The Let's Play Archive

Wild Arms 3

by geri_khan

Part 35: The Abyss (first foray)

Last time, we found out that the bad guys (and Maya) would be probably be going after a powerful gem called the Teardrop.
Today... we ignore that, it's obviously not as important as getting the final Medium.


Update 35: NOGIAS

So, you want to find the Guardian of Hope? Be prepared for a rough ride.

The trail begins in Little Rock, where the villagers have only one thing on their mind.



You ever heard of the Abyss? They say it's a really deep and scary cavern! I heard it's beneath the mountain to the south.


The <<Abyss>> covers the mountains to the south with its blackness. Drifters always seem drawn to the depths of the Abyss... But what hope could lie in such darkness?
<<Abyss>>
There, vile creatures lurk in the shadows around every turn. But the true horror of the Abyss lies in its infernal <<construction>>. It entraps all who enter within.
<<Construction>>
That's right. Let me explain. The Abyss takes you deep down, but has no stairs or elevators to bring you back to the surface. There's just a strange monolith on the tenth layer that sends you all the way back up. I hear the Abyss goes even deeper than ten layers... And nobody knows if there's another way back far down. Never, ever press on.


The Abyss is not just a ruin. It's the source of all calamity. And in the very bowels of its caverns lies a single light. That is the light of hope. The Guardian Lord of Hope, turned to stone... Zephyr awaits his restoration. No one knows if it's true, but I sure hope it is.

So our course is set. While we're in Little Rock, though, we can use the Galecrest to pick up a treasure.



Galecresting over these missing planks gets us to a treasure chest with a Migrant Seal, getting us to level 9.



Lombardia is required to get to the Abyss. First off, we need to use her rockets to remove these boulders. She can't land on the rough terrain beyond them, so she'll have to land here and we'll take the horses through the pass.



Once through, turn left, hug the wall, and search around once you get to the end of the path to find the spot.

Oh, and save.



MUSIC: Entrance of the Beckoning Darkness

Welcome to the Abyss, a 100-level dungeon filled with tough enemies. Levels 1-10 are mandatory, since you will NEED to get the final guardian by some point, after that it's all optional masochistic fun. Oh, and you can't save.


Each teleporter warps you to a level directly below you. The only exception to this is when you reach a teleporter with an option to return to ground level. Are you willing to explore the depths of the Abyss?

Yes
No



... oh OK, fine. Yes.



Every level of the Abyss is composed of a series of narrow walkways. There are a great number of dead ends and a deliberate attempt to be confusing in layout.
You can easily fall off if you're not careful. If you do, you're returned to the start point of the level, but the level does not reset. This can be a useful feature if you want to avoid a battle or take a shortcut when you need to backtrack.



Each floor has a number of blue gems and a teleporter.
The blue gems restore both the Encounter Gauge and your VIT, like a combination of white and orange gems. Picking up a constant supply is pretty much vital, which is fortunate because you need to pick up all the gems on the floor to unlock the teleporter to the next.



The view distance is limited, but by far the most important skill here is to learn to plot the best course around each floor. With your Encounter and Vit gauges ticking down, you want to minimize backtracking.
That said, don't be afraid to skip battles when you can - you're constantly picking up points from the gems.

... there's not much more to say about the layout. Each floor is very much like the last. But of course, it's the enemies who'll make you hate the place.



Case in point, Balphon, whose Insect Breath attack reduces your HP to 1, risking death and a lot of lost VIT if you don't heal by the battle's end. He'll also poison you.



Cannon Buffalo are common and formidable, with above average HP and defense. Their attacks aren't too bad but you'll need to weather a few while you wear them down. You can steal Holy Grails from them if you still need any.



Baskervilles come in large packs and do a ton of damage, easily 5-600 per hit with normal attacks. Its all Fire damage though, so you can reduce that with Fire Wards. (only Billy has one...) Weak to Ice, so you'll want to Mystic and Extension them down quickly.



Mad Gassers hand out Disease (not much of an issue) and cancel turns with their Laughing Gas, so it can sometimes take a long time to finish them off if Boone and Doc keep getting canceled.



And Calupdis... this guy is fun.
He doesn't attack you. Instead, what he does is...



steal 10% of your gella, and run away on the next turn. This gives you one turn to kill them to get it back.
But there is a little trick you can do with these guys.
Look at how much gella was stolen, and then look at our rewards for this battle below.



... how did that happen? Remember those Pocketbooks (Gella Boost) we have equipped? Whether its due to a bug or an oversight, gella boost is applied to the money that is returned to us.
He stole 3318 gella, and drops 80 for 3398. That can then be doubled by Gella Boost, for crazy money. This little exploit is by far the fastest way to get gella in the game.
Fun times.

But the worst enemy in the Abyss so far?



These bastards steal your shit, and run on the same turn.



No. Leave my Full Carrots ALONE!


I hate these things. They're faster than everyone and Full-Carrot seeking missiles, and Pearl doesn't have enough starting FP to Reset if something valuable is stolen.



In any case, with a little care you'll eventually reach the level 10 teleporter with some degree of HP left, which means it's time for a

BOSS BATTLE: EPHREM ZEIN



Most definitely a gimmick battle, this one. He has a very simple pattern.



At the start of every turn he will Prepare Intercepts. Later in the turn, he will cancel them. If you hurt him in any way while Intercepts are enabled, he will counter with a powerful magic attack.





He also has permanent Reflect, making offensive Arcana all but useless.

The turn order goes something like this...

Intercepts Enabled
Pearl
Billy
Boone
Intercepts Canceled
Doc

So you can see that Doc, and whoever Replays him, is free to act. One thing you can do is what we did in the last boss battle - Mystic a Dark Ring onto him. The enemy already has a Dark weakness, so this would probably work.
There is an alternative though. It's an option we've had since the start of the game, but which I've not covered yet.



It's possible to edit the turn order. Putting Doc in first won't make him any faster, but will force the others to slow down. In other words, the turn order is now...

Intercepts Enabled
Intercepts Canceled
Doc
Pearl
Boone
Billy

... which means it's very easy to get past this boss without a single scratch, or even being attacked once. You just need to remember to change the turn order every round, because it defaults back to normal each time.

Whats our rewards?



Perfect. With the boss defeated, we have the option of getting the hell out of Dodge.




Leave the Abyss.
Continue to explore the Abyss

I'm outta here. We're not ready to go deeper yet.

Having received the Dragon Statue from the boss, we can now head for the Fallen Sanctuary for the final Medium.




The visions in your minds are bound together. An eastward wind sweeps away the clouds of despair. It is like a beacon that shines through the night. The power of hope soars toward tomorrow. The bearer of the Ark Scepter's light must have the strength to fight that which has no form. Fight, and show your strength to Zephyr!

BOSS BATTLE: ZEPHYR, GUARDIAN OF HOPE




Possibly the simplest to fight of the guardians, but not quite the easiest. He has a unimportant physical and two more dangerous moves.



Exploder makes one character explode next time they act, killing them and dealing damage equal to half of the character's HP to everyone else. There's no real way to defend against it, so it can be dangerous, but he seems to use it rarely. I got lucky - he didn't use it until the turn I defeated him on.

EDIT: Oh hey, something I didn't know.


DarkHamsterlord posted:

Note that when someone is affected by Exploder, you can keep them from exploding by defending with them. This can buy you some time to heal the rest of your party if the damage from the explosion would kill anyone. The only catch is that defending is the absolute only thing a character can do without exploding. They can't even reload, so unless their ARM happens to be fully loaded, they're going to explode no matter what on the next turn.

Thanks for that.

He doesn't use exploder often because he just spams his summon (Phantasmic Heart) in this battle, and will use it more often than anything else.



He flies toward the camera and start to climb.



His armour opens up to reveal what seems to be his heart, and he grabs it and pulls it out of his body.



It glows with burning passion and he slams it into the ground, causing a blinding explosion.



Hm, not terrible I guess. It's a bit of damage but at least its predictable. You can put off healing it for several turns, actually.



Keep track of health, weaken him and attack the weakness, and he won't be a problem.

VIDEO: Zephyr Battle



With the final guardian defeated and the Hope Shard medium received, we can upgrade the last two silver mediums to gold status and check out what Zephyr has to offer us.
And oh, is it ever good.

Arcana
Arc Impulse (32FP): A non-elemental arcana that gains damage bonuses if any allies are guarding. Damage can rise pretty dramatically: use it while your ARM-using attackers are reloading.
Attachment (24FP): Hey kids, remember the Dark Ring we mysticed onto Doc to take out Chameleon Man? Now we can do that with any element! The only condition is, like Weaken, you also have to have a medium with an attack arcana of that element equipped too.
Permanence (48FP): Buffs wear off after a while. Permanence freezes all buff times on the character, making all current and future buffs last forever. Utterly, utterly broken.
Exploder (64FP): Turns an enemy into a bomb, making them explode next turn and damage their allies. Heavily resisted, but there are even a few bosses who are (not very) vulnerable to it.

Personal Skills
SOS Critical: Increases the damage of a Crit by up to 100% while at low health. I don't like SOS-moves, but in conjunction with Valiant the damage of a critical could get completely insane.
Lifebringer: Improves the effectiveness of Vit. At rank 4, Vit will recover five times more health. I don't really see the point.
Force Charge: Maybe the other two don't seem that great, but THIS is the real deal. Every time the user guards, he/she gains 25 FP. Oh, so incredibly broken...

Summon
Phantasmic Heart: A useful summon, because its damage is extensive and non-elemental.

Hope Shard is incredibly useful, and Boone gets it.

With all four Guardian Lords gathered, my typical character build is complete. This will constantly be shuffled depending on requirements, but in general...

Pearl - Moon Spark, Flash Hit, Cosmic Cog
As already mentioned, Pearl has some reactive arcana for curing status, escaping, resetting etc, useful buffs and debuffs, and Replay for when she doesn't have anything more important to do. She's still the primary healer through use of Mystic and Berries, but can also Mystic gems for damage or summon.

Billy - Firey Rage, Lucky Hand, Brave Seal
Billy buffs and debuffs, but is mostly set up to get as many crits as possible. While his base damage is slightly less than Docs, his crits are more frequent and more effective. He also opens treasure chests and steals.

Boone - Aqua Wisp, Hope Shard, Love Charm
Heals, damage, weakness manipulation, permanence. Boone aims to maximize Billy and Doc's damage by weakening the enemy and attaching the relevant element to them. He can then do impressive damage himself by using the same elemental arcana. Permanence + any buff, especially Status Lock, is very powerful. If Pearl is busy he can also do a decent enough heal. Force Charge gives him an infinite supply of FP at zero risk, allowing him to use Extension every second turn and a 100FP summon every fifth. He's going to spent a lot of turns guarding and the rest being extremely potent.

Doc - Terra Roar, Gale Claw, Lust Jaw
Damage. Doc carries some useful buffs, and will use them sometimes, but his primary role is putting out consistently high damage. Counterattack and Auto Reload help there, he gains FP more quickly than anyone except Boone, and Weakness bumps up his damage when he has an element Attached. He remains a tough to kill character too.


But really, the thing to remember is that since you can exchange mediums in battle, this is just my general intent. If I need to trade Terra Roar for Aqua Wisp for a turn to Extend a Protect, I can do that. If I want to swap mediums so Boone has a non-elemental attack or Weakness PS, I can do that.


Oh yeah... before I finish, something I missed in Fila del Fia last time.



See the crack in the wall? You can bomb it for access to a Migrant Seal, Adventure 6 and 15000 Gella.


Next Time: A Bird in a Cage



A Day A Day

Today is March 16, Mirror Day. I'm sure we've all tried looking into two mirrors held together to see infinite images of your own face. But when you go in between the mirrors, your reflection in the first mirror blocks your view of all the reflections past it. So next time, I'm going to use a periscope to get around it.

Today is March 17, ARM's Day. It's a day ARM users show their appreciation for their ARMs. What's that? You don't know how to show your appreciation? Then allow me, Armengard, to teach you how. Place your large ARM vertically on the ground and hold it with your right hand. Next, run around the ARM 50 times. (It's best done in pairs.) When you let go of the ARM and walk a few steps away, you'll feel spaced-out as if you've just been spun by the ARM. In other words, you're putting yourself in the ARM's shoes.