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

More on Siphon bugs:

The spell description says it's supposed to recover MP when used, but it always recovers HP... when it works. If it misses, you actually lose that much HP. This, in Ansa's case, means you die (not to the spell itself, but the monsters beating her to death because her spell backfired).

Speaking of, I'll admit that Explode is very impressive, and the effectiveness of Doom and Petrify is nice, but I'll take any other character over her because I can get almost the same mileage with just a Power spell and a solid weapon.

Other stuff I'll note in this post to keep the thread derailing too hard: Death quotes sorta feel like they're meant to be character specific but they aren't, the potion chest in chapter 1 is infinite but really who cares, haha what the hell Bruce gets Doom as his last spell, and I want to see both a level editor and the ability to fight the other player characters.

You are making me want to resume work on the game, good sir. I hope you're happy with yourself. Another thread might be appropriate at this point, though, yeah.

How about that 7th Saga?

Wow, I never knew about all these later developments. I rented the game a whole bunch as a kid but I don't think I ever managed to get past the forced apprentice fight. Of course, I was the type to grind up to 5 or higher to beat Remus way back in the first dungeon, so all the strategy talk has blown my mind.

While I'm well aware that Gariso's castle was probably supposed to be pronounced gor-foon, I can't help but read it as gor-fun.

I've always pronounced it "gore-fun" and it's never crossed my mind to pronounce it any other way.

Intermission #10: Your Questions Answered

Investigative reporting time! I did a cheat-through of the game last week to bring you answers to those hard-hitting questions, such as:




What happens if you beat Gariso without getting your magic restored?

Well, I've gotta say, I'm a little disappointed by the answer to this, although it's completely understandable from a game design perspective. When you get zapped into the past, your magic is magically restored. Pop! Given how screwed you would be otherwise, this is a good thing.





Is it possible to beat Doros without using the Star?

For a long time, I assumed that everyone called this fight impossible because you had to fight three Dorii at the same time. Turns out that it's not just effectively impossible, it's actually literally impossible. Instead of dealing damage to Doros, you make him disappear during your attack animation. My next thought was, "Well, maybe one of them is a fake." So I tried casting F BIRD for area damage, but sure enough, all three Dorii disappeared. So, no, you can't damage Doros without the Star. If you have some sort of invincibility cheat on when you come to the fight without the Star, then you have just lost the game. Just like A Boy and His Blob and the cola bubble mishap, or Sonic 2 and its pit of despair.





I heard your partner can betray you. Is that true?

It's extremely rare, but it can happen. When you acquire a rune, there's a small chance that your partner will fight you. I've personally had it happen once in all my playthroughs. The chance of it happening may depend on your partner.





What happens if you beat Gariso without the other Runes?

The outcome is the same if you have zero or six Runes. It might not make a ton of sense from a plot perspective, but my take on it was that you had liberated all seven Runes, and that was good enough. The Wizard Rune does exist in the game data, but it's a dummy item. Did they have other plans for it? Maybe. I know I always wondered as a kid what the Wizard Rune would have done if I could've held onto it for more than a couple of seconds.





What are the plot differences between the various apprentices?

In terms of the actual story, your apprentice makes no difference (which makes the ending slightly awkward, but that's getting ahead of ourselves). However, there are several events in the game that differ slightly. We've seen a couple, but here's the complete list:

• If Lux or Esuna is the party leader when you talk to the boy pictured above, he'll ask you to take him to Bonro, where you can take a ship to Pandam. Anyone else gets the Remote Control, a key item used in a nearby dungeon to take a submarine to Dowaine.
• If Olvan is your party leader, you can talk to a man in Bone to get the Key of Brilliance, which lets you open the Tower of Grime from that end.
• If Olvan is in your party, you can talk to his uncle in Pang to get a password ("Monkey has a red bottom"). Thereafter, you can search in a specific spot in the cave of Laosu to open up a secret area with lots of jewels. I tried to get a screenshot of this, but after ten minutes of hunting him down, Olvan challenged me to a battle and I didn't feel like repeating the process.
• Ropesu gives a free ride to Esuna, denies a ride to Wilme and Lejes, and offers everyone else passage for 7000G. Anyone can sneak past the guards for a ride, though.
• Lux gets a special bonus when talking to a certain NPC in pre-disaster Melenam. We'll see this firsthand next update.

I like to pronounce Gorfun with the 'F' in the first syllable... so it's more "GORF-un". Or GORFIN' if you pronounce it fast enough.

Did some say Gorf?

(More Gorf)

Could you please elaborate on this? I'm intensely curious.

Sure. Normally, the boy drowns underwater unless he's in the blob's cola bubble. If you use a GG invincibility code, then the boy stays alive even if the bubble pops -- but since the bubble popped, there's no more blob. Press RESET to continue.

This is the original NES version, of course.

It never occured to me to wonder about this! (Or to the programmers, apparently.) I suppose they limited the possibility of hitting that pretty well--you need the six runes to get on the mecha-glider, and losing them to an apprentice once you've lost your magic is grounds for an immediate reset for all but the most hardcore gamers.

I don't think I've ever seen the differences between apprentices is such a straightforward list before, and it's really...sparse. Kind of upsetting, really, to see all that wasted potential. There's no functional difference between Kamil, Valsu, Lejes and Wilme; Lux and Esuna get screwed early on (by where the boat drops them off) but get a little bonus much later. Olvan was either the creators' favorite character or just the first one they started working on special things for, because he's the only character that gets any significant sidepath.

I am learning all manner of things about this game!

#11: The Epic of Fail



We've arrived in Melenam, where Ropesu's enterprise forges ahead in the name of Capitalism.



The airship guards are as ineffectual as ever. I don't remember if they actually tossed me off the ship, but here we are.

I'd like to mention here that LAVOS pursued the Runes so that he could find out what happened to Melenam and the Tetujin. In a twist of fate, he's the only one of the apprentices whose wish would come true, and ironically, GORSIA is to thank for it.



As we emerge from the airport, a steward helpfully reminds us that we emerged from the airport.



The town is crowded with Tetujin. R2D2 here is in charge of law and order, while generic-brand LAVOS is on litter duty. Make of that what you will. I like to think that every night, just before he closes his eyes, he whispers to himself, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."



A mechanic offers to give LAVOS a tune-up. You'll notice Power is up by 1, as seen in these before/after screenshots:



Those Melenammers sure had a funny way of counting back in the day! He's increased LAVOS's HP and MP by 30 and all other stats by 20. Needless to say, this is a really significant boost. It means that LAVOS is almost on par with his NPC apprentice stats. If we had recruited NPC Lux with some other apprentice, then he would be really, really, ridiculously powerful.

Speaking of really, really, ridiculously powerful, there's a glitch that lets you get this tune-up as many times as you want. It was discovered by the guys who did the TAS on this game. They ultimately decided against using it in the TAS. I haven't looked into it far enough to know if you need frame precision to pull it off, but if you want to cheat your way into high stats, there are easier ways to do it.

And speaking of upgrades for our robot friend, Melenam has a tasteful selection of Tetujin-approved equipment. Krynfist offers a pleasant +15 to our Weapon, while Blck (which I long assumed was "Block" until I later discovered "Brown Coat" Brwn) gives +18 to Defend as well as some helpful but hidden resistances. I cash in my jewels to get both of them, leaving nothing for Valsu.



A house in the southwest corner of the town has an absurdly long staircase that leads to a familiar sight. Flashback time!



Yes, the entire "town of Melenam" we discovered 5000 years in the future is actually someone's basement. Personally, I feel like the color schemes were switched here -- this pale blue looks more run-down than the rusty red of the ruins. But no one consulted me on this.



Our intrepid duo chats up a maid, who explains to us that people are busy doing SCIENCE here. She's also going to Palsu to get married, which is probably unimportant.



Meanwhile, an ardent Tetujin is doing the maid's actual work. When we outsource all of the work to Tetujin, we'll all be jobless.



Further on: foreshadowing! Here's a secret: the engineers are going to win this argument because they're the ones who do the actual development.



The way these guys skirt around the actual thing they're talking about reminds me of polling your units in Tactics Ogre, which gives you weirdly vague clues like "They are okay with the idea" or "They hate the idea and curse your name." Only whereas Tactics Ogre leaves you guessing, these guys will eventually tell us what's up.

He also mentions Palsu, which is almost certainly unimportant, and there's no way we're going to



okay fine we'll go to palsu

The journey is populated by new critters such as this Reaper. This one's no sweat.



Appearing here for the first time is the Dogun, which is 7th Sagese for "we are running out of dumb ways to spell things."



Spirits are here, too, guys! Did I mention that they can kill both of us with one spell?

Death count: 47



Palsu isn't even that far from Melenam, but the high rate of Spirit encounters means you might have to try it several times before it sticks.



Valsu's ultimate equipment is available for sale already (in clear defiance of RPG conventions), but the poor guy won't be seeing most of it. Sorry, chum! Cash is tight.

It's purely coincidental that Palsu rhymes with Valsu.

Haha, this is kind of funny, because -- wait. Wait a minute.



You -- you don't think..?

A-anyway, there are only old people and kids here. That might make you wonder what we're doing here.



We're playing courier, of course.

Now, the smart thing to do is to refrain from using the inn here. That way, when you inevitably run into Spirits on the walk back, you'll respawn in the Melenam inn instead of the Palsu inn.



I didn't actually think of this little trick at the time, so I gain a level instead.



Giving his mom's letter to the homesick man prompts him to offer you a tour of the lab. Feel free to decline, but you'll have to take the tour to progress the plot.



Yes, okay? Yes. His name is Dr. Fail. The jokes about his name have already been made. The only thing I can really add to it is the correct usage of the word "epic" in this update's title.

But go ahead and get it out of your systems. No one will blame you.

Anyway, we have to talk to all of the scientists in order to move on, so let's learn about their marvelous plan that is guaranteed to succeed.



I see nothing wrong with this plan. If it's good enough for Pison, it's good enough for Foma.

Naysayers! This is SCIENCE here. The march of progress will continue unimpeded.



Although it wouldn't hurt you to avoid making statements that set you up to be a case study on the dangers of hubris.



Cool. Here we go.



Dr. Fail, I'm disappointed in you! You're no scientist! You're a fraud.

If you're really not sure whether you can control it afterwards, just install an "off" switch. Or a remote control. Or something.

In fact, you should really do that either way, because



♪♪ Defeated ♪♪

Well, craps. Don't be too hard on yourself, though. There was no way you could have seen this coming.

One more long march down the infinite staircase and...



I know what you're thinking: "Why does draining Melenam's power sources have any effect on the AIRSHIP?" The answer is that it's an electric, which is going to be a real liability here in a minute.

Stepping inside the lab starts our next boss fight:



Foma! This is a really memorable enemy to me for some reason.



Maybe because it attacks with ghosts...



...or maybe it's because it puts up a force field instead of using a dodge animation. (Aside: This is really confusing if you don't know what's going on. It looks like your attacks randomly fail for no discernible reason, when in fact your attacks randomly fail for a discernible reason.)

As shown here, Valsu has a different color for his dodge-shield. This is probably a glitch.



"Your magic's no good here," the giant robot-weapon says.



On the other hand, it can use THUNDER 2 to blastyfry us. This is where Valsu's F SHID spell is extremely handy: it blocks a single attack spell. At 16 MP, it's a bit expensive, but the benefit outweighs the cost, especially because HEAL 3 is a 34-MP spell.



Also because THUNDER 2 can wipe you if you're not careful.

Death count: 48

Here I do another one of those "load the savestate from an hour of playtime ago" things. Hooray



So here's LAVOS's real level up...



...and here's me refusing the lab tour.



Here's Foma dead. Do the buffing thing and keep F SHID up if you're lucky enough to have it.

Valsu is not the only apprentice who learns F SHID. Lejes learns it too; the TAS leans heavily on Lejes's F SHID to survive these later fights. Nobody else learns it, which is a little odd. This is yet another reason why Valsu is great.



Ah, those energy fields. Can't live with 'em, die horribly without 'em, right?



♪♪ A Long Awaited Rest ♪♪

For this cutscene, I want you to pretend that there are no emulator glitches.



The ocean is supposed to be on top of everything.

Our pilot(?), ever the optimist, fails to realize that if we had stayed in Melenam, we'd be dead.



Random Science Guy explains that we're stranded out in the middle of Nowhere, capitol of Plotsville.



And Dr. Fail adds...

You know what? No. This is ridiculous. I can't take this line with a straight face, because there is no sense of the word in which you "avoided making a terrible mistake." You built an evil demon robot that sunk an entire continent, killing who knows how many people. Melenam is dead and buried, and this is all on you. The fact that your robot didn't destroy the entire planet doesn't mean you avoided doing something dumb. It just means you got lucky. If we weren't there, that would have been it for the planet.

I get the feeling I'm forgetting something else here, too.



...I'm sure it'll come back to me if it was important.

Death Count: 48
Grind Count: 1



Next: 7th Saga III: The Search for SARO

(your death count dropped by 3 by the end of the update)

We avoided making a horrible mistake. Thank you.

If I'm remembering the ending right, Olvan sort of gets what he was looking for, too...

Ooh, good call. That may be a pretty generous interpretation, though, and if we're going that route, we may have to include the rest of the apprentices on our list, too.

You made an evil computer powered by evil.

I really do not think anyone should be surprised that it did not end in the best of ways.

They spent millions of man hours building a more powerful villain before everyone involved actually stopped to think 'wait, why are we doing this?'

I don't know; it seems pretty abundantly clear that everyone was thinking that the entire way along.

If it confuses you that the project still finished, you're not familiar enough with the bureaucratic process.

I am, actually. Way back when I worked for ACME the store was being remodeled, and the plans called for the name of the parent company to be embossed on huge signs on the walls. Before they even started, the company was bought out by an entirely different parent company. Then the workers went ahead and finished the signs anyway, because they were contracted to do it. They were taken down and trashed immediately afterward.

Honestly it seems pretty apt.

Intermission #11: Battle in a World of Fading Hope



Here we are. We've reached the last checkpoint, and it's a point of no return for our crew. The AIRSHIP is the last full town in the game, and there's no way to go back to an earlier town. Your shopping needs are filled here or not at all. What does that mean?



Item availability is a real sore spot in these last stages of the game. Potn 3 is the only potion, MHerb 2 is the only mherb, and you can forget about buying any gem that costs less than 5000G. The real thorn in your side, though, is the absence of B Prtct. If you're not using an apprentice that learns DEFENSE1 natively, then there is an excellent chance you'll run out of B Prtct -- and that's assuming you brought a full stock to the past.

Yes, that's right -- no shop in the past sells B Prtct. The good news is that three of the apprentices learn DEFENSE1, giving you a 75% chance to have it if you choose a completely random pair. The bad news is that the four apprentices who don't learn it are big, shiny newbie traps: Lux, Wilme, Lejes, and Kamil. Three of them have "awesome" written all over them, and the fourth is recommended by the manual.

There are four bosses in the past, which means you can use a B Prtct on both party members in each battle with one to spare. As long as nobody dies, that is.

This is the biggest "what were they thinking?" in the entire game, and it's honestly pretty indefensible. You can take cold comfort from the fact that Guard Up "only" halves physical damage, so the Guard that you get from leveling up makes Guard Up status less relevant as you become stronger.



On the equipment front, there's nothing to complain about. Everyone's ultimate equipment can be purchased here, with the exception of the Sword sword for Wilme and the Amulet for Lejes. Both of those are hidden in the present, and neither is a huge upgrade from what you'd have otherwise. (Aside: Lejes really gets screwed on the accessory front. Esuna and Valsu can wear the Brillig Crown, Olvan and Wilme get the Immoral Shield, and Lux and Wilme don't care about accessories.) There's not much available that isn't ultimate equipment, but why would you want that?

You're not likely to be able to afford everything you want here if Wilme isn't one of your party members. Fortunately, the area around the AIRSHIP provides a mostly gentle grinding experience. We've seen our last Spirit. There's really only one monster that gives us trouble here... but that's a story for chapter 12.

#12: The Home Stretch



On our crash landing, we are immediately tasked with our next quest: find SARO! Why did we need to find SARO again?



Because the ship's resident psychic said so. This makes as much sense as anything.



Here's the ship's inn and the cheapest in the entire game. Lack of beds is no deterrent; we've had worse.



A random somebody on the ship drops us this ball of trivia. This is something we could've guessed, but confirmation is always nice, too.



Oh, and no need to worry about the passengers. They're good on their own.



Here's the bread-and-butter bad guy of the late game: the Crab. Ignore the distinct lack of crablike features and you might notice that it does indeed resemble some sort of crustacean. Sort of. It has a moderately powerful attack, a moderately powerful ICE 2, and the ability to PETRIFY. It's kind of an all-arounder, but with nothing special about it, it's pretty much fodder. It provides a decent amount of gold and XP, so although this is the only area you'll find them, you might end up fighting quite a few nonetheless.



Next up is this fellow, a distant relative of the Griffin of whom we are so fond. It really enjoys casting PETRIFY. If you're carrying Mirrors at this point, you'll notice that all of these petrifying enemies are vulnerable to the status themselves, which sort of prescribes a solution for dealing with them. PETRIFY is probably the most common spell: everyone but Lux and Wilme learns it.

Anyway, what's this guy's name? Griffoon or something, I'm sure.



7th Saga, thy ways are unsearchable.



This is a good time to gain a level, right?



There's actually this one last town on our journey, which is populated by these SAROlings and an inn lady. Despite fitting the definition of "town" better than the AIRSHIP, this doesn't meet many of the criteria.



You have the inn and a House of Healing (sans the House -- it shares a room with the inn) and that's it. No shops. Gotta restock? Back to the AIRSHIP.

And just like that, our mission changes from "find SARO" to "save SARO." But what happened? SARO should've beaten GORSIA.



GORSIA leapt forward in time to our era, where he recovered his power and stole the power of the Runes. He returned to the past and cursed the Runes such that SARO could no longer wield them against him. Without that power, SARO was helpless against GORSIA, but he went to face him anyway.

SARO hasn't appeared onscreen and he's already got better character development than a lot of RPG protagonists.



We've got a lead on SARO now, and it's just a short hop from SAROville. This isn't a long dungeon, but it's a tough one -- maybe tougher than the final dungeon (which is Gorfun, in case you missed that).



Scattered around this dungeon are the husks of the Tetujin that were sent to search for SARO.



Our remains are scattered around here also...



I can't make any headway in this dungeon. I offscreened countless deaths here. The only encounter I can win is the lone S.Demon. It's one of the rarer encounters, too -- I see them more often in twos and threes.



Besides that, my resources are running low. Resurrecting Valsu is weighing heavy on my wallet and my item stock is dwindling.

For the second time in this playthrough, it's time to grind.