Earning our JRPG black belt - Let's Play Legend of Legaia!

Hari: Now... we shall attain... complete nothingness! But fate... and your will... are one and the same. Make... your own fate... with your own hands! Goodbye, Ra-Seru heroes!





*One by one, Hari disappears as the music fades.*



♪♪The Quiet Tree of Creation♪♪

Ruby: Terra! Terra! Are you alright?
Terra: You don't have to worry about me, Ruby. Worry about the Great Genesis Tree...
Umber: Ruby, Blue! Let's give the Ra-Seru the power of the Great Genesis Tree!
*The two of them nod.*



♪♪The Awakening of the Tree of Creation♪♪

Meta: Thank you, Blue. We have received the ultimate power.
Terra: Now we can do something about Juggernaut!
Ozma: But we must hurry! Hari gave the Great Genesis Tree life, but I do not know how long that life force will last.
Terra: The Genesis Trees in the human world are linked to the Seru-kai! We must go to Rim Elm!
*The party nods as one and move to stand in a rough circle.*









*The scene and music fade as the party returns to Legaia.*



♪♪Mt. Rikuroa (After the Mist)♪♪





*The party slowly gets up.*
Ruby: What? Is this... Mt. Rikuroa?
Terra: Rim Elm's Genesis Tree is dead. So we came here.
Umber: I have a bad feeling about this. Blue! Let's hurry to Rim Elm!
Ruby: *pause* Will everything be okay?



Well, this game is almost over - we just have to return to Rim Elm and enter the final dungeon. We won't be doing that just yet, though - now that Songi is gone for good, a few sidequests have opened up, and I plan on doing those. It should only take either two smaller updates or one gigantic one, if I've estimated correctly.

Next time: End-game sidequests.

See, I never would've guessed from his walkabout model that he looked like this.

No need for a counter anymore. He shows up to meatfuse your hometown because it's just what he does.

You know, it's refreshing that the RPG has a valid story reason for why some boss goes from looking human to turning One Winged Angel on you.

Also, nice work with Tetsu. I never actually managed to beat him. Partly because I always forget and activate the Songi sequence too soon.

I think it's the whole "Ra-Seru converted into a Sim-Seru" thing that makes Songi's transformations so messed up, while keeping his human form okay (if gradually more insane). Not to mention that he just absorbed a hell of a lot of energy from the Great Genesis Tree, which probably mutated his transformed self even more.

Yep.

Agreed.

Heh, thanks. I actually kept getting the crap kicked out of me during my practice runs of the fight; it took a few losses to figure out that I needed the Speed Chain.

Anyway, today we'll be running all over Legaia in an attempt to power ourselves up for the final boss.

Chapter 34: Odds and Ends, Part 1



♪♪Mt. Rikuroa (After the Mist)♪♪

So, like I said earlier, we'll be spending this update doin' sidequest stuff. It just so happens that there's something we can take care of right now - you see, you can actually power up the party's Ra-Seru by one more level. To do it, though, you have to have defeated Songi for the third time, and the character you want to power up must know their Miracle Art. Once these conditions have been fulfilled, you then need to take them to a certain Genesis Tree - which, in Ruby's case...



Is this one.



Hari: Tieg now gives you the last of his power for you to use to correct history!



Terra's true powers have come out!
Hari: I have given you... the last of my power... my very spirit...

Thanks, Hari. We'll go over what max-level Terra can do a bit later - for now, let's power up Meta and Ozma.







♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

Here's everyone's penultimate Ra-Seru in action. Umber's is the only one that hits twice, but the other ones are still pretty powerful for single strikes.



♪♪World Map After Juggernaut♪♪

Our next stop is West Voz Forest.



♪♪Mt. Rikuroa (After the Mist)♪♪

It seems I completely missed this chest our first time through. My apologies! ^^;

That's not what we're here for, though.



This chest only appears once you've beaten Songi at the Seru-kai. Inside?



The Dark Stone, which we can take to Zalan in Jeremi to have him turn it into the Dark Talisman. We'll do that later, though.



♪♪World Map After Juggernaut♪♪

For now, we'll head to East Voz Forest.



♪♪The Forest of Mystery♪♪

Hari: Umber! Ozma! Human and Seru who live in the present! Tieg sends you the last of his powers so that you may correct history now!



Ozma's true powers have come out!
Hari: You have the last of my power... my very spirit!

Rockin'. Only Meta remains to be powered up now - but since Rim Elm's Genesis Tree is dead, we'll have to go somewhere else to do it.



♪♪The Earth of Joy♪♪

That somewhere else is Sol Tower.

♪♪The Forest of Mystery♪♪

Hari: Blue and Meta! Human and Ra-Seru who see the future! Tieg sends you the last of his powers so that you may correct history now!



Meta's true powers have come out!
Hari: You have the last of my power... my very spirit!

With that, Hari is well and truly gone... but not before helping us considerably. Rest easy, old friend.



♪♪We Are the Bairon Militan Priests♪♪

It occurred to me that I completely forgot about giving Mary's Diary to this guy, so I'll go ahead and do that while I'm here.

Monk: The... book! G-Give it to me!
Blue passed Mary's Diary to the warrior-monk.
Monk: *turns around* Ohh, this is... so embarrassing! Ohh! A warrior-monk of Biron should not gaze upon such a book! Oh... my! *turns back around* Yes... Uh, the Arts, yes. Understood. I will teach them to you.

Of course, we already know the Arts this guy offers to teach - Spin Combo for Blue, Rushing Gale for Ruby, and Black Rain for Umber - but at least it's another loose end tied up.

Now, there are a couple more things to do here, but I'll save those for later - right now I'll demonstrate Gilium to get it out of the way.



♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

Gilium is pretty much the strongest regular Seru in the game. 160 MP is pretty expensive, but nothing else quite kills things to death like a magical lightning cannon from space, you know?

But enough about that - let's see what the party's max-level Ra-Seru can do.

For starters, their damage output is pretty great - even Meta, who's the only one that doesn't hit twice.







We can also summon them as super-spells for their respective elements, much like Horn is for Light. Let's test them out in order, shall we?

I'm not sure why, but Meta's spirit kinda reminds me of a Digimon. In any case, he's definitely the strongest Fire spell in the game by a considerable margin. 240 MP is way too costly to waste on regular encounters (unless you're messin' around, of course), but it could come in handy as a last resort against the final boss.

But enough about that - it's Terra time.

If you thought Barra was impressive, Terra blows it clear out of the water. She costs the same as Meta, but nothing short of a boss stands any chance against it.



Now for Ozma.

What the screenshots aren't showing is that Voltagor hits four times, which is more than any other spell in the game (though it deals around the same damage as Meta and Terra). For the same MP cost as Meta and Terra, Ozma outclasses poor Gilium by quite a bit. Something I haven't mentioned yet is that you can actually level these spells up if you want to, even Horn (something I was mistaken about; my apologies). I'm not sure what the point would be, though, since nothing short of a boss could possibly survive any of these, much less any debuffs they might inflict.



♪♪The Earth of Joy♪♪

Let's see about getting that Dark Talisman.



♪♪The Light of the Town♪♪

Zalan: Well, well! That is a very rare gem indeed. May I see it?



Well it's what we came here for, after all.

Zalan: This... is amazing! It is not exactly a gem, but it is quite a treasure! And I sense an amazing power inside it! If you wish, I will work on this for you. Making an accessory out of it may bring out its amazing power.
Do you want Zalan to rework the Dark Stone? {-> Yes}
Blue gave Zalan the Dark Stone.
*Zalan turns to his desk and begins working. After a few text-boxes of "(Working intently)", Zalan turns back to Blue.*
Zalan: Finished at last!



Zalan: It's quite good workmanship, if I may say so myself.

Awesome! Time to test it out.



♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

For 200 MP, Jedo will kill absolutely anything you cast it on, no questions asked. (This doesn't work on bosses, barring one exception, but it'll still do a ton of damage.) It's insanely overpowered, but there's no way you're getting it if you don't know where to find it, or even to look for it in the first place - if you don't take the Light Ra-Seru Egg to Zalan, you might not know about the ultimate spells at all. I certainly didn't the first time I played this game.



♪♪The Earth of Joy♪♪

I'd say we're a little over halfway done with the sidequests; I should be able to take care of the rest of them in the next update. See you guys then!

Next time: Fishing, fighting tournaments, and a brutal optional boss!

I love that Meta and the others's summon forms actually look similar to some of the enemy Sim-Seru bosses.

Hey, it's pretty cool to see what these Ra-Seru that we've been partnered with all this time look like. They are a lot more hardcore than I was expecting, honestly. Though it's kind of lousy that Meta has the highest level, but is still the only one who doesn't hit twice.

Also, it's good to see a death spell that actually works. You'll have to let us know if it works on the ultra-secret superboss.

This has been an really cool set of updates--I never knew about the last set of Ra-Seru upgrades or the secret spells. And my memory had conflated the visit to Rogue's castle and the visit to the Seru-Kai to fight Songi into a single event, so it was neat to see that properly sorted out.

Soren, have I mentioned that this is awesome? 'Cause this is awesome.

You know, they kinda do, now that you mention it. Hmm...

Eh, it's alright, since Meta still does around the same damage as Terra and Ozma. Still feels a little weird, though, I'll give you that.

You'll see.

Don't worry, there are a couple more spells to show. Funnily enough, I didn't remember Rogue's Tower at all until I started playing this game again.

Ah, you're too kind. I'm just trying to present this game the best I can.

Anyway, the next update won't be ready for a few more days; I thought I'd let you guys know, in case any of you were wondering. I'm working on it as much as I can, but certain parts of it are... let's just say time-consuming. I have a feeling those of you who have played the game may know what I'm talking about... but you'll know for sure soon.

*sound of Soren throwing a controller against the wall* "DAMN RNG!"

Yeah, I wouldn't go in there...

Time to finish the sidequests.

Chapter 35: Odds and Ends, Part 2

Before we start fishing, we're going to need an upgrade to our Old Rod.



♪♪Wild Declaration♪♪

We can get it here, along with the Earth Ra-Seru Egg.



2,500 coins shouldn't be too tough to get. Time to do some tournaments!





Xain doesn't pose much of a threat anymore, thanks to our equipment and the fact that Blue is at level 37.



We can at least win the Beginner tournament pretty handily now!



That's a pretty decent amount of coins for winning - but the Expert tournament will get us those coins a tad faster. Of course, it's also tougher...



♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

Mainly because you don't get to wear any armor or weapons (though accessories are still allowed).





This doesn't matter during the first two rounds since the enemies are pretty weak, but...



The game decides to throw a curveball at you during the third round, in the form of an endgame enemy. Without any equipment, the Dark Ogre will barely take any damage from anything short of a Miracle Art. You could also nuke it with Meta if you wanted, although you might be better off saving your MP for healing; unlike your health, MP doesn't recover between rounds, so you'll have to be careful with how you use it.









Once you get past that hurdle, though, it should be smooth sailing until the final round - none of these enemies can survive a Miracle Art (save the Gold Bison, who takes two), and the healing you get in between rounds should suffice.



Xain is a bit trickier, though.

He can take a full five Miracle Arts before going down, so this fight could drag out a bit. Be sure to wear the Guardian Ring to boost your defenses; the Life Armband and Mettle Gem will help out as well. Again, feel free to nuke him with Meta to take out a significant chunk of his HP, assuming you have the MP to spare.



You get this screen if you do poorly in a round. I think it's the only time in the game Blue makes that face, too.





As you can see, the payout for Expert tournaments is much higher than for Beginner, though it's also tougher to get. Now, you might be thinking that we're ready to take on the Master tournament.

Uh... not really. Not at our level, at least.



In addition to the no-armor-and-items rule, we can't use Seru at all during the Master tournament. What's more, you also go against much tougher opponents. You start off with an Ironman, which is simple enough, but it gets worse... much worse. In order, the Master opponents are:

Ironman
Viguro Lv2
Gold Bison
Caruban
Zeto
Berserker
Xain
Dohati
Lu Delilas
Che Delilas
Gi Delilas
Zora
Jette

There is no way in hell we'd be able to last past Round 7, if that, at our level; we'd have to do some serious level-grinding if we wanted to win the Master tournament. I'd rather not put the LP on hold for a month or however long it would take, so instead, here's a video I found of someone else doing it.



♪♪Wild Declaration♪♪

Anyway, we can get the Deluxe Rod now, which will let us catch fish more easily. We're not quite done with coin-collecting, though; I did say earlier that you can get the Earth Ra-Seru Egg here, after all. The trick, however, is that it won't show up at the exchange counter until we get 100,000 coins.

I'm not kidding.



It was around 40,000 coins or so (I lost track of how many Expert tournaments that took, but trust me: it's a lot.) that I decided to get the rest from the slot machine. Now, way back when we first tried these out, I said that the slot machines were too luck-dependent to get much out of them. This is still true... if you're playing normally.



However, with The Magic of Savestates�, you can get quite a few coins, especially if you enter the bonus reels. You can do that by aligning three punch or kick icons, like in the above screenshot.



The bonus reels are made up of numbers ranging from one to ten. Once you line up any three numbers in the middle, they're multiplied to give you that amount of coins. So in that screenshot, I'd have 7 X 10 X 4, or 280 coins. Not bad.



Again, though, with The Magic of Savestates�, you can easily get a thousand coins each bonus round. How long the bonus round lasts depends on what you lined up; three kicks means one round, three fists means three.



Shame? What's that? (You can keep going after the slot machine displays 99,999 coins, but it won't display a number higher than that.)



Exchange counter lady: Incidentally, we have a special item for special customers like you. Are you interested? {I didn't spend several hours fighting Xain over and over and rigging minigames to say no, lady.} Good. Actually, we can give you an Earth Ra-Seru Egg in exchange for 100,000 tokens. Do you want to exchange 100,000 tokens for an Earth Ra-Seru Egg? {Just hand the damn thing over already so I can get out of here.}



Exchange counter lady: Thank you!

There's one last thing we can get here before we go fishing.



To get it, we have to run away from the first round of each tournament.



Tournament lady: To win tokens, you have to fight to the end or be defeated.
*After bravely retreating from the Expert and Master tournaments...*
Tournament lady: Blue! What a shame to enter the Tournament just to run away at the outstart. {Er... is that a word?} You're a very timid person, so we're giving you the Timidity Prize -- a Chicken King.

Tournament lady: Congratulations! Keep training, and master the art of timidness! {Screw you too, lady!}

Whereas the Chicken Heart merely increases the chance of successfully escaping from a battle, the Chicken King guarantees it (minus bosses, anyway). Not much of a final prize, but screw this place anyway.

And now, we fish!



♪♪Vidna♪♪

First, though, we could stand to get a few more lures from Vidna- something tells me three of each won't cut it. Hopefully ten should suffice for now.



♪♪The Cave of Warmth♪♪

Okay, now we fish. There's a certain prize we want to get here - the War God Icon.



Unfortunately, it won't show up in the points exchange until we get 50,000 points. Yes, really. How's about I go over the types of fish you can catch here while you're still processing how long this is going to take?



This is the smallest fish you can catch here. Fly Pies aren't worth very much; the most I got from one was around 20 points or so. They're also the only fish that can be caught with all three lures, which honestly just makes them more annoying.



This fish can only be caught with the Light Lure, and honestly isn't worth it; I think the most I got from one was around 35 points or so.



The High Charger is the most common fish here, and are okay-ish in terms of points; you can get anywhere from 38 to maybe 52 points depending on size. Speaking of which, there are five different sizes of fish: Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large. The point difference between them depends on the fish, but for the most part it isn't that much. Larger fish are harder to catch, though.



Spikefish are pretty rare; that screenshot is the first time I caught one. They can't be caught with the Heavy Lure, so keep that in mind if you're looking for one.



The Octoban is about as rare as the Spikefish. They can also only be caught with the Heavy Lure, but you'll likely catch a bunch of Fly Pies first.



Here's what our Deluxe Rod looks like.

You know what? This is taking longer than I would like. There's one other fishing spot we can go to...



♪♪The Earth of Joy♪♪

And it's near Buma.



The view is nice, at least. Your total points are carried over in between fishing spots, which is good since this one has much better fish.



Uh... I guess Lippians are amphibious? This one was actually the first thing I caught here, but normally they're pretty rare. They can also only be caught with the Heavy Lure.



The Charger is the most common fish here, and is worth anywhere from 60 to 90 or so points. They can also only be caught with the Heavy Lure, along with one other fish. That fish is really rare, though, so we'll have to get more points for now. You can also catch Chargers at the Vidna fishing spot, though they're kind of rare there.



♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

I believe that rare fish show up more often the more total points you have, so you'll probably be catching a lot of Chargers until you have a decent amount. I think I'll use that time to go a bit more in-depth about fishing in general. (These next few screenshots will be out of order, as I took them rather sporadically while fishing.)

It's kind of hard to see, but that shadow is a fish. When you cast the line, you'll want to generally aim for any shadows you spot, or possibly a bit above them.



Once the line is cast, you'll want to start slowly reeling it in, by tapping X or Square. That "Good!" message you see pops up if you reel in your line a certain way; it seems to work by pressing and depressing Square and X in succession, but I can't say for sure. If you can hook a fish while "Good!" is still onscreen, there's a higher chance of that fish being a rare one, so try to get it as often as you can.



Once you manage to land a hit, the Life and Tension gauges will appear. As you reel in the fish with X or Square, the Life gauge will decrease and the Tension gauge will increase; how fast they do so depends on the size and species of fish.



It's not quite that simple, though; the Life gauge will fluctuate rather wildly, especially while reeling in larger/rarer fish, so you'll need to keep careful watch on how you're doing.



As you reel in the fish, its Life gauge will dip into the red, then fill back up to a certain point. That point gets a bit lower every time its Life dips into the red, so eventually it will have so little Life that you can reel it in pretty easily.



Keep in mind that X reels in a fish more slowly, but also fills the Tension gauge slower; conversely, Square will reel in the fish much faster, at the expense of a much quicker-filling Tension gauge. It's a good rule of thumb to use X while a fish still has high Life, and switch to Square when it falls into the red.



Be careful, though; if the Tension gauge completely fills, or if the fish gets too far away from you, the line will snap and you'll lose a lure. It shouldn't happen too often with practice, but it's still something to be wary of.



Behold, the Devourer! They're the rarest fish in the Buma fishing spot, and quite worth the trouble; even the smaller ones are worth more points than the largest Lippians. Speaking of points, there's a certain item we can get here, but it won't show up until we have 20,000 points. Much more reasonable than the War God Icon, I'd say.



Yep, it's the Water Ra-Seru Egg; fitting we'd get it after fishing a bunch. However, we still don't have enough points for the War God Icon, so we'll have to keep fishing.



♪♪Usha Research Center♪♪

But that's not to say we can't make it easier on ourselves.



This apparently shows up after you defeat Koru, but I actually didn't know about it until looking up fishing stuff for this playthrough.



I'm glad I found it, though; in addition to looking snazzy, the Legendary Rod lets us land hits more quickly, and is quite a bit more durable than the Deluxe Rod. This should make getting 70,000 points a bit more bearable, at least.



♪♪The Cave of Warmth♪♪

This is the rare quadruple-rainbow that appears when you catch an Extra Large fish. It's quite pretty, even if you catch something as measly as a Fly Pie.

Here are a few notable catches I made while farming for points:

A while later, after way, way more fishing than is reasonable...



We finally have enough points to afford both items!





If I never fish in this game again, it will be too soon. Now, the Water Egg can eventually let us use the ultimate Water spell, as you've probably guessed. But what does the War God Icon do?



It lets the wearer repeat their attack. So if, say, Blue were to use his Miracle Art? He'd immediately do it again, with no AP cost the second time around. This will be extremely useful in a few minutes, but for now let's visit Zalan one last time.



♪♪The Light of the Town♪♪

Zalan: Well, well! That is a very rare gem indeed. May I see it?
Do you wish to let Zalan see the Earth/Water Egg? {-> Yes}
Zalan:This... is amazing! It is not exactly a gem, but it is quite a treasure! And I sense an amazing power inside it! If you wish, I will work on this for you. Making an accessory out of it may bring out its amazing power.
Do you want Zalan to rework the Earth/Water Egg? {-> Yes}
Blue gave Zalan the Earth/Water Egg.
*Zalan turns to his desk and works intently for a while. Eventually he turns back around.*
Zalan: Finished at last!





Zalan: It's quite good workmanship, if I may say so myself.

Ballin'! Now that we've finally gotten these spells, let's test them out.



♪♪Brand of the Holy Knuckles♪♪

I'm... not really sure why it's called Mule. It does hit a bunch of times, though! It's probably the weakest of the super-spells, but that's not saying much when it can still kill any regular enemy in the game.



And now for the Earth spell, which is much more awesome.