Hundreds and hundreds of randomly generated floors! Lufia: The Legend Returns

Music:Dr. Isaac Shaia

Back at the lab, Isaac demands that his Assistant bring the AA in so they can start working on it. The screen fades out so it can magically appear on the screen, and then she and Isaac hop aboard to get to work. The screen shakes and tinkering noises are made, and Seena eventually comments on it.



Dei wonders if they're actually screwing it up, but before anyone else in the party can make a smart ass comment, Isaac pops back out to announce that he's finished the upgrades. Minim is impressed by how quickly he managed to pull it off. Isaac's all, "Tch, it isn't that impressive if you're a genius from a genius family."

Deckard asks if they can really travel underwater now, and I can understand his skepticism. I mean... it's made out of wood still... and they didn't add anything to keep the water out...



But Isaac assures them it'll be fine. Alls they have to do is steer it directly into the whirlpool in the center of the Al-ayin Islands, and they'll be at the ocean floor!

(Whirlpools do not work that way.)


Now, normally in this series, this would be the part of the game where we're forced to navigate the ocean's floor and multiple underwater caves, searching for the path to Doom Island and/or Mermaids. Thankfully, due to space constraints, that's not the case here.


The AA drifts straight down to the Fortress of Doom.


Music:The Ocean Floor

Well this certainly is familiar. I mentioned way back at the beginning of the game that there was a reason that Seena had a unique spell called Light and that it was really dumb and everyone who's played the first two games should know exactly why that is. Well, this is it.



And here we are. The Fortress of Doom, which has been the party's goal from the beginning of the game. Minim is impressed by how shiny it is, and Dei is ready to get cracking at those treasures Minim and Seena enticed him with back at the beginning of the game. He's gonna be so disappointed right here in a minute.

Aima reminds him that they have bigger fish, and resigns himself to waiting to steal stuff from vengeful gods until after they finish their business. Deckard asks a reasonable question about why they aren't drowning here on the ocean floor. No one will ask why they aren't being crushed by the pressure, so don't think the team's gotten too smart.



Minim's answer is that this is where Gods live, so anything is possible. Ruby has a line that isn't about gambling. She's not particular satisfied by Minim's explanation, but I dunno, it seems reasonable to me. Seena calls Minim stupid, but, again, his answer is satisfying for me. This is a fantasy world where they've actually [b]fought[b] Gods and won and can shoot fire out of their fingertips and call down lightning and make it snow and all that other crap, so it doesn't seem that far-fetched.



He responds to this by threatening to cut her into tiny pieces with the Dual Blade. I'd say their partnership is about to reach a breaking point. This is on a whole other level than their arguments earlier in the game. "You're stupid!" and "Well you're ugly!" is totally different from, "You're stupid!" and "I'm going to attack you with this Uber Weapon That Can Even Smite Gods!"

Isaac and Melphis tell them to settle down, and Randolph tries to urge them to hurry up and get a move on. He's getting too old for this shit. As am I.



Mousse pops out and makes a noise. Milka comments on how different Minim is from Maxim and Hero, but believes it might be for the best. I dunno M, it seems like someone who's gonna joke about attacking his allies with the God Slayer because they called him stupid may not be the best man for the job.

Yurist waxes philosophically about how people grow and change and no one can stop the march of time and progress. This is vaguely related to the series's storyline: In the DS reboot, the Sinistrals exist to blast humanity back to the stone age after they've made so much progress so they'll be forced to cling to gods and religion instead of technology. It's a nice inversion of what you typically see in JRPGs.



Milka seems to agree with Yurist's blasphemy, but Minim doesn't like thinking about things, even comic book philosophy, because it makes his brain hurt. He's more concerned about getting his hands on the Dual Blade.

You leave the Fortress of Doom if you want, and I lament the fact that you can't answer Seena's poorly phrased question with a "Yes" or "No."



So. The Fortress of Doom. It's shiny and has a new graphics set, but the layout is identical to what it was like in previous games, right down to the locations of the treasure chests.

Sadly, because of the encounter system, just like in Lufia 2, there are no battles here. I feel like this makes it lose something. Like, in the first game, you really got the impression that your characters were fighting their way into the heart of evil, taking on hordes and hordes of strong monsters, but here (and in Lufia 2), it's just this place, you know?



Hey look, it's this hallway. I always felt like this was kind of an iconic location in the series, if Lufia could ever be accused of having a iconic locations.



The "Statue Room" has a couple of things that need to be pointed out: There are three chest along the walls you should grab and there's a staircase leading down at the back of the first elevated section. Downstairs houses a save point, an X-Magic and a BunnyBlade. The BunnyBlade is for women (and Yurist) and has 500 ATP, making it the strongest weapon any of those characters can use. It sounds too good to be true, and it is: The 500 ATP only comes into effect when you use an IP attack. Regular attacks will only hit for 1 HP. In other words, it's just another piece of junk to add to the pile.

The Dual Blade is waiting back up in the "Statue Room." Minim sees it floating in the air before him, and wonders if it is indeed the Dual Blade. No Minim, it's the other magical sword that's supposed to be found on Doom Island. As he approaches it, it begins to resonate with his Spiritual Force and awaken.



The Dual Blade's ringing apparently sounds strange. Seena describes it as sounding like someone crying. Lord only knows what the fuck that's about. Milka urges Minim to go ahead and claim the Dual Blade, and he does.

Minim indicates that although the it feels weird to hold the Dual Blade, it also feels familiar, like it's his sword and always has been.

And then the screen starts to flicker.


Music:Sinistrals of Chaos and Death

Laughter echoes through the room and a voice congratulates Minim for getting his hands on the Dual Blade.


Random Floors covered: 374
Next Time: She is 死 (Actually, she is 殺戮, but that doesn't have layers of wordplay)

Well, there ARE the Risk and Bunny Blades...

...and why would the Gods of Evil have a thing called "The Bunny Blade' in their fortress?

I've got a theory.

What do they need such high ATP for anyway?

Yurist's unusually androgynous character portrait has already thrown me a few times, and this isn't helping.

Yeah, I can't help but think we've got a Faris-style reveal coming down the pipe pretty soon.

That would require character development.

We all know that can't be happening.

Sorry, we're plum out of shocking revelations. Erim's reveal is the last one in the game, and even that's not really a shocking revelation, it's more like Neverland Company trolling the player's expectations that Seena would be Erim.

Oh, there will be character development, and it'll be in the most unlikely of places.

Chapter 22: Minim and the Face of Death


Music:Sinistrals of Chaos and Death

When we last left Minim, he had just come face-to-face with the Mistress of Death, Erim and Neverland Company cackled maniacally at how they trolled you into thinking Seena would be Erim. She announces that Minim taking hold of the Dual Blade revived her. This confuses Minim, because three different people have told him over the past couple of updates that the Dual Blade is supposed to destroy Sinistrals, not bring them to life.

Erim laughs, because golly she loves to laugh, and explains that the Dual Blade is like the Triforce: It can be used for both good and evil, which is why Daos was after it in Lufia 2. By the time Lufia 1 rolled around, he was totally over it and just wanted to destroy the wretched thing.



She also handwaves the reason it looks different throughout the series and why it can do whatever the plot needs it to do. Erim is very helpful like that.

All this talk about the Dual Blade's magic powers impresses Minim.



Now that she's been revived, she's prepared to take out the trash. Given that her power is death (and unambiguously about killing), you would imagine her to be an actual threat. Well, you would if this were any other game or series.

Minim's "I will break you to pieces!" isn't quite up there with "I will knock you all down!" but it's something.

Erim's all, "Bring it on, bitches!" except instead of "bitches" she says "Children of the Spiritual Force," and I kinda wish they'd stop using that name because only Minim and Seena could be qualified as "children."


Music:Battle against a Sinistral

The Dual Blade (ATP+450) can be equipped as weapon, but it's a full 100 ATP points weaker than the Max.Blade, so there's no reason for Minim to put it on.

But really, Erim is, in theory, the most dangerous of the Sinistrals. There's a very remote possibility that her Spiritual Force of Death will instant kill your front line and result in a game over. It's highly unlikely this will be the case, the characters will probably just take a (very) small amount of damage with no ill effects (compared to, say, Daos and Amon's Spiritual Forces, which have a much higher rate of bad status attached). As you can see, Milka was the only character Erim managed to instant kill, so the odds are in your favor.

She can also cast Dark Zap, a darkness-elemental spell that hits one column, which isn't too scary, and regular ol' Zap, which hit Aima for 400 HP, but that's mostly because of her absurdly low REG.



After Minim wins, Erim's residual waves tell him not to think he's won. He accuses her of being a sore loser, because that's a good thing to tell the incarnation of death standing before you. She explains, once again, that her Spiritual Force revives the other Sinistrals, and the other three are back.

She dies laughing.

Gosh Erim, do you really think Minim won't be able to kill the other Sinistals again now that he has his Sinistral-Kryptonite Sword?



Seena's also being really dumb about this. I think she's referring to Daos being at full power. Daos being at full power didn't seem to be a problem when they beat him up, what, four different times?


Music:Decision

Minim's repping Team Optimism, cues up the heroic music, and tells her that it isn't a big deal, they can beat the crap out of him again. For reals, this time.

Y'all, I'm beginning to think that Seena calls Minim "stupid" as a vocal filler, because what he says isn't actually stupid.

But then he does say something stupid, but if you'll recall, his "I don't think about things, I just do them!" is what endeared him to her when they first met, but it's actually pretty stupid. But hey, he's a shonen hero, so willpower overcomes all obstacles.



To the game's credit, Seena does seem to be encouraged by Minim's philosophy instead of calling him an idiot or making fun of it, because, again, that's why she teamed up with him in the first place.

There's a Speed Seed hidden on the wall behind where the Dual Blade was.

…

You know, no one said where the other Sinistrals are now. I mean, it should be really obvious because there's all of one location left on the world map the player hasn't visited, but I'd hate to know that some poor schmuck went back through the towers looking for them.

But before we get to that, let's deliver the the wood to Gantz.

Sidequest III: Salvaging Siantao at Some Point



He's still hanging around in Lamika's house, but is thrilled to set his eyes on Minim's magnificent wood. He's super excited to get to work on rebuilding Siantao, and departs immediately. Minim follows using the arcane powers of magic.


Music:Kingdom of Alstadt

Gantz will forever be remembered as the man who provoked the great Alstadt-Siantao hundred years war, where both countries fought for military and political supremacy of the Southlands.



Siantao is probably the better country, because they have something that resembles a democracy, while Alstadt still relies on a hereditary monarchy.



Gantz says he went all out because of the quality of the wood, and I imagine he's supposed to be Alchemist or something, who has the ability to turn an ounce of Magnificent Wood into a ton of brick and mortar. He thinks he might of overdid it, but the people in town seem to be happy with it, so everything worked out ok.



Siantao Castle has no beds and no kitchens. Have fun sleeping on the cold stone floor, suckers. The stairs lead up to the royal chamber, but the first floor houses all the businesses. Since Siantao Castle is the final town in the game, the inventory has been updated accordingly.

The church sells all the top tier magic, in case you haven't learned it yet. I bought Fire Dragon and Storm for Milka, and decided against teaching her Ice Storm for no reason in particular. I think it was to conserve LP for stat boosting.

The store has the best buyable equipment in the game. Since this is Lufia, that means the "Zirco" equipment. Since this is Lufia: The Legend Returns, that means lots of typos, too. Like the other shop we've visited post-Ancient Cave, quite a lot of the equipment is utterly useless to the party.

Isaac gets a Riveter (ATP+410, CLT+100!, effective against Hard-enemies).
Dei and Deckard both get Zirco Shlds (DFP + 110), while Dei gets a Mlt Jacket (DFP+200).

As per usual, the ladies have more to buy:
Milka: Blood Rod (ATP+300, REG+100, effective against Hard-enemies), Clear Slik (DFP+190), and a Holy Shld (DFP+100, reduces damage from darkness-elemental damage).
Seena: A Holy Shld and a Zirco Band (DFP+100). The Zirco Band is the very best headgear for women in this game (it has the same DFP as Milka's Lthr Knit, but that's a Milka-exclusive thing, so).
Ruby: Clear Slik and Zirco Band



Upstairs in the throne room, the Sister that gets to live there gives Minim a token of appreciation for getting rid of all the beds in Siantao: The final Dragon Egg. With this, we can... probably... do... something, I guess?

Looting the castle.



There's a Plat Shld (DFP+100, reduces damage from ice-elemental damage) hidden in the throne. This is Yurist and Isaac's best shield. Normally, I'd give this to Yurist, because normally I'd have the one-handed Wind Flute equipped instead of the two-handed Custom 65. Both characters have cruddy armor, but Isaac's ultimate equipment is a piece of armor that raises DFP by 500, and normally I'd have that so he wouldn't really need it the extra DFP from the Plat Shld.



There's a staircase leading to the basement back in the shopping hallway. The Brother guarding the locked door is happy to see the Egg Key Minim found, and uses it to unlock the door.

I, uh, should have come here before I went to get the Egg Key to see the explanation for this area. Oops! I think it was just a cave they found when Gantz was rebuilding the town.



Brother explains that there's supposed to be a dragon down here that can grant wishes. Not good wishes, or even rewarding wishes, but wishes none the less.


Music:Ensnaring Maze

The Ancient Maze uses this graphic set and has enemies from Rosplett Shrine and the final dungeon.



The only new IP here is Sky Spiral, which, for 65 IP, allows the user to hit all enemies for 1.5x damage.



It's only four floors deep. The sixth floor looks like the top of a Sinistral Tower, except undergound and really girl. There's also a save point and a heal spot.



This is the home of the Egg Dragon. Other members of the Egg Dragon species tended to live in easily accessible shrines located on the world map, but not this fella! He's down here deep underground. According to him, he's hasn't seen a human in two-hundred years. I don't think that means he's supposed to be the same Egg Dragon from Lufia 2, though.

He acknowledges that Minim has collected the eight Dragon Eggs, and vows to grant a wish. The wishes are cruddy, compared to what you could get in the previous two games: In Lufia 1, he'd offer pieces of the most powerful equipment in the game (The Might set, also known as the Ancient or Old set). In Lufia 2, well... ok, in Lufia 2 his offers weren't that great either: He'd give offer a set of the stat boosting potions, the Super Rings and the Ancient Shield. That's still better than what we have here.

The 10 Seed set will give Minim ten of each type of stat boosting seed. At this point in the game, equipment is boosting stats by hundreds of points, so even if we were to, say, give all ten of the STR-boosting seeds to Ruby and got the highest stat increase every time, it still wouldn't be enough to overcome her naturally bad STR and weak weapons. On the other hand, giving them all to Aima won't increase her damage by an appreciable amount, either. 680 isn't that much more than 640, you know?

The Super Ring set will give Minim a variety of accessories that are slightly improved versions of stuff like the Flash Ring, Muscl Ring and Prtec Ring. It gives you versions of these that have their stats doubled, but that's like, 20 DFP instead of 10. Some of the rings raise the wearer's SF. For example, the Chill R S will give the wearer 2 Green SF in addition to the other stat bonuses.

10 Croquettes gives Minim ten Croquettes. If you'll recall, those are the full party heal items. They will likely never be used.

Guys I need some help! Please choose for me!

Random Floors covered: 378
Next Time: The Final Dungeon



Daos's hair color changes often, but otherwise this is pretty consistent with the rest of the games: Big shoulder guards and a long cloak. His cloak is usually more ornate, but what can you do?

lol, look at them boots.



She kinda reminds you of Lenneth, doesn't she?

Erim actually has a face, but that's because she's a girl enemy, and thus is allowed to have a face. Compare with the elves and sirens, contrast with Leydock, Gohl and the evil Minister of Alstadt.

Her design tends to only be slightly more consistent than Amon's. The color of her hair is always the same (except for her actual battle sprite in this game and in Lufia DS), and she always has some sort of longer weapon, such as a trident (Lufia 1), lance (Lufia 2) or halberd (Lufia 3).

The design in TLR is mostly trying to call back to her design in Lufia 2, but does a better job of it because the enemy graphics don't look like ass.

Go for the rings. Seeds aren't very tasty, and 10 croquettes don't sound very nutritious!

Agreed, but we are talking about Minim here. Given the choice of something useful or a pile of delicious croquettes, I bet he'd pick the latter.

The Mlt Jacket is supposed to be Metal Jacket.

You know, in case you weren't feeling crummy enough!

E: Thanks for pointing that out. I did it twice this update, but I caught the other one before I posted.

Take the rings. They look the most potentially useful on that list, even if it isn't particularly useful at all.

Rings are prolly the most useful, so I'll vote for those...

In RPG's, you always go for equipment over consumables.

Eh, I'll toss my vote in for seeds. May be a minor advantage, but better than rings you won't even equip or consumables you won't ever use.

These two shots:



Are actually used in the opening of The Legend Returns.

Also, lol:



Wild ARMS? Never heard of it, honest!

Chapter 23: Minim versus the Sinistrals


Music:Ensnaring Maze

The bling it is! The screen flashes and Minim is rewarded with the Super Ring set. The Egg Dragon pats itself on the back for making Minim's wishes come true, then disappears in a flash of light, leaving behind a chest containing the Egg Sonar in its stead.



Let's check out our booty:

• Mystery RS: ATP+20, DFP+20, Red SF + 5
• Witch R S: MAP+20, REG+40, given to Milka.
• Mind Ring: MAP+40. Not to be confused with the Mind Ring, which is MAP+20. It goes to Isaac.
• P-Tech R S: DFP+40, given to Dei.
• Muscle R S: ATP+20, DFP+20, HP+80, given to Milka.
• Flash R S: ATP+10, DFP+10, MAP+10, Yellow SF + 2, boosts the power of Flash magic, allows wearer to cast Thunder
• Chill R S: DFP+20, MAP+10, Green SF + 2, boosts power of Chill magic, allows wearer to cast Ice Valk.
• Burn R S: ATP+20, MAP+10, boosts power of Burn magic, allows wearer to cast Firebird.

Overall, it's kinda lacking. Much like this game. If they had thrown in some ailment resists, then we might have something to talk about.



When you use the Egg Sonar, it'll display the world map and the locations of all the Dragon Eggs. As with the previous two games, they've been re-scattered across the world (well, the region), and placed in treasure chests. If Minim were to gather them up again, he could make one of the other wishes.

This is actually a pretty good roll: Only two of them spawned in dungeons. Mercifully, they won't appear in the random portions, but we'd still have to travel all the way to the event floors to find which chest they're hidden in.

We'll come back to this after we finish the game, since we have bigger fish to fry. Like Daos. Because, you know, he's a catfish because he causes earthquakes.

I mentioned last time that while the game didn't point the player in the direction of the newly resurrected Sinistrals, and that it's pretty obvious because there is all of one location left to explore.


Music:Midy

But if you're really dumb, the elves in Midy will straight up tell you the Sinistrals have gathered at the Tower of Twilight.

Please, go right ahead and make a reference SMeyer's opus, please.

The Tower of Twilight is located on a tiny island just off the southwestern coast of Rosplett. It's surrounded by mountains and can only be reached with the AA.


Music:Tower of Twilight

This is one of my favorite tracks in the entire game, especially the part that comes in at around the 58 second mark. It's also one of the longest, which I guess is incentive to avoid enemies so you can continue to listen to the bitchin' music.

Anyway. The Tower of Twilight is shade that can only be described as "Seventies Funkadelic Purple." Sadly, it is otherwise identical looking to the other Towers. Kind of a bummer for the final dungeon, isn't it? The first floor has a save point, some chests and a hidden item in the right gargoyle (not pictured because I am incompetent).

Oh yeah, I distributed all the stat-boosting seeds before entering the dungeon. It appears that HP and MP boosting seeds will randomly raise those stats by either 9 or 6. So, in theory, the seeds would have been better than the ring set because I could have given a single character (like Milka, who got all my HP-boosting seeds anyway) an extra 90 HP and another one an extra 90 MP (like Yurist, who got all my MP-boosting seeds). The other seeds only seem to give 3 points to their stats, which is... not all that useful.



Don't worry, there are tons of new enemies to fight. Some of them may not be new, I can't remember and am too lazy to check.

The big dragonfolk called Armadites appear, for whatever reason, as gold fairies on the map. They can use Fire Breath, which I think hits a column or a row or something. It's not much of a big deal.

Gazers are green ghosts on the map. Like every floating eyeball monster to ever appear in an RPG, they specialize in paralysis. They tend to act twice, usually reserving their first action for defending and using the second to go on the offensive. Hold Gaze damages a single row and attempts to inflict paralysis, but they can also use both Absorb and X-Absorb. It would not be especially surprising to find out they can inflict paralysis with their regular attacks, but I can't verify it.

You've... you've probably heard of Lucifer before, right? In some JRPGs, he's like, the final boss or at least moderately important to the storyline, but here he's just a random encounter. He appears on the map as a stationary gold fairy, which I guess is to try and trick you into assuming it's a Armadite? Either way, I hope the next SMT has a golden pixie that turns out to be a disguise used by Lucifer. As it turns out, you'll probably want to avoid fighting Lucifers if you can: They act twice, can cast Mirror, Destroy (that's an attempt to instantly kill the whole party, in case you forgot) and Thunder. They can also use Holy Feather, which deals about 350 to a single character (it was 320 on Milka and 390 on Isaac), and Hell Flame (which does about 50 to one column).

The L.Dead are completely unspectacular in comparison with no notable features or characteristics.

Blue Wisps can cast Curse.

And the L.Fighters are the last dull melee monsters types in the game. Their attacks are pretty strong, dealing between 70 and 150, depending on who they're targeting.



The IP attacks here are fairly dull. Ice Sword hits all enemies with ice damage, but the only interesting thing about it is the list of users. It seems like a bizarre assortment of characters, doesn't it? Especially when the elemental IPs tend to be the domain of men only.

Chakra is the final Jigen-ryu thing. It fully buffs the user and restores their HP and MP. It also takes all 100 IP, and both Aima and Yurist have more important things to do with their's than self-buffing.



Sea God is technically Deckard's "ultimate" IP. It's a summon like White Whale:



(It's supposed to by Neptune, I guess, but it's in the same robotic style that all non-party member males have going on)

It only deals about 800 to all enemies, and given that it also takes all 100 IP, it's not a good trade-off.



Around the tenth floor, blue triceratops start appearing. These are Slv.Dragons and they are extremely dangerous. They act twice per turn, and woe be unto you if you meet two in the same battle, or god forbid, let them get the drop on you. You see those screen shots? The first was at the beginning of the fight, the second was at the beginning of the second turn.

What makes them so bad?

They're defensive beasts: The can use Silver Aura to raise the whole enemy party's DFP and can cast Strongest to fully restore their HP.

They're dangerous beasts: They have an ability called Diamond Dust that hits the whole party for about 200 HP. They can and will use this skill multiple times in the same turn. They also have Silver Breath that hits a column for about 170 HP.

So. You have an enemy that can fully heal itself or raise its defense and use powerful attacks that hit multiple characters on the same turn. Fighting these guys is an uphill battle of constantly trying to keep up with the damage they deal and sneaking in attacks when you can. The best way to handle them is to pull out the big guns at the start of battle and hit them hard with your most damaging IPs to end the fight as quickly as possible.

It would appear that Isaac's Plat Shld dramatically reduces the damage from their attacks, which seem to be ice-based. You can see in the second shot, he's still nearly at max HP while Minim and Milka are knocking on heaven's door. I have no idea how Yurist managed to avoid devastation. There isn't a huge difference between his and Milka's REG stat, so that can't be it. My best guess is that the Drgn.Scle reduces damage from dragon-based attacks, or something. Maybe he's tapping into that mojo he had when Daos tried to smite him after the wedding?

The reward for surviving a Slv.Dragon's onslaught is nothing worth writing home about. So, you know, there's really no reason to fight them.

There are other new enemies that show up on the tenth floor and above, too. None of them are near as obnoxious as Slv.Dragons, though.

Chariots are new enemies, complete with unique sprites in both battle and the dungeon map! Spiffy. They aren't much to worry about, their Demonic Lance hits a column for about 60 HP. They do look kind of funny when they attack due their asymmetry, though.

I refuse to speculate why Slv.Golems appear as red robots on the map, but they do. They have an attack called Silver Mist that damages a column for about 60 HP.

The Procyon, on the other hand, only ever appears as a blue t-rex. Its Bite hit Ruby for 165-ish HP, but she has low DFP so that should not be construed as a warning about how dangerous they are.

Shadows can confuse with their regular attacks and sometimes have nightmares that give you insight into their past when you stay at an inn with them in your party.

Alternate Joke
Melphis: "There are three shadows left, Minim-kun!"



The dungeon finally ends on 25F. Yeah, that's right, floors two through twenty-four are all randomly generated. No breaks, no throne rooms, no event rooms, no save points. Just halls and boxes and stairs and bushes and monsters. It's not the final dungeon for nothing, y'all.

There's a Life Seed hidden on twenty-fifth floor. The twenty-sixth floor has a save point, heal spot and a G. Charm. The G. Charm prevents the wearer from succumbing to instant death attacks, but it's a little late for that. The twenty-seventh floor has a Power Seed hidden.

The twenty-eighth floor is the top.


Music:Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror

When Minim steps on the platform, Gades and Amon appear, followed by Daos. Daos laughs as Minim announces the party's arrival. He's pleased that Minim is so chipper, but Minim is ready to cut to the chase.



He raises up the Dual Blade to show it off, but Neverland is so poor they couldn't afford to flip the sprite around to make it sorta look like Minim was holding it up.



Daos is actually impressed by the party's Spiritual Force resonating with and being amplified by the Dual Blade. So impressed that decides to merge his Spiritual Force with the other two Sinistrals. They disappear in a flash of light.



Unfortunately, they didn't blow themselves up and save Minim the trouble of cutting them to pieces. A green... thing floats down where the Sinistrals once stood. Dei is the only one to ask, "Jesus, what in the holy fuck is that?"

Milka does her thing and explains that this is Guard Daos. which originally appeared at the end of the Second Doom Island War (Hint: There are spoilers in that video). It... it looks just a wee bit different this time, and not in a good way.

Guard Daos hits the CAPS LOCK and prepares to destroy the Children of the Spiritual Force.



But the Children are ready to go.


Music:Battle against Guard Daos

When Daos first attempted this trick against Maxim, the good guys were told that their energy could destroy the world. When he tried it against Maxim's descendant, the Dual Blade screwed things up and messed up Erim's Spiritual Force while they were trying to merge, resulting in the imperfect, Lovecraftian Abomination from Lufia 1.

Although they don't have Erim, it would seem that nothing went wrong with their fusion this time and this is what Guard Daos is supposed to be. Apparently he's supposed to be something like a Megazord. It's a lot less impressive compared to Lufia 1's version. :/

Guard Daos, being a combination of three Sinistrals, has all of their powers, including the Spiritual Force of Destruction, Spiritual Force of Chaos and Spiritual Force of Terror. So, uh, hope you equipped some Sanity Rings! These attacks have been powered up, so now like, Spiritual Force of Destruction deals nearly 200 HP to each character. Destructo, which was once used by Gades, hit Aima for 600 HP!

In addition to all those old skills, he's got some new tricks, too: The badass sounding Hopeless Scream, which reduces three characters to a single HP, Galactic Lancer, which hits a single character for heavy damage (400 to Milka) and Dark Reflector, which reflects all attacks back at the party for a whole round.

Minim's party takes him down the same way they take every boss down: With copious applications of Holy Sword from Minim, Final Dance from Yurist, Scatter Hit from Aima, and Vital Aim from Dei and Isaac.

Random Floors covered: 401! I didn't think we'd break four hundred before the end of the game, but we did! We'll probably end up doubling that in the post-game, though...
Next Time: The Endof the World

Yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh






Hm.

So... is Guard Daos a translation error?

Since it doesn't seem to be very... you know... good of a name for a final boss.

I always thought it was supposed to be 'God Daos', personally. But who knows?

Anyone have the JP enemy name handy?

His name is ガルディオス (Gardios) in Japan, Dios being Daos's Japanese name.

See also: "Safer Sephiroth."

(Pointless trivia: English sources usually give Erim's Japanese name as Erin or Erine, but the kana, エリーヌ, is one of several spellings for the name Helene.)

I wish Seena did turn out to be Erim. It would have been predictable, yeah, but at least it would have given us something interesting besides Erim appearing because Dual Blade.

Chapter 24: Minim's Friends



Guard Daos explodes.


Music:Decision

Minim steps forward and announces, to no one in particular, that they were successful. Dei wonders if this is really the end, and Milka confirms that Guard Daos's spiritual force is gone. Minim and Deckard are overjoyed to hear this.



Ruby proclaims that since they defeated the Sinistrals, they're basically unbeatable now. I'm not sure what to make of her looking at Deckard like that. Did they become poker buddies or something?

Isaac regrets not being able to capture a Sinistral and perform experiments on it. Melphis has successfully protected her people, and can return to the castle, like she wanted to the whole time. Mousse is happy.



Yurist ponders the limits of human potential, which, again, feeds into the Lufia DS reboot's storyline. Aima's got nothing to say, but we know that she's pretty much avenged him a hundred times over by now.

Minim and Dei decide they need to party, and Melphis offers up her castle as party HQ once again.



Seena seems to have something on her mind. She walks up to Minim... and, you know, the sky looks really gross here. It's very World of Ruin, you know? Anyway, it looks like we're gearing up for the "Characters that hate each other are secretly in love" confession, so, let's get on with it:



The two that started the journey congratulate each other, and Seena is thankful that she found such strong people.


Music:Confession

I kind of hate how they used this song earlier when Deckard and Melphis' relationship came to light.

Seena is mostly thankful that since the Sinistrals are gone, she can be the one to rule the world. This confuses Minim, and I know, "Hur hur Minim is stuuupid!!!!" is a thing in this game, but his confusion throughout this scene is actually quite realistic and, frankly, reasonable.

She explains that she was just using Minim and the party to kill the other Sinistrals. Note that she said "the other Sinistrals." You know what that means!



Yes, that's right! The bitchy blue-haired magician girl is, in fact, Erim, a fact that everyone and their mother immediately figured out the moment she stepped off the boat way back at the beginning of the game.

She plans to take advantage of how tired Minim is after fighting Guard Daos to kill him and the party. They're not that tired, sister. Minim still doesn't understand what's going on, and so Seena spells it out for him.



And he still doesn't understand, and again, that's entirely reasonable. Seena's traveled with him this whole time and been largely useless, a far cry from being a god like she claims. He's seen her heal NPCs at the brink of death, and as he points out, they already killed Erim, and now here she is in front of him claiming to be Erim.

(Also, Seena's magic is quite a bit weaker compared to the kind of damage that Lufia could pull. Check out that video I linked last time showing the battle against Guard Daos. Lufia's spells are by far the most powerful thing at the player's disposal. Here in TLR, offensive magic might as well not even exist.)

She explains that the Erim they fought in the Fortress of Doom was actually just her using Bunshin (she subbed Ninja, I guess), and that she's been extra careful at hiding her Spiritual Force so as to not tip off Milka.

...I gotta say, it would have been much more interesting if Milka had figured out Seena was actually Erim and intervened somehow.



Minim wants to know why she wanted to bump off the other Sinistrals. One would assume it's because they're bumbling fools who constantly get taken down by Gingers, or maybe she's just sick of taking care of their booboos. Turns out it's because she wanted to take over the world.

…

In other words, Minim is Pinky and she's the Brain.

(I'd like to call bullshit on this. There's no way the other Sinistrals wouldn't have been able to recognize her. In Lufia 1, every single one of them recognizes her on sight. The party even comments on her resemblance to the Erim statue in the Fortress of Doom. Guy drops dead after looking at her. There is absolutely no way the others wouldn't have immediately figured out her identity. No way.)



It seems to finally register with Minim that Seena is Erim. She demonstrates that she doesn't believe omitting the truth counts as a lie: They both had the same goal of reaching Doom Island and defeating the Sinistrals.



Actually, Seena didn't seem to display any particular insightful knowledge about the Sinistrals. Most what she knew (they lived on Doom Island, there are four of them, the Dual Blade can kill them) was stuff that's common knowledge in the Westlands (and presumably the Northlands, too).



Minim's still having trouble wrapping his head around this turn of events, so Seena shoots a beam of energy into the air and transforms into Erim.



She introduces herself in her true form as the Sinistral Death, and like the other Sinistrals, gives the little rant about destruction being her destiny. She uses her Sinistral Smite thing on the party and they all go down.

...wait, if she's the Sinistral of Death... wouldn't that kill them?

Minim, being the shonen hero he is, gets really, really, really upset when he sees his friends get hurt. Well, "hurt" in the same way that Minim and Seena were "hurt" after their battle against Daos. The characters all stand up, but Dei is the only one that has anything to say. Well, actually, someone else comments on how powerful Erim is, but this line is wrongly labeled as Seena's so it doesn't make much sense.

Anyway, Minim busts out the "I'll never forgive you for hurting my friends!" hero speech, so that can only mean one thing:



Boss time! Mousse, who received fewer votes than Randolph and Melphis, gets to return to the battle party and is back in his old spot (Left column, center row). Milka is switched to Seena's now vacant position in the right column, back row. Everyone's SF was raised to 35~ish.


Music:Battle against the Final Sinistral

Man. Just look at that sprite. I defy you to explain how she's doing that. It looks sort of like she's lunging at the party, but check out how she's holding her halberd. Hint: Behind her back with one hand.

Erim will always have Mirror up. If it wears off or is removed, she will take two actions the next chance she gets and use one to recast Mirror. She still uses Spiritual Force of Death, which I think claimed Isaac this time, but it otherwise not much of a threat. If you're really worried about the astronomically low odds of it killing off the front line, you can equip one of them with the G.Charm to prevent instant death (You didn't think they gave you that for no reason, did you?)

She's also got a few spells up her sleeves, too: Dark Zap (again), and X-Absorb, both of which can hurt something terrible. X-Absorb, for example, drained 400 HP from Deckard.

Interestingly enough, she can also cast Light, and instead of dealing the same piddly damage it would for Seena, it hit Deckard for 200 HP. Yipes.

To tell the truth, this battle kind of dragged on. Erim isn't difficult, but she kept focusing her attacks on a single character. so Minim and Aima had fuck all to do while they waited for their IP to recharge naturally.

I did use Ruby's Cursed Dice and got a partywide REG boost, so there's that. Ruby contributed something!



After the fight Erim collapses. She congratulates Minim on being so strong and thanks him for saving the world. Minim is (once again, justifiably) confused because now she's pro-world saving instead of trying to kill him.



Seriously, he's not being stupid in this scene! His responses are completely reasonable! She's the one acting like a kook. She doesn't even bother to try and explain the situation, she's just happy that she gets to die and that everything will be ok.


Music:Nightmare

And that's Daos's cue to show up. Milka does her thing and reassures Minim that it's just his residual waves and that he'll go away soon. Daos says he was wondering why Erim hadn't resurrected yet, and that he could not sense her because her Spiritual Force had completely vanished. Please see my note earlier about how he should have recognized the second her laid his beady red eyes on her. He demands to know why she betrayed him.



Ok, now Minim is acting stupid. Erim already explained that betrayed both Minim and Daos and her reasons for doing so. I mean, clearly, she was lying to him, but as far as he knows, that's the truth and this shouldn't be confusing for him.

Luckily, Daos likes to talk, so he explains Erim's plan.



She wanted to find heroes, train them so they could defeat the Sinistrals, then kill her. The whole "Yes I'm evil I want to rule the world you're dumb Minim SINISTRAL SMITE~" thing was just to egg the party on into going through with it. Daos believes she was successful, because "now the Sinistrals (have) completely vanished from the earth."

...that would make a lot more sense if two of the three characters visible in the above image weren't Sinistrals.

Minim lets this shocking revelation sink in.



He's not especially thrilled that he was used as a tool for assisted suicide, but while he's stammers in disbelief, Daos demands some damn answers from Erim w/r/t her betrayal.



Erim doesn't want to be a Sinistral, she wants to be human. Daos says she shouldn't let emotions get the best of her, which is funny because both he and Gades both let their own human emotions influence their actions.



Daos is fading fast, so he doesn't really have time to continue this stern lecture. OTOH, he's not about to let this slide. He tells her to suffer in the infernal flames, and, just to be clear: That is not some awkward attempt at censoring "Go to hell!" No, it's gonna be much stupider.


The screen pans up the sky and into space... up to another planet, it seems. I'm going to use this as evidence to support my theory that the different "lands" are actually different planets, or at least different nodes on a Phantasy Star III-esque world ship.

Also, pretend I edited the planet to look like a GBC version of P3's Eyeball!Moon!Nyx and made an extended joke about that.


Literally a Giant Space Flea.



Note to self: Perfect spot for a Chrono Trigger reference! Maybe have Milka explaining that in the Elvish tongue, "Zal" means "fire" and "Bak" means "big"? Bounce the idea off Rachel before posting.

Minim wants to know just what in tarnation that big ball of fire is. Dei explains that it is a big ball of fire, which is not a helpful answer. Go sit in the corner, Dei. Although, you know, thanks for remembering that you and the rest of the party are standing here watching this scene unfold. It would have been nice if the rest of the party had things to say about Seena's true identity, but maybe they've played the previous games and knew it all along.

Erim, who is still alive, asks Daos what the hell that's supposed to be. He explains that it's Zalbak, the Infernal God of Flame, which is apparently the most powerful thing the Sinistrals can summon. You would think that Erim would know that, or that Daos wouldn't be able to summon the Most Powerful Monster Ever while he was, you know, dying.



Zalbak's duty is to start the great conflagration. There are actually several myths from around the world where people believed that the world would end in a conflagration. And here we are! Welcome to the Apocalypse, Minim!

Before Minim can really react to that, Melphis, who is, like the rest of the party, standing behind the text boxes, spies an island rising up into the sky, and Milka, who claims to have seen the other Doom Island Wars, seems to be caught off guard by Doom Island.

Daos announces that Zalbak will burn the world to ashes from his cozy home on Doom Island, which prompts Minim to start running his mouth, and that makes the situation infinitely worse.



Zalbak rolls up to the top of the Tower of Twilight and blasts Erim with energy. She has an emote bubble, and it makes it look less like something bad is happening and more like she's just been woken up and is not a morning person.



Then she starts to float in the air as Daos explains his plan: Erim will be absorbed by Zalbak and that will transform it into the Ultimate Sinistral. Really? Wouldn't it have made more sense to fuse himself, Amon and Gades to Zalbak? It seems like the three of them would be stronger than Erim. I mean, I guess that Gades and Amon have already passed on, but there's nothing stopping Daos from hopping up in that.

Meanwhile, Erim feebly begs Minim to kill her before she gets junctioned to Zalbak, but Minim just stands there and watches as she floats over and is fused to Zalbak.



Daos implodes, but not before getting one last "Fuck you, Erim" in: She'll have to watch as Zalbak burns every living thing to death.



And Zalbak gets right on it. Its "fireballs" look just like the Sinistral Smite Beams, and it unleashes them on Midy, then Tanba, Redwood, and Gulduck before heading to Doom Island.



I kind of wish they had given Dei's first line to someone who hasn't gotten a chance to say anything in this scene. Yurist makes a colossal understatement. I mean, hellfire is raining down and the only thing he can say is that it "is not good..."

Dei steps up and is all like, "Hey leader, we kinda need to get around to stopping the apocalypse," but Minim is having trouble making up his mind because Seeeeeeeeena. Dei tries to convince Minim that no, it isn't Seena, it's a monster and has to be defeated, but Minim does not take kindly to people calling Seena a monster. She may be the God of Killing, but she's his God of Killing.



Dei points out that, you know, the world is being destroyed right now, and they kind of need to intervene, but Minim counters and says even though we just saw Zalbak shooting hellfire at several towns, none have actually been destroyed. He suggests that Seena is holding it back.

This causes Dei to call him "stupid."



He goes on to clarify that that is totally what he was trying to say. They have to defeat Zalbak before Seena has been completely absorbed, or else. It probably would have been smarter to just come out and say that instead of making vague "That's totally just a monster!" statements, Dei.

I really do feel bad for Minim in this sequence. So many characters call him "stupid" for behaving like a normal person. Oh, and because he has to dig up the resolve to kill his best frenemy.


Music:To Doom Island!

Ok. So, from this point on, everywhere you go, be it a town, dungeon, walking on the world map, sailing in the ocean or soaring in the skies, "To Doom Island!" will be constantly playing. It's a high energy song that I like quite a bit, it's suitably dramatic and really instills a sense of urgency, especially if you're running around towns talking to people. It unfortunately doesn't play while in battle. At this point, most sidequests are locked off. Gantz won't build anything, and you can't do anything that requires Seena to have speaking parts. I -think- you can still collect the Dragon Eggs, provided that you've already obtained all the eggs that aren't found in chests. You can definitely still do the Ancient Cave, but come on, why would you wait until now to do it?

Oh, and virtually every NPC in the game now has new dialogue. This is another one of those points where you can tell that someone who worked on this game really did care about the game and the game world. I'm going to take you through most of this dialogue so we can see how the people of the world are dealing with the apocalypse. If you aren't interested in reading any of it, you can just stop reading now because that's all that's happening for the rest of this update.



Midy

Just as Minim said, Zalbak hasn't actually damaged the towns, so Midy is fine. Girl is here to remind you of your destination, as if it wasn't obvious. A couple of the Elves - the ones in the back house - cheer Milka on, but what I find interesting is Boy up there. His question seems like one someone would ask: Why is hellfire coming from the sky? Why is there a giant monster running amok? Why has Doom Island appeared in the sky again? He laments that Arty (Artea) isn't there to save them, but you know, he didn't really contribute much to any of the Doom Island Wars. I mean, yeah, he fought alongside Maxim, but the only thing he really did was save Guy, and he was basically useless in the Second War. Maybe they've cured blindness in the past hundred years?



Mologolo

The folks in Mologolo are on it and brimming with hope and confidence. They've been inspired by the power of SCIENCE! and the continued progress of mankind. It's nice to see this kind of thing in a JRPG, where SCIENCE! tends to be bad.



There's a researcher around to explain that you need to use the AA to get to Doom Island, but otherwise their comments are mostly for moral support.



Tanba

Unfortunately, not all towns are so inspired. I... I actually thought that Sammi made a remark about not crying anymore (this is the character development I alluded to earlier), but I guess that's a comment she makes after you defeat Daos?



Redwood

Redwood is in the same shape: Everyone's pretty much given up hope.



...except for Ruby's Waitress friend.