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

You can bring Blue Chest stuff in as well as take it out. Even if you didn't get it from the Ancient Cave.

Chapter 14: Minim doesn't contemplate the cruel ironies of life

And the winners are...


Music:Temple

The Max. Blade, Ancnt Brlt and Capsl. Rng. Minim's Alum Blade is passed on to Randolph, and Deckard gets the other one we found in the Ancient Cave. Now Deckard can finally use a shield! Seena's Sonic Ring is replaced by the Dmnd Ring, and on that note I'd like to issue a correction: Zap is the single-target holy spell, even though it costs 30 MP and the other one that hits all enemies only costs 15.

Anyway, with this detour over with, it's time to get on with the plot, and that means sailing to Fante:



As mentioned earlier, Fante has this ugly desert aesthetic... and craters. The craters will never be explained.


The music here is the same as the music from Patos, which I did not bother to upload to Youtube and I do not plan to because Youtube is being sucky and dumb and taking forever to process videos and I don't feel like messing with it.

Elcorano's greeter explains that a dragon is in Mistra Cave, so use your brilliant powers of deductive reasoning to figure out what we'll be killing and where we'll be killing it this update. This whole storyline is arbitrary, because strictly speaking, Minim doesn't need to pass through Mistra Cave. He can just sail to one of the many beaches and ports around Fante. But alas.



Also Elcorano, despite being in the sodding desert, is unusual verdant. It's not as bad as Phantasy Star 3's desert town, and we can at least say, "Oh, well, it's the GBC so they couldn't afford to waste space doing new town graphics here."



There's a "park" in the center of town, where a woman named Karina and a man named Conas are hanging around. Karina is worried about her friend Conas, who is in the army. He has something important to tell her.

Conas just asks Minim if he's been attacked by the dragon, but Minim ain't seen no dragon.



The dragon hasn't been sticking close to Mistra Cave though. Apparently it's gotten close enough to the town to nearly kill a kid.

Oh,and Conas plans to propose to Karina.



But that's irrelevant, and will surely never come up again. With that, Conas takes his leave to conduct an investigation of the dangerous dragon's den.



There's a curious, church-shaped building up in the northwest corner of town. This is the "army's" headquarters. One of the Guards is going on about how great an honor it'll be to be a member of the dragon hunting squad, but, uh, the squad just took off.

There are only two new spells here, I believe: Firebird, the next level fire spell (hits all targets) and Courage (boosts everyone's REG). Melphis picks up Courage, but the party doesn't have enough LP for Seena to get Firebird.



The inn is free if you enter through the back door.

The Dragn Ring is an excellent ring that boosts ATP by 30, DFP by 40, and SPD, MAP and REG by 20. Literally anyone on the team could put this to good use, but it goes to Minim.

Shopping list:
Randolph: Mtl Armor (+115 DFP) and Iron Helm (+60 DFP)
Seena: Saph Ball (+60 MAP, nullifies ice-elemental damage), Silvr Robe (+110 DFP) and Holy Brace (+55 DFP).
Melphis: Silvr Robe (+110 DFP) and Holy Brace (+55 DFP).
Deckard and Dei: Large Shld (+60 DFP) and Shape Coat (+105 DFP)

(It would greatly benefit you to make sure you have the Emrld Ball before continuing)

Because everyone else is incompetent, even though an investigation/extermination team has been dispatched to handle the dragon, it's up to Minim and friends to do actually do something about it..


Music:Infiltration

Mistra Cave is located southeast of Elcorano. New continent, new cave texture. There's a DestBlade (+290 ATP, Cursed so you deal damage to yourself as well as the enemy) in the pool of lava.

The Guard won't let Minim through until the dragon problem is solved, even though, you know, go ahead onto Redwood and every other freaking town on this continent if we were so inclined.



Will ills can cast Madness and may inflict confusion with their attacks. Specters definitely inflict confusion with their attacks.

DeathSwd can attack twice and use Repeat Attack to hit the entire party for a minuscule amount of damage. Like, 10 HP to half the characters and miss the rest.

The red goblins are G. Shamans. I, uh, don't know what they're capable of. I'm sure they have some sort of physical attack, but beyond that, they're a mystery.



There are some yellow flowers down here called DesertRoses. Witches are those little red-cloaked buggers on the map and, once again, I am unclear as to the extent of ttheir abilities due to extreme fragility.

Moray Vines are a new type of enemy, both on the map and in battle. They can cast Drowsey to try and put one character to sleep and Coma to do about 30 HP of damage and inflict sleep to one row.

I only saw like two G.Turtles and they're ever-so-slow...



Speed Attk raises the user's SPD and then deals damage using their SPD stat doubled. Dei learned it, because he is sorely lacking decent attack IPs. Plus, Aima has the SPDx4 attack, so this is quite a downgrade for her.

Bolt Sword is the upgraded version of Bolt Attack.



Force Shot isn't spectacular or anything, but it's the first attack Deckard's learned that allows him to hit all enemies. Now he can be like Minim with Silhouette and Aima with Typhoon Toss.



The Dragon is down on B10. It's nice that he has all these candelabras around. There are three paths down here: The left one has the heal spot and save point, the right one has treasure chests containing an X-Magic and Miracle, and the center one has...

Music:Nightmare

The Ancient Dragon!

The Guard is skeptical that they'll be able to take it down, but Conas has his mind made up: They have to kill the dragon or else it'll end up killing people from the town.



Luckily, the only group of people who aren't completely useless on this whole godforsaken planet show up. Minim reveals that he only cares about boosting the self-confidence of children by telling Conas and the Guard that they're incompetent.

Seena (shockingly!) lies by describing herself as one of the strong ones, Deckard tells the guards to just leave it to them, and Aima politely asks them to run assistance. At least someone cares about their fragile egos.


Music:Boss Battle

Conas will pop in at the end of every turn against to attack the A.Drgn (B), which is kind of neat, I guess. It'll use Spark Breath to hit the whole part for between 50 and 150 HP, so equipment that reduces/negates bolt damage would be useful here (see: Emrld Ball). It can also cast Strongest to completely heal itself, but it only has about 5000 HP so that's not a huge deal.

I actually got lucky and both the Max. Blade and Ancnt Brlt's extra damage things kicked in on the same turn to finish it off.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

Conas is impressed by Minim's mad skills, but Seena lies (again!) by saying that they were having a hard time against it. Minim lies (that girl's a bad influence on him!) and says that it was a strong enemy. (It wasn't)

The Guard says that if Conas had gotten hurt, he would have missed the fun.



Traveling through Lidal has robbed Minim of his understanding of "fun." The Guard explains that Conas is going to propose (we knew that already) and he's hoping for some sweet, sweet schadenfreude.



Well, that or he has a crush on Conas. Minim asks Seena if she likes romantic crap like this, even though we know she does.



He asks her why she doesn't use her psychic powers to figure out who her boyfriend is going to be, but she says she doesn't want to because she's afraid she'll find out she's meant to be alone.

Dei, ever the gentlemancreepy pervert, asks the sixteen year girl if she'd want him to be her boyfriend if that happened.



Ouch.



While everyone else is hanging around acting like children, Aima walks up to the Ancient Dragon (B)'s corpse and investigates it. She turns around and pauses for a moment in reflection. Minim wants to know if something's wrong, but she says everything is fine.

Guard is ready to get Conas back to town so he can watch him get shot down (perhaps... literally). Seena wants to see him propose too.



He's pretty nervous, and Guard is not helping. Also, the Guard blocking the way to Redwood won't move, he just keeps talking about something happening in town.



Both Conas and Karina thank Minim for helping out, but Conas is the only one that's the plot trigger. He walks over to propse to Karina when...


Music:Enhancement

The flickering screen of incoming disaster starts up and a much larger dragon appears. It's another Ancient Dragon and Aima suggests that this is the mother of the Ancient Dragon (B) they killed earlier.

(The B stands for Baby)

In a more pretentious game, there's be some meditations on how in their quest to protect the children of Elcorano, they ended up slaughtering a baby themselves and who is the real monster here, but since this is TLR things are pretty clear cut: Monsters are bad and must be killed.



Despite this monster being so big and scary, it's decided that they'll have to fight it or else the town is will be destroyed.


Music:Boss Battle

This is another of those unwinnable battles, like the ones we had against Gades way back in Epsis. Gosh, that seems like forever ago. Or at least a month and a half. Anyway, Minim only has three turns to defeat it before the battle ends, and unlike the fights against Gades, we actually have ways to accomplish this without farming up consumable items and getting lucky.

Attackwise, the A.Drgn (M) is just a souped up version of its child. Spark Breath hits much harder (it one shotted Seena), so, again, bolt-resistance would be super useful here.

It has about 10,000 HP, so we'll have to trim that off fast: Minim's Head Crush or Final Dance if Aima learned it to knock off a chunk of HP (Head Crush is preferable because Final Dance costs like 90 IP to use), Deckard's Jump Slash will do major damage because dragons are flying enemies, and Aima's Scatter Hit can wreck it.

The reward is a ton of LP, EXP, and GOLD.



...and the Dragon Scale (Drgn.Scle), a fantastic piece of armor that raises DFP by 180 and REG by 100.

The A.Drgn (M) GROOOOARs at Minim, showing that even though it was defeated in battle, it's still alive in the cutscene. Seena begins to panic so much that she asks Minim what they should do. He hasn't got a clue.

Seena suggests they evacuate the townspeople, making me wonder why she didn't just say that to begin with instead of asking Minim.

The screen does the incoming disaster flicker once again.


Music:Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror

A man in red robes descends down over the fountain, which seems like the worst place to float over because you'd have waster splashing all over your feet and robes, but you know, who am I to argue with a god?

The man in red does the Sinistral Blast of Power and destroys the Ancient Dragon. Minim and Seena are both super impressed by this display of strength, because they are both idiots and don't realize that this fella has the black mage face that marks someone as evil in TLR, nor do they hear his theme music.



Randolph thinks he would be a welcome addition to the team, because Randolph is just as stupid (if not stupider) than Minim and Seena. Conas walks over to the man to thank him.

His response: "..."

Then he blows Conas up, right in front of Karina.

Minim demands an explanation.



The man asks Minim if he wants to end up like Conas. Minim is unsure of how to respond, so the man takes the opportunity to monologue. He wants them to feel crippling despair knowing that he can snuff them out at any moment



In a moment of rare clarity, Seena and Minim are able to identify him as a Sinistral. This is Daos, the God of Terror and leader of the Sinistrals. Minim wants to know if he plans to kill them all, but Daos is playing it cool: "Maybe, we'll see," and avoids committing to a specific date.



And he bids them farewell. It would actually be pretty neat if Daos would randomly smite one of the party members while traveling in Fante, you know, to make you feel scared. But he won't. His reign of terror will be somewhat more effective than Amon's plunging Lidal into chaos but less than Gades's destruction of places in Epsis.


Music:Lost Peace

There is one glaring exception: Daos is making the party piss their pants.



They come to the conclusion that they are, in a word, fucked.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

...everyone except Minim, that is. He's apparently too stupid to be scared and is just pissed off. (Note: "Being too stupid to be affected by Daos's Spiritual Force" is actually a canonical, according to Lufia DS) Seena tries to talk some sense into him, but he's not having it. He's pissed that Daos killed Conas for no reason.



And then proceeds to explain Daos's reason for killing Conas. He continues to yell and curse at Daos, who is long since gone.



Apparently he's so angry he's crying. I guess? Surely he's not meant to be crying because he's scared, right? That would defeat the whole purpose of this sequence. Minim decides they need to move on and find Daos so they can beat the crap out of him. Dei says they need more allies, and Deckard chimes in that Daos flew towards Redwood, so that looks to be our next destination.



Before they leave, Minim says goodbye to Karina, telling her not to cry because they're definitely going to defeat Daos.

Seena learns Firebird and Deckard gets the Drgn. Scle.

Random Floors covered: 292
Next Time: Can't read my, can't read my, no you can't read my poker face

Good to see Daos being proactive. You'd expect a villain of his stature to just be lounging around his throne room while you run around and kill his subordinates.

Well... he was sitting around while you killed his subordinates, but whatever.

Daos, the god of kicking back and keeping it chill. Don't want to get too worked up and consumed by your fear duties.

Oh, he'll be lounging around his throne room later when we go to kill him in a couple of updates.

What is it with this game and unrequited love anyways?

What.

The two thieves (you know the ones) are referred to as being too stupid to be affected by Daos.

Yes!! YESSSSSSS
High five!!!

Daos gets to work quick, that's for sure. Gades mostly stuck to property destruction,* and Amon's M.O. was making people act like angsty twats,** but Daos blows up a friggin' dragon and then blasts a guy to smithereens for thanking him before even saying a word.

Conas never should've trusted a black mageface in this game. Poor guy never even got to finish his nervously awkward proposal to Karina.

*Well, he did gut Aima's master too, but it's not like he just blew him up.
**Not that Maxim or Seena would need any outside help from Amon to act like they do.

P.S. Is that foutain's water made of glass or something? I see no indication that it has any sort of animation in those multiple screenshots featuring it.

Oh Lord.

This alone makes me want to pick the game up.

It's the GBC, they can't afford to animate it!
Alternate response: That town is out in the middle of the desert, so it would be kind of weird to have actual water.

Funny you should mention a casino city out in the desert
It really isn't that funny because I was the one that brought it up

Chapter 15: Minim, a Glamorous Gambler, and the Limitations of a Game Engine versus the Ambitions of the Scenario Writer

Let's Play Lufia: The Legend Returns... returns. And it'll probably go into overdrive as I attempt to finish it before next year! Oh lord I will end up killing myself.


Music:Fante

When we last left Minim... half a month ago... he and his pals had just encountered Daos, the Sinistral of Terror, and witnessed the extent of his power. Although they were shaken, the party resolved to get stronger, make new allies, and chase Daos down to give him what's coming to him.

Oh, and Deckard got a neat piece of armor to wear.


Music:Redwood

Redwood continues with the theme of being unbelievably verdant despite sitting in the middle of the desert. A child in front of the fountain says that a ball of light passed by and didn't stop. In other words, this update is completely irrelevant in the larger scheme of things.



Redwood is a casino town, but since the game is already packed full, there aren't any shitty minigames to play. The game also makes an excuse as to why we still need money when we have a princess in the party: Since this is personal journey, Melphis can't use the kingdom's funds. Disregard the fact that the only reason she undertook this journey was because her subjects requested her to do so, and that she is obstinately doing it to protect the kingdom from future threats.

So, you might be wondering what exactly Minim is doing here since there's a casino here (with no games to play) and Daos skipped over this town. Well, here's your answer:



Pa-pa-pa-poker face pa-pa-poker face



Spells to buy:
Ice Valk (Third-level ice spell, hits all enemies) and Defender (Raises DFP for all allies) for Melphis. Seena and Melphis both learn Mirror (Reflects magic cast on the target) and Help (Remove all bad status from one target).



Since the little girl said there's a hot gambler chick at the casino, that's obviously where Minim will find the plot. The casino is the big, church-looking building in the back of town. As soon as Minim steps inside, a cutscene takes over. A gambler named Tak is losing at.... er.... whatever card game they're playing there. He yells at a Waitress to bring him a drink.



She obliges, but ends up spilling it all over him, complete with a little splashing sound effect. Tak flips the hell out on her, and accuses her of being the reason he lost. The Waitress tries to apologize, but he ain't having it.



He demands to know how she intends to make up for it, which sounds awfully sexual assault-y to me. Before she can react, a Yellow Woman named Ruby approaches the two and calls Tak out on being a jackass. Tak brings up a valid point: The Waitress did spill beer on him, so he has a right to be mad.



Before we go any farther, I want to go ahead and clarify something: Ruby is one of those unfortunate characters that the writers gave a profession rather than a personality. She's a gambler, so most of her lines are about gambling.

She offers to make a bet with Tak: They'll flip a coin. If Ruby wins, Tak will stop being a jackass to the Waitress. If Tak wins, Ruby will go on a date with him.

I'll bet y'all have no idea where this is going.



There's a little animation where she flips a coin up in the air, Tak calls "Heads" and...
It comes up Tails. Tak calls her a cheater and struggles at her for a moment before she pushes him away. Ruby doesn't deny that she's a cheater, she just calls him a jerk and further emasculates him.



He swears revenge and takes off, and the Waitress thanks Ruby for her help. Ruby's all, "Pssh, no big deal, I just like to make Tak look like an ass," and the Waitress asks Ruby what would have happened if she lost. Ruby straight up admits not only that cheated but how she did it (the coin is tails on both sides), right there in front of god and the casino dealer and everyone. In a real life casino, admitting that you're a cheater is likely to get you kicked off the premises, or worse, your kneecaps broken. Please do not cheat in a real life casino.



Ruby's philosophy: A true gambler is one who rigs the game in their favor. In other words, Ruby's definition of a true gambler is someone who doesn't actually gamble.

The peanut gallery is so impressed by her that they've already decided they want her to join the party. Minim's figured out how to recruit her: Fight and beat her in gambling. You know, despite the fact that she just admitted to being a cheater.



Ruby's not interested in men who are weak in gambling. The way they keep using "gambling" sounds off, doesn't it? I mean, you can you even be weak at gambling? "Bad at gambling" maybe, but weak?

Minim wants to know what game she'll be playing next, so he can beat her. She'll be playing the Monster Track, and she says it requires both gambling and fighting skills. Spoiler alert: It doesn't actually require any gambling skills. And gambling skills sounds weird.

There's a Luck Blade hidden at the table. It has an ATP of 250 and CLT rate of 100. It carries a curse so that it frequently misses, but when it does hit it has a high chance to deal critical damage. Unfortunately, Minim, Deckard and Randolph all have better weapons anyway, so it's not useful to anyone in the party.



Everyone in the casino is basically taking a perverse enjoyment in seeing Ruby humiliate Tak. Perhaps Redwood is even more like Vegas than we thought, and this is secretly a sexy exhibitionist club instead of a casino.

The Dealer lies and says that the Monster Track requires intelligence. It doesn't. From all the talking about they're doing about how it requires gambling skills and intelligence, I get the impression that the developers wanted to do something like Dragon Quest's Pachisi/T'n'T boards, but weren't able to implement it.



Registration for the Monster Track is up on the second floor of the casino. Uncle explains the rules: Contestants have to enter Azoles Cave and find a specific monster. Whoever finds it first wins. This may make it sound like it'll be remotely interesting, as if we'll be searching for a specific monster in a dungeon, but no, it's gonna be the same "Go down x number of randomly generated floors until you reach a non-random floor and then you'll have a boss fight" stuff.

The mark is something called "Big Mouth." It's described as "A violent one with a big mouth."

…

Hmm... violent with a big mouth...



Success! Minim has already successfully completed the Monster Track!



Minim has to stay the night at the inn (for free) before the Monster Track will open. The next morning, he stops by the casino to wish Ruby good luck, but she's already off in search of the Big Mouth. Tak, on the other hand, is still hanging around, plotting something dastardly. I bet if we could actually see his sprite, he'd have an evil, 1920's villain moustache.

Azoles Cave is southeast of Redwood.


Music:Cave #2

Even though the Monster Track is going on, Minim can pass through Azoles Cave to the other side and head to the next couple of towns. Unfortunately, the crushing linearityplot dictates that we must complete the events in Redwood before we can continue on the hunt for Daos.



Yellow elf enemy is a Dark Elf. They can cast Ice Valk. Hornets that can use Needle Shower and Call Companions appear on the map as red bats.

The blue fairies are Devilshapes. They Dive and use Dark Breath.

Trolls are stationary on the map, and can attack twice, or rather, attack once and regenerate HP.

Vampires are depicted as blue cloaked figures. Like other cloaked enemies, they're really quick, can act twice, and have a habit of casting Mirror on themselves the first chance they get. They also have an ability called Vampire that absorbs HP from a party member.



Heavy Noise lowers all stats of all enemies, I believe. That or it attempts to inflict a host of bad status effects on all enemies. I don't know, I've never used it. I'll try it out soon though! Seena is the only one who can currently use it, and it costs all 100 IP to use.

Afterimage is a useful attack that hits between three and eight times.



There's treasure to be had on B10: The Rockt Ring (+20 DFP, and +40 SPD) goes to Deckard, and the HiPow Ring goes to Aima.


Music:Nightmare

No matter how quickly Minim makes it down to B10, Ruby is already there and already has the Big Mouth cornered. Well, maybe cornered is too strong of a term. It's more like she's facing it down. She applauds how quickly Minim managed to make it down there, but tells him he's too late.

Then the bridge explodes.



It's Tak. Somehow, he managed to rig up the bridge and the tiny island Ruby's standing on with explosives. Ruby's cool as a cucumber though, despite being in a life or death situation.



See? She's playing it totally cool. Tak's trying to coerce her into sexing him, but accuses him of being drunk because there ain't no way he's gonna hook up with that.



She offers up a weak burn, and this is yet another exchange that probably could have been funny in the hands of a competent company. How weak is her burn? Minim and Seena are both all, "You go girl!"

Yeah.

Tak reminds them that Ruby's life is in his hands, so they might not want to keep laughing at him.



Aima decides the best course of action is to go beat the crap out of Tak. Before she can lay the smackdown on him, Tak tells her to stop or he'll blow Ruby up, and then appeals to Ruby once more.



She's still not having it and decides she'd rather be eaten by the Big Mouth than be defiled by Tak, and she's not just whistling dixie. She commits suicide by jumping into the Big Mouth's mouth.

Alas Ruby, we barely knew you!



Aaaaaaaaaaaand the Big Mouth spits her back out all the way over to where Minim, Seena and Aima are standing. Tak is flabbergasted, and Minim doesn't think too hard about it. He's more concerned with his new-found freedom to pound Tak into smithereens.



Aima is all too happy to start hitting things. Tak begs them to hold off, and despite being told there's no where to run, he manages to escape by jumping across the rigged platform and off screen (even though there's no exit that way).

Even though Tak's gone, the large, angry, scary monster is still hanging around and looking to brawl. Ruby joins the party, and like every other new character that joins right before a boss, she gets whatever equipment the party has laying around that she can use: The Alum Card we picked up in the Ancient Cave (+200 ATP, hits three times), a Red Beret, China Skrt, Craze Ring and Prtec Ring. She comes equipped with another Lucky Erng. Lucky Erngs are still useless though!

During the prep phase, she learns Stealth Hit and Deckard learns Afterimage.


Music:Boss Battle

See if you can find the typo in the above image!

Ruby has several unique IP abilities to help define her as a Gambler. Surprisingly, none of them involve a slot reel. She begins with three: Double Up, Cursed Dice and Damage Dice. This is all gonna be one big "What it says vs What it does."

What it says vs What it does X

Cursed Dice is described as "Damage oneself to raise allies' ATP." What it actually does is cause Ruby to take damage, then raises a random stat for the whole party. The possibilities are ATP up, DFP up, SPD up, REG up, MAP up or it will fully heal Ruby. Overall, it's a really useful ability though, since it's a party-wide unblockable buff, even if you can't select what specific buff you want.

Damage Dice says, "Damage oneself to attack enemies" but what it actually does is cause Ruby to take damage then unleashes an enemy skill on the enemy party. Kind of like Blue Magic, I guess? The effects are:

• Samurai: Deals low damage to all enemies with a chance to instant kill.
• Spider Web: Lowers the SPD of all enemies.
• Needle Shower: Deals low damage to all enemies.
• Rage: Deals heavy damage to all enemies.
• Hell Flame: Deals heavy fire damage to all enemies, can be reflected by Mirror.
• Dark Splash: Deals heavy dark damage to all enemies.

So it's not that great. The heavy damage skills are about what Aima, Minim and Deckard can do with their regular attacks with their uber equipment. Samurai instakilling the whole enemy party is probably the best you can ask for.

Double Up (pictured above) says it costs 0 IP and is described as "ATP+ if successful." This is grossly inaccurate. What it actually does is Ruby bets all of her current IP, which is converted into damage (so like 100 IP will hit an enemy for 100 HP), and begins a game of high or low. A card will be drawn and you'll have to guess whether the next one will be higher or lower. If you win, you'll have the option of unleashing your winnings on an enemy or going double or nothing. If you guess incorrectly, the attack will miss. You can take it all the way up to 25,600 damage, which is enough to OHKO all but like three bosses in the entire game. You probably won't hit 25,600 damage without abusing save states, though. But in theory, this makes Ruby the most powerful character in the game.

As for the Big Mouth, there's not a whole lot to say. Even though Ruby whiffed on her Double Up, it died after two turns. It can use Bite to deal major damage to once character (see what it's doing to Mousse up there?). It's pretty much guaranteed to kill whatever it uses it on.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

After the battle, Minim comments on how tough it is, even though it was a pushover. Ruby concedes defeat, but wonders why Minim wanted to play the most dangerous game. (You'll understand why Minim is so eager to have Ruby join when we get to the end of this update)



This is not why.

Ruby calls him stupid, but you know what? Her INT stat is high enough to where she can actually say that.



Minim does that thing again where he questions why people call him stupid, but Seena lets it slip. Ruby asks why Minim wants more allies, because they already have like eight people. Minim explains that they're going after a powerful enemy.



He also perpetuates the lie that defeating the Sinistrals will result in receiving awesome treasure.



But the fact that they've beaten two Sinistrals so far impresses Ruby, and she's intrigued that they'll be going after a God.



She agrees to join the party, and everyone introduces themselves. Dei and Deckard want to play cards with Ruby, Seena tells Mousse to say "Hi." No one else has anything remotely interesting to say.



But before the party can move on in their search for Daos, Minim remembers to ask Ruby how she escaped being eaten by the Big Mouth. It turns out that she used pepper to make it sneeze her out, because this is a work of fiction and thus pepper will always make people sneeze.



Ruby repeats her motto ("A true gambler is one who doesn't actually gamble because they cheat to win"), and suggests the party head back to town to collect the prize for winning the Monster Track.

...and don't think for one moment that Minim will be able to move the plot along without going back to Redwood to get the prize money. Will Daos be putting in appearance to drive the plot along?

(No)

Random floors covered: 300
Next Time: Let's join the Tea Party! Taxidermied Enough Already!

Ruby:

JP art


US art

Oh for fuck's sake. Ruby, go to the armor store and don't come back until you're wearing something that's remotely appropriate for a dangerous adventure.



That's marginally better.

Ruby is 21 years old and a Gambler. She's the second character we've recruited that has Yellow SF, and in case you forgot (because the other Yellow character was recruited like two months ago), Yellow SF is for SPD and MP. Her HP and DFP are painfully low, but her MAP is decent. She can learn Fire and Ice magic, and Strong/Stronger/Strongest/Rally. Really, her biggest draw is Cursed Dice, and I guess Double Up if you want to abuse save states.

Storylinewise, she's woefully underutilized. The way she's been portrayed so far - as a clever, capable and cool woman - won't be how she's portrayed during the rest of the game. It's going to be especially irritating in the next update where the cunning she displays here would have been a great asset... and plus it would have given her more screen time, which she desperately needs. She'll pretty much fade into the background for the rest of the game and have about the same amount of importance as Mousse.

It took me until about the sixth mention to realize the game wasn't Monster Truck.

That would have been more fun.

I always liked how Lufia II let you play poker in its casino. Also its a shame monster track isn't a game at a real casino. All casinos should have dungeons next to them filled with monsters to throw those who cheat..err make their own luck.

So Ruby's one of those "just for the hell of it" recruits? Shame she won't be seeing any further development, but the playable cast is getting bloated as-is. And to believe, there's still three more characters to recruit.....Isn't nine characters on a 3x3 grid already overkill, even with limitations on actions and the like?

Yes, to everything you just said. She actually one of my favorite characters and I wish that she played a larger role in the actual story. The next character we get will be slightly more relevant, but not by much, and the last two will actually matter and have stuff to do.

Chapter 16: Minim visits a Spooky Mansiontm and it has nothing to do with the God of Terror


Music:Redwood

Back at the Fourth Rabbit, Tak is still hanging out at the game table on the first floor grumbling about how someday he'll get Ruby (don't worry, he's not going to be a reoccurring villain or anything). The rest of the gamblers all seem to be highly amused that Ruby gave him what for.

Leydock, the promoter of the Monster Track is hanging around on the second floor (where the registrations were held), waiting to fork over the prize money. In addition to the 20,000 gold, he also gives Minim a Chest Sonar, a rather useless item that will tell Minim how many chests are left on a given floor. The only time this would be helpful is in the Ancient Cave, and surprise you can't take it with you down there.



He invites Minim and the gang to a feast at his house, which is located through Azoles Cave. Seena wants to know what they should do, because they kind of need to find the evil god spreading fear and terror across the land and stop him.



Minim decides they should go to house and say hello. B...but Daos...

Leydock's Mansion is literally right outside of Azoles Cave.


Music:Kingdom of Alstadt

Excuse me, Leydock's Mnsn. There are a lot of folks working here, but most of them just say things welcoming the party or praising them for being so strong. The first floor has the kitchen and a little sitting room, the second has a large banquet hall, an office and Leydock's bedroom, and the third has several bedrooms.



Oh, and it's loaded with items.



Freaking loaded.



I'm not even joking. Four GoddessTears, a Miracle and the seventh Dragon Egg makes a pretty good haul... and we're not even done getting items yet.



Leydock is waiting in the banquet room on the second floor. He implores everyone to take a seat, and a quick transitional fade brings the banquet into full swing. Everyone does a little heart emote bubble over their head before making a comment on how amazing this food is. Deckard, the wild and rough man of the sea, uses the phrase, "exquisite flavoring" and Aima once again reminds us that she's a good Hindu and doesn't eat meat.

Well, everyone but Mousse, who is missing from this scene. Maybe it's because ghoststhe help are afraid of elemental beasts.



Ruby continues with her excellent characterization by saying, "Good food makes me happy," and Dei, unlike everyone else, simply has an ellipse bubble and remains silent. Could this be... foreshadowing? Leydock continues to extend his generosity, telling them to eat as much as they want because there's lots more where it came from.



After the meal, Leydock suggests that they all stay the night. And they do! The inn music plays, and then...



Leydock and his servant discuss things in the dark. He wants to know if they have everyone, but the Servant says that two are missing, because I guess Leydock can't count. The Servant doesn't know where the missing two went, but Leydock says it ain't no thang, and to go ahead and take the rest down to "that room."

That's certainly ominous, isn't it?



Meanwhile, Dei tries to wake a sleeping Minim. When whispering doesn't work, he yells for him to "Get up, you idiot!" and kicks him. Minim is disoriented and wants to know what's going on.



Dei explains the situation to the best of his ability: He and Minim are currently in a hidden passage, the rest of the party - including Mousse, who did not eat any of the food, and Ruby, who is supposed to be incredibly cunning - have been caught and hauled away by Leydock, who poisoned the food with a sedative to knock them all out.



Dei didn't eat any of the food because he does not understand human generosity and cannot trust strangers. He wanted to save everyone, but he was only able to get Minim, because who else is going to be the frontman in the dungeon?

Dei says that they're probably being held in the underground dungeon, and the underground dungeon thing has become so irritating and repetitive now that even Minim makes a comment about how stupid it is. Admittedly, I do find his comment to be really funny.



Welp, looks like it's just Minim and Dei this time, and lookit, more hidden items!



This creepy fella sells weapons, items and magic. It's mostly just stuff for people in Minim and Dei's equipment classes, and the only thing this current party can make use of is the Hrd Jacket (DFP + 140) for Dei. The spells are stuff you should already have.

The stairs lead to the actual dungeon.


Music:Ensnaring Maze

Surprise! It's a cave! Just like the other two dungeons we've been through on this continent! The enemies seem to be the exact same ones from Azoles Cave, but fuck if I'm going to actually fight with just two characters, so I opted to just nuke their asses with Sweet Water. Because I mean really, reducing the party to two characters is a dick move (one that they'll be repeating in a few updates, too).



I don't understand the purpose of Support. I think it targets the user, which makes it worthless for Randolph and Deckard. There are two other characters who can use it, and they're both a bit more magically-inclined, but I can't really imagine being in a situation where I'd be willing to blow 80 IP in exchange for MP.

I haven't tested out CrossMirage either, but I believe it means that you'll attack three times at 1.5 x damage.


Music:Lost Peace

Blessedly, Leydock's Dungeon is only 4 floors long. The fifth floor has all the amenities you've come to expect from this game: A save point, a couple of side paths to treasure (a FireBoomer and Mind Seed are waiting in the rightmost path, an X Potion and Hi Magic are down the left path) and one path leading to a cutscene.

Leydock has the rest of the party in a cage. Seena's figured out what's up, or at least that Leydock drugged them. He explains that he likes strong people Like, really likes them. Likes them so much he wants to keep them forever and ever and ever.

Aima turns around and the camera pans up to reveal a row of fighters standing behind the cage. The bald guy with the moustache is weird, because I don't think that sprite appears anywhere else in the game, but the rest are generic soldier-looking characters. Aima deduces that these are the previous winners of the Monster Track.

You're probably sitting there thinking, "Oh, he petrifies people, I've seen that sort of thing a lot in JRPGs and stuff," and, well, it's actually far creepier.



Melphis turns around and drops the bomb: They're not petrified, they're embalmed.

You know, that's actually pretty messed up. Like, this has mostly been a light-hearted fantasy RPG and then BAM! room full of taxidermied people. Hell, the rest of the Sinistrals should kick Daos out of their club and make this guy the new Sinistral of Terror.

Leydock is very proud of his collection, but Seena yells at him for being so freaking stupid because, you know, they don't actually have any power after they've been stuffed.



Since he is a villain and must say villainy things, he tells her that she can't appreciate the artistic merits of his craft, and prepares to begin the procedure. Deckard, Mousse, Randolph and Ruby have nothing to say during this sequence. You'd think Deckard or Aima or someone to say, "Like hell you will!" or something.

Luckily, Minim comes charging in, yelling that he won't let Leydock stuff his friends.


Music:Tower of Sorrow

He tsks tsks Seena for letting herself get caught, but as Dei puts it, she can see right through him and accuses him of being saved by Dei.



Dei apologizes for not being able to save the rest of the party, but for some reason this causes Seena to praise him as being reliable. Seena, he just admitted how big a failure he is, that does not make him reliable. Meanwhile, Minim sulks and Leydock is ecstatic that he'll have the full Children of the Spiritual Force Collector's Set (He's still missing three characters that haven't been released yet).



Minim tells Leydock not to underestimate them just because there's only two of them. That's odd, because I count at least three magicians in the room that should be able to help out, not to mention a woman who can literally toss typhoons. Leydock assures them that he won't: He uses his magic to bring one of his stuffed warriors to life. Minim's all like, "WTF??" and I probably would be too if I saw someone bring a fucking stuffed human being to life.



Dei says that Leydock is a sorcerer, and Minim calls it blasphemy against the dead. My reaction: "Blasphemy seems like a really big word for Minim's vocabulary," and then I was overjoyed to see Dei say the exact same thing. Minim wants to know if Dei is calling him stupid, but Dei is impressed.



The two stare each other down and do that little skirmish dance we're so used to seeing by now, because why should they be concerned about the guy that wants to fucking embalm them and his evil taxidermied puppet?


Music:Boss Battle

This battle isn't difficult at all. Minim can use Holy Sword to make mincemeat out of Leydock, and Dei... well, Dei can stand there and just hang out, you know? Leydock can use an ability called Ghost Treasure on himself. It has a skull animation like some instant death spells, but it didn't seem to actually do anything. If I had to guess, I would say it makes him Undead, thus raising his magic defense through the roof, but... uh... this party isn't exactly geared towards magic, you know?

He can also use something called Solomon's Arc, which has the same animation as Ghost Treasure, but it targets one of your party members. It also lacked any actual effect, but presumably it turned Dei undead.

Once Leydock dies, his GhostSldr will use Suicide which will probably kill one of your characters.


Music:Kingdom of Alstadt

Leydock dies in disbelief, because that's how villains tend to die, and the party is reunited... with basically no fanfare. Seena thanks Minim and Dei for saving them, Dei says they should leave, and that's that.

(There's a Miracle hidden on one of the embalmed soldiers. A fat lot of help that did him, right?)

The secret passage was connected to the kitchen, which is now mysteriously empty. In fact, the whole mansion is empty. As Minim approaches the front door, Seena pops out to comment on the fact. Aima says that it looks like the place has been empty for some time (how does she explain the fruits and veggies on the kitchen table then?), and Deckard speculates that everyone they had met in the mansion were just ghosts summoned by Leydock.



Seena and Dei are pretty freaked out, and Seena wants to know what the next move is, and he finally remembers that they're supposed to be hunting Daos, but they're all dumb and got sidetracked and let the trail get cold.



Ruby suggests that they head to Tanba, and given that there are only two more towns in Fante it's as good a start as any.

Random floors covered: 304
Next Time: Minim experiences deja vu. Again.

Leydocks kind of... kind of a jerk, isn't he?

Well you can be certain that he's been removed from Festivus Card list.

Also, we only have eleven more updates! Then two more for side quests after I finish the storyline

I'm willing to admit that for an 8-bit RPG trying to pretend it's an extremely annoying 32-bit game, a crazy taxidermist asshole who has ghost servants and keeps the stuffed bodies of contest winners in his basement is a pretty awesome concept.

This game's remained pretty consistently comedic throughout. It's definitely been way better than I'd expect from a GBA game. I'm not sure how much I could get behind a protagonist that's been so thoroughly declared an idiot. I keep hoping he'll have a rather impressive moment of intelligence or ingenuity. As far as Lufia goes... I guess the vibe seems close enough that I can accept it into the fold of the series.

Leydock's plan is to purposefully capture people who are good at kicking ass, and explain his plan, which involves things that would probably piss them off, before actually killing them. His comeuppance was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?

And I was going to mention something about rich guy dungeons being overused last time it came up. Now I just mourn at all those cool points I could have had.