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

It's rubbing off on you! Run! Run while you can still understand English!

I'll have you know my grammar was awful loooooong before The Legend Returned.

Or maybe it's SO awful it warped you in the PAST.

If Randolph was fighting the snake with his old wound, does that mean that Seena didn't bother healing him to full HP the first time? What a jerk.

Also, Randolph's ponytail is awesome! I want it!

Are we eventually going to start losing characters to the Plot Contriavance Fairy, or are we going to get the option to choose a party and leave the others behind? The party is starting to get a bit crowded.

In those screenshots from the formal induction of the princess into your party I thought the game was having palette issues. They really heaped on the blue characters from the get-go.

*insert terrible joke about how "it's not easy being green" here*

Got any plans for spreading around or concentrating the SF colours?

Wow, that's completely ridiculous. Like Destil, I was leaning towards "glitch in the loot tables", but who knows. Is it at least a really rare drop, that could maybe be considered an insane easter egg?

Or maybe it was just a lone programmer's gift to help players get through boring parts of the game, like the slightly out-of-the-way piece of scrap metal near the beginning of Granstream Saga that can be restored into one of the most powerful weapons in the game. That thing was such a boon when I suckered myself into reviewing that terrible game (which is how I got into writing for GameSpite before it became GameSpite, lo these many years ago).

...and this is where I roll to avoid making really rude comments.

Meanwhile, Randolph's ponytail is indeed amazing.

I dunno, Randolph's HP max is so low that there's no way Seena wouldn't be able to fully heal him with one spell.

Well, we have nine spots for battles... There are a couple of dungeons where certain characters will leave about halfway through, but then pop back up at the end of the dungeon. Otherwise, everyone is gonna be traveling around with Minim all the time.

Eventually, we'll have more party members than we have spots in battle, and at that point I'll let y'all decide who gets to do the fighting. (Aima has a permanent spot though, and that is non-negotiable)

Dei really should have had a yellow sprite. =|

You have no idea how hard it's been not to make an off-color joke about this.

I had to go back a couple of pages to check what CLT does. I'm used to engrish in whole words and sentences but only just dawned on me that they probably meant CRT. Only Natsume I suppose.



Being such a giant woman, does Aima have a higher natural CLT than Seena? Or Minim for that matter?

Chapter 7: Minim does things that you should not try at home

If Minim heads back to Caan, everyone's kind of chillaxed and started talking about pirates harassing the folks in Tomis. Since last time the team decided that they needed to handle some pirates, it looks like Tomis is the next destination. But first, Minim buys a Toy Ring, Pendant and 99 Ear Cleaners for further testing, Dei and Seena also pick up Awaken from the Church, although it's likely they will never use it.



The Guard has moved out of the way in Tomis Cave, but warns Minim of pirates. In the cave, going straight leads to dungeony area, while turning right leads on through to the Tomis region. The actual town is located down south along the coast. Incidentally, this means that Tomis is actually northeast of Caan. No, I will not be letting that go.


Music:Port Town #2

Minim decides to strike up a conversation with the local greeter to see if she can point him in the direction of the plot. And boy does she have a lot to say.



All of this, from the very first person in town you see, the very first time you talk to her. I have no idea if she'll say something different the second time, because I didn't want to risk sitting through this again.

The folks around town talk about the pirates and who they suspect the spy is. Spoiler alert: This is no spy. At least not that I've seen.



Looting the town. If you see an item in any of these screenshots and want to know what it does, feel free to ask what it does. At this point I don't remember what all I've covered.



The Lucky Erng. is an accessory that raises CLT by 5 for ladies. Well, ladies who are not Aima.
What it says vs What it does VII
It says, "HIT Up. Easier to avoid attacks." What it means is, "The wearer will have the evasion of a character who's on the back row, while their attacks will hit like someone on the front row, regardless of where they're standing."



The big news here in Tomis is there are lots of new spells.

• Warp lets you teleport to previously visited towns. Minim learns it.
• Fireball is the next-tier fire spell. It hits all enemies. Seena learns it.
• Champion we saw last time: It heals the whole party. Melphis already has it, and no one else in the current party can learn it.
• Absorb drains MP from an enemy. This is an incredibly important spell for Seena and Melphis, because it'll allow them to cast spells with impunity. They both learn it.
• Rally is the basic revival spell. Minim, Seena and Melphis can learn it, but Minim already has dozens of Revive items, so learning a spell that has the same effect isn't a priority. Plus he spent all his LP on Warp, Fireball and Absorb.

At the shop:
Aima gets a Holy Fist (+50 ATP, +10 SPD, Holy-elemental attacks), which should be useful when we go up against the Sinistral of the week. Melphis gets a Sage Rod (+50 ATP, +20 REG), while she and Seena both get Body Dresses (+48 DFP), and Mage Shlds (+25 DFP).

Minim and Randolph get Rock Brsts (+55 DFP). In addition, Minim gets a Bronz Shld (+30 DFP). Dei gets a Rub Jacket (+50 DFP), which, again, is made of rubber and reduces damage from thunder magic. I'm starting to think he has a rubber fetish. All of the men get Holy Caps (+30 DFP, reduces damage from Dark magic).

Now let's go get some tickets so we can meet some pirates! Keit's House is near the port, so....



Welp.



Keit is a little boy, who says, "Not all pirates around here are bad! It's true!" and I'm sure that since he has an actual name and is a small child it means he's gonna be involved in this stupid subplot. His mother tells Minim that she's not selling tickets right now, but Minim tells her he needs a ticket because he's got business with the pirates.

(Tickets are free because they're plot coupons)



The Captain wants to know if Minim is surely sure he wants to go.


Music:Cave #2

The boat sails out into the ocean, and then switches to cutscene mode (you can tell it's cutscene mode because the screen changes and the water becomes much, much, much bluer than it is on the world map). Minim wonders if there really are pirates out here, and that's about the point where he sees the pirate ship.


Music:Enhancement

Seena sees it too, and the ship is coming toward their's at full speed! And by that, they mean it just kinda sits there until you you close the dialogue box, then it casually sails up alongside them.

Incidentally, this part, with the pirate ships and the sailing and all, just serves to remind me that I could be playing Etrian Odyssey III instead of this. I mean I like this game and all, but I would much rather be exploring the high seas and delving into a beautiful, painstakingly-crafted dungeon instead of... this.



The pirates put down the gangplank and prepare to board. Minim, Seena and Dei come from inside their ship and Minim asks if they're the pirates.



I could be playing EOIII instead.

One of the pirates asks if Minim is stupid, because what else are pirates supposed to attack? After being called stupid for the nth time, Minim breaks down and starts crying. Seena's ticked off that the pirates made the team leader cry and scolds them for it.



The pirates don't really want to put up with this nonsense and decide to just go ahead and board the ship and kill everyone on board or whatever. As they're walking across the gangplank, Aima pops steps up to block their path.

And then she charges through them, knocking them off into the ocean. Well ok fine, that makes up for some of the stupidity going on. Thanks, Aima.


Music:To the Ocean!

Seena is suitably impressed by Aima being awesome, and Dei emotes a heart. Has he started to develop a crush on Aima? No, he's just excited because there should be a ton of treasure on board. His thief-sense are pretty much awful.

Randolph warns the team to be on guard, but Seena's like, "We got this."



Minim's ship has a heal spot inside, as well as a hidden Life Seed. It appears the Captain is hiding under the bed.



The pirate ship has some boring junk inside.


Music:Pirate Ship

"Boring junk" includes "randomized dungeon." How does that even work? It includes bushes growing out of the floor and destroyable walls. WARNING: Throwing a spiritual force wave at the cracked portion of a wall on a wooden boat is a very bad idea and should not be attempted in real life because you will probably end up sinking the boat.

Pirates are running around down here. I think they can use consumable items? They're not that big of a deal.

The blue dinosaurs are SeaSnakes. Their attacks can cause poison.

The green fairies are Gargoyles. They Dive and Bite and are generally uninteresting.



The green tree stumps are Torrents. I am so disinterested in this sequence I can't even think of way to make fun of that. Like the S.Paladins, they hit twice. On the dungeon map, they're stationary, so you usually don't have to fight them unless you want to.



Ice Attack is the only new IP attack here. There are additional copies of Randolph's Charge and Split Attk, and Aima's DoubleKick, too. But none of these skills are particularly useful. Anyway, Ice Attack hits all enemies with ice damage.



The Pirate Ship is mercifully only five floors deep, so the event floor is B6. There are items down here, a save point, and the bed Minim is looking at can be used as a heal spot.

The Chill Ring is a magic ring that boost DFP by 10 and MAP by 5. In addition, it allows the wearer to cast Gale (First level Ice magic - Hits all enemies), and strengthens the power of all ice magic the wearer casts. Seena equips it for right now, because she can't naturally learn ice magic.



The boss is waiting in the room on the far left end of the hallway. There's also some junk to find in here too.


Music:Nightmare

I'm sorry y'all, this sequence really irritates me because it's really talky and rehashes the plot points we heard when they rescued Melphis, and everyone in the party acts surprised about it even though they specifically came after the pirates because the pirates were supplying weapons to the kingdom. So I'm going to let the screenshots do the talking and only clarify a few things that I had to cut.

Anyway, the Pirates' Head recognizes Randolph.



The Pirates' Head confirms that these weapons are for Alstadt. Minim doesn't understand what they're getting at.



Because he's stupid! Seena tries to shut down another "Minim is sooooo stupid" sequence by just telling him to shut up, and Dei clarifies that there are laws against military escalation. I don't know who made this law, because as far as I can tell, not only is Alstadt the only kingdom in the Southlands, it appears to be the only place with any kind of governing body in it, period.

The kingdom asked the pirates for weapons.



This shocks Randolph and Melphis, even though, again, Alstadt buying weapons from pirates was the whole reason the party is even in this dungeon. The royal navy lets the pirates... pirate since they're supplying them with weapons.

Boss time! Minim learns Charge during preparations.


Music:Boss Battle

There's no reason to attack the Pirates. The only thing they do is use physical attacks and run off immediately after, only to have new ones summoned every turn. Minim opens the battle by using Charge to boost his ATP, Aima uses Pause Palm to boost her ATP and do a tiny bit of damage against the Pirts.Head. Dei Grabs Loot, but all's he gets is a stinking Revive.

Pirts.Head can use Rim Fire, which hits one character for a ton of damage. It hit Randolph for 207 HP, and that's death for everyone on the team except for Minim and Aima. If it's fire-elemental, Seena could nullify it with her Garn Ball, so it might worth equipping that before this battle.

The next turn had Minim using Drive, Aima using ScatterHit and Dei using a Revive on Randolph.



He can also use Unexploded Bomb, which paralyzes one target. In this case, it was Aima. Seena swapped positions with Melphis, who used a Mystery Pin to cure Aima's paralysis, and Dei poured a Hi Potion down Randolph's throat. And then the Pirts.Head attacked Randolph, dealing 112 HP to him and killing him. Again.

So the next round had Minim using Drive, Aima using Scatter Hit and Dei using another Revive on Randolph. And that was the round where the Pirts.Head died, and somehow Randolph managed to not get targeted by the two Pirates' attacks before they ran off.



The Pirates' Head gives some cryptic threats before laughing as he dies.



The team decides that they'll need to dispose of the weapons, but to do so they'll have to return to Tomis.



They Escape back to the top deck, where a voice yells for them to stop. Also, look at that! They finally spelled "Villains" correctly!


Music:The Noble Pirate

As it turns out, yet another ship is coming toward them at full speed. The captain of said ship, introduces himself as Deckard, and says he'll never forgive pirates. Minim and Seena ellipse at this, and she says that she thinks he's a little bit mixed up.



Minim tries to convince Deckard that they aren't pirates, but Deckard's got some foolproof logic: They're on a pirate ship, so they must be pirates. Minim bows to Deckard's superior logic, but Seena is there to knock some sense into him.



Aima and Dei pop out to comment on the situation, but before this can turn into another extended "Minim is stupid!" sequence, Seena interrupts, yelling about how Deckard's ship is going to hit them.


Music:Enhancement

And he does. His ship cuts straight through the Pirate Ship. Deckard says they should feel honored to drown, and goes off on his merry way.



Minim is impressed, but Seena says they don't have time to be impressed, they have to get back to the ship that isn't currently sinking into the ocean.


Music:To the Ocean!

Randolph asks if Melphis is ok. She is, and she asks about everyone else. They're fine! Everyone's fine! Except Seena, who is not fine. She's pretty steamed about the whole "Pirate nearly killing them by running his ship through the one they were on" thing. She wants to know what that guy's deal is, and Randolph does a little emote bubble. I don't remember if it was a sweat drop or a bang or an ellipse, but he does something that lets the player know he knows more than what he's telling. Melphis says she heard a rumor about a pirate who attacks pirate ships. Seena wonders if that was him.



Aima, further proving herself to be the only one of these clowns I don't want to strangle this update, says that they don't have to worry about getting rid of those weapons now that the ship has sunk. Seena thinks there was probably a better way to go about it, and Minim's like, "Just drop it ok? We're all fine!" She has a snide response for him.



Which he naturally did not pick up on. But really, she finds his stupiditypure-heartedness to be endearing. The boat returns to Tomis automatically.



The Captain, who I guess was still hiding under the bed during the previous scene, says that's he's happy everyone's ok. But Melphis isn't convinced that it's over. She thinks the weapons the pirates had on their ship were kind of sucky, and she's right. I mean a Dragon Fang and PoisnNeedle? Pffft. The team decides they need to go to to the pirates' base and put a stop to this at the source.

Yeah, that's right, we're not finished with the pirate subplot yet.

But no one in the party knows where the pirates are hiding, so they decide to ask around town. I wonder which townsperson has the plot trigger? Infodump Auntie? Or perhaps Keit, the only character in town with an actual name? Yeah, it's probably the kid.

I'm sorry y'all, I just really dislike this portion of the game. The characters act like complete idiots, and not in a charming way, a lot of the dialogue is repeating stuff we already knew, there are palette-swappped bosses, no interesting IP attacks to uncover, etc, etc. The next dungeon has the same graphics/music as the Gang's Hideout and the same set of IP attacks as the ship (and even then 3 of the 4 ancient texts from the ship was stuff characters in the party started with). And really, going after a group of bandits/pirates/whatever is always a boring scenario in JRPGs, and given that we already had the Garland Gang scenario, it just rubs salt in the wound.

Next Time: There's really no good reason for this sequence to exist.
Random Floors covered: 58

So, the pirates reliably attack whenever the ship is out to sea. The ship's captain leaves whenever somebody shows up with a ticket, which would be at rather unpredictable times. Furthermore, the ship's captain assumedly has been attacked several times, but still keeps his life, his ship, and still goes out there.

I think I know who the spy is.

In every game, Dekar is the best character.

This applies to Dekard as well.

Oh sure, blame the victim!

But Deckard isn't R*by or Aima, so your statement is clearly false.

I concide the point.

I always loved how much information this game put onscreen, right on down to showing stat boosts offered by new equipment, and tab pages on the character status screen.

They had to huff and puff to fit it in, and it makes the menus look crowded as hell, but god dammit they made it work.

Hey Brickroad I think one day you should try your hand at this Let's Play thing. You'd be totally great at one like Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls.

I know it's generally frowned upon to put MOAR PLZ posts in LP threads... but I don't know what the rules are on posting them about other threads in your own LP. We're off the map here, people.

You know, I can't remember, was Lufia as negative as Seena back in Lufia I?

Or was she just a lot nicer because she was travelling with a moron (actually, I can't remember if Hero was a moron, but I assume he is) she likes, whereas Seena is travelling with a moron she doesn't like?

Wow. I haven't commented much recently, but wow. This game's plot is reaaaaaaaaly stupid. It's like Minim and Seena wear their idiot hats 24/7. That dialogue's really embarassing. >_<

Still, I'm enjoying watching this LP. It's not every day you see blood in a Game Boy Color game, even though it's just a red blob one tile below the Master. And I wholly expect Crazy Axe Ship Man Deckard will join our side eventually for some really dumb reason.

Yeah I totally stole this.

Lufia's bitchiness mostly came up when the Hero acknowledged that other women exist. (Although she looks pretty bitchy in the cell phone version's artwork.) So it's a lot different than "OMFG MINIM YOU ARE SO STUPID GOD JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

I would desperately want to believe the reason Minim and Seena act like idiots is sly commentary on how fucking stupid teenagers are. But then Deckard is like 32, and he's a moron...

Oh, we'll be seeing the blood effect a few more times throughout the game.

Apparently it gets results<3

There's a cell phone version?!

I like to think that Minim's just draining the IQ of his friends by being near them.

There's a cell phone version of everything in Japan.

Nah, he's warnng hm about prates. Mnm and crew should've brought some slverware along for ths part of ther epc adventure n the world of Lufa.

I find this games idiotic dialogue very charming... I like that Minim is an idiot, and Seena is a jerk, but they've both just sort of accepted that inim is party leader, so he keeps leading on, despite his ineptness. And though Seena berates him at every turn, she'll berate enemies for berating him. I dunno'. "Don't make our leader cry!" was cute and hilarious for me.

In regards to Lufia 1, I recall the protagonist not being stupid, so much as just... too base to really make any revelations. But he made no active statements to define his idiocy. And Lufia nagged on him frequently, but wasn't bitchy beyond that. She was more just like his high-maintenance gf.

Chapter 8: Minim and the Increasingly Improbable Series of Events



Before heading to their appointment with the plot, Minim went to the Church and let Seena learn Rally.

At Keit's house, which was the place where they came to get tickets, Keit is excited because Minim met the “good” pirate. He's called Deckard the Lone Wolf. Seena says that Keit knows a lot about pirates, and responds that he even knows where the bad pirates stay. Hearing this, his mother walks over and tells him to stop making up stories.



She says that he won't get dinner if he keeps lying, but Minim asks him if he really knows where the pirates are, and then asks if he'll take them there. Keit is happy to oblige, especially since Minim believes him.



Minim tells Keit's mother that he'll need plot coupons tickets, and that he'll be taking her kid, too. She does not seem to mind this strange man who barged into her house is now taking her child on an unsupervised boat trip to pirate island.


Music:Cave # 2

The people around town offering varying levels of encouragement for Keit. Some tell him to come back safely, some tell him he has to become a real man of the sea. There really is a surprising amount of NPC dialogue in this game.

Pirate Island is a little ways southeast of Tomis. Not that you need to know that or anything, because this trip is automated.



When their boat arrives, there's nothing there. Keit says that they have to wait a while, and they do, and then low tide comes, revealing a cave. Keit says he found this the other day when he was playing, but never elaborates on how he was playing over at pirate island without them catching him. Or how he got over there, period.



This beach is actually kinda nice. The boat sails up to Secret Pirate Cove Island. Seena thinks this is definitely their hideout, because their ship is here. But... how does she know that's their ship? It looks exactly like the one they arrived on, not to mention the fact that the only pirate ship she's seen sank when Deckard rammed it. But hey, you know, she is right, this is their hideout.

Keit wants to come too, but Minim and Seena are both like, "No way jose." Keit protests that he can fight too, and I highly doubt that because he has a generic NPC sprite. Minim says that true strength is being able to accurate gauge your opponent's strength. Sure, whatever Minim. Remember the three times you charged into battle against Gades, only to get swatted around like a fly?



Keit understands what Minim's getting at: He sucks and doesn't stand a chance against these pirate scrubs. Minim says that if you misjudge the strength of your enemy, it can cost you your life. That's reality. Luckily, this is a videogame and misjudging the strength of an enemy just means you'll run away from the really tough bad guy in a cutscene afterward.

Keit still wants a job to do, and Minim entrusts him with guarding the ship. He gladly accepts the mission, saying that he'll guard it no matter what. Gee I wonder if this is foreshadowing?



Ok, so there's a heal spot and a save point right there. To the far right is a a chest with a Speed Seed, and a GoddessTear hidden in the rocks. There's also a salesman here who says he's been doing business with sailors here for over fifty years. I'm sure he gets a lot of business here in Secret Pirate Island Cove. He sells the same equipment, items and magic that you can get in Tomis, so it's not anything we particularly need.

At the far left side of the island is a Giant Ring. The Giant Ring boosts the wearer's max HP by 100, and naturally goes to Randolph to boost him up to a respectable 247 HP. That's more than Minim! (But still considerably fewer than Aima)


Music:Infiltration

Urgh. I hate this dungeon. There are no new IP attacks here, they're the same ones we picked up on the pirate ship (and, again, three of the four available on the ship were ones we already had), the texture is the same boring ass cave we've been seeing, the music is terrible, and it just draaaags on.

The blue ghosts here are Dark Wisps, which can use Curse to lower a row's DFP and an attack called Black Thunder that hits a whole column for dark damage. It hurts Aima and Seena (and presumably Melphis) quite a bit (~100 HP), but the boys can just shrug it off because of their Holy Caps. Unlike other Wisps we've fought, the Dark Wisp is not immune to holy attacks, so Aima can tear into them with her Holy Fist.

The blue goblins are MageGoblins, which can cast a variety of spells: Fireball, which is trivial at this point (it hits Melphis for all of 8 HP), Stronger for healing, and Bolt. Bolt is easily the worst thing it can do. Dei's in no danger thanks to his rubber fetish wear, but it hits Seena for over 100 HP. It's pretty nasty. I shudder to think of what it could do to Randolph and Aima.

The yellow goblins, on the other hand, are Goblins. Since they minim Minim's movements, its ridiculously easy to chase them into a corner and get a preemptive strike. I guess you could use this to avoid them, but then you would get the satisfying sensation of bathing in their blood and experience.

They'll sometimes Call Companions, but, you know, more experience that way.

The blue robots are Iron Golems. They can use Headbutt to deal a respectable amount of damage to one target.

GreenJellies also splishsplosh around down here, and this sentence is already contains more words than have ever been written about the GreenJelly enemies in Lufia: The Legend Returns.

The blue skeletons are Weits. Their attacks can poison.

Between Black Thunder and Bolt, Melphis and Seena are going into overdrive with the healing magic. Both of them, and Minim, were nearly out of MP by the time I got to B7. Then I remembered that the ladies can Absorb MP and a crisis was averted.

But really, Bolt friggan hurts for everyone but Dei. He started having to toss EarCleaners out at the MageGoblins to kill them before they could use it.



The game even hates this dungeon and spawns both sets of stairs in the same room in four of the first nine floors.

The green pirates are H. Pirates. I think they can use a couple of consumable items. There are blue living armors called D. Knights, which can Call Companions and use Samurai. Samurai deals the same damage as a regular attack, but it can also cause instant death.

Oh and at some point Dei moved to the back row.



Finally, B10. There's a GoddessTear in the barrel directly south of the stairs. To the far right is a heal spot and some junky treasure chests.


Music:Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror

But at the top of the screen are treasures and a warp pad, and this is obviously a trap. Minim and friends drop down into a cage. This seems like it would be more effective a trap if it were located up on the first or second floor, rather than the tenth and eleventh.

The Pirates' Boss and some cronies show up, bringing with them a music cue for Gades and Daos's theme song. This might make you suspect they are somehow connected to G+D, but you must remember this is the same game that uses a cave exploration theme for ocean travel.

Pirates' Boss wants to know if Minim was the one who sank his ship.



Minim answers honestly: While they did attack the pirate ship, they were not the ones who destroyed it. Pirates' Boss starts to tell them it doesn't matter, because he's going to kill them all anyway, but then he gets distracted by something. He walks over to the cage and corrects himself, saying that it'd be a shame to hurt someone so beautiful.

Seena is flattered and walks up to the bars and asks him if he fell in love at first sight.



Pirates' Boss is confused for a moment, then realizes what she's talking about. He clarifies that he wasn't talking about her, he was talking about Melphis. You can imagine how Seena takes this. Minim finds it hilarious that Pirates' Boss wants to rape Melphis, not Seena. She tells him to stop laughing.

He tells Melphis that he'll spare her if she hooks up with him. She's shocked to be propositioned like that. What do you expect Melphis? You let scrubs like Minim talk to you all disrespectfully ("Nice to meet you!" Can you believe the nerve?), and now every vagrant in Lidal is asking you to sleep with them. He says that he'll kill her friends if she doesn't comply, and this is enough to get her to go with him. He opens up the cage and drags her out.

Then he tells one of his subordinates to kill Minim's crew. Melphis is horrified to hear this and yells that he's breaking his promise.



But the thing is, he didn't say he would spare them. He said he'd kill them if she didn't go with him, and from that she inferred that he would spare them if she did. He drags the princess away.

The Pirate tells the party not to try anything stupid, and Seena finally channels her rage toward an enemy instead of Minim.



As it turns out, the Pirates won't be the ones to fight the party. They have a pet alligator for that. Apparently it hasn't eaten in a week, and I think they're implying that it'll go into like a feeding frenzy from being so hungry, but... alligators only eat once a week anyway. Then again, it appears this is a special breed of alligator known as Aligator, so maybe their metabolism is different?

Seena is not afraid of the alligator, going so far as to dare it to eat her if it can. During preparations, Dei learns Fire Attack and Seena learns Instinct. You know, just because.


Music:Boss Battle


Ceci n'est pas une boss battle. Aima smites the Aligator on the very first turn of combat with Scatter Hit. The Pirates are surprised by this turn of events, but absolutely no one else is.



So they run away. Seena yells at them not to run, but Randolph tries to calm her down by reminding her they need to save Melphis. Presumably this reminds Seena that she needs to rain vengeance down on Pirates' Boss for embarrassing her earlier.

Oh, and there's a warp pad back behind where the Aligator was.



It leads to the chests behind the pit trap. Minim gets collects the Dragon Egg, Miracle, and Wing Ring (+30 SPD). Minim equips the Wing Ring and passes his Jet Ring to Dei.

The warp pad between the chests takes Minim back across the hole, but to continue he must leap back down to the trap and walk back through the Aligator's pen and around the cage.

The stairs are straight down, but there's some treasure to get first:



The Wizrd Ring goes to Seena, and boosts her MAP and REG by 10, and her max MP by 30.



Oh goody, more random dungeon! There might be new enemies in this part, but I just made a mad dash to 15 because (a) Melphis and her Champion spell are no longer in the part, and (b) I am so sick of this dungeon.



There's a save point right near the stairs on B15. Melphis and Pirates' Boss are all the way in the back.


Music:Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror

Pirates' Boss is surprised to see the crew rolling up in his... throne room? Den? Sitting room? Whatever. Randolph calls out Melphis, which surprises the pirates because ohmigosh they have a princess! Randolph tells Pirates' Boss to release her.



But now that he knows she's a princess, he won't ever let her go. After some banter, it's boss battle time. During preparations, I go ahead and blow my LP to get everyone's SF up to 20.


Music:Boss Battle

Is anyone surprised to see a palette-swapped boss? You shouldn't be, especially after I've bitched about this section of the game over and over and over.
His H.Pirate goons can't be killed. Rather, once enough damage has been inflicted, they'll attack twice and run away, and he'll summon new ones.

Pirts.Boss himself can use X-Potions for healing, Rim Fire, which is still a nasty attack against one party member. It hit Aima for 225 HP, which could one-shot pretty much everyone but her and Randolph. He can also use PoisnNeeldes, which apparently inflict poison and paralysis.

Dei stole a Dragon Fang, but most of the battle boiled down to the same routine: Minim used Holy Attack, Aima used Scatter Hit and Randolph attacked. It lasted all of four turns.


Music:Enhancement

After the battle, Pirates' Boss still hasn't given up. He grabs Melphis and tells the party not to move or he'll kill her. Randolph can't see the warp pad behind them, so he's doesn't realize that he has an escape plan. Pirates' Boss backs up on it and teleports away with Melphis.



Randolph says "P...Princess!" for the thirtieth time this update, and Dei points out that bad guys always have an escape route planned. Well Dei, not everyone can just walk away casually while their enemies are arguing. Randolph says they have to go after them.

Obviously those chests that have been sitting there throughout this cutscene are our priorities though. The Smart Ring is a more MP-centric version of the Wizrd Ring: It boosts MP by 50, and MAP and REG by only 5.

Music:Rescue

The warp pad leads to the entrance of the cave. The pirate's ship is gone, and Keit is not looking so good. He apologizes for not being able to stop Pirates' Boss and save Melphis. Minim tells him not to worry, because he did a good job and he's a real man.



Seena busts out the Strong and says that he'll be fine. He stands up and makes some moaning noise, so Seena might have turned him into a zombie.


Music:To the Ocean!

Dei and Aima are relieved that he'll be fine, but Minim has flown off into righteous indignation mode. Kidnapping and attempting to rape Melphis? Whatever. Hurting a kid? I AM SO PISSED. Everyone climbs aboard the ship.


Music:Cave # 2

And it isn't long before they catch up to the pirate ship. Unfortunately, his boat is way to fast to catch up with. Pirates' Boss says it's the fastest ship in the whole world, which I highly doubt.



He tells Melphis that she should just give up and become his mistress. She chastises him in a magical girl-ish way, but he's not having it. He grabs ahold of her and oh god really a rape sequence in a rated E game?


Music:The Noble Pirate

When suddenly!



Pirates' Boss tries to paralyze Deckard into inaction by threatening the princess. She runs toward the bow of the ship and yells that it doesn't matter what happens to her, defeating Pirates' Boss is the important thing. Deckard's like, "..Are you sure?" and she is.



Ok, fine, so this particular scene is pretty funny. Deckard yells back that he won't let her death be in vain, and the screen cuts to tiny ship mode. Pirate's Boss is dumbfounded by this turn of events, and Deckard rams through the pirate ship, sinking it.

Randolph doesn't react at all to this. Minim says that Deckard is crazy, but Seena says they have to help Melphis, who wasn't harmed because Deckard skillfully avoided Melphis with his axe-ship. Aaaaand they ruined it.



They pull up beside Melphis, and Randolph lowers a rope down to help her and I'm pretty sure this is the only time the rope graphic is used in this game. They ask how she is, and she swears she's fine. Randolph says that she swallowed a lot of water, so she needs to rest.



Deckard calls over, inquiring about the princess's health. Minim compliments him on his awesome skills, but Deckard's like, "Nah, it's pretty much a miracle that she survived, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do!" That's a pretty callous thing to say when it's your siste.... Er, nevermind.

Minim agrees, which is odd considering the stuff that goes on later in the game. I mean, does Minim really seem like the kind of guy who would sacrifice someone else's life to catch the bad guy?


Music:Enhancement

And then Pirates' Boss hops on deck. This is the subplot that will not die. He wants revenge, and it's like, really? Dude, Minim already whooped you once this update. What the hell do you think you're going to accomplish? But now he's got an ace up his sleeve: Squido the Giant Squid. I am going to assume that Squido was a conscious localization decision and not a mistranslation.



Seena and Minim are surprised that he's capable of summoning a monster, and Seena says that this is probably why he's the boss of the pirates. Minim isn't afraid of no squid, and he's ready to go. Deckard yells that he'll help, but Minim says that there's not enough time for him to get close enough to help.



Deckard says it's no problem and jumps from his boat to Minim's.


Music:Boss Battle

For this fight, Deckard takes Randolph's spot in the upper-right corner, and Randolph jumps down to the middle behind Aima. This will lead to his disastrous downfall.

So. Big Squido's hits twice when it uses a regular attack. It also has this weird blue bubble attack that strikes random characters multiple times for a little bit of damage. Like between 20 and 30 HPs. It also has an attack called Raging Wave that hits a column for around 120 HP. Guess which column it picked to use this on two turns in a row. He's weak to thunder, so unleashing Bolt Attack and Seena's Bolt magic will tear it up pretty quickly.

Dei stole a Miracle from it. Randolph and Seena ended up dying right before the battle ended, and Minim was hitting for about 700 HP with Bolt Attack.


Music:To the Ocean!

Defeating Giant Squido causes both it and Pirates' Boss to die. Finally. Randolph says that Alstadt can't get illegal weapons, but Melphis says that it's not over. Then Deckard starts to fidget. Minim asks if he's leaving, and he says yes. He's got evil to crush.