Part 61: Episode 60: Soldiers Live

All the plot twists. All the end game weirdness. It’s all come down to this. Punching god in the face. Just in case you forgot this was a JRPG.

I hope you have your snacks and drinks ready cause this is going to be a long one.


When we run up to him we get a choice to head back if we need to heal/buy items/furiously masturbate to the Divine Dragoon. Whatever. But we have that done so onward we fly!


Melbu Frahma: "The immortality.... And the ultimate power.... I am the god...who purifies the world...! Under the fate determined by Soa. Death to those who rebel against fate. Death to all life...! And may your death bless the new world to which I shall descend!!"


Dart: "We won't let you!! We are the Dragoons!! We are ready to fight against fate!! Let's go!!"


Melbu Frahma Fight Part 1

This fight is a total fucking slog of HP and forms so I broke it up into multiple parts. There are also transitions between each form, so on the whole I kept those separate so people could watch those without having to scroll through the fight. The first transition is pretty boring so is just in fight part 1.


Stage one of the fight is Melbu Frahma himself and 4 Tentacles. Shown here giving a friendly slap to Albert. Each Tentacle has its own turn and attack so we want to get rid of them post haste.


If you screwed up and got the shitty Psychedelic Bomb this would be the point to use it. No other form has more than one target you care about, so you’ll get a lot more mileage out of it here than anywhere else. Each tentacle has about 1800 HP and takes 1000 from the Bomb. Frahma himself has about 10,000 and takes 800.


Dart starts gnawing away on Melbu.


Albert has not had much time to shine.


Also his Dragon magic is an area all attack. Seems like a handy coincidence!


Now this is one manly looking Dragon. Just look at that jaw line.


I don’t think he was meant to be seen from this angle. Either way, Albert drops another 825 on all the tentacles and they are out of the game. Just our main nemesis from here on out!


Despite being a god of destruction now Melbu frequently falls back on good ol’ fashion Wingly Magic.


In this case using a really generic earth smash one. Hooooow exciting.


Rose spent her first turn speeding Dart up and finally gets into the god killing business. You may notice she is not using a flaming death sword in engine


Albert rushes in for a Dragoon Addition and does way less damage than Dart or Rose do with normal ones.


Just in case you thought all those Virage’s outside were for decoration.


They also know how to party.


With burning laser death.


It actually doesn’t hit as hard as one would think. Unless your name is Rose and you take nearly half your health in damage. Good thing these are regular Virages instead of Super Virages.


Healing breeze to top everybody back off.


One of his fun little gimmicks is he occasionally just grabs someone when they go in for a standard attack.


Right by the skull. Then magic power right to the dome.


Before flinging them to the ground.


Having proving his godhood with a few unique attacks Melbu goes back to using normal magic.


One again grievously injuring Rose. Even as someone who swears by the “The best defense is a good offense” strategy in this game, I really should have swapped out Rose’s Dancer’s Ring for something to reduce damage. Her next turn is spent using a Healing Fog on herself.


Dart decides its time to be incredibly smug.


Dart thought Lavitz looked totally awesome when making this pose to open the magic elevator and steals it for the Divine Dragoon transformation.


I don’t think there is enough energy and glowing to go around.




LENS FLARE.


The Divine Dragoon trades grace for power in its addition. It kind of just zooms in and smashes for shit tons of damage.


He’s above! (Only two people reading this thread will probably get this reference)


After a few slashes with his ridiculous sword he starts charging up the cannon on his other arm.


And explodes the crap out of Melbu Frahma.


Melbu has had enough of this shit and reduces himself from a model to a distorted texture.


Then condenses into a singularity which explodes.


And when sight comes back we have form two!


In a really obnoxious background filled with constantly moving lines of white on black.


Dart welcomes him to his new body.


This form has a bit more HP(although technically this entire boss fight is one life bar) and uses this beam slash as its most common attack.


This background is really annoying and makes focusing on the addition box harder than it needs to be.


Albert finally drops out of Dragoon form and starts hammering away. Poor guy is totally outclassed by Dart and Rose though. Not dying is the main thing he brings to the party for the rest of the fight.


Dart decides to show off his shiny new magic.


Power pretty much just steams/radiates off his entire body.


His arm cannon starts expanding and glowing as he charges up.


The camera does a sharp three step zoom in to show off Dart’s sweet targeting eye.






And i’m not sure there is a better phrase than “And then he nukes the shit out of the enemy”


Our buddy Melbu is having none of this though.


His left shoulder starts vacuuming in.


Sucking up poor Dart.


And storing him inside his chest. WHAT THE FUCK MELBU FRAHMA.

Unlike when the Windigo trapped someone Dart at least doesn’t take damage while he is in there. He just fails to be awesome and our most powerful team member.


Albert decides murder is the best solution. Continues attacking.


Melbu decides to change his shoulder from suck to blow.




And basically shoots Rose with his own Divine Dragon Cannon. Once again she nearly dies from the experience and has to heal herself up.


I decide this is a good time to switch her into Dragoon mode for the extra defense. Unfortunately even on perfect additions she loses about 300 damage compared to Demon’s Dance.


All the flavor has apparently gone out of Dart.


So he gets spit out right at Rose.


They both fall to the ground from the impact. Rose manages to dodge because MAGIC.


She celebrates by showing off her own sweet Dragoon magic.




It does a bit more than her attack, but she only do it once without MP healing. So really not worth the time waiting through the animation. Either way, stage two is pretty much down for the count.

Mid-update bonus!


Melbu Frahma form two concept art.


Transition 2 Video


Things start to get weirder now.


There is a giant explosion in the darkness, and afterwards a barren planet is there where only nothingness was before.


And then massive storms wrack the planet.


Rain falls from the heavens!


Mountains rise from what was once flat earth.


And then the fourth generation has sweet skies.


Also unfortunately our next boss! But briefly some sweet music. I thought this was going to be music for the next section of the fight, but after the cutscene ends it goes back to Melbu Frahma’s theme that we had for the first two forms.




Melbu Frahma Stage Three

This form of Melbu seems to be part starship.


Once again Divine Dragoon Dart gets to welcome a new form to life. Thanks to being vacuumed into the boss he’s spent one Dragoon transformation in three stages of the fight.


His first new attack in this form involves rapidly accelerating the blue orb that hovers around him.


Launching it into one of your party.


Then watching it fly off into the distance.


Someone who made this had definitely seen Sephiroth’s ultimate attack. Melbu starts sucking all the planets into himself(don’t question the scale at ALL)


And then causes some sort of Big Bang.


Asteroids fly through space hitting our poor team.


And then they plummet down to the planet.


Where they gracefully slam into the ground.

That’s about all this form has to say. We COULD have actually attacked the part that launches the blue ball at us, but pfff. It got its only attack off before we could have offed it.


Transition 3: Things Really Get Weird


It seems pretty clear by this point the transitions are working us through the formation of the planet as it works its way towards the present.


Grass and trees just kind of explode out of nowhere ignoring all the midrange life though.


I guess this makes sense with how life did actually form on Endiness.




Generation six is pretty much the rise of civilization.


These old timers were fucking badass. They are beating what I think is a dragon to death with big rocks and crude spears.


Then they got lame and started farming.


Making women do the hard work.


Back to badass and hopefully sacrificing innocents to their pagan gods.


And then some poor unadvanced civilization has to fight soldiers while riding...fuck if I know what they are riding.


And then there were joyous family reunions?


Creepy uncles?


Dead kings.


And much despair and blood.


Bringing us to this.


A Place Where Even Gods May Die

A plane of bone and fire. While we fight what looks like a scaled up version of the Dragon souls from Mayfil.


It’s tail is important. It can do this fancy dandy attack where it flings Dart in the air. But if it gerts withdrawn Melbu has a skill that is basically the Dragon Block Staff. Your offense and defense in Dragoon form will be fucking terrible. He never bothered using it on me though.


He can also do a little laser scan to decide who to attack.


He then locks them into...this.


Which is pulled into a light box in front of him.


Where the person is attacked by glowy trident arms.


...which copies back to the character who is mysteriously back on the ground. Despite clearly being missing during the first portion of the attack. I have no idea.


Dart transforms again to speed things up, Cannons the fuck out of God.


When this form uses magic runes glow on his giant mushroom head.


And then he uses a standard Light damage to all attack. You are the worst end boss Melbu Frahma.


Of course Rose once again eats a shit ton of damage due to type weakness. Albert has not gotten healed since stage one. Dart cares not all. So Rose uses a Healing Rain to get everyone up.


And as is right and proper, Rose gets the final actual attack in of the game.


After that it's on cruise control. Dart automatically transforms into the Divine Dragoon.


And lasers Melbu Frahma to finish him. It would have been hilarious if he did his usual generic boss is defeated sword slash.


Enjoy the ride. This video has everything left in the game in it! You should really just watch this

Everyone needs to experience the terrible voice acting that is the final cinema of Legend of Dragoon. They don’t even PRETEND to do any lip synching.

Melbu Frahma: "Arrrrggghhhhhhhhh!!"


Melbu is on fire and REALLY not enjoying himself here.


Probably even less so when half of his face explodes.


Cool guys don’t run away from explosions.

Dart: “Shana!”


Luckily she is just hanging out on the ground with all the skeletons.


Shana: “Dart!”


Have I mentioned that outside of battle the Divine Dragoon his hilariously huge? The battle model does no justice to it.


Dart just kind of scoops up Shana like a toy.


Rose: “I have been waiting for this moment.”


Zieg: “I kept you waiting. For so long.”


Zieg: “I’m. Sorry.”

Our buddy Zieg isn’t sounding too healthy after the party stomped him and he got unposessed.


Melbu Frahma: “Dart! Arggaghh”


The rest of the gang just kind of hovers and watches.


Haschel: "Hmm?"

Meru: "Ahh!"




Dart: “What?”


Melbu Frahma decides that his battle forms were not enough. Once again he emerges. In what is quite frankly pretty awesome looking.

Melbu Frahma: "How dare you!? Inferior humans cannot outsmart me, a god!"


Zieg: "Rose, the time has come.


Zieg: “This is the end of our long journey."

Rose: "Zieg..."

Zieg: "Could you come with me?"


Rose: "Yes. I will never leave you again."

Dawwwww.


Meanwhile Melbu is screaming like he’s powering in a DBZ fight.


It’s not all bluster as he launches out another attack.


Dart and Shana proceed to get horribly electrocuted.


Shana makes the least convincing cry of pain of all time. Especially considering how much this must hurt after missing two discs of leveling.


Dart: “What the...Damn!”


A dude getting force lightninged by god could look a lot worse.


For once Melbu Frahma is enjoying himself.


Until he overloads and explodes the entire arm powering the attack.


It’s kind of downhill from there for the ol’ boy.


Zieg: "Dart, you have grown up!”


Zieg and Rose start zooming around out of nowhere to some sweet music.

Zieg: “I couldn't do anything for you as a father. Please forgive me."


For some reason one of Zieg’s arms is a mass of writhing tentacles.


Dart: "But father, we finally met! This isn't fair!"


Rose: "Dart, I'm so glad I met you!"


Zieg: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Noooooo. Damn it Rose. You aren’t allowed to die after only 11,000 years. Although its hard to beat killing god with a kamikaze attack by ways to go out.


Dart: “Rose! Father!”

Dart sound pretty bored considering his Dad and one of his best friends just suicided.


...but apparently not so hard they can’t talk still.

Zieg: “Go, Dart.”


Outside the Moon is starting to collapse in on itself.


All the pores glow green while Virages explode and drop from the skies.


God goo leaks all over the place.


Inside things are exploding hard core. The whole party is jetting outward.


Rose: “My role has ended. Place the weights of the future by yourself.”

Zieg: “This is your age to give, with Shana."

Dart: "What are you talking about? We're all in it together."

How the hell are you still talking, you are in the middle of that explosion.


Possibly part of Frahma or just a part of the moon is glowing angrily at us while Zieg talks over.

Rose: "We were never meant to exist in this age."


Dart: "Noooooooo!"

Dart does his best Revenge of the Sith impression while charging up the Dragon Cannon.


Dart blows the thing up as well as a hole for the party to blast through while talking to his questionably dead friend and parent.

Rose: "My age ended in remote antiquity.”


The crew continues to fly through a rocky mess as the Moon continues to fall to pieces all around them. Kongol axes through a crater twice as big as he is on the way through.


Rose: “Farewell, Dart, and thank you!"

And now they are really gone.


They finally get free of the moon itself, the last one dramatically close to the explosion behind them.


And what an explosion it is.


Afterwards the glow starts collapsing in on itself.


To a single point.


And then the fireworks get serious.


Nuclear would be an apt comparison. I think God was just converted from mass into energy.






I’m not sure there is anything else to say to that. Other than Meru is lazy and has two sets of ways she can fly.




Dart: “Rose! Father!”


I can’t imagine what the hell the rest of the world is thinking right now with this shit going. And with that our final FMV is done! But we are only about halfway through the ending.


We now get to see how everybody is doing after the whole diverting world destruction thing. The image quality here is AWFUL and it’s all Sony’s fault. I legit think this whole thing got recorded in a lower resolution because its a horribly blurry mess compared to the game proper. NOt to mention the grey outside box of the scene zoomed in on the outside.


Kongol apparently decided to move in with Haschel who is trying to teach him kung fu.


So far success is eluding him.


As Haschel rushes to check in on the fallen Giganto a white bird with purple markings takes off from a pillar on the dock and flies off.


Charle Frahma is happily tending to her man eating plants who also seem pretty ok with things.




Once again our birdy buddy flies away after checking things out.


The Crystal Palace is looking a little rough these days.


But the Sacred Sisters and the Queen seem to be doing well.


The bird sees everything is cool as it flies past an open window.


Princess Lisa is hanging out with her father and some goons and kibitzing with the commoners.


Everything checks out and the bird flies to its next destination.


Meru has apparently decided to show Guaraha the joys of shopping in Human markets.


Someone rushes by a knocks a large pot into the air which Meru catches to much applause.


And the for god knows what reason the bird flies out of the pot.


Over in Bale fireworks explode over the castle.


Inside Albert is getting married to Princess Emille.


Our little spergy buddy managed to get his girl.


Down in the city proper we head to Lavitz’s house.


Dart walks into his room.


The bird hangs out on the sill while Dart checks out his stuff.


And he never forgot. It might be a bit posthumous, but Lavitz got the drink Dart owed him.


Back in Seles it looks like the town is getting put back together.


Shana rushes out to meet Dart. Clearly he left her here while he went to the wedding and to deal with Lavitz’s memory.


More guys are working overhead, the front one waving to the happy couple.


While they go for a hug they both give the bird a “What the fuck is your deal” look.


And far far away the bird slides over the ruins of the Divine Tree.


It alights on a bit of ruined branch with a similar red marked bird.


Keeping watch over their Dragon Spirits.

In the night, when the wind dies and silence rules, I remember. And they all live again. Soldiers live. And wonder why.