The Ruler of Time and Space! Let’s Play Final Fantasy Legend 3

There's seems to be some correlation between how horrible a monster design is and whether or not the monster is one of Xagors cronies; Jormader, Buza and Dogra are all disgusting fleshy mounds of teeth and tentacle, while everything else is pretty much just a critter.

Dahak being kind of borderline...

Part #13: All Around the World


So, first things first: I said I’d talk about Shar’s ability to make Lost Magic from the elemental stones. There are ten spells, each a combination of two stones, and there are enough stones in the game to make one copy of every spell. Fire crystals are the rarest; I only had one at this point. So I get everything except Flare, Shake and FireX right now.

Air/Water – Flood (water attack) [Cookie]
Air/Earth – Wind (wind attack) [Cookie]
Air/Fire – FireX (fire attack)
Water/Earth – Cycle (cures status ailments) [Darth]
Earth/Fire – Shake (earth attack) [Cookie]
Earth/Earth – LifeA (revives everyone) [BobSap]
Air/Air – Exit2 (Exit dungeons, zap away enemy group) [Darth]
Water/Fire – LitX (lightning attack) [BobSap]
Water/Water – LifeB (revives everyone with full HP) [Darth]
Fire/Fire – Flare (non-elemental attack)

The remaining three attack spells will probably end up on Cookie, since she won’t be able to use Mystic Sword in the last few battles.


We can fly to most parts of Pureland now, but attempting to go to this continent results in the screen flashing and us getting pushed back.


Pureland has a series of treasure caves, similar to the sunken ships on the home world. They’re all identical and we can reach three now and two more later. The first is here, east of Mt. Hasid.


A nasty new set of monsters awaits us here. Ammonites are resistant to damage, and can use Ink to blind the whole party. (Though, as a note, Mystic Sword automatically cut through oDamage.) Tattlers counter physical attacks with Paraskin (which most of my party is fortunately immune to). 700+ HP is the word of the day. Commandos are weak to Quake, which gives Darth something to do.


BobSap upgrades to a Liz King, a hard-hitting, damage-resistant form of his own. His Jyudo can deal enough damage to OHKO most critters we meet in these caves. Darth upgrades to an SS, which I’m not entirely comfortable with. (Especially since it gives him the badly outdated Punch and Upper talents, and a weakness to Quake.) I opt to switch him into a Virago, which has the moderately more useful Crash, Blitz, Decoy and Remedy.


The first cave gives us an Elixir, a Fire crystal, and a Poison Claw (which takes temporary residence on Darth, who isn’t getting anything useful out of his Drain Sword, until I find something better). I use the Fire crystal to go ahead and get Shake from Shar, which goes to Cookie.

The second cave is east of Porle. (The monsters in the caves are all the same, incidentally.)


It has a Dark crystal, a Light crystal, and a suit of Light Armor, which is some of the best armor in the game. Darth gets it.


The third cave is north of Talonsburg.


It has a Light crystal, the Sun sword (which is good against undead, but isn’t actually useful to any of my characters at this point), and a Cure3 potion.


Also in sights to see: This is where Pureland’s oceans are draining through the Water Entity, into the home world.


With the dungeon-crawling out of the way, we’re got a lot of towns to visit and talking to do. First stop is Zhakal.


Home of the sword in the stone!


This family is a cameo from FFL2—apparently after finding all of the MAGI and saving the world, they ended up in Pureland.


Masa: Don’t bother with the Mystic Sword only a special girl can get it.
Kilroy: She is the one.
Masa: I thought she was taken by Fenrir. You know her?
Kilroy: Yes.
Masa: Come back here if you do indeed get it.


Masa also has a couple of items we can snag.

We’ve got one of those three already!


Townsperson: You’re Kilroy? Dion said you must come to Porle once you get the pass.

If you do the towns out of order, you can end up revisiting them. Since I know what I’m doing, I only need to visit each one once. The sequence here is herding you towards the Underworld, which you can pass through to get to Goht, inside the barrier.


Faye: Okay.


Drawing the Xcalibr is a fairly straightforward affair. I equip it on Kilroy, who’ll make the best use of it at the moment.


Masa: You have Xcalibr? What’ll you do with it?
Kilroy: Teach those that call themselves masters a lesson.
Masa: It’s about time! Take me along, I’ll be of some help with the 4 Mystic Swords.
Kilroy: Then you’re 1 of the Talon’ 4 crew members?
Masa: Correct, I’ll wait outside.



Incidentally, Zhakal has an Inn and an Item shop, but neither is useful to me because I have the Talon.


Our next stop is Cirrus, the city on this mysterious cloud.

Most of the townspeople talk about King Clamin’s love of fine arms and where Masa has gone; a subtle hint to go to Zhakal first and then come back.


This hint ends up being unnecessary—Juba himself will tell you to bring him Oil and Metal, and you won’t find them for a while.


This is interesting when you realize there are plenty of people in Pureland that use human sprites—heck, there are a couple in this town. I think this game’s use of “human” refers to “being from the home world”, which would explain some of the cases where you’re called a human despite being a robot or whatever.


Cirrus has a full set of shops, but the Talon’s crewmembers can do a better job of equipping us for the road ahead. Also, we’re nearly to the point of having the best armor in the game, so it’s silly to waste money on the second-best.


Raiding Clamin’s castle gets us the uLaser, the next step up in Talon armaments, and a useless Calm potion.


Hey, it’s Juba!

Juba: Came here for the Mystic Swords?
Kilroy: No. To ask King Clamin for the Pass to Goht.
Juba: I see. I also want to go to Goht for Metal. Let me join you!


And with that, we have all four crew members.

Kilroy: Yes.
Clamin: Find your way underground. Why Goht?
Kilroy: To stop the invasion of the masters.
Clamin: You're from the other world! I'm from Elan myself.
Kilroy: Then all the more reason to help!
Clamin: You guys have the Xcalibr?
Kilroy: Here it is.
Clamin: That sure is! Here, take this and go to Porle.




Masa and Juba open weapon and armor stores on the Talon. They can also mix Dark and Light stones to make equipment.


The Wall staff is a decent weapon for cyborgs, and casts Stone when used as an item. I buy two and equip Darth with one. In theory, the Ninja boomerang would be great for him, but I don’t have enough Dark stones to make it and also get enough Armlets later on.


Everyone gets Power gloves (the best gloves), and a Bangle to replace their Earrings. Darth gets a Speed Shield (the best shield), and BobSap gets a Samurai Shield. I also get an Armlet, but don’t equip it—it casts Fatal when used as an item, or protects from instant death when equipped.

I actually didn’t know about those properties of the Wall staff and Armlet until I started doing research for this LP. I use them pretty heavily in the next few sections, which means I’m more heavily relying on instant-death than in any other play-through. It kinda breaks the difficulty of random battles.


Our last stop is Porle. It has an unexciting item store.


The townspeople here basically do their best to tell us that we really need to go to the Underworld, but we need to go to the other towns and do stuff first.


But let me see your pass anyway. Alright, you may proceed.


Faye: They saved me…
Dion: Stroke of luck!


Dion: Sorry, but the Mystic Sword and Goht had me under a spell. Thanks for saving Faye.
Kilroy: Now what?
Dion: Faye will wait in Talon with Dr. Quacer. I’m off to Goht for Sol. The only way is to go through this whirlgate.
Kilroy: Let’s go!

This is actually a pretty clever bit of railroading: You need to have Faye in your party to draw Xcalibr, and you really don’t want to miss that. So they force you to draw Xcalibr to get the Pass, before Faye leaves your party and Dion joins again.


Dion is pretty similar to Faye in terms of damage output, but a bit hardier and certainly stronger than he was before. I also grab him a Power Glove from Juba to fill one of his empty equipment slots.


To the underworld we go!

Next time: …the Underworld, maybe?

Is that striped terrain supposed to be ice? Because it reminds me of the damage floors from Dragon Warrior.

If you've played FFMQ, it's hard not to see it as ice, especially in that second image.

I have played FFMQ but my senility made me forget all about it.

Also, I assumed it was ice but it reminded me a lot of the DW damage floors.

Part #14: The Underworld, The Crevasse, The Dwelgs


Welcome to the Underworld! We got fun and games…except not really.


Our first destination in the underworld is the Mushrooms, a group of six mysterious mushroom patches just west of the stairway to Porle. Two of them are tiny and contain healing springs. The others contain items. This area is optional, as are many parts of the Underworld, but the items are worth it.


The new monsters down here have around 750 HP, which some of BobSap’s forms can one-shot and some can’t. Kilroy is up to about 650 damage per hit with the Xcalibr, Dion’s doing around 450. As Darth is doing 250 with Crash and less with his weapon, he uses the Wall staff to cast Stone when he needs to be useful. Cookie is just a StoneGas machine. (Notably, the Naga and Set are immune to petrification, though Set has a weakness to Mystic Swords.)



The treasures include two potions, two Dark crystals (which means another Armlet when I surface), and the Emblem, which is one of the three items I need to get another Mystic Sword.

It’s interesting, actually, that the game puts one Mystic Sword right in front of you and forces you to take a second, but hides the last two across the Underworld in disguised forms. I suppose the sensible explanation is that this is the Masters’ plan: Scatter the only weapons that can hurt them in broken or cursed forms. The metagaming explanation is that you only really need two in order to beat Xagor, but four makes for a nice symmetry and bonus for thoroughness.

Also of note: This may be luck, but I’ve been getting a lot of monster meat drops (which I don’t want to use, because I can’t afford to have Cookie lose StoneGas right now) and cyborg parts drops (which just switch Darth between Virago and SS until he gains a level). I haven’t gotten a robot parts drop in ages, and I’d really love one to upgrade Kilroy a little more.


Our next destination is this cave just north of the mushrooms (if you miss it, you can just keep walking west until you see the staircase again. The Underworld isn’t very large). It leads to the Crevasse.


The black squares (Liquid? Swamp? Spikes?) make the screen flash as if they cause damage, but don’t really reduce my characters’ HP. They’re there to be intimidating. (And I think the tileset dates back to the first Final Fantasy Legend, where it was used for several floors of the Tower.)

Most of these monsters have special attacks that make them dangerous, but most of them can also be taken out in one or two rounds, so I never need to be particularly worried. Full-party elemental attacks (Quake from D. Fossil, Fire2 from EvilMasks, Frost from Specters) are common but entirely manageable.


There are a few items to be found at the top of pillars in the middle of the Crevasse. The Oil is half of a really good shield Juba can assemble.


Darth gains that level I talked about (to level 29, where the next tier of cyborgs becomes available) and I turn him into a Shogun, the next in a long line of identical cyborgs. This one has Remedy in addition to Dispel and Quake. An Iken drops some robot parts, allowing me to upgrade Kilroy into a Hustler, which has Tromp (250 damage), Dash (450 damage), Petrify (Stone!) and Freeze (450 damage); in addition to oDamage. On his next level-up, BobSap turns into an Echidna, the latest in the Medusa line. By the end of this dungeon, I’ve given up on inflicting damage and am just using instant death on everything.


The real treasure haul is, again, in an optional part of the dungeon, available through this weird hole.


This place has all the trappings of “the deepest hole the Masters could find to throw away stuff they never wanted found.” Weird glowing floors, spiked pits, secret passages and a flood of monsters.



We have a few more Dark and Light crystals. The Samurai helm replaces Darth’s Mirror helm. The uE-Ray is the best weapon for the Talon. The “can’t carry” message is perhaps the clearest indication of my opinion of potions in this game you’ll ever see. (You can only carry 9 of a single item type, and I have picked up every Cure3 but never used any.) The Muramas is a Mystic Sword, but it’s cursed and deals back damage to the user when swung.

The Crevasse has a fake exit, though it’s not far from the real one. Like the Underworld itself, the Crevasse loops around and isn’t terribly large.


North of the Crevasse is a town. But it’s not a friendly town.


For one thing, it’s full of random encounters. (Who are easily taken down with Stone effects, mind you.)


Like Muu in the Future of home world, the Dwelgs here will attack you if you talk to them. Dwelgs are immune to Stone, weak to Mystic Swords, and have about 2,500 HP.


The solution is the Morph spell, of course.


Was it really that recently that he became the master of the desert sandstorm, then?


Well, no wonder they attack on sight. We’re delicious. Oh, except that there are no humans in my party and haven’t been for quite some time!


…how on earth would you know that?


The Dwelgs point us towards another optional location full of treasure, and what the gimmick there is.


Kilroy: Humans are going to Goht through the Crevass.
Boss: What! Xagor’ll be most displeased. Stop them now!
Kilroy: But they even got Jorgandr. We need more support.
Boss: Alright, take the guard at the North Stairs.
Kilroy: As you wish.

Kilroy pulls off a ruse to get the Dwelg who guards the North Stairs to move. This is mandatory—there’s no other way past the guy in order to continue the game. Which means you must be able to speak with the Boss, which means you need to have Morph.

Remember a long time ago, when I mentioned missing Morph my first play-through? I panicked the first time I got here—thought I’d screwed myself and made the game unwinnable. But the game designers saved me:


That’s Dion’s spell list. When he rejoins your party before you enter the Underworld, he’s learned Morph. And you can’t get here without him, so you’re guaranteed to have the spell available, even if you never found Granny back in the future.

The Dwelgs have a shopping mall with the best equipment you can buy. BobSap gets Karate, increasing his damage output to 800+. The Defense sword is the best non-Mystic weapon, but there really isn’t much use for it at this point. I start a stock of Nuke bombs, though. Equipment-using characters all get Hermes shoes and Hecate helms. Kilroy gets Light armor, BobSap gets Power armor. I buy White for Darth, Magma for BobSap and Nuke for Cookie, mostly on a whim. There’s no point in buying Fatal since I can use it for free and most things worth the MP are immune to it anyway.


West of the Dwelg town are the Two Towers. This is a short-and-sweet dungeon, as each tower is only four (small) stories high, and there’s a bridge on the third floor that connects them.


The trick, as a helpful Dwelg noted to us, is that the button in the West Tower reverses gravity, effectively doubling the available number of floors to visit. There’s a neat stretching effect to the screen when you flip the towers.


But even with that, it’s basically walking up and down each tower, flipping them, walking up and down them again, then casting Exit because you’re lazy.


Treasures include a Vulkan cannon (which I forgot to screenshot), a Dark crystal, a Fire crystal, and the Crystal that’s the second third of a Mystic Sword. There was also another Cure3 potion that I couldn’t take.


The enemies here are mostly an exercise in “everybody must get stoned”. I didn’t really see what they could do because I didn’t let them act.

We’re reaching the part of the game where there are very few class types per tier. Shogun is actually the only type of cyborg Darth can be until he hits level 31. Likewise, I upgrade Kilroy into a 210mm (6times, Dash, Explode and Selfix – 6times can top 1,000 damage!) and that’s the only form he’ll take for another level. BobSap actually gains a level and stays an Echidna.


Kilroy: Boss said humans are at the Crevass.
Guard: Humans? Great, I’m hungry. See you.


And with that, we’re through! On to Goht!

Next time!

(I have two more posts left, and I aim to get them both up in this coming week. If anyone has any more add-on commentary, now's the time.)

There really is so much stuff in this game to suggest that the plot was totally in the can before anyone thought to throw in the crazy meat/parts stuff.

You really have to wonder, do your characters ever stop to reflect on this stuff? Either the specific crazy things they keep turning themselves into, or the morality of their war on monsterkind with them themselves monsters? At the very least, the fact that anyone you make a beast is basically guaranteed a sex change every 5 minutes or so has to be hard to deal with psychologically.

It's not like it makes a lot of sense in FFL2, either -- your dad plays a large role in the game, and even if your character is a robot or monster, it feels betrayed when it discovers that good ol' Dad fathered a human.

The best way to play FFL2 is to make the main character human and all of the other characters robots, and then pretend that the main character has no friends, so he had to take robot friends along with him.

I wonder if the plot and the system were developed by different teams? I feel like, if the original FLL system of "pick a species and stick with it" was used for this game, and Jupiah just used the same spirite as Arthur no matter what it was, everything would work fine. It's really the fact that characters can shift but everyone still mistakes Arthur for Jupiah that causes problems.

Well, wouldn't you be upset if you were built/adopted/born a horrible mutant and you discovered Dad had a secret fully-human child?

In a different LP, there would be more conversation about such things. But my attempts to write them came off as bad fanfic and weren't entertaining, so I went for mechanics-heavy instead. And for changing BobSap's gender pronouns whenever the situation demanded it.

Part #15: The Barrier Machine

So, we’re in the home stretch! We’ve made it through the Underworld, and inside the barrier that prevents the Talon from reaching the Goht continent.


The inside of the barrier is a frozen continent, if re-using the tileset from Cape Frost is any indication.

The town of Donmac is basically the same design as Porle.


Just in case you’d forgotten what we were doing here during the trek through the underworld.


Do you have the Mystic Sword?




Kilroy: Yes. Found any?
Man: I found Katana.
Kilroy: We need it to defend our world from the Masters.
Man: Okay! Take it!
Kilroy: Thank you! Can I ask who you are?
Dad: People call me Captain. Good luck!


The Katana that Captain Cameo gives us is the third of the items needed to make the last Mystic Sword.

On one hand, it’s weird that they beat me here, especially since they wouldn’t have been able to pass that Dwelg guard at the north stairs. On the other hand, by the end of FFL2, my characters were pretty badass, even without MAGI. The Dwelg I tricked might have replaced an earlier one who got a face full of Seven Sword.


Just in case the nature of this cameo wasn’t heavy-handed enough.


The overworld enemies in this area are nearing the top tier of creature transformations. As usual, there’s a few I recognize.


The only place you can walk to is the Barrier Ruins, to the east of Donmac. You can’t actually get to Mt. Goht on foot and short-circuit the plot. (Which is not surprising; it’s not like event flags haven’t been seriously locked before. I don’t mind straight-line railroad games, but this most certainly is one.)


The ruins are shiny and crystal-like. The multi-level grates also make another appearance. This is a moderately large dungeon, though a fairly straightforward one.


This chest had a Light crystal, which I missed screenshotting.

FireFans are particularly annoying here, because they’re immune to both Stone and Death, they counter physical attacks with Burning, and they Selfix some HP every round. Oh, and they can use Glow to do 130 damage to everybody, or Quake for 120. (I end up running from a bunch of encounters with them.) Most of the other enemies fall to my onslaught of instant death, and though 850+ HP is the new normal, the massive damage from Kilroy’s 6times picks off the stragglers. (Not that they do much that’s threatening in the interim—Viragos waste a lot of time trying to reduce my Magic with Blitz whips, for instance.)


Cookie is upgraded into a Hydra, keeping StoneGas but gaining 4-Heads...which does only 350 damage.


Kilroy: Who are you?
Borgin: I'm Borgin, the one who took you from the future.
Kilroy: You?!
Borgin: I have to go and investigate Mt. Goht. Go destroy the Barrier Machine in here! I'll be back. Good luck!
Kilroy: Hey! Wait!


And he runs off. Useful guy!


Around this time, characters start hitting level 31, and I can upgrade them into their final forms. Darth’s final form is Removed, which has XPowder, 2X-Kick, and Selfix. BobSap’s is the suitably-awesome Anubis, which has StonSkin, Selfix, a selection of other status attacks, and oAll. The downside is that BobSap will swap between this and a less-cool form at every level-up from here on, whereas Darth will never change again.



Other treasures here are a Scarf (in case we needed another one), a Magic potion, and two Dark crystals.


Kilroy: Barrier Machine’s got to go. Take the power of the Mystic Sword!
Agron: Fools…


Kilroy leaps forward and is bounced back.

Agron: Too bad, machine can also protect me from Mystic Sword.
Dion: Then take this!
Kilroy: Dion, what?!
Dion: Doctor put a bomb in me for just such an occasion. Kilroy, take care of Faye!
Kilroy: Stop!!


Dion leaps into the machine, and explosions go everywhere.


Argon: Puny humans, what fools!
Kilroy: How dare you!

Agron got a free hit on me, using White to deal 300 damage to everyone. This was a common attack. He also can use Acid to do 500 damage to one person—and he landed a mighty blow on Darth with it, killing him instantly. He’s also got StoneGas, but that amounts to a free turn for me because everyone’s immune to it. BobSap’s (Fasted) Karate can do 850 damage, but Kilroy’s (Fasted) Xcalibr does 1400+. After a few rounds, I put the Durend on Darth and had him join in, doing 1000 damage per hit. Cookie got put on CureA duty, plus everyone was Selfixing 100 HP per round, so we weren’t in any real danger from the White onslaught. (In the few rounds Cookie got to attack, neither her Talents nor the Shake spell broke 300 damage.) I lost track of Agron’s HP total, but it’s really high.


Kilroy: Dion…
Borgin: Get a hold of yourself! He saved our lives. We must defeat Xagor at Mt. Goht, then go through the giant ocean hole in the Talon.
Kilroy: Right…
Borgin: Ok! Now listen. One of the trap-holes in the castle at Mt. Goht leads to Xagor. Let's go!


And here we get our final 5th member, and the final Unit of the Talon. Soar allows us to fly over mountains.


Borgin’s a pretty decent upgrade from poor Dion. He’s a mutant, so he lacks the bonus to weapon attacks but gets a bonus to attack magic, and he’s got a decent selection of that. He also has some holes in his equipment list I’ll have Juba fill.


Remember when I commented about BobSap’s less-cool form? After the battle, the level-up turns him into an Aeshma, which has W-Attack, oThunder and oMute. That’s all.

Cast Exit to get out, use the Remote to call the Talon, stay in the Berth, and then we’ve got shopping to do.

Masa: Let me uncurse your Muramas.



Masa: Let me make a Mystic Sword with your three treasures.


Masa gives us the last two Mystic swords, since we have all the pieces. Darth gets the Masmune right away. BobSap will stick with Karate for random battles, but gets the Emperor for boss battles.

While I’m here, I buy Armlets to replace everyone’s Bangles, and Borgin gets a Power glove.


There are two more treasure caves. The first is just west of Mt. Goht. The monsters here are the same as the overworld enemies on the Goht continent.


It contains a Fire crystal, a Dark crystal, and the Metal.

The second cave is north of there.


It contains a Fire crystal, a Light crystal, and a Ribbon. As is standard, the Ribbon is the best accessory and protects from all status changes. It goes on Darth, as he gets the best bonus from it and he’s also still my primary healer.


The Aegis shield is one of the best shields, and protects from Petrification. I give it to Kilroy.

I end up using my last two Light crystals and one Dark crystal to make a pair of Speed boots for Borgin. I mix up the remainder of the Fire and Air crystals into Flare and FireX, both of which go to Cookie. I also buy CureB for BobSap and Cookie, since I can afford it now. I stop in Porle and buy 5 Speed capsules for Kilroy, maxing his Agility. I stop in Cirrus and buy a Samurai helm and Samurai shield for Borgin, so all of his equipment slots are filled.


Here’s a look at the party before I head into the final dungeon. Two out of four characters in top-level forms, and we have almost all of the best equipment and all of the best magic.

Next time: We save the world.

Righteous.

\m/ *bangs head*

I'd link the final boss music to this, but it'd be spoilery. But yeah, the soundtrack for this game is crazy for a GB game, as it's got Ryuji Sasai, Uematsu and one other guy who isn't as famous doing the composition work for it. Sasai did the combat themes amongst other stuff.

I mean, hell, the regular boss theme to LIII is menacing as hell.

EDIT: Or hell, the goddamned Talon theme.

Part #16: The Final Ascent of Mt. Goht

And so it begins. Time to climb Mt. Goht and put an end to Xagor’s plans for good.


Mt. Goht looks complicated, with a lot of different levels and ladders connecting them, but it’s actually pretty much a straight line. A straight line devoid of treasure, at that. It has a bunch of the poison/spike/swamp/whatever spots we saw in the Crevasse.


The top tiers of monsters are out in force. Including the still-annoying FireFans.


At my first chance, BobSap turns back into an Anubis. I’ll probably have to do that a few times. Kilroy takes his final form, Venus. Talents include Laser (300 damage), Soften (attack down), Drop (550 damage), Dance (900+ damage), Drain (200 damage and restore some HP), Selfix, Counter and oChange (protection from all elements).


Contrary to appearances, this is not a healing pool at a dead end.


Kilroy: What’s…?
Borgin: Watch out! Come this way!


We dash down to safety.


The Talon dive-bombs the crap out of the Cliffside, opening a new path.


Borgin: Yeah, it's a new ship. I didn't want to tell you this, but your father’s brain made it possible.
Kilroy: ! My dad?!
Borgin: We're all risking our lives for the Future, let's go!

If you hadn’t put it together by this point: Jupiah, the third member of the advance team who the Masters keep mistaking Kilroy for, is his father. And Jupiah’s brain is running the Talon2.


Cookie’s final form is the Garuda (though she has the option of turning into the inferior Sei-Ryu, as well). Her Talent list includes 2-Swords (400 damage), Tail (150 damage), Dive (300 damage), X-Gaze (instant death), oStone and oChange (protection from all elements).


The second area of the mountain at least has a few dead ends to wander into, but it’s still short and devoid to treasure. There are also a few real healing fountains.


At the top is our destination: Xagor’s Castle.

This place has a disturbingly organic feel to it.


The nastiest creatures in the game are all out in force, and many of them are immune to Stone (Venus, Garuda), Death (Shogun), or both (FireFan). The Anubis is immune to everything, but weak to Mystic Swords. (A nice advantage to having these creature types in my party is that I know which immunities they have!)


A side-path at the very beginning leads to a Light crystal, which really isn’t useful anymore.


The second floor has a maze of holes. The goal will be to fall through one of them to reach a small “island” on the first floor.


This button is the key to that. It moves the holes.


Each configuration of holes allows me to reach one Ribbon. These go on Kilroy and BobSap.


This set of stairs is a fakeout—it would lead to an Elixir I’m never going to need, and a closed-off area of the top floor. What I need to do is jump into the big hole south of them.


Which leads to this whirlgate.


The whirlgate drops you in the basement, which is full of these black electric fields. They can all be jumped over, but they don’t seem to deal significant damage if you don’t.


The final Ribbon is down here, which means you’ll end up with a total of four. Unfortunately, Cookie can’t use it, so she remains vulnerable to status effects through the end of the game.


Blocking your exit from the basement (unless you take the back door via an earlier staircase) is this guy.


Balor: Xagor? You fools, Xagor is the very ocean you see everyday! Only a part of him is here.
Kilroy: What?!
Balor: Xagor’s probably done merging with Sol at the top floor by now.
Kilroy: Merging!
Balor: Xagor will have Sol's powers! You fools are finished!

Ballor’s opening volley is to use Nuke to deal 480 damage to everyone. He can also use Tail or Beam to do 600+ to a single target. He’s also got Dk-Virus, which inflicts multiple status effects (including Blind, Confuse, Mute and Paralyze) on the entire party—which necessitated a round of healing Cookie and Borgin. After my usual round of Fast, Kilroy with the Xcalibr is doing 1450, Darth with the Masmune is doing 1050, and BobSap with the Emperor is doing 900. Cookie is on healing duty, and Borgin is trying to keep himself alive (and occasionally doing 600 damage with his White spell). Again, I lost track of his HP, but it’s pretty damn high.

(As a note, his name is indeed spelled differently in the dialogue and the battle box.)


Balor: Ha, heh, Xagor is now invincible. You're already too late…




A small hidden passage just after Balor leads to a Nuke bomb.


Then it’s a straight path to the top floor. Here’s a look at my party going into the final confrontation.


Sol: I’ll hold Xagor’s soul for you. Do it now!
Kilroy: But you...
Sol: You must hurry. I won't be able to hold him for long.
Kilroy: ... Okay. Now!


At the top floor we finally find Sol. But Xagor is already merging with him, so he implores us to kill them both while we have the chance. You get a bunch of free rounds to buff up and pound on him without retaliation. I put Fast on Kilroy, Darth and BobSap and have Borgin cast Shell on everyone. Kilroy with the Xcalibr is doing nearly 1700, Darth with the Masmune is doing 1300, and BobSap with the Emperor is doing 1100. Cookie’s 2-Swords, her best attack, does about 450 damage during this stage.


Sol: More! You must get rid of him before he wakes!

After a couple of rounds, Sol will implore you to hurry.


Xagor: Now that Sol is gone I will rule this world!

Then we get a cool merging animation, and the battle begins for real. Xagor takes less damage from attacks than Sol did, more in-line with what Balor was taking. He uses Barrier, which gives him oDamage, protecting him from non-magic, non-Mystic Sword attacks. He attacks the entire party with Lit X (500 damage to everyone, but only 200 to Kilroy and Cookie, who are resistant), Magma (150 damage to the non-resistant, 65 damage to the resistant), and Flare (600 damage to everyone). He can also use Magma as a single-character attack, dealing around 600 damage. His nastiest single-target attack is Dk-Force, which does about 950 damage.


After two rounds, the Talon shows up and starts hitting Xagor with E-Ray for about 550 damage per round.


After you’ve dealt enough damage, Xagor becomes even more horrifying. By this point, I’ve already had a bunch of rounds of scrambling to heal, with Kilroy the only constant attacker. Cookie did a fantastic job pouring out the Life and CureB spells. Borgin mostly cast White (whenever he was alive). And I had meant to throw some Nuke bombs, but never got the chance.


Xagor, being the final boss, gets a custom death animation.

Sol: It’s me, Sol. Xagor is gone, thanks to you. I will soon fade, but I shall stop the Entity with my last breath. Hurry back to your own world through the hole in the ocean.
Kilroy: What about you?


Sol: This land and I are no longer needed. Thanks to you people, I can go soundly to sleep. Go!
Kilroy: …OK, let’s go!

I think Sol’s line there is badly translated—the implication should be that the people of home world have come into their own and he and Pureland no longer need to influence their world, so the connections will be broken. What it actually comes across as is that Pureland (and all of its peaceful inhabitants) are vanishing because he’s a big whiny bastard and doesn’t think they’re necessary anymore.


The Talon picks up the party, and they fly through the hole in the sea.


Borgin: Yeah. Hey, look up!


The Water Entity vanishes, and the Talon explodes.

(Oh, and Kilroy is mysteriously human again!)


Borgin: That was close.
Cookie: Monsters can’t appear now.
Kilroy: We’ve saved every generation that ever lived. What a cost!
Borgin: Alright, let’s go to Viper for now. Float!


If you had checked Borgin’s spell list when he was in your party, you’d have noticed he has Float. I suppose this is for logical consistency, given that your characters could have thrown Float away when you reached Pureland.




Kilroy: Well…
Borgin: Doctor! You can restore them with just a tissue cell, can’t you?
Belski: Of course.
Borgin: OK then here is some tissue from Dion and Jupiah.


Dion: Hey don’t bother with the bomb this time. I said stop it!
Belski: OK, stay put.


Kilroy: Back to Present.
Dion: Really…
Kilroy: We’ll meet again.


Kilroy: Doctor, is dad, umm I mean, Jupiah alright?
Belski: Sure, he’s in the back room.
Kilroy: Thanks!


Jupiah: Thank you. May I have the honor of knowing who saved our world?
Kilroy: I’m Kilroy.
Jupiah: That’s a good name. I think I’ll name my son that.
Kilroy: Please do!


Kilroy: I'll need to ask you for a favor.
Quacer: What is it?
Kilroy: Make us a time-machine. You can do it.
Quacer: Maybe I can!

Kilroy: Be happy with Dion, OK?
Faye: Thanks.
Kilroy: See you!


Borgin: Kilroy! Why don’t you stay here until the time-machine is done?
Kilroy: I’d like to, but –I- will be born soon! I’ll stay with Myron instead.
Borgin: OK. I’m proud of what you’ve become.
Kilroy: I’m glad you gave us the chance. We must be going now.


Kilroy: Myron! Put us up for a while?
Myron: Sure, I knew you would come. I want to show you something. Come.


Myron: Simulator2! It's harder than No. 1, want to try?
Kilroy: Here we go!!

Regarding characters and classes:


As I predicted at the beginning, BobSap the Beast was my MVP. He was consistently either my hardest or second-hardest hitter, he had the earliest access to Stone via Talents, he had a reliably high MP score for healing. I suspect that two humans and two beasts is the easiest way to play this game. And while losing a useful form every level-up can be annoying, it also means that your beast is steadily increasing in power, where other classes can stagnate if you go some time without the right meat or parts dropping.


Kilroy the Robot was next in line. He actually became badass much earlier than I expected, as I had forgotten how high the early-game gold drops are. His biggest drawback was that the stat caps are actually relatively low (if that 99 cap was a 255 cap, he would have broken the game in half solo before I even got to Pureland), and that damage-dealing Talents (even with the Robot bonus) lag behind weapons for certain stretches of the game, mostly in Pureland. The lack of magic didn’t really hurt him, though it would have massively challenged an all-robot party.


I had expected a better showing from Darth the Cyborg. The fact that you can’t mix-and-match equipment like you can in the other FFL games (so you can only ever give him one weapon, one shield, etc) and he doesn’t get a bonus with any equipment type means that his ability to deal damage is constantly lagging behind. The TearGas trick was the only point where he was dealing top-tier damage, and that lasted a very short time. Also, the selection of cyborg types is much more limited than beasts (so he’s boringly similar most of the time you upgrade him) and they have relatively few useful Talents. His biggest benefit was that he typically had plenty of MP and a high Agility (and was fairly durable), so he made a good healer in boss battles.


Cookie Monster was my consistently weakest character. By the tail end of the game she redeemed herself in random battles as an instant-death machine, but she always lagged in her ability to deal or take damage. The reason my party of four characters was able to take on many larger monster groups of the same “level” was because of equipment, but Monsters don’t get that benefit and are just identical to the monsters I’m fighting. Monster Talents don’t deal damage anywhere near the levels that some other abilities do, especially since, like Cyborgs, Monsters don’t get bonuses to anything. They also can’t benefit from status or elemental resistances from equipment (and often have innate weaknesses). Locking the monsters to levels (as opposed to letting you get any monster at any time if you knew how to abuse the system in the first two FFL games) means there’s a lower limit to their strength, but also a hard upper limit. I’m not sure a four-monster party would actually be possible for some boss battles, because they would lack certain resistances (one of the top-tier monsters should really have oAll) and couldn’t use the Mystic Swords.



Regarding the game system:

There really isn’t enough variety to the system. I realize that’s ridiculous given the fact you can have any enemy in your party and there’s a glut of items and magic, but 90% of it isn’t useful. There’s always a top-choice weapon from every selection, and no benefit to specializing in a different weapon type. The one-use bombs and artillery are useless because of their high cost for each single shot. There’s very little opportunity to capitalize on elemental weaknesses. There’s no point in using most status effects, and the debuffs don’t seem to have any effect. (Fast, the one useful buff, is only useful for killing bosses slightly faster.)

No-cost Stone and Death effects snap the difficulty of random battles like a twig, and they’re plentiful in the second half of the game (both via Talents and item effects). And most of the late-game bosses (basically everything after Guha) are strong to everything except Mystic Swords, so attacking and healing is the only viable strategy.

The classes aren’t particularly well-balanced against each other, as noted above, and there are deserts of certain types of meat or parts drops in segments of the game. I think the game would be better suited if you could assign classes to each character (say, in the Talon) and then upgrade them with any kind of drop.



Regarding the nature of time travel:

The game isn’t quite sure about how time travel works—like Doctor Who, it’s a bit more of a Timey-Whimey thing. The two major theories of time travel that come into play here are: 1. You can change history by travelling through time and 2. You can’t change history, because you already did, and you’re just doing what was already done. This game tries to have it both ways. The Elder met people in the past collecting units, because the characters met him in the past when they were collecting units. But the Ifram Tree doesn’t exist in the Present and Future unless you plant it in the Past, and Myron claims that killing monsters in the Past and Present apparently makes the Future marginally better. I’m going to try to make sense of all of this: I think the timeline was actually changed exactly once.

In trying to figure out the timeline of events, let’s define several time periods: The Past (Year 0), The Present (Year 15), The Future (Year 30), The Far Future (Year 35, at least, probably later)

Original timeline: The Water Entity appears (0), the world floods and is overcome by monsters. Faye and Dion are born (Year 10-ish). Technology is hastily constructed to prevent the disaster, but they can only get the Talon to an easily-broken prototype stage. The far future is destroyed by the water and monsters (including the four Water Entity masters), so Borgin jumps in a prototype Talon and goes back to the Past. (Ideally, he’d want to go back much further so people could prepare more, but hey, prototype.)

Alternate timeline: The Water Entity appears, and Borgin crashes the Talon north of the future site of Dharm, causing the Units to scatter all over the world. (Year 0) He finds the Elder, who’s searching for high ground to build a town on, and he drops off Arthur, Curtis and Gloria. Presumably at this time he fills a small group of people in what happened, gives them all the notes on future technology he could carry then goes to the Future (Year 30), the time period in which most of the game occurs.

The party emerges from the Talon Palace not long after it’s constructed, meet the Elder, compare notes with Chronos and Granny, rescue Lara, and kill Dogra. The Elder builds Dharm, raises the children and generally lies low. Fifteen years passes, during which time the monsters begin collecting Units, because they know Arthur and company are seeking them. (In the original timeline, Granny dies failing to save Lara. In the alternate timeline, Granny survives because the party rescues Lara, but they take her to the Present directly, rather than her living through the intervening time.)

In the Present, the party leaves for their journey, returns from the Past with Lara, defeats Ashura and Chaos, then vanishes to the future. More time passes. Technology is developed at a much faster pace because of Borgin’s notes. Waters rise, Dharm’s people are moved to New Dharm, and Viper is built. The Elder dies. Faye is kidnapped by monsters and taken to the Pureland.

In the Future, Borgin arrives via the now-broken Talon Palace. He immediately finds his friends and has them build the Talon2, because the kids (Arthur, Curtis, Gloria) aren’t there and he needs to enact Plan B. Borgin, Jupiah, Quacer and the four crew members leave for Pureland. Arthur and company arrive. They concoct a plan to finish fixing the Talon and free it from the Palace, go to Floatland and kill Maitreya, then go to the Pureland. They return when the Water Entity is destroyed some time later, bringing back Jupiah with the rest of the Talon2 crew. Jupiah meets a girl, gets married, and fathers Arthur.

Then we get stuck at the issue of “What happens next?” The future has been saved, so there’s no reason to send the kids or the Talon back to the Past, but without doing so there’s a paradox. This we need to resolve by establishing that the original timeline was a separate universe that Borgin crossed over from, rather than overwriting. (Though this creates the question of why there aren’t two Borgins.)

Because Borgin’s original journey was the only one taken in the Talon before it was properly rebuilt, there’s an excuse for it being the only journey that actually “changed” history, as opposed to all of the others with seemed to be predestined.

A major question is where the heck younger Borgin, Quacer, Pulcer, Jupiah and the four Talon crew members are during the Past and Present. I suspect the best answer is that there are “other towns” in this world that just don’t appear on the world map because the characters never need to go there. This also gives the four characters a place to go if they return to the Present after the events in Pureland, because otherwise their older selves would be there when they arrived in the Future. An alternate theory, of course, is that the four characters return to the Present, then become the four Talon crew members when they reach the future via “the slow path”.



Regarding the world:

What is the relationship between the Pureland and the known world? The townspeople seem to think Sol is a creator god, who came from Pureland and had been sleeping in the home world.

My best guess to the mythology here is that the Pureland is part of a “greater world” populated by gods and monsters. This may be the same world that the Creator from FFL came from (given that he demonstrated similar powers), and might be connected to the world FFL2 takes place in (given the cameo appearance, and the implications that Isis and her kin created the Pillars that hold that world together). Sol decided to use his powers to create a “lesser world” of humans, which is the home world, and then he slept to see how it would grow. Xagor took over the Pureland in Sol’s absence, and became jealous that the home world existed outside of his control, so he created the Water Entity to conquer it as well.

You can come away with the interpretation that Sol and Xagor’s continued existence was necessary for Pureland to exist, but I don’t particularly like that, as noted in my comments about Sol’s final lines. I think he’s just happy that his creation can exist without him or his influence.



Regarding this LP:

I think I had lost track, at the beginning, of how much I knew about this 20-year-old game that other people might not. I certainly discovered a bunch of new facets of it for myself, which was awesome. But it definitely took me a few updates to hit my stride, and I hope I didn’t lose potential readers early on because of my attitude.



Thank you to the readers, and that you to the folks who offered advice, and generally thank you to all of the denizens of Talking Time for making this an awesome forum.

Obligatory trailer post for final boss theme (this only starts when Xagor shows up).