Part 64: Storming Redhorn Isle (Part 2)

CUTSCENE: The Weak Spot

Yulie: So… THAT is the Act of God?
Caesar: Geez Kara, you said “giant,” not gi-mongous!


Eldore: Conventional weapons won’t do us any good. Any ideas, Kara?


Kara: You see those pipes snaking out over there?


Caesar: Yeah?
Kara: Those are its power supply. The Act of God needs a vast amount of magical energy to function. If I remember correctly, those pipes supply the whole cannon.


Caesar: A weak spot! Boy, you gotta hand it to those engineers. They sure make it easy for the good guys.
Kara: Indeed.


Kara: If we follow the pipes, we can find the three Zore Crystals which produce the cannon’s energy. We’ll need to take out all three.


Caesar: Right. Let’s get cracking.




And we’re back at it.

Caesar: Let’s hit that cannon where it hurts! At the source!


Eldore: If the cannon needs magical energy, this island has plenty of it.

We also encounter another rift early on here on Redhorn Isle, just tucked out of the way on a branching path. A piece of the Elder armour for the Arc Knight lies hidden in here. But we don’t need that because we’re cheating, so let’s move on.


Eventually, we come to the entry point of Redhorn Isle Fortress itself, and predictably, it’s guarded by a couple of Magi soldiers, including up to two Magi Commanders, both of whom can transform into Gigases upon their deaths.


Ragesplosion.






Yada yada yada, Adveni, yada yada yada…










Again, Gigases aren’t THAT big of a concern, especially now that you’ve got your Knights back in full force.

So let’s try that again and see what happens now.


Orren: O Swordo… I’m assuming… Emerald champion, master of the ancient hammer, grant me your power…


Orren: VERTO!


Orren: NOT AGAIIIIII—!


Wait. What’s this?




Woah.








Um…. Wow. Well, this is an improvement.

_{Knight design c/o: Magnus Ragnar and thread vote.}


Orren: Now THIS is more like it!


Thaseios: SHOW ME WHAT PASSES FOR FURY AMONG YOUR MISBEGOTTEN KIND!!!
Orren: …Wow. What the fuck?


Thaseios: ALL THINGS ARE DUST AND RUBBLE BEFORE ME!!!




Orren: Just my luck. I get a Knight of my own, and its possessed.


Thaseios: I WILL ANIHILATE ALL THOSE WHO—
Orren: SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY! You wanna see RAGE?!


Orren: PAY ATTENTION, MOTHERFUCKER! RAAAAAAAAAH!!!







And so thanks to Orren’s Terra’s Rage the Uber Arc Knight’s attack power increases dramatically.


Thaseios: I’m impressed.


Orren: DIE LEONARD! DIE YOU IGNORANT FUCK UP ARTIST!




Orren: AAAAAAAAHH!!!


Thaseios:
Orren: NEXT!




Orren: POWER OVERWHELMING!




So we’re getting a preview here of some post-game powers, such as the Albaran’s Earth Soul skill.


It’s a super-powerful area-of-effect earth elemental magic attack. So of course because it’s on a weapon that we shouldn’t even have right now, it absolutely annihilates the gigas.


Orren: CRUMBLE BEFORE MY—
Thaseios: Hey, look, I’m just going to be real with you here… You’ve got some issues.


Orren: I’m working on that.


Thaseios: How?


Orren: BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA TO GIGAS FACES!


Down.


Orren: Hohooo, gods. That was amazing.


Orren: You and I are gonna get along just—


Thaseios: Nope.


Orren: Woaaaaaah. What the hell was that? Why do I feel so… relaxed? What happened? Why do you all look so freaked out?
Everyone: …No reason.


And we’re moving on…

Eldore: Stay on guard. High Priest Ledom is not a man to be trifled with.
Kara: He’ll pay for manipulating me!
Yulie: And for betraying Balandor!
Caesar: And for killing my puppy! …Okay, I made that one up. Creepy dude though.
Orren: The man DOES seem like the puppy-killing type, all said.

Caesar: best party member? Or best party member?




So you can see here the Zore Crystals laid out on the map here. There’s one in the far north of the fortress, one in the far south, and one across the gorge between the two halves of the fortress in the far east side.


They seem deceptively close to where we are now, but the doors are strategically locked across the fortress to ensure we need to take the long way around and do a bit of obtuse platforming to get to each crystal.


And of course, inside is swarming with Magi mooks. Well, there’s one way to deal with them.

Uber Arc Knight, come on down…


Orren: O Thaseios, slayer of gods, rage of the ancient earth, grant me your power…


Orren: VERTO!




Orren: WHAT?!


Orren: Aaaw, dang it! Well, I knew it was too good to last.


Well, the… ah… glitches… with the Arc Knight seem to work themselves out by the time we enter the fortress proper, allowing us to continue messing up the Magi without any more interesting hiccups.


boop


And then John was a Gigas.


Green on Green violence.




Orren: Ya know. I love this thing, bugs and all.








“But you might be able to unlock it from the other side…”

AKA: “Lol! Take the hard way, n00b!”


You can, realistically, take out the crystals in any order you want, but it makes the most sense to go North, South, and then East, as it puts you in line to head to the area boss of the island in the north on the other side of the gorge from the first crystal.


Eldore: We cannot rest while Queen Mureas is in danger.
Yulie: I hope that thing takes time to recharge.


So from here we need to go out on these little ledges, each of which are loaded with soldiers. There’s not much room on them, but luckily, there’s no risk of you falling off them, barring one specific point on each othem.


And that point is right here, a very blatantly denoted stretch where the chain barrier opens up, allowing you to drop down to the path below.


Orren: I hate my liiiiiiIIIIIIIIIFE!


[BROKEN ANKLES FOR EVERYONE!]


You can see all these various cool bits in the background here. This is the one area, along with the Lost Forest, where Level-5 actually pushed the Effort Button in the game. This is the reason they had you rerun every other area and do the Balandor Castle Waterway three straight times: they were saving money to make Redhorn Isle.

Caesar: Even the Knights would have trouble toppling that cannon.


Caesar: The Act of God needs to stop… eh… acting up!


More Caesar is Best Caesar.

This is also the door leading to the area of the first Zore Crystal.


Inside the fortress of course are more soldiers and Gigas-transforming traps soldiers.


Case in point. However, like I said earlier, they’re very easy to take out now even on foot.




Let’s whack Zore Crystal #1.


MINIBOSS BATTLE: Redhorn Isle Zore Crystals (all three - no commentary)


On point for this one is the Arc Knight.


Orren: O Sword, emerald champion, master of the ancient hammer, grant me your power…


Orren: VERTO!




We meet again, Zore Crystal Mk. II.


The Zore Crystal Mk. II is vulnerable to both impact and stabbing attacks, so that means, in theory, all three of our usable Knights are perfectly suited to taking them down no problem.




Oh god YES! 4-digit damage!


And then it broke.





Orren: I’m technically helping…


Yshrenian Solider: For Yshren—
Orren: [HAMMER TO FACE]
Yshrenian Solider: …ow.


Orren: No. For me.


Crystal #2. The Dragon Knight’s on point for this one.


Caesar: O Larvayne, vermillion drake, leveler of ancient lands, grant me your power…


Caesar: Verto!






So in the antechamber before the first Zore Crystal, there’s a chest containing the ultimate story weapon for the Dragon Knight, Lagus-Guine. You saw the “Blind Sally Special” wielding the generic free DLC version of it, Dragonfang, earlier in the chapter.


As you can see, the Lagus has a slightly different moveset from the Dragonfang down on the Command Bar.


Of course there’s the old favourites, Thrust, Slash, Counter Spear, Wyrm Dace, and Healer’s Soul. But there’s two more new skills on the bar now.


The one on the extreme right is “Dragoon's Rage,” a buff that raises the Dragon Knight’s attack stat.


The other is Heaven Siege…




Where the Dragon Knight hoists the spear high over its head…


Charges it ups…






And tosses it skyward.


And it comes down with a massive stabbing force.











A couple of Heaven Sieges later and Crystal #2 goes down like nothing.








Kara: One last crystal and the Act of God will power down.


So let’s get moving then.


Eldore: One more Zore Crystal and we can can that cannon. Hah.

Oh Eldore Humour. I’ve missed you. I really have.


We’ve got to get across the gorge to make it to the final crystal, which involves crossing a bridge like this one across the lava river.

What we’ve got to do now involves jumping down all the way to the gorge floor and using a combination of elevators and platforms to get to the right bridge because the entire island is segmented into janky platforms and oneway drops.


We also encounter monsters out in the open too. Of course they’re all fire types.




Oh hey Mass Effect elevators, fancy meeting you here.

Caesar: You ever miss those talks we had on the elevators?
Kara: No.
Caesar: Come ooon. Remember how we’d all ask you about life in the Magi? It was an opportunity to share.
Kara: This conversation is over.
Caesar: Tell me again about your Black Knight.
Kara: I have a shotgun.
Caesar: Uuuuuh, maybe we’ll talk later.
Orren: …The hell?

Note to self: Shoot Conrad Verner… Again.


Eldore: Remember, save your strength.
Caesar: Aaaah, for what? Next week’s final showdown?
Kara: Caesar’s right, we need to do whatever it takes to stop Grazel now.
Yulie: But even if we do, will that be the end?


[MARIO BROS. THEME]




And of course there’s another damn wyvern here.


Luckily, I have the Dragon Knight this time, so it goes down smooth, like the rich refreshing taste of Pabst Blue Ribbon™.








Caesar: …Wait? Did we just plug a shitty beer?
Orren: Wasn’t paying attention, sorry.


I thought this was the chest we find Arslese in, but it turns out it wasn’t. I’d actually found it in a chest earlier in the fortress and missed it because I’m playing with the Live Log turned off for the sake of screenshot aesthetics.


Crystal #3, and for completion’s sake, the Moon Maiden’s on point for this one.


I also want to point out the cool moving architecture in these crystal chambers. Both the ceiling and the floor have these sweet rotating structures like the halos on the Gardens in Final Fantasy VIII.


So let’s smash ‘em up something fierce then.




Yulie: O Luthia, argent goddess and beacon in the ancient night, grant me your power…


Yulie: VERTO!






So we can see Arslese has a few new skills on it too. Hell, every skill on it is new compared to El’Liet.

It’s also a blatant pallet swap of El’Liet, so once again, Yulie gets the shaft in the weapons department, no archery pun intended.


Arslese has all four “Soul” magic attacks, Flame Soul, Glacier Soul, Storm Soul, and Earth Soul, as previously modelled by Magnus Ragnar’s Knight.


Arslese has its various advantages and disadvantages over El’Liet. Of course the biggest pluses are the increased attack power and addition of the super-powerful AoE magic skills…


However, it’s only got one physical attack (Luna Arrow) instead of two, so it loses its impact attack one. It also loses its AoE healing spell +Glittering Moonline and its AoE revival spell +Pale Moonlight in favour of the self-targeting Healer Soul and the AoE status effect nullification spell +Celestial Grace.

Also we lose Spirit Dance too, which would work rather well against an enemy that uses nothing but magic attacks like the Zore Crystal.




So when the Zore Crystal starts cycling through its elemental buffs and debuffs, I start laying into it with the elemental spells on the new bow, in this case Flame Soul.






Or,


Fun fact: I recorded this fight twice. The first time it happened, I realized I’d picked up Arslese only after I’d beaten the crystal and my last save was half an hour prior, because like a moron I didn’t actually save at the Logic Stone the game provides right there in front of this boss chamber.

So I went back and did some pickup shooting with Arslese equipped on the Moon Maiden, and these shots are from the original run with El’Liet still equipped.


Because, hey, I didn’t get the chance to show off +Pale Moonlight before.


And I also get to Spirit Dance the crystal to nerf its magic power.




And down it goes. 3 for 3.






CUTSCENE: Shutdown

So taking out the three Zore Crystals doesn’t just shut down the Act of God…




It pretty much shuts down the entire island.


In an instant, Redhorn Isle’s entire defensive battery array falls silent.


With the way forward clear, the Alliance fleet presses its advantage.




BOOSH!




PEW PEW!
















Told ya someone’s day was about to be ruined.












The ground assault fleet sails into the underground docks and tens of thousands of Balandor and Farian troops make landfall on Redhorn Isle.


Balandor Soldiers: I don’t know what I’ve been told!♪ Grazel should’n bought what Ledom sold!♫ Lef’ Righ’ One Two!


We also get a glimpse of something interesting among the throng of soldiers: for every ten human soldiers there’s at least one warg soldier too. That’s pretty cool that Balandor’s armed forces are both a racially and genderly inclusive organization. Though it would probably be better if we actually saw some warg soliders IN GAME, instead of having to pick them out of the background in a two-second long CG cutscene, but whatever, it’s Level-5, the only time they press the button is when they doze off and fall on it by accident.




Eldore: Our troops have made it ashore.
Yulie: Should we go back and join up with them?
Kara: No. Let’s press on. We should settle this ourselves.
Caesar: Heh. Fair enough.
Orren: Alright, follow me then. I’m the leader.


So now we have to run to the central part of the fortress where Grazel, Ledom, and maybe Shapur, if the game remembers he’s still a thing will be waiting for us, no doubt.

Caesar: Hey, Kara, isn't this the point where you tell us about the OTHER giant cannon?
Kara: I'm sorry. I had no idea they'd changed things so much.
Yulie: They probably changed it on purpose. They know you're with us now.
Eldore: They know what you're expecting; that gives them an advantage.


But whatever, we’ve got three kickass Knights at our disposal. That should be more than enough for whatever bullshit trap Grazel’s planning to spring on us… Right?


Right?

Yulie: Good! Let’s kick ‘em while they’re down!
Caesar: We’ve got to stop the Sun King!


Eldore: I have changed all your destinies in a most terrible way.
Kara: Hmph. You’re bringing that up NOW?
Yulie: Seriously, Eldore, our destinies were messed up LONG before you got ahold of them.
Caesar: You can whine about your mistakes like an old fart after we win. Sound good?
Orren: Yeah, my destiny went to shit when I met Leonard. Meeting you was technically an improvement… I guess.






We’re so close now, I can hear the endgame calling. And we’re on a frickin roll too.

Alright guys, we can do this. It’s just a straight shot to victory now. We’re firing on all cylinders again now that we’ve removed the Leonard gunk from the engine. Nothing can possibly screw us up now.


Nothing.


CUTSCENE: No Good Can Come Of This

We return now to the U.S.S. ”SAY MY NAME” / “QUEEN CISNA” / “YOU’RE GODSDAMN RIGHT” for… some reason. I wonder why?

There’s a lot of soldiers running around, no doubt scrambling to find the right bottle of victory champagne Cisna’s ordered them all break out, and a lot of incidental background chatter pertaining to invasion status updates that I don’t feel like trying to transcribe because none of it is subtitled in the cutscene. Watch the video if you’re interested.


And Leonard is sort of there too.

…Wait.


No.


NOOOOOOOO!!!


Leonard: I have to go…
Leonard: [INEFFECTUAL PANTYWAIST MOAN]

No. NOOOOO. You keep your stupid ass planted on that couch you ignorant fuck up twat. We are THIS close to ending this war. We don’t need you jumping into the middle of it and accidentally causing Grazel to develop telekinesis or getting Kara re-murdered or bumping into the Act of God and turning it back on or something.


Sit.

Your.

Punk.

Ass.

Back.

Down.


A bunch of soldiers cross paths in front of the camera… Aaaaand…


MOTHERFUCKER!!!


Cisna’s Giant Fucking Moron sense tingles suddenly.


She looks to the vacant couch where Leonard was previously planted.


Cisna: Leonard?
Cisna: What the shi—NOOOOOOOOOOOO!! RED ALERT! SOUND THE ALARM! THE IDIOT IS LOOSE! I REPEAT! WE HAVE A LOOSE SHITHEAD! ALL STATIONS ENACT CONTAINMENT PROCEDURE! DO NOT LET HIM OFF THIS SHIP ALIVE! I REPEAT, DO NOT LET HIM ESCAPE ALIVE!!!


Cisna: Ruin my fucking war. RUIN. MY. FUCKING. WAAAAR?! GODSDAAAAAAAAAMIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!

And then she turned around and strangled Evlee to death in a blind rage.

The end.


I fucking hate the stupid rube, I really fucking do…

How could anyone be that stupid? ANYONE?!

• 14.1 – The Lines Are Drawn
  
• 14.2 – The Battle of Redhorn Isle I ~ The Queen’s Speech
  
• 14.3 – The Battle of Redhorn Isle II ~ The Push
  
• 14.4 – The Battle of Redhorn Isle III ~ The Act of God
  
• 14.5 – The Battle of Redhorn Isle IV ~ The Plan
  
• 14.6 – The Battle of Redhorn Isle V ~ The Landing
  
• 14.7 – The Weak Spot
  
• 14.i - Redhorn Isle Zore Crystals Miniboss Battles
  
• 14.8 – Shutdown
  
• 14.9 – No Good Can Come Of This

REDHORN ISLE