Grinding: it's not just for coffee anymore. Let's Play The 7th Saga!

Wait... okay... so... Serpent was a lady. Who was also a centipede?

I... guess thats better then a man with snakes for legs being called a Griffin.

"Serpent" was her old college nickname. This was before the whole witch thing.

mecha glider!!

Here's a good idea: say you'll update MWF, then forget to do it!

Intermission #7: Fighting with the Runes



With six of the seven runes at our disposal, our combat options broaden significantly. The game expects and demands that we take full advantage of them. Let's review:

• The Wind Rune transports us to any previously visited town as long as we're not in a dungeon. This isn't really battle-applicable, but it's an incredibly useful utility Rune.
• The Water Rune restores between 50 and 69 HP to one apprentice. This won't outpace high-damage enemies, but it's indispensible as a form of free healing otherwise.
• The Star Rune casts DEFENSE1, halving the damage received from physical attacks.
• The Moon Rune casts POWER, doubling the Power stat (but not the Weapon stat).
• The Sky Rune restores between 30 and 59 MP to one apprentice. LAVOS doesn't really cast spells, but this saves Esuna a lot of trouble: we were stuck with MPCTCHR before.
• The Light Rune increases Magic by a flat 40. I hesitate to call this inconsequential, but it's definitely not game-changing like the other Runes.

Here's how a typical random battle plays out now that I have all of the Runes:

• On the first round, LAVOS defends. If the enemies attack him, Esuna uses the Moon Rune on him; otherwise, she uses the Star Rune on herself.
• If Esuna didn't get a chance to use the Moon Rune last round, she uses it now, unless she's in danger of dying. If the Moon Rune got used successfully, LAVOS attacks, killing something.
• However, if Esuna's health is critical, she won't use the Moon Rune. Instead, she'll heal herself with the Water Rune or a Potn 2. LAVOS might defend again if Esuna is likely to use the Moon Rune next round, but he's more likely to buff himself with the Star Rune or the Light Rune.
• At this point, if LAVOS is in Death Machine mode, he'll continue to defend-attack while Esuna tosses out heals (or more buffs, if no one needs heals). If things are looking dicey, LAVOS joins in on the healing.

Against a particularly tough enemy set, the healing cycle can take a long time. The more it drags out, the higher the risk of the enemy getting lucky with a kill. If it looks like a tough battle, our tactics change: LAVOS starts the first round by using the Star Rune on Esuna, then Esuna opens with a VACUUM1 on a vulnerable enemy. If Esuna looks okay after the first round, she can follow up with another VACUUM1; otherwise, LAVOS can heal her or buff himself and have her heal, as appropriate.

In prolonged dungeons, it becomes necessary for LAVOS to spend some turns using the Sky Rune on Esuna. It's a good idea to keep her MP high, since it frees her up to cast the expensive VACUUM1 and REVIVE1 spells.



SPOILERS: She'll learn the latter in our next update.

#8: Gentlemen, Start Your Vacuums



We've reached a new area of the game, which means new goodies. The armor is a bit too pricey for that small of an increase, but the addition of Potn 3s to the store lineup is very welcome.



Oh my! Portent!



That's quite the infodump. Key points of interest here: Gariso (not to be confused with Gorsia) did some monster summoning 100 years ago, but King Lemele got all up in his grill, but now Gariso is back, and how old is Lemele anyway, and would we please kill Gariso. This isn't a question: there's no yes-or-no prompt, and if you talk to the prophet again, he'll give you the entire speech all over again. He's been rehearsing that for awhile.

Anyway, here we are in the western continent. Judging from the shape of the continent (not to mention the fact that it's the only continent we haven't fully explored), you might guess that Gariso's hideout is on the tip of that little phalange of land on the northeast end, and you'd be right. But there's a lot to do before we get there.



First up: kill another Despair palette swap. These guys are no joke, and we'll bear witness to that later.



Step two: Esuna kills some B.Nights, gains a level, learns REVIVE1. Even its 50% success rate means nothing in the face of the Sky Rune's free MP regeneration.



And, of course, step three is to get killed by an enemy that is so last continent.

Death count: 43



Here we have Dooms being threatening. Besides being able to toastyfry your party six ways to Sunday, they have a not-insignificant physical attack, more than enough to OHKO unbuffed Esuna. That first shot was a wipe, although I think I survived the second.

Death count: 44



Yes, I'm LAVOS. Wait, no, I'm not.



Dead wrong.



This NPC has the astounding ability to recognize people he's never met.

Next on our list of new enemies is the Sword. It's a sword, and when you kill it, it drops swords. It's also the Metal Slime of this game: it may not run away from you, but you can only deal one damage per hit, barring offense that is far above what you should have at this point. Besides a fairly powerful physical, it can attack with DEFENSE2 to reduce your guard and VACUUM1.

The Sword is also the source of Wilme's only weapon: the Sword sword.

Yeah, I don't know either. For the curious, the Sword sword does not change his attack animation. He still firepunches people when you equip him with the Sword sword.

Anyway, if you have some kind of grinding fetish, these are decent monsters to grind.



I prefer to level up the natural way.



Before long, you'll run into a cave, which has a remarkably tame monster selection. The number one monster in this cave is a Spidek palette swap:



What's this fellow's name? Well, "Griffin" was taken, so...



P.Moon was the next best choice.



Pictured: a good problem to have. We have entered the phase of the game where you had better be carrying nine Mouth Waters with you anytime you leave a town.



Near the exit of the cave, we get a mysterious and unexplained message. Two things are apparent here:

• There is a pain of some sort.
• It is unbearable.

It's not until you get into your next battle that you're likely to notice what has just happened, but here is a hint: the game has punched you in the kidney again.



Can't use spell. Surprise! I hope you didn't like your magic, because it's gone, gone, gone.

The idea here is that you've got a collection of extremely powerful Runes and the game is going to force you to use them and like using them. This is actually a really clever piece of game design, or at least it is in theory; in practice, you're likely to hate this part of the game.

Now, there's a way around it, sort of: any apprentice you recruit right now will have all of his or her spells available. That includes your current partner, so if I ditched Esuna then picked her back up, she'd be back to rocking and rolling.

I won't be doing that, of course. I love apprentice exploits as much as the next guy, but I also want to show that the game is playable without them. I do think that this particular exploit was a deliberate act on the part of the developers: it would have been much easier to have a global flag that says "No, you can't use magic" instead of constraining it to the individual apprentice. This does raise the question of how your current partner manages to get her magic back when she leaves, but oh well.



Of course, just because you can't magic doesn't mean the enemy won't.



It's not far from the cave exit to the next town, but you had better pray that you make it there in one pass, because otherwise you're doing the entire trek over again, this time sans magic.



So naturally, the game throws a Doom at me.

Nail, tooth, and claw, I drag myself out of this fight alive.



This is my favorite line in the entire game. I like to imagine that "Bugask" is some sort of swear word in the world of Ticondera and that this NPC is warning you away. I mean, try saying it out loud. "Man, this town is Bugask. I'm outta here."



The townsfolk mention a local healer who can cure any ailment, so we drop in.



"See what happens" is not the kind of phrase you want to hear from a highly-trained medical professional.

Anyway, de-magicked as we are, I figure it's time to stock up on some magic-type items.



In Bilthem (erstwhile kingdom of Doros), we bump into Olvan. How's life treating you?



Olvan is bitter that he never got his chance to shine. (He should've known we had the Wind Rune, but he was dead at the time.)

Harps to prevent being vacuumed (don't ask me how this works)...



...and some vacuums of our own.



Continuing north from the town that is Bugask, we run into another town that is presumably Guanta.



Suspicions: confirmed.



Guanta is more than a little spartan as towns go. The inn is 10G a night just to sleep on the floor. This is kind of a racket since the weather guarantees no one will be sleeping on the streets.



The item shop carries Mirrors, so we stock up on those. Yes, it's time to start carrying nine Mirrors with us everywhere.



Finally, we run into the jerk that cursed us.

So it turns out he had a dream that we would be bad news, and because of this, he sealed our magic.

Okay. I can see the logic behind this, but there's just one thing:

Dude. You can strip a guy of his magic powers from miles away.

Why have you not done this to Gariso yet.



Regardless, we have us a quest now: retrieve Moonlight from the suspiciously-named Cave of Silence. You might be able to see the dot representing the town and the dot representing the dungeon both present on the crystal ball above. This is a good thing, since if you don't know where you're going, you'll be in for a very long hike to Gariso's lair. You can go there now, but if you don't have the Moonlight, you're not going to do anything there.



Hearkening back to the Cave of Melenam, the Cave of Silence is a messy maze of rock bridges filled with monsters that are not appreciably easier for your lack of magic.



Take these Flames...



...please. (Ba-dum tshh!)

Here's how this battle plays out: M Water to revive LAVOS. LAVOS tries to use a Vacuum. It fails.



LAVOS dies. M Water to revive LAVOS.



LAVOS tries to use a Vacuum. It fails.



LAVOS dies. One of the Flames runs away.



M Water to revive LAVOS. Win.



So at this point I'm thinking, "There's no way I'm going to single-segment this dungeon."



Down to five M Waters and there's no boss in sight.



Well, that helps, at least.



Any other game would take mercy on you and make this a relatively easy dungeon.



The 7th Saga knows no mercy. Esuna escapes successfully...



...and we chug another M Water. Incidentally, look no further for evidence of the power of the Magic stat. Esuna hasn't died once.



This is why you buy Harps!



And here's our complimentary Sword sword.

This is my clumsy attempt at capping the run away animation, which rotates the screen in a circle. That's right, in 7th Saga, you run away by doing a pirouette. If the attempt fails, the animation pulls back partway through and you fail at pirouette.



The treasure here mostly sucks. Just keep going!



Looks like it's M Water time.



And then, inexplicably, two Manrots. You may remember them as monsters we first encountered near Zellis, just before Olvan joined.

No, these aren't palette swaps. They're just Manrots, the kind that gave us trouble at level 9.

Oh, 7th Saga, you joker.



Dun dun dunnnnnn! The best part is that if we let LAVOS die again and approach the tombstone with Esuna, someone will have re-engraved it with her name. Only one person could have a sense of drama this bad.

"No!"

Yes!



Pison!



Kekeke



How long have you been--



Oh, I couldn't tell.



That makes as much sense as anything.



You may recall that the score is resting at 2-2 right now. Red Pison sent us to the Dark World twice before we took him down.



Last time, he only had the power of general discontent, so this is serious business.

Really, though, this is Pison's least threatening incarnation, and that's saying something if you remember round one.



I mean, he spends turns casting MPCATCHR.



Esuna wastes a B Ice to show that magic is useless here, even if we had it available.



Here's a really bad screenshot of PETRIFY. Mirrors will prevent petrification regardless of who's casting it, but they won't reflect the status onto immune targets. Still, it's a free round for us.



VACUUM is also a free round, even if Esuna didn't dodge it.



A critical hit takes out most of Esuna's health, but that's the worst he's got. Now, if this were his regular attack, he'd be a little scary, but still manageable with two apprentices.



Level up for our troubles, now at 26. Special bonus: Can you guess what level you should be at here according to online walkthroughs? If you guessed 36, you win a prize! There is a decent chance that we will not reach that level ever.



Laughter: the best medicine.

Anyway, despite Pison's OMINOUS parting speech, we have indeed seen the last of him and I don't regret it at all.



I kind of regret this dungeon, though! My resources aren't tapped...



...but they're getting there. There's still a little walk from Pison to the Moonlight.



Yay



...boo. Mutants are still threatening, if you're curious!



So we use an Exigate to get out while the getting's good.

Death Count: 44
Grind Count: 1
Unavailable Apprentices: Kamil, Wilme

We've been dying less than usual, huh? This is partly because I've offscreened more and more deaths as the LP goes on, but mostly because the difficulty has stabilized to a large degree. Yeah, monsters can take us down with one lucky shot, but it's easier to recover from that now, too.

Next: Magic! Gariso! The last rune! Showdown of the century!

Oh, online walkthroughs. Why are you so bad.

You're not reading them right Kalir! You have to be at the level they are at, and also been following them SLAVISHLY for a walkthrough to work.

I mean geez.

Also:



Pison is PLAINLY the best part of the game.

I would totally love it if someone made a lousy flash game that recapped all of The 7th Saga from the perspective of Pison. Detailing exactly how he keeps fighting his way out of hell and changing colors. Also why he matters in any way whatsoever to anything.

Perhaps next time he'll come back as M. Bison and Ryu will Shoryuken through the screen?

Now, let's be fair: everyone seems to think grinding is the secret to success in this game. The LP Archive run levels to 34 by this point in the game; heck, even the TAS grinds on S.Brains for a bit, finishing out the game somewhere around our current level. (This sort of thing isn't uncommon for TAS RPGs, since even if the game can be beaten at a lower level, it's still sometimes faster to make it through the game at a higher level.)

Don't you mean M. Pison?

The day that Pison came back from the Dark World as R. Pison was the most important day of your life. But to him? It was Tuesday.

You get the feeling that even regular old blue Pison had a vacation home in the Dark World.



He just sounds so gosh darn proud of himself.

That's kind of a common thing for RPG walkthroughs, especially anything that gives you actual choices. I remember consulting a walkthrough back during the FFV Lets All Play. Even doing the limited class challenge run I was still far below the suggested levels.

Did I mention I like the enemy sprites in this game? 'Cos I do.

What you can't really appreciate from these screenshots is their animation. Most enemies have an idle animation and they all have attack animations. Some of them have a separate casting animation.

Along the same lines, most enemy apprentices have a short animation as they enter battle. It's like one to three frames, but I love it. Wilme and Esuna have one frame, while Kamil and Valsu are more detailed. Valsu's is my favorite -- subtle but stylish. There's surprising detail in these battle graphics!

P. Diddy's exhibitionist brother, no doubt.

Intermission #8: The Story So Far

We're so close to the Wizard Rune, we can smell it. Let's take a breath and remind ourselves of what we are fighting for.



5000 years ago: SARO battled GORSIA and, using the power of the Runes, defeated him. Everyone is happy, except for the people in Melenam, who die horribly.



100 years ago: Lemele was born. He defeated the demon Gariso using the power of Moonlight. (There's some timeline confusion here -- either Lemele was born 100 years ago or he killed Gariso 100 years ago. It's not clear which is correct -- maybe both?) He became king and ruled a prosperous and peaceful nation.



Five years ago: Lemele wandered the world and gathered seven warriors to train under him as apprentices. You can see this in-game if you wait past the title screen.



Present day: Lemele sent the apprentices out to gather the Runes, promising them great power. Meanwhile, Gariso escaped from the Dark World, which is apparently a real revolving door, and took possession of the Wizard Rune. LAVOS has collected the six remaining Runes; Gariso is all that stands between him and real ultimate power.

See you next update for an extra helping of PLOT!

I'm finally going to know how this game ends. After all these years.

I just wanted to note that when I read this, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, and then had a hell of a time explaining to my wife why it was so funny.

Hi, everyone! This update is a day late because yesterday was my wife's birthday. (Valentine's Day is comparatively unimportant.)

#9: GORFUN

Let's start this update with some exposition! Everyone likes a good story.



Awesome. And in case you didn't catch it the first time:



Yayyy



Gariso lives in a place called Gorfun, which is a funny enough title on its own. Any of you ever read the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar? There's an evil substitute teacher named Mrs. Gorf that transforms kids into apples and that's what "Gorfun" reminds me of.

This amusing-but-not-really anecdote brought to you by a full page of nothing but expository screenshots.