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

I'll go into detail when we get there, but for now I'll just give you four words: Tangible rewards for completion. Yeah, that's right.
It reuses dungeon textures seen throughout the game. They change every 5 or so floors

Since it's a martial art, the "ryuu" is probably 流 rather than 竜. So it'd be more like "Dimension Style."

That's either really cool or really stupid.

...Actually, no, that's just stupid. What does that even mean? You fight by changing your dimensions? You just hit so hard you screw up your dimension? Huh?

Aima can literally knock someone into next week.

Dimensions =/= time/space.

...I think. Well, it's the space part, sure, but not the time.

So now that I think about it, she's basically Palkia.

That brings her right back to awesome for me.

Assuming dimensions don't mean her mass of course.

I need to play this game. The party dialogue is too often just hilarious and endearing, and the manner in which positioning affects the battle system is rather nice.

Chapter 5: Minim and the God of Destruction fight to the death

This is a very special update. Today Minim will be taking on the God of Destruction, for real. I guess Master's death has finally given the party the steely resolve they need to fight Gades on their own terms.



The people of Siantao are thankful that Gades has left, but are otherwise at a loss.



The shop and the inn are back to functioning, but the owners are pretty bummed. If you tell the innkeeper you don't want to stay, she gives you a sad, "Yeah, I didn't think you'd want to stay at a place like this anyway..."

But Minim and pals can't hang around listening to depressed people all day, they've got a mission.



On the way to the Tower of Death, Minim stops in Majari to see what the folks there have to say. Most NPCs now are talking about how they saw something flying to the Tower of Death. You know, in case you forgot where you were supposed to be heading.

But more importantly, Minim encountered a Red Core. Cores are the Metal Slimes of TLR: They're faster (faster than anyone in my party), and tend to run away. Beating them gives you a ton of LP, but not much else. This bugger took off before I could kill it.

Sidequest I: The Shocking Secret of Seena's Soothsayings!


Let's check in on Lurisa. You know, just because she has a name. She asks Seena if she's a psychic. Seena lies to her and says that she's really good. Lurisa wants to know when her daddy is coming home. In a much better game, this would result in a rhythm-based mini game set to "You're the Inspiration." Apparently her father is a miner of some sort, and went down in Laphon Cave, but has been gone for three days.



Seena says she'd be worried too, and does her psychic schtick, which consists of an ellipses word bubble appearing over her head. When it goes away, she says that Lurisa's father will return soon. Hearing this, the little girl is overjoyed and run off to tell "everyone." This means she runs to the center of town and stands around, waiting for player characters to speak with her.

Minim asks Seena if he really is coming back. She says she doesn't know, and he accuses her of lying. It doesn't count as a lie if it's supposed to make someone feel better, right?



He tells her that it'll crush Lurisa even more if her father doesn't come back, but Seena's got a plan: They'll go look for her father and bring him back, that way it won't be a lie. Minim points out that this isn't really fortune telling, and she tells him to stuff it, they're going to do it to make Lurisa happy.


Music:Cave #2

Off to Laphon Cave. Laphon Cave is the one between the Tower of Death and the Albano-Majari region. The only new enemy here are red ghosts called Phantoms. They're resistant to physical attacks, but they're weak to Seena's Light and also Aima's fists. Seriously, even though they only take like 75% damage from physical attacks, Aima can still one shot them.

All the other enemies in the dungeon are from the Gang's Hideout.



Investigate isn't very useful. It's a Scan-type skill, and when you're getting your OHKO on, silly things like "enemy stats" don't really matter. But since Dei has enough SF to learn it, he does so.

CrackBuster deals double damage, and as mentioned before, it is meant to be a normal attack, not "vertical."

Minim also learns Holy Attack, which he picked up way back in Slani Cave since he's got Aima and her Green SF beside him.

Really, there's not much to say about this dungeon. The IP attacks aren't that great, the enemies aren't anything new so you don't really need to bother fighting them, and I'm honestly struggling to find things to say about it. I guess I could talk about the part where I accidentally broke the game.



Zombies can drop a weapon called Alum Blade. It's something of an improvement over the Long Sword Minim has now. Let's just say that I won't be buying him a new weapon... oh, ever, and leave it at that, ok?

Ok no we can't leave it like that, I totally have to sperg out about numbers! The Alum Blade is the second most powerful weapon that Minim can equip, with a whopping 480 ATP. That's 30 more ATP than the Dual Blade. You can also find these in Blue Chests in the Ancient Cave, so this is a big, big, big deal. If I had picked up the Gades'B. or however the hell he would be nearly unstoppable (against physical attacks. His 37 REG means magic will usually cut through him like, um, really sharp scissors cut through paper).



B10 isn't randomized, which means this is probably where we can find Lurisa's father. There's also a Craze Ring and Life Seed. The Craze Ring is for ladies and gives them +10 to all stats, except CLT.



Lurisa's father is hanging around in the very back. He begs for help. Seena asks if he's ok, and explains that he was mining for ore when he was injured by falling rocks. I... I don't see any rocks, personally. I mean there's one up in the corner, but it doesn't really look like it fell, you know?

Anyway, Seena and Lurisa's father take a moment to hash out the situation: She wants to know if he's Lurisa's father, he wants to know how she knows his daughter's name, she says that Lurisa was worried because he hadn't come back so they came to check on him.

Minim urges Seena to hurry up and heal him, as if he didn't have access to healing magic himself. By the way, remember last update when they all stood around watching Master die instead of busting out the Strong? Yeah, good times.



One shot of Strong perks him right up, and Seena gives some exposition about how magic is super effective on folks who aren't used to having it cast on them. I guess even though they sell magic in every town, not many people can actually use it.

Lurisa's father thanks the pair and heads home by himself. Naturally, walking up eight floors of monster-infested dungeon is no biggie for him. Maybe he got an an Alum Blade too.



Seena brags to Minim about how awesome a fortune teller she is, and he's all, "Uh that still doesn't count as fortune telling." She says that the most important thing about fortune telling is that your predictions come true, it doesn't matter how it happens. Minim's not quite convinced, but both of them shut up and he Escapes them back to the entrance.

We'll check up on Lurisa and her father later, right now Minim needs to hop over to Lamika's house and see how Gantz is coming along with it.



Oops! It turns out he hasn't done a blasted thing! He needs special wood from a dungeon on another continent, so he can't do anything but twiddle his thumbs for now.

This section is actually a lie because I totally came back to Patos after rescuing Master but before finding Siantao in ruins. Teehee.

Ok, now let's go get Gades!


Music:Tower of Death

There's absolutely nothing new on the dungeon floors Minim and Seena covered back at the beginning of the game. If you wanted to pick up more copies of First Aid, you might as well do it now. It's not really necessary or anything.

There are some items hidden in the rubble of the room that Gades busted up. The BoltBoomer deals thunder damage. I seriously spent like ten minutes searching for that Miracle.

There's also a ColdRapier in a chest just past the rubble room. Under normal circumstances, this would be a neat upgrade for Minim, but now it's junk. We won't be seeing any other characters that can use rapiers until much later in the game, at which point this will be completely obsolete. Oh well!



The 6F is more dungeon.

Pause Palm will boost Aima's ATP and attempt to paralyze an enemy. I haven't actually used it, so maybe it deals damage too? I raised her SF up to 14 so she could learn it.

Persuade takes an all 100 IP to use, but lowers an enemy's ATP by 25%. Aima is the only one who can learn it now, but I mean she has Energy Punch and that's a much better use of her IP.



The green skeletons running around are Ghouls. I don't know what all to say about them because Minim and Aima rip them apart before I can figure out distinguishing characteristics.



Fire Attack hits all enemies with fire damage. Oh if only there were a spell that could do that! Maybe they could call it Spark or something.
...who am I kidding? Fire Attack is preferable to fire magic because Minim's got his Alum Blade and hitting all enemies with that is going to hurt them quite a bit.

Silhouette also hits all enemies, and has a description of "Copy self." I, um, don't know what this means. Japanese websites don't list this property, saying that it only attacks all enemies. GameFAQs says that it means a character who uses a copy self skill can't take damage on the turn they use it. I'll be sure to test it and figure it out before I find the next copy self skill.



The red robot-looking fellas are Wood Golems, another new enemy. They've got a nasty attack called Moujinkin (or something to the effect of M-j--k-n, I didn't get a screen cap of it) that was able to hit Dei for about 70 HP. Since they're Wood Golems, they' re probably weak to fire. I dunno, they seem pretty weak to Minim and Aima.



The 10F is non-randomized. It leads to another stair way, followed by three or four flights of stairs. The last set has a save point and a heal spot. Beyond that is the top of the Tower of Death. You know, the place where Gades first appeared.


Music:Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror

Gades appears before Minim when they approach the center. Minim spouts off some crap about how this time, he's gonna win. Gades finds this amusing, because this is, what, the forth time he's made some kind of threat like that?



Again, I did not cut anything from this.



That's about the time when the writers decided they wanted to make sure that the player was completely alienated from Gades.



Minim somehow interprets, "Wow this is so stupid I can't take my eyes off it," to mean, "I am totally shaking in my boots!" Luckily, Seena is there to correct him.



From a historical perspective, and by that I mean a historical perspective strictly relating to encounters with Minim, he's 100% correct.



Minim's ready to stop the destroying, and Aima's ready to avenge Master, and Gades is right there, so I guess it's time to get it on.


Music:Sinistral Battle

Here we are. The final battle with Gades. Things are different now. Gades gets right to the chase instead of standing around taunting for a couple of turns. His attacks are no longer going to OHKO a character. Oh, and Minim has Holy Attack and an Alum Blade, and it just so happens the Sinistrals are weak to both Holy-elemental attacks and overpowered, end-game weapons.

Minim's taking off about 650 per Holy Attack after Seena and Dei use Drain and Lock-On. This is gonna be awesome.



On the first round, Gades unleashes an attack called Destructo, which hits one character for a ton of damage. It knocked 115 off Minim, so it would have easily taken both Dei and Seena out instantly. His Spiritual Force of Destruction now his the entire party, but only takes off between 30~50 HP, instead of triple digits.

Minim didn't stop using Holy Attack during the entire battle. Aima didn't get a chance to fire off Energy Punch (although I did load a save to check: It deals about 500 HP to Gades after he's been Drain'd and Lock-On'd), because Gades hit her with Curse on the second turn: This reduces a character's HP to 1 and then inflicts them with Poison, meaning they'll die at the end of the turn unless you've already got a character healing them. I guess she should have kept that Poison Ring on, huh?

The third turn saw Minim using Holy Attack, while Dei and Seena revived and Strong'd Aima. Gades used his Spiritual Force of Destruction, which hurt Aima enough to boost her IP high enough so she could use DoubleKick on the forth turn. Gades didn't get to act on the forth turn, because Minim's Holy Attack killed him.

Everyone leveled up and it was great.


Music:Nightmare

Gades is stunned that he was defeated, and as he flickers out of existence, he tells them that the four Sinistrals will come revive again and again. They're kind of like Dracula. Despite this, Minim and Aima seem to feel this was an adequate act of revenge for Master.

Minim turns to Seena and asks her what all this "four Sinistrals" business is about. Much like in the United States, it appears that the quality of education in the Southlands leaves a lot to be desired.

Seena explains that there are four Sinistrals, and these four where the ones the Doom Island Wars were fought against. Minim, who is very close to grasping what Seena is saying, asks if the fact that there are four Sinistrals means there are three more like Gades. She tells him there are, and says that Gades is technically the weakest, who's main job is to show up at the beginning of the game and stomp the hero around a couple of times to show off how powerful the Sinistrals are, then go down like a little bitch at the end because he's such a wuss compared to his siblings.

Everyone ellipses (or maybe they bang?) at this revelation.



Minim and Dei's responses are basically, "Yep, we're boned," even though they just slaughtered Gades. Minim wants to know why they're resurrecting, but Seena isn't sure. She is sure that they'll be heading for Doom Island, because that's their home.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

Dei pipes up to say that there must be lots of treasure in a place where Gods live, and Seena lies to him. The treasure we'll find in the Fortress of Doom (yes by God I am gonna call it that, even though the games stopped after the first) is actually really shitty. But no matter, Dei is pretty excited by the prospect of looting and desecrating the Gods' home. He's in.



Minim turns to Aima and asks her what she's going to do. She asks what they would do without her when going up against the other three. She is correct in assuming they would be mostly helpless without her. Sure, Minim's got his Alum Blade, but that's only going to carry them so far, and plus without her Green SF his Holy Attack would cost like 45 instead of 30 IP.



And it's settled. All four will be heading to take on the other Sinistrals and find/loot Doom Island. Aima suggests they take the boat from Siantao to Lidal, and that will be Minim's next destination.



But first let's take a victory lap. Most of the NPCs on Epsis are thanking Minim for defeating Gades. In Albano, Fugo is impressed that Minim killed Gades, but is still an ungrateful dickhead. His wife Etral is much kinder (now): Apparently Fugo couldn't sleep until he heard that Gades had been defeated. To show her gratitude, she gives Minim a Dragon Egg. Yes, in TLR, there are Dragon Egg hidden in the most dangerous place of all: The hands of NPCs.



In Majari, Lurisa is happy that her father has returned. He is also grateful for Minim and Seena's help, and he shows it by rewarding them with another Dragon Egg. Before you get too excited at the number of Dragon Eggs Minim is collecting, I figure I should tell you that we won't be getting all of them until waaaaaay later in the game, and we won't get to cash them in until later still.



Siantao is still ruined, the music is still depressing, but the people are starting to come around. That's something, right?


Music for the boat trip:Cave #2

The boat is up and running again, and there's a Potion on the far right side of it.

I wonder what sort of adventures are awaiting Minim, Seena, Dei and Aima on Lidal?

Next Time: The game lies, the Lighthouse is to the Northwest, not Northeast.
Random Floors covered: 43

R.I.P. Gades

You look nothing like you once did. Where's your firey mane? And, you know, your face?

Edit
Reminder: Lufia DS: Curse of the Sinistrals is coming out this week in NA. So make sure to pick it up if you're interested in seeing how it all began how Square Enix re-imagined it all beginning the second game in the series, which was written as a prequel to the first. If it doesn't sell well in NA, the series is guaranteed to die, and the blood will be on your hands. <3

If there's one thing this game loves, it's lying to the player.

Alum Blade huh? Is that a glitch in the loot tables or what?

Thanks Kishi, you're a champ.

I don't think so, I think they just thought it would be funny to have some scrub monster drop OMGWTFSWORD. I might go back later and see if I can get more through Cooking and Grab Loot.

Am I right in assuming the ALUM BLADE is made of Aluminum?

I mean, the game says its made of "Alumina", but... the game lies to you. A lot.

Yes. As a matter of fact, when you finally do upgrade to the best equipment in the game, it's all made out of tin. See, Minim and co. are trying to be environmentally friendly, so all their equipment is made out of recycled materials.

The game will try to tell you differently, but who are you going to believe, me or the game? At least I've never lied to you.

idk would Aluminum be enough to reinforce a submarine like Alumina does in the first game?

From all viewpoints it was a pretty shitty submarine.

Note to self... If I ever play this game, farm for an alum blade early XD

I'm working with the assumption that Lufias oceans aren't much deeper then a swimming pool.

You need electricity to get refrigeration, to make submarines. You also need it to mine aluminum. So going by Civ V (my source for ALL historical questions) I believe the answer is yes.

Chapter 6: Minim helps the elderly


Music:Port Town

The ship arrives at the port of Caan, on the southern tip of Lidal. The Captain says that Minim can return to Epsis whenever he wants, but we probably won't need to ever take a boat back there. There's a weird sign that refers to a tour of the four continents, and anyone who played through the first game probably just shuddered at the memory of the island tours/alumina hunting sequence. It was really bad. Luckily, in this game, this sign is just flavor text, to remind the player that there are four continents.



The people in Caan seem to be awfully unfriendly. They're so overt about it that even Minim picks up on it. This man standing near the dock the ship landed demands that Minim identify himself and his purpose for visiting Caan, and ends up just rolling his eyes at the outsiders.



That is one cool cat. OH WAIT EMOTICONS DON'T WORK IN LET'S PLAY ALREADY.

According to Uncle, the folks in town have all stopped trusting each other. He apologizes half-heartedly about it, but doesn't offer any more of an explanation. Hmm.



A little girl in the center of town questions what everyone's problem is because they are all seriously being jerks. An Aunt gives a little bit of insight: Everyone's acting funny because of the kingdom of Alstadt. It's not much to go on, but it's something.

A Grandpa (whom I did not screencap whoops) explains the full situation: Alstadt used to be a nice kingdom with a nice king and pretty princess. But now they've become militant and aggressive and are trying to take over the entire continent, so everyone in Caan are uneasy and hostile.

Yeah pretty much. Sorry. In a way it's nice because it makes the scenario here in Lidal feel more focused, since pretty much everything we do here and 75% of the characters we recruit will be directly involved with it. The pacing and flow feel different from the events of Epsis, where Gades would pop up at the end the subplot to blow something up and give the characters ~motivation~.



Moving on. One of the houses has one of those mysteriously empty chests, and it breaks my heart. This chest happens to be in a fella named Rudo's house. He has a crush on a girl who lives in the Copley Forest. The name might be familiar, because that's where Gantz needs wood from. For now, there's nothing Minim can do, but later when he actually reaches the forest, he'll be able to help Rudo out. And lord have mercy, the reward will be so worth it.



Entering through the shop's backdoor gives Minim access to a secret shop. The Toy Ring gives +1 to all stats, while the Pendant gives +1 to all stats except for HP and MP. Or maybe I have those backwards? Either way, they're pretty much junk. The Bunny Ears are an ok piece of equipment for ladies. It gives +45 to DFP and +25 to REG. That's about twice the DEF that the other headgear they sell in Caan gives. They're not really worth the 50,000 price tag though. (We will be picking up a pair at some point, because it's the best headgear one party member will be able to equip)

The items that Chamy's Secret Shop sells is one big set of What it says vs What it does, so they will collectively be:
What it says vs What it does IV

The Teddy Bear is described as "Comfort you heart." What it actually does is put the person you use it on to sleep. It targets party members by default, and I've never seen it land on enemies, so I'm not sure what the point of it is. Maybe it boosts your IP gauge? I don't know.

The Alarm Clk says: "Very Loud." It's a consumable item that cures sleep and confusion for the whole party. It isn't really worth the price tag. We already have access to the Awaken spell, and confusion doesn't land often enough that we'd need to worry about healing multiple characters.

And lastly, the Ear Cleaner, which is "Ear Cleaner." The icon beside it means that it's a battle item to be used on enemies. I'd never actually used one before, so at the end of the update I decided to buy some and see what they did. You know, so I could tell y'all! I had Dei use one on first set of enemies (Zombies) I found wandering outside of Caan, and it hit for 600 damage.

HOLY SHIT.

I thought it might be a fluke, or a critical hit or something, so I found more enemies (Wood Golems) and let other characters try it. This time it hit for about 350, which isn't as good, but still pretty insane. That's about what Minim's doing with his Alum Blade. I got to thinking that maybe they only do stuff like this against humanoid-ish enemies, so I found some bees and tried it. Both Minim and Aima did ~615 damage (pictured above). Then I loaded up another save file that was at the final boss and tried them on it. 350 damage. Which is, uh, not that great at that point in the game, but you know, it seems that they deal a consistent amount of damage throughout the game.

So I learned a thing! I'm going to keep testing these throughout the game to see what's what.



As for the regular stuff in the shop, Minim buys it all. Well, except for the LuckRapier because obviously he doesn't need it.

A X-Bow (+75 ATP, no damage penalties because of range) and Rubber Cap (+25 DFP, reduces Thunder damage) for Dei.

Aima gets a Turban (+22 DFP), her first piece of headgear. There's a Bracelet that she can equip as a shield, but it would mean she couldn't equip her fist-weapons and that would be a major hit to her damage output.

Seena gets a Hairclip (+23 DFP), Bracelet (+20 DFP), Cute Dress (+38 DFP) and an Ame Ball (Amethyst Ball, +40 MAP, prevents confusion). The Ame Ball is super important because of it's confusion prevention property. We'll see why eventually.

Minim gets Sml Armor (+40 DFP), a Round Shld (+25 DFP) and a Rubber Cap (+25 DFP, reduces Thunder damage).

It's a pretty good upgrade for everyone, really.

The inn here is free if you enter through the back door, but I didn't do screenshots because it isn't that interesting. Instead, here's a funny sign.

The Church has Bolt, the next-tier thunder spell. Dei can learn thunder magic, but his MAP isn't anything to write home about so why would you waste your LP like that? Mute will attempt to silence an enemy (or maybe all enemies, I've never used), and Guard will raise one ally's DFP. Seena learns Bolt and Guard.

What it says vs What it does V

Which reminds me: The spell X-Absorb that Seena learned earlier in this LP is described as absorbing HP from all enemies. It only absorbs HP from one enemy.



Looting. The Dragon Fang is the most powerful type of boomerang item. There's an Antidote in a barrel in the inn.

The shop has a Unded Ring. It's a cursed item that makes the wearer undead: They will become resistant to (non-holy) magic, but healing spells will damage them. It also boost all stats by 40, and allows the wearer to cast Perish, an instant-death spell.

Cursed items work differently in TLR than they did in previous games. You don't have to go to a church to get them removed, you can just take them off.

The other chest in the shop is an IceBoomer.


Music:Enhancement

As Minim approaches the exit, he hears someone yelling for help. A man runs into town, carrying and unconscious old man with him. He says the old guy was hurt pretty badly, and Seena leaps into action with Strong. (Really? Again? Poor Master, Seena just didn't give a crap about you).

The spell is enough to keep him from croaking, and Seena's happy she was able to help him. Dei says that his wound looks like it's from a sword, so it's unlikely a monster attacked him. Because we certainly haven't fought any monsters with swords before, and we certainly won't be seeing any later on this update. What they're getting at is that Dei suspects someone is after the old guy.



The old fella gets to his feet and asks where he is. The man that brought him to town tells him he's from Caan, and that he was found lying outside Tomis Cave. This jogs his memory, and recalls that he was running from "them" and that he can't stay in Caan. He turns to leave, but before he can get off screen Seena runs up and stops him. Because, you know, his wound isn't healed and he'll probably die if he even tries to walk to much.

The old fella is dedicated though: Even though he's probably about to die, he can't stop until he rescues the princess.



Neither one is willing to budge: Seena keeps insisting he needs to stay or else he'll die, he keeps trying to walk off insisting that he has to save the princess. There's a funny little tug-of-war moment where he keeps trying to walk off and she keeps pulling him back because if his wound is so bad then maybe yanking on him like that isn't the best thing to do Seena.

Minim intervenes, telling Seena to knock it off because of some bullshit man's pride nonsense. The old man thanks him and leaves. Minim wishes him good luck (or rather, "stay alive").

Then Seena turns around on Minim and chews him out for being such a dumbass.



She insists that they go after him because she doesn't want him to die and is totally going to if they don't stop him. The guy that brought him to town tells Minim that the old guy was saying something "lighthouse" while he was being carrieddragged to town. The man suggests that maybe the old guy went to the Deserted Lighthouse to the northeast of town. Oh. Ok. Thanks mister, that's very helpful!


Music:Lidal

Whereas Epsis was "generic, temperate fantasy" land, Lidal basically made up of wetlands. It's kind of a neat aesthetic, you don't really see this sort of thing in RPGs. Because of the design, from here on out I will pretend that the characters here all speak with cajun accents.

The nice man in town said that the lighthouse is to the northeast, so Minim sets out in that direction. He's greeted by a mountain range. Perhaps he needs to walk around them? He decides to walk along them until he finds a way around, so he can head northeast, the direction that the game said he should be heading.

It's not long before he finds a cave. Oh, that appears to be one of those gateway caves! Surely if he passes through it, he'll be on the other side of the mountains and will find the lighthouse, which is to the northeast, because that is where the man said it would be.


Music:Cave #1

Even the caves are different here. But oops, the guard won't let him through because it's dangerous out there! I'm assuming they closed the cave off because the old man was found on the other side, and they determined that things are kinda crazy over there.

Minim decides to leave the cave and continue following the mountains. He thinks something is strange, because it's almost as if he's walking northwest, rather than northeast. But that's impossible, because the lighthouse is northeast, not northwest! Eventually, the mountains turn into the sea, and just as he's about to turn around and search for a path he might have missed,, he spots the lighthouse out of the corner of his eye. The peninsula it's situated on looks oddly northwestern. He decides to bust out the map, and lo and behold, the lighthouse was actually northwest of Caan!

Looking around, it's pretty clear why this lighthouse was abandoned: It serves no purpose. It's at the edge of the continent, far away from any ports or any specific landmarks. This sort of thing happens a lot in RPGs.


Music:Tower of Ruins

There's no lobby area here, it dumps Minim straight into the dungeon on 1F. Luckily, there's a whole bunch of new and exciting IP attacks to talk about!

Cure targets one character, heals bad status and restores an amount of HP that's equal to 1/4 of the caster's max HP. Unfortunately, the only two characters in the party that can learn it are the two with pathetic HP.

F. Barrier will boost the user's DFP and REG. It's for characters that have natural MP growth, so Aima can't learn it.



New enemies:
Green-tinted skeletons are S.Paladins, who get to use their regular attack twice in a turn, and can also use Knight Slash, a rather pathetic single-target skill that only deals about 40 HP's worth of damage to Seena.

Red-winged bats are Stings. They seem to drop an ungodly number of Potions, but the party is well past the point of needing those. They can Call Companions and use an attack called Needle Shower, which is dealing between 10 and 30 damage to the whole party.

The red ghosts running around are Red Wisps. They move opposite of Minim on the dungeon maps. They can Call Companions, use an attack called Fire Breath that barely knocks ~35 HP off Seena, and they seem to be immune to Dei's X-Bow.

The blue people with wings are Fairies. On the dungeon map, their movements mimic Minims, meaning if he steps left, they step left. This makes it easy to avoid them if you want to. They're an interesting enemy: When alone, they tend to only cast a special version of Strong on members of Minim's party. It heals about 100 HP and can cause confusion. When there's more than one in battle, they'll cast Madness, a spell that attempts to inflict the whole party with confusion. I wouldn't be surprised if their regular attacks were capable of inflicting confusion, but I've never actually seem them use a normal attack.

Their tricks are pretty much useless, though. Aima's got her Sanity Ring and Seena's got her Ame Ball, so they're invincible to their attacks, and the Fairies did not have great success getting Minim and Dei confused.



Dark Sword is an IP attack for swordsmen-type characters like Minim. It deals darkness damage and doesn't cost any IP. Minim went ahead and learned it. It cost him 22 HP to use and hit about 100 HP harder than his regular attack.

Scatter Hit is one of my favorite IP attacks, especially when it's in the hands of Aima. For 50 IP, the user will strike six times, each blow dealing half the damage of a normal attack. If the target is defeated before all six blows have landed, the user will just target another enemy until they finish. It's far more practical than Energy Punch, both for normal battles and bosses.



The 6F is non-random, and has a save point directly in front of the stairs. It also has the old fella fighting a giant monster. After a few skirmishes, the old man says to himself that he can't defeat it, suggests it's because of his wound. He says, "What a shame..." which seems like a pretty huge understatement, and collapses.

Seena rushes in to cast Strong on him, and is relieved to find that he's still alive.



She volunteers to take care of the old guy while Minim, Dei and Aima get rid of the monster. The preparation options are really boring this update.


Music:Boss Battle

Like the cutscene said, Seena won't take part in this fight. The TowerSnake absorbs thunder-based attacks, and as you can see Minim's Bolt Attack healed it for 438 HP. It has an attack called Meteor, which hit Dei for about 20 HP. I think it was probably thunder-based, and so Dei's multiple levels of thunder protection took a bit out of the damage.

Speaking of taking a bite, the TowerSnake also has an attack called Snake Bite that hit Dei for over 100 HP, killing him. It can also cause Poison in targets that it does not kill.

During the fight, Dei Grab Looted a Body Dress. I actually wanted another Miracle, but this isn't bad.

Otherwise, it came down to Minim hammering it Holy Attack and Aima with DoubleKick. The TowerSnake has about 2100 HP.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

Minim turns to Seena and asks about the old guy. Apparently after a couple of shots of Strong, he's doing fine. The old guy thanks Seena for saving him two times in a row. Minim waves it off and inquires about the princess, and volunteers to go with the old man to save her.

He doesn't want them to come along because the Deserted Lighthouse is a dangerous place, and they might get injured. Even Minim is able to see the hypocrisy in this, and points out that the old guy was the one who needed help. Seena says that they can fend for themselves, which is a lie because she's including herself in that list.



Aima and Dei chime in to say that the princess's safety is what's important, so they need to work together. The old man is impressed by their attitudes, because folks like that are rare in Lidal. No one bothers to point out that they're from Epsis.

The old man introduces himself as Randolph, Captain of Princess Melphis's Royal Guard. He formally requests assistance from the party, and Minim accepts his request.



The other characters introduce themselves. Aima's rather blunt, isn't she? I imagine she's still ticked off that Seena didn't even try to heal Master. With that, Randolph joins the party.

There's a MultiBlade on the left side of the room. In another series, it might be called a Falcon Sword. It allows the user to attack twice, just like the S.Paladins. If the target is defeated on the first attack, the user will target a different enemy for the second.



Randolph, at the ripe old age of 72 ,is the party's glass cannon. It's nice to be able to say "ripe old age" in an JRPG without a trace of sarcasm. Dude's old. He has insane STR growth, at the cost of every other stat. His HP growth is pathetic. At level 17, he has fewer HP than Seena at level 20. This is pretty terrible for a fighter! He's a swordsman-type character, and he's mostly in the same equipment class as Minim: He has access to heavy armor, shields, and swords. That means he too can equip Alum Blades, but Minim's going to keep that for now and Randolph gets the MultiBlade. It knocks his ATP down from 258 (with 2Hnd Sword to 223, but 223x2 is more than 258x1, so...)

Randolph also gets Minim's old Rock Helm and a Poison Rng, while Aima gets the Body Dress (+48 DFP, that's about twice what her Toga gave).

Randolph's SF is Red, so that means we'll be able to give even more party members access to an ATP boost. Like Aima, he doesn't get any MP naturally. Unlike Aima, he cannot learn any spells. I mean, he can equip the spell-granting rings, but he can't learn spells at Church.

The party formation is all messed up because Seena and Randolph are just dumped into the first available spaces. Seena goes back to her spot on the back row behind Aima, and Randolph takes the upper-right corner so he can get a HP and DFP from Aima.

Now that the party has reached an unhealthy level of characters with blue sprites (hand to God, Randolph is the last one. Well, except for that one), it's time to continue up the lighthouse.



The second half of the Deserted Lighthouse has new enemies. The yellow buggers are Crsd Armor, which can use an attack called Iron Punch to damage one character, as well as an ability called Dark Aura that hits an entire row for dark damage.

The red bull (...) things are Baffalos. They can use a skill called Attack which should probably be "Charge" or "Stampede" that hits an column. The damage seems to be pretty inconsistent: I was ambushed and my formation was all messed up. Seena was in the center of the first column, while Minim, Aima and Randolph were all in the right column. Attack only hit Seena for 2 HP, while it hit Minim for 45, Aima for 35 and Randolph for 25. I mean it's totes not a big deal or anything, it's just odd that Seena took waaaaaaaaaaaaay less damage than those three.

The blue puppy is a BloodyWolf. It can probably do stuff. Probably.



Minim found like 2500 gold in Gold 500. (One Gold 500 not pictured).

Randolph comes with two IP attacks: Split Attack, which deals double damage and doesn't take an enemy's DFP into account. It should only cost 50 IP, but because of his positioning, he's lacking the necessary blue SF. Since he has a MultiBlade, it probably isn't that important that he can't use this attack. He also has Charge, which I believe raises ATP by 50%.

Minim had to grind up a few LP on the 11F so that Aima could boost her SF up enough to learn Scatter Hit. Because it's awesome, ok. Dei also finally learns Dash Attack, not that it's gonna do him a whole lot of good.



12F is the top. There's a raised platform in the center, and in a room on the the left is a Revive and heal spot, while on the right there's a save point and a Ghost Ring. The Ghost Ring is like the Unded Ring, except it only boosts stats by 20 and the spell it gives is Destroy, which attempts to instant kill the entire enemy party.



As Minim approaches the center platform, he sees a girl fighting a giant bug. Randolph calls out to the princess, and when she sees him, she says she's glad to see him because the monster is pretty tough and she needs help.

Randolph charges up the stairs to help her, and by "help" I mean his sprite looks at her's while the monster just sits there.



Minim and Dei express bemusement at the fierce girl up there, because that's not what they think of when they hear "captured princess." Seena's there to keep them on track and tells them they have to help out Randolph and the princess, too.

What it says vs What it does VI

It implies that the princess is some type of fierce warrior princess, possibly like Xena. But what she does is cast healing magic, because she is a cleric-type character. Nevertheless, the joins the party, and Minim shoves her to the back row of his column. She equips what little junk Minim has laying around in the bag: A Mini Shld, Lthr Robe and Fake Ring, all of which are minor improvements over her base equipment.


Music:Boss Battle

On the first turn, Dei snatches a Miracle off the DevilGrome, Seena Drains its DFP, and Minim hacks away with Holy Sword. After that, it just comes down to Minim using Holy Sword, Aima Scatter Hitting and Randolph using his regular attack.

The DevilGrome has at least one special move: Bolt. It hits one character for about 100 HP, and is probably thunder-based. I don't know if it was supposed to be the spell or a special move for it. Randolph had to pop a Potion before the battle ended because of this attack. The DevilGrome has about 2000 HP.


Music:The Wounded Warrior

Randolph is thankful that the princess is safe, and she says that it's only because of him. He wisely passes the credit on to Minim, because they've saved him from the brink of death twice. He steps out of the way so the princess can thank the group.



Minim's like, "Yeah, no biggie," then asks what a pretty lady like her is doing in a nasty dungeon like this. She offers the Cliffs Notes (Am I.. am I showing my age by making a reference to Cliffs Notes?) version of the story: She was tricked by Deraf, the Minister of the Alstadt. He used to be a nice man, but now he's evil and attempting to take over the world. Or at least Lidal. Randolph wonders what's happening in Lidal, because everything used to be so nice. The princess says that they have to get to the bottom of it and reclaim her kingdom.



Randolph points out that if they were to head back to Alstadt right now, they'd be killed. Maybe they need to gather the 108 Stars of Destiny first and then try. He feels the same way, though. They have to get to find out what's going on. The princess agrees that they can't let it go on, but doesn't know what their next move should be. Say, maybe the Deserted Lighthouse could be fixed up and made into the base for a revolutionary army? I mean yeah, obviously Randolph would die a tragic death unless they gathered all 108 stars before an arbitrary cutoff point, but it's worth the risk.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

Minim invites the duo to join his team, explaining that they defeated Gades back in Epsis, and that since there are three other Sinistrals around, one or more of them might be the root of this conflict.



Randolph asks the princess what she thinks, and she says that they should take Minim up on his offer because really Squishy McOldFella and Healer the Cleric dont't have what it takes to go after a major military superpower. Minim introduces the team to her, and the princess introduces herself as Melphis. You probably found that out when she joined for that battle, though...

Minim replies to her with a "Nice to meet you, Melphis." In the Japanese version, Minim probably said it in such an informal tone it would have been more accurate to translate it as ,"Shut the hell up you dumb whore." But as it stands, it looks more like he's being very polite.

Randolph flips his shit for Minim speaking so disrespectfully to Melphis.



Minim hand waves it, saying that they're "pals" and not "servants" so they don't have to be formal. This sets Randolph off even more, but Melphis calms him down. She asks Minim again if he's willing to let them join, and he is. He tells them both to just address him as "Minim" rather than "Sir Minim."

Dei asks what the next step is, and Randolph explains that he believes pirates have been supplying weapons to Alstadt.



And it's decided: The team will start looking into the pirate menace.

There's an X-Magic in the telescope at the center of the platform.

Let's chat about Melphis. She's the 20 year old princess of Alstadt. I don't think the game ever explains why she was in the lighthouse, but let's just say that Deraf locked her away inside.

She equips Staffs and Rods for weapons and her armor class is pretty much identical to Seena's. She has Blue SF and is pretty much a traditional cleric character.

Melphis only starts with one IP attack: F.Barrier. On the other hand, she starts with a ton of magic:

• Strong
• Stronger: The second tier single-target healing spell
• Champion: It's like casting Strong on the entire party.
• Gale: The first tier Ice spell that hits all enemies.
• Escape: Lidal is when the dungeons start getting lengthy, so the game just goes ahead and forks over a character that already has Escape so you won't have to run all the way back at out.
• Guard

Overall, her learnable magic list is very similar to Minim's, but since she has high REG and MAP, she'll be able to actually heal/deal damage with ice magic.

Loose Ends

I did some testing: Aima's Pause Palm does indeed deal damage when used. It looks like it only does about 50% damage, because it hits less than a normal attack even after it does the initial ATP boost.

Copy Self doesn't appear to do anything, at all.

Next Time: Let's fight Giant PieRats.
Random Floors covered: 53

Character art:


Melphis NA



Melphis JP



Randolph NA



Randolph JP

Melphis and Randolph also have a vaugesian style going on. Melphis sort of reminds you of Selan, doesn't she? I can't get over Randolph's knee-fringe things or his majestic ponytail.

I don't know why Randolph is depicted holding two swords. If I had to guess, I would say it's because there was some misunderstanding when he was described as being someone who uses "two-handed swords," and the artist took it to mean "uses one sword in each hand." Several of the swords Randolph can use are two-handed, you see, meaning he can't equip a shield with them.

Randolph appears to be wearing skirts on each of his knees.

his legs are actually two little girls who attach to his hip sockets Voltron-style.

They are princesses.

I'm not entirely sure that is a Frue oversight, assuming it was a Baffling Buffalo.

Oh, hey. You're right about where I think I was when I quit playing the game. Really interested in seeing what comes next, now!

I told you it would offend your professional sensibilities! If this was Dragon Quest, I would assume it was cute wordplay, but that would require them to have some sort of confusion attack. Plus I know better because this Natsume.

The next parts are some of my least favorite in the game. It's like since you just got White Mage Chick, they decided that you're damn well gonna need healing. (That and ugly dungeon textures and obnoxious music and really long dungeons)

I played through the next couple of dungeons and I yelled, "YES!" when the game finally spelled villain correctly.

Edit: VV

Yeah, it's even worse than you're remembering.

As I recall, there's a really ridiculous scene coming up where you get your ship sliced in half by a ship with a sword on its bow

Seriously, that never made sense.