Part 24: You Knew This Was Coming

Part 24: You Knew This Was Coming

I seem to be unable to upload anything to YouTube at the moment. Thankfully, there are always alternatives.


First stop, the smithy out back. Light element would be useful against the boss of this area, but six levels of upgrades are even more useful.


Today's dungeon theme is "mountain top." It's mostly linear for once, too.


The enemies include the Suronin and Evilmancers from before, plus the very green Monk Warriors, who are sort of a cross between them in terms of tactics and difficulty. They're all slower than Meis, though, so in the end they're all pretty easy to take out.


Along the way, I found a series of fans and the all-powerful Revive items. You can tell that dying isn't that common since Revives are so rare, partly because Switch Character can always be performed in a pinch.


As always, the Sacred Altars come equipped with convenient forges.


However, before Meis can get himself teleported...


Whoa! Are those pigtails or rocket boosters? Ratchet here is another character who's hard to capture in stills. Partly it's because she keeps moving around, but also because she does this whole bit in a singsong voice just to tease the heroes.



What the hell is wrong with his back? Is he hiding another sword back there or something?

Oh, and wielding the Dark Sword has let the bad guys mind control him. Surprised?



Ratchet's teleportation animation involves exploding into a bunch of colorful stars.


In fact, she does it a few times before leaving completely.




At last, a good, long battle between Meis and Soushi.


Or it would have been, if I hadn't found out that Dark Sword Soushi is weak to the Light element and then used all my Spark Bottles to smack him down.


Suddenly!

Kyoka! Why are you here? Please stay out of this, you'll get hurt!
I had a bad feeling about this, so I brought my brother's sword...
Oooohhhhaaahh!
Soushi!




The warning turns out to be unnecessary, as a bright cyan light radiates from the sword, blowing out the dark fire that was covering Soushi.

Man, Meis is getting really good at this whole sword smithing business.


Soushi, you were possessed by the evil spirit of that sword. See...I told you.

First, that was Sodina who said it, and second, now is not a good time for "I told you so's."

Soushi...






"Going on" in this case meaning getting that next Sacred Flame.


With much less ceremony than before, Meis finds himself back in Xen.


By now they know you know what to expect, so they cut all the crap and get straight to business:


Flame becomes sphere, sphere becomes dots, dots become...


The Earth Spirit, Meis' second summon.


Two uses per day, just like Aquoon.


Oddly, this dungeon breaks with the others by forcing the player to go all the way back down normally.


Mostly, I think it's so that you see this.


Something's burning!
That's Kanouha's hut!


One trip to the base later...


Nevermind me...Sodina...save her. Head to the harbor...

Holy hell, kid, an old man gives you some advice and he almost dies as his house burns down! Makes me glad I never taught you anything useful. Hey floozy, you look tense. How about a nice full-body massage?
Tee hee!


Yep, looks like Sodina's getting shoved into that water-landing airship. Looks kind of out of place next to the flat-bottom boat.


Meis arrives seconds too late to do anything about it.


SODINA-Na-na-na! [Insert cheesy echo effect here]


You know, this would be much more dramatic if that water didn't have terrible pop-in.


Forgive me...this is my doing...My lust for power is to blame for Sodina's abduction. I will join you in order to find Sodina. Even at the expense of my own life.


Meis can't believe that someone is joining the party with a dramatic speech.

Soushi...
Meis, let's hurry! We must save Sodina, quickly!



Next time: Flying Manta Ray!