Divine Tree itself and not on the Moon That Never Sets. Looks like we have a hike coming on.

Dart: "Coolon...."

Rose: "Everything is turning out just as Zieg wished. The seal of the moon was broken, and the terribly disastrous plan laid by Soa finally has started. Those Virages are mere advance guards for the primary Virage Embryo.


Rose: “Does the Divine Tree, which gave birth to all the species, want this as well?"

Well, it took 11,000 years but something has finally ground down whatever optimism Rose had left. I guess its been a rough couple of months for her. Finding out your fiancee isn’t dead, also he’s evil, and by the way, your fuck up basically doomed the planet has to be pretty rough.

It's pretty interesting that its a lot more common for RPG characters to start of horribly flaws but find their way forward. But in this case the humanity of the party has kind of broken what was left of Rose. So long she's basically been all alone. Now she has people look up to her and respect her and its a lot easier to see she's on the edge of a cliff and it's a long fall down.

She's no longer the confident, experienced party member guiding us on. She's just hoping she can make it to the end before the last hammer blow falls and shatters what's left.

Dart: "The world is not over yet. We can still fight to save it, can't we!?"

Rose: "After you've seen those, you still can say that.... Let's go. The Moon That Never Sets is waiting for us."


Just inside the tree we pick up another Phoenix Plume in case we really want to give the middle finger to status effects. But between two Dragon Helms and the Legend Casque, it’s not going to really see use from here on out.


Rose: "It's a fruit of the Divine Tree. It seems to be dried up, though."

Dart: "'Fruit'. Did all the species really arise from such small things?"

Rose: "Only the creator Soa knows that. So, it's just a legend for us. But, we are standing on the Divine Tree which supposedly was in the same legend. We'd better believe it."

Dart: "I guess so."

Rose: "Let's move on. We better hurry up or there will be no one even to tell the 'legend'."


Dart: "One of the fruits arisen from the Divine Tree."

Rose: "Yes. It was the same for us Humans."

Dart: "The God of Destruction will start the same way, won't it?"

Rose: "Yes... Let's move on."


It really is convenient for us that the Divine Tree has well kept pathways on its branch system. Small victories!


Rose: "This stream.... It seems like it is sending a vital force to the Moon That Never Sets. It must be that the Divine Tree is getting ready to give birth to the God of Destruction."

Dart: "...! Then, if we take this stream in this...."

Rose: "Yes. It will carry us to the top. Let's hurry."


Well that was somewhat silly.


The party comes flying out of the distance at a pretty good time spread considering how bunched up they were.

Dart: "We got right up close."

Albert: "In addition, maybe because we let ourselves flow in the vital force, I feel revitalized."

Miranda: "It means that the power of the Divine Tree that gave birth to all species is still alive."

Rose: "In order to kill all the species, it revived the power."


Meru can’t help but brag about how awesome she is.

Haschel: "Taa!"

Haschel also makes a fine landing


Kongol is, well, somewhat less graceful.

Dart: "What is that?"

For those not leaning over my shoulder while I played, the bug right above Kongol in te tree starts to move upwards.


Thanks for your stunning insight Meru.

Haschel: "Did Kongol's landing awaken it?"

Dart: "...We gotta get going."

Dart has the right idea. “You know what, we’ve seen way weirder shit. Let’s gtfo”


Also we can check the blue glowy spot right next to us and find some sweet armor for Miranda. We can also drink the water in the pool on the right edge of the screen for healing if you really need it.

And along the way we run into another of the fruits which I somehow failed to screenshot at all.

Dart: "This is one of the fruits too."

Rose: "Yes, and all the species who were born in this way are about to be annihilated."

Damn it, Rose. This is an RPG. I can spend as much god damn time looking at embry fruit as I want. God will wait for us.

Dart: "Rose...."

Rose: "...Let's get going."


Save point just after a boss fight. I wonder if we might possibly have a boss fight coming.


That stream apparently put us reasonably close to the Moon. And quite a few Virage continue to fly around it. Luckily for us they are apparently blind and don’t notice 7 people tromping towards what they are supposed to be guarding.

Dart: "It'll be soon."

Rose: "Yes. But look at that."


Dart: "Is that the caterpillar from back there?"

Rose: "It's a miracle. There was an unhatched fruit left over.

Dart: “!!”

Rose: It is a sub-species of a new insect. It was just born, and it is coming after us!"


Boss Fight!

Oh god what the hell is this? It’s like some horrible Las Plagas caterpillar. In fact, it is shockingly named Caterpillar. Will creativity never cease? It’s non-elemental and the first stage of what should be a fairly obvious three stage boss fight.


It starts things off by immediately vomiting some yellow mist onto Albert which makes him get stunned and lay around for most of the first part of this fight.


Stage 1 isn’t very threatening so I just stick to normal attacks with Rose and Dart who are still perfectly fine. I manage to flub a counter-attack right after this shot and get slammed for some damage! Demon Dance is usually pretty easy but it has a lot of spots to be countered at and can be pretty tight to react to it.


Caterpillar continues to hate Albert and globs him with some poison. The good news is he is no longer stunned! The bad news is he’s taking 10% damage a turn.


Seems a good enough reason to transform.


And stab it in the face with magical spear action.


Our new bug buddy decides he’s had enough of this shit.


And turns into its next form. Very appopriately, Pupa.


Pupa only has 3200 HP and does absolutely nothing but wiggle around a little bit and get stabbed by Dart and friends.


Once we get through THAT chunk of HP the back cracks open.




And a pretty damn weird humanoid/butterfly thing called Imago(If you hate insects and want to sleep tonight you probably shouldn’t click that) comes out.


She has a very special celebration planned for her sweet sixteen.


Namely lighting Albert on fire with exploding lasers.


Powered up Dart may possibly hit like a truck. She’s got about 16000 HP so a pretty good chunk out right here.


Rose heaves out our good ol’ friend Psychadelic Bomb. It’s still good for random trash fights, but dramatically weakening on most bosses. Only 1000 damage which several characters can hit with physicals.


Imago tries out another spell on Rose.


But it manages to do absolutely nothing. Imago has several status effects. If they are Dark based Rose’s armor may just be nulling them. Imago also has an instant death attack but I’ve never actually seen it used.


Rose get’s vengeance for Imago even trying to attack her.


Albert makes up for lack of screen time and busts out some Dragoon magic.


He’s only Dragoon level 3 so Gaspless is as good as it gets.


Albert gets lasered again and drops into critical HP.


ALMOST got away without healing this fight. It’s really not a hard boss at all. Especially with how cranked I am now after all the extra fights.


And to keep up my grand tradition I kill off Imago with a screwed up Demon Dance!


Not a bad day at the office. Still laughing at the giant pile of XP Dart has over everyone else.


Dart. Shut the fuck up.

Next time! Things start to get really trippy!

Bonus! A way cooler render of the flight to the Divine Tree.



Although you only see half of him, his stance and cape makes Albert look like a total boss here.