The island suddenly appeared in the sky. Let's Play Lufia & the Fortress of Doom!

Mystic Quest is quite a bit better in pretty much every regard than it gets a reputation for being.

Current Vote Tally:

Doom Castle 2

Mogri
WormRider

Fortress of Doom 5

Destil
gahitsu
PrivateJoker
Gerad
Raven

It really does!

It really is! I was considering doing it for my next LP, keeping with the theme of under-appreciated SNES RPGs. It looks like there's already one in the LP archive though.

Yeah, it was one of the first ones we did. I started it off as some kinda jokey narrative deal because aside from the soundtrack I have a bit of contempt for it, but that's because it's absolutely toothless. Someone picked it up after I got bored with it and finished it.

Yes. It's also not as easy as everyone will tell you. It would probably even be above average difficulty in the series except that you can save anywhere and retry any battle you fail. I guarantee you'll get more game overs in FFMQ than in a typical game of FF6.

Fortress of Doom is the better song, though Doom Castle would be great in a game that had dynamic music since it shifts tones so often.

Mystic Quest was the first SNES FF that I played, so I have a bit of fondness for it, and I like the puzzle-esque elements it added. I really need to go back and give it a shot to see how it holds up.

I wouldn't say "toothless," it's definitely a game for newcomers to the genre though, meant to teach them the ropes.

Which was fine for me, since it was my first RPG! Lufia was my second, and while it's not a hard game by any means, you can imagine nine year-old Solitayre having a lot of trouble with it compared to FFMQ.

Of course, Lufia had a much better narrative than FFMQ's. Even being charitable to Mystic Quest, you can't say it had much of a narrative. But you could say MQ is the game that taught me to play RPGs, Lufia is the game that taught me to love them.

Anyway, even people who despise FFMQ agree that its soundtrack is one of the best of its time.

So it looks like Fortress of Doom won by a pretty wide margin, which honestly surprises me. Maybe I underestimated the home field advantage.

Sorry this update took so long.



Field

Chapter 9: Alumina

Last time, Medi and friends confronted the Sinistrals of Destruction and Terror Chaos. It was a pitched battle, but in the end, only one side could be victorious.

And it sure as hell wasn't us!

Medi has come a long way since Sheran, but at the end of the day, the Sinistrals are still gods and defeating them in combat is no small task. Without the Dual Blade, there isn't much hope.

Our only hope now is to find Brant in the city of Linze, and hope he can point us in the direction of some shiny Alumina to fix the Falcon with. Then we can dive beneath the ocean, find the Fortress of Doom and recover Maxim's sword from the ruins.

But we better hurry. If the other two Sinistrals come back to life before we find it, we'll be deep in something alright, and it isn't the ocean.



Linze isn't too far from the Tower of Light, completely encircled by mountains so there's no other way to get here. Kind of makes you wonder why anyone would build a city here in a place so completely isolated from the rest of the world. And then block off the only way in with a spooky haunted tower.

The people of Estpolis are weird.

Who keeps building all these towers, anyway? Well, in ancient times, people built towers to be nearer to the gods. For example, the famed Tower of Babel. The Aztecs built tall pyramids and offered their sacrifices to their gods at the top. It's a common theme in many religious mythologies. I assume then, that many of the towers that dot Estpolis' continents were constructed as places to worship the gods.

There seems to be some evidence to support this in the games; the Follower and the Guardian were both attempting to revive Amon at the top of a tower. And the Sinistrals themselves often hang out in towers in Lufia II & III. And three particular towers in Lufia II are specifically said to have great spiritual significance. So, my conclusion is towers such as the Tower of Light were built as places of worship, and they are now filled with monsters and lever puzzles because the gods of Estpolis are all pricks.


Town

Linze is the most unique-looking town in the game, since it eschews the “yellow brick road” we've seen in every other city. Honestly, you don't really notice how samey and uniform all the towns look until you see one that looks different.

Looks like the spend a lot of money on landscaping, too.



Here we find out that the town makes its money mining Alumina from the nearby Gayas Island. Brant went there to go find some, so we'll need to go track him down. Maybe we'll pick up some Alumina on the way.

Let's see what the local all-knowing old man has to say.



Huh...okay, that's fairly ominous.



Map designers in old games sometimes had to use some pretty degenerate tricks to keep the party on track. Linze is surrounded by mountains so you can't sail here.



The way to Gayas Island is through a tunnel here in town, so at least we don't have to go far.





Brant is supposed to be a pro at finding Alumina, so I'm not sure why this guy thinks he'd be having problems.



Dragon Eggs: 6/8




Gayas Island is one of four islands in the game that contain Alumina. There's only one feature on the island, a giant cave, so that must be where Brant went. Gayas island has some new monsters, including this cool looking Land Worm, but it's nothing we can't handle.

Cave

Gayas Cave is large and full of toxic marshes and pit falls. Apparently there was once a lot of Alumina in these caves, but its hard to find these days.



Still lots of other treasure to find, though! Let's take a look! That staircase up in the corner looks important.



Uhhhh... Dragon Eggs: 7/8

I'm not sure what possessed the designer to put two Dragon Eggs in practically consecutive treasure chests. Two possibilities:

1. The designers were unaware of how these two areas would fit together. (Literally within a minute or so of each other.)
2. The designers realized the Dragon Egg Shrine was coming up so started dropping Eggs every which where to make sure all 8 were available.

Sadly, the magical wish-granting dragon of Estpolis requires eight magical tokens, not seven, so we still have one more to find. The last egg isn't far off, though.


Battle

WereFrogs might be the most dangerous standard monster we've ever encountered, with their tendency to spam the Flood spell over and over. One unique thing about this game is we started off already knowing what all the top tier magic was, so we can accurately recognize that we're approaching the end game when monsters start throwing it at us.



Dropping through a hole in the floor can help us reach this toxic marsh, and the stairway leads to the important-looking treasure staircase we saw earlier.



It leads to out very first Alumina! Joy!

Alumina: 1/7

We're going to be collecting a lot of stuff in this update.



After you find the Alumina, however, you may find that Gayas Cave just kind of loops in a circle.



The trick is to hit this switch, which changes the target of the warp tile we already passed. This will allow us to proceed by stepping on it.





Medi and Lufia both gained spells while down here. Medi picks up “Dread,” which is a multi-targetting version of Drain. Lufia gets the Perish spell, which can instantly kill opponents.

Unlike most games, the Perish spell actually has pretty good odds of working, and has a very low MP cost. But really, you can guarantee death with a lot of Lufia's spells, so you're generally better off just nuking everything. With Blast magic available, I'm not sure what appeal death magic would ever have to her.



Kabooms!



These sabrespooks are pretty damn cool-looking, I must say.



The Alumina is pretty early in the cave, but we'll need to go deeper to find Brant.

At the bottom of the cave, we finally find Brant!



Are you %^*&ing with me?

The game is officially just trolling us at this point.

I mean, there's not even any good reason for Clack to be here. The hell does this cave have to do with Doom Island anyway?



But all nonsense aside, Clack is the only person alive who's a bigger Doom Island nerd than Medi, and he's definitely one of the most helpful NPCs in the game. Let's see what he knows.



Since he's a Doom Island specialist, we'll ask about that first.



You can hear about where Doom Island crashed from random townspeople, but Clack is the first plot-relevant NPC who tells you where it is. Useful if you didn't know yet.



You may remember a few NPCs commenting that something had been disturbing the sea lately. It seems Doom Island itself was the cause of the disturbance.



Well...that's not good at all. With the Sinistrals coming back to life, Doom Island itself is also starting to revive. Stands to reason it will probably awaken when all four Sinistrals return.

Luckily, only two have come back to life, so we should have no problem getting to Doom Island before it rises into the sky and takes the Dual Blade beyond our reach.

We should probably hurry though.



Asking about the Dual Blade prompts Clack to discuss the Fortress of Doom a little bit.



Asking about Alumina gives a hint that there is indeed a piece in this cave, if you haven't found it yet. He also mentions the Fargo Islands, which are the best place to find it.





Finally, asking about Brant, the reason we're here in the first place, will prompt Clack to reveal that he and Brant are friends and he knows where Brant went.



Spoilers: Brant is not in Marse.



Clack gives us directions to Marse. In addition to sailing from Bakku, you can also reach it via the cave I showed briefly in the previous update.

The Fargo Islands, north of Marse, which is where we need to go to find the remaining six pieces of Alumina we need. So we'll have to go to Marse anyway. So, Brant not being here is kind of a moot point in the end. We got a piece of Alumina from this cave, and had an interesting chat with Clack, so it's not a total loss.

But the game is about to make this trip even more worth it.

A pertinent question, considering he just spilled the beans about Brant's secret liaisons in Marse to a complete stranger for no real reason.



Of course, betraying your friends' secrets is totally justified if world-saving is involved. S'all good.



Oh?





Even though the game teased us about the whole Brant thing, it makes up for it by giving us one of the best rings in the game here.

Since this ring was on Maxim's person when he died, how it came to be in Clack's possession is a mystery perhaps better left unsolved.



You have to figure this is a pretty huge moment for Clack. No doubt he had a hard time getting his research funded, the poor dude lives in a cave. But he scraped by, and he found a powerful artifact used by one of the world's greatest heroes to defeat a powerful evil, only to pass it on to that hero's descendant on the eve of his battle against that same evil. That's a pretty cool role to play for a relatively unimportant NPC.

I always liked Clack and it's a shame we'll never see him again.



Before we depart, he gives us a heartfelt speech, letting us know that he's pulling for us. Aww...



Anyway, as befitting Maxim's own personal accessory, the Wave Ring kicks seventeen kinds of ass and Medi will be wearing this for the rest of the game. You could make the argument that there are better rings for Medi, but I always keep him with this one for sentimental reasons.

I was really disappointed that this ring didn't appear in Lufia II.



I caught a screen of this on the way out. WereFrogs drop Great Potions, if you should feel inclined to farm them. I didn't because I'm not insane.


Sailing

Time to set sail for Marse!



Along the way, Jerin learns the Blizzard spell, the mid-tier Ice spell. I've been pretty hard on Ice magic, but honestly there just aren't many uses for it! I won't be using this spell much, if at all. I mean, if anyone knows a place where Ice magic is actually useful, let me know, but it just pales to fire magic.



Anyway, skirting the coast of the southwestern continent on the way to Marse, we pass a small shrine in the desert. We'll visit it later.



For now, Marse.

Port

Marse is a pretty interesting town, as it's located on a chain of islands connected by a series of underground tunnels. It seems they saved all the interesting town designs for the very end of the game...but I guess that makes sense, since the map designers would be better at making maps the later into the development cycle you get. It's things like this you learn if you've been in amateur game design as long as I have. I bet anything the designers wanted to go back and “fix up” some of the older towns to make them better, and it took the firm hand of a manager to say “just keep going forward.” This is always the right decision.



Anyway, seems tourism is one of Marse's big industries, since they have a thriving cruise ship business that explores the tropical Forgo Islands!



Unfortunately, the cruise ships have attracted a gang of pirates to take up residence on one of the islands! I hope there's no Alumina there.

...You just know there's going to be Alumina there.



That's pretty strange, considering Raile doesn't live anywhere near here. But given his tendency for yanking people around, it wouldn't surprise me if he just didn't keep his address updated.



Marse doesn't have anything in the way of new equipment but these Silver Wrists for the girls. These are a nice upgrade since they're still using stuff from back in Belgen.



And this young lady has a cool sailor boyfriend who likes to tell her sto- oh. Ohhhhhhh. That's harsh.



Here in Marse's cathedral ,we come upon Brant's fiancée. As expected, Brant is off searching for Alumina on Loire Island. The islands are not labeled in particular way, so I remember as a kid having an incredibly hard time keeping track of which was which.



Fortunately, we can take a cruise to tour the islands, providing us with a handy way to identify them!


Sailing



The best way to remember is just to know that Elba is the island immediately north of Marse. Ulupp is the only one south of Marse, and Loire is to the east. As we saw on the tour, there's a ship parked at one of the islands, signaling Brant's presence. His bride-to-be indicated Brant was on Loire, so we know which one that is.

Aisen Island has a tower on it, but we can ignore it for now. And we already cleared Gayas Island, which is only accessible from Linze anyway.

Since Brant is on Loire, we'll check Loire Island first.


Cave

Loire is for the most part a pretty straightforward cave without any gimmicks or tricks.



The usual pile of treasure is to be found, but more interesting are the slew of new monsters that inhabit the Fargo Islands.



The most interesting being the infamous “Redcore” monsters. Slaying one gives huge piles of experience, if you can manage to slay it before it flees. They have very tough defense, but if one sticks around for longer than a round, you can kill it.



Hey, look, a suspiciously-conspicuous treasure chest! I'll bet that has our Alumina in it, I just bet!



Hopefully you've gotten into the habit of checking toxic marshes for items by now.





Since Redcores are hard to kill, this isn't a bad place to try to put the Perish spell to work for you.



Aha, at last, soon the Alumina will be mine!



Oh look it was a bait for a pitfall trap hahaha you silly game!



The hole drops us into a pit of toxic sludge with no obvious escape route. I guess we'll be trapped here forever! Looks like we're not the only suckers to fall into the pit, though.



Jerin's Escape magic isn't just convenient. Like Artea's warp magic, it is often used as a plot contrivance when the party needs to bail out of a hopeless situation. I always appreciate little details like that, where the game acknowledges the abilities that your party has.



As you probably guessed, this is Brant, who apparently thought looking for Alumina was more important than planning his wedding.



Brant doesn't usually tell people where to find Alumina, but since we saved him, he'll make an exception. He'll tell us that there's one piece of Alumina to be found on Loire, 1 on Elba, and 2 on Ulupp. He also warns us that Elba and Ulupp are linked by Warp zones, and only be mastering them can you solve the island's maze.




I'm tempted to leave Brant in this hole after the wild goose chase he led us on, but he did tell us how many Alumina were on each island, so I guess we can let him live. Let's go, Jerin!

Field

Brant is a pretty stand-up guy, as it turns out, and gives us a piece of Alumina as thanks for saving him.

Alumina: 2/7

There's still a piece hidden on Loire Island, as we only explored about half the cave. So let's get back in there and find it.


Cave

Apparently Manticores drop Mind Potions, if for some reason you don't think Lufia is powerful enough and felt compelled to grind some out.



The Mach Ring probably has the distinction of being the most useless ring in the game. All it does is raise agility by 11 points. By this point in the game we have plenty of rings that raise agility and also raise a bunch of other stats, so this one is sadly not worth using at all.


Stat potions have been a pretty common find on Loire Island. We'll continue giving all the Great Potions to Aguro, since he can't do anything but fight. Mind Potions go to Lufia, and Speed Potions go to Jerin. Power Potions, which raise HP, are being split between Lufia and Jerin right now, and Spell Potions, which raise MP, are split between Medi and Jerin. I probably gave too many to Medi, in retrospect, as he really doesn't have many demands on his MP.



Fortunately, if you know what enemies to use it on, the Absorb spell can be a great way to keep the girls' MP recharged.



As I mentioned, managing to kill a RedCore can have enormous experience rewards.



Here, Medi learns the powerful “Fake” spell, which raises agility. I kind of wish Jerin learned this spell instead, since it usually feels like a sin to waste one of Medi's turns on a buff spell. There's only one fight where I really feel like this spell is useful.

On the other hand, Jerin learned the wildly useful “Mirror” spell, which reflects any hostile spell cast at the target for its entire duration. This will be very useful in the end game.



Ah, finally made it back here, now for my Alumina!



You aren't an Alumina! I call hax!

But actually, the piece of Alumina on this island can be found in the northeast corner of the cave.



Alumina: 3/7

We're doing pretty well, but the hard part is still before us. Elba and Ulupp Island still hold three pieces of Alumina, and it's by far the most frustrating dungeon in the game to retrieve them.

Elba Island next. I'll be honest, one of the reasons it took me a while to get this update out was I just wasn't looking forward to this next sequence. The Elba/Ulupp Islands dungeon is utterly tedious and there's nothing interesting about it. I didn't actually have any problems playing through it, although I did circle Ulupp Island a few times wondering what I had missed. This is one of those areas you just need to grit your teeth and push through.


Cave

Each of the Fargo Island caves is a different color, to help you keep track of where you are. This is important because, as Brant mentioned, Elba and Ulupp are linked by warp zones, and figuring this out is the only way to clear Ulupp Island.



As I mentioned earlier, Nail Men drop Straw Dolls, while Straw Men drop Long Nails. This makes perfect sense.



I love how silly and goofy some of the monster designs are. I mean, check that guy out! He doesn't look like a monster, he looks like he wants to be pals. He rose from his miasma of filth and dirt to say “Hey guys, I'm so glad you came, I've been alone for so long, let's be best friends!”

And then we killed him because we could never imagine a monster having anything but chilling intentions. Don't you see that our prejudice is tearing this world apart? No justice took place on Elba Island today, just misunderstanding and tragedy, born of centuries of ignorance. Perhaps one day the world will change, and we will be able to show love and acceptance to all creatures, beautiful or ugly, great or small.

Except elves because fuck elves.



For killing a perfectly harmless and adorable Mud Ghoul, Lufia gains her “Flood” spell, which is the highest tier of Water magic. Sadly, this is just a formality at this point, because any time you might want to be casting Flood, you're probably better off casting “Blast” or “Sunder” instead.

Also note how the leveling curve has panned out. Jerin is now considerably behind everyone else, with Medi and Lufia considerably ahead of the others.



Elba Island and Ulupp Island both have distinctive designs. Elba is arranged like a sheer cliff face descending down into the the earth. Along the way, we find the HiDaze Ring.



You might recall that this is the ring Artea wore during the Battle of Doom Island. It grants an utterly absurd amount of physical defense, as well as an appreciable amount of magic defense. Aguro or Jerin could both make good use of this ring.



The bottom of Elba Island contains an inn, possibly catering to the Alumina-mining crowd. I suspect the reason this inn exists is because Elba and Ulupp Islands are connected by warps, and it's possible you might lose track of which island you parked your ship at. An inn makes sure you can recharge your half-elf's batteries and warp to another town if you need to.





This treasure chest contains our Alumina, but we can only access it by using the warp point, which is affected by this switch here.



Alumina 4/7

We're halfway done! There's two more pieces on Ulupp Island, so let's head there next!

Ulupp Island is the most complex of the three islands, and the way to reach the two pieces of Alumina hidden here is not immediately obvious.


Cave

As mentioned, Elba and Ulupp are connected via warps, but the only obvious warp point between the two just leads to the entrances of both caves.



Lufia demonstrates her Flood spell a bit, but it's not as impressive as what she could be doing with Blast magic. Pretty soon, she'll pick up her final Blast spell, and then the fun really starts.



Dragon Eggs: 8/8

This is the final Dragon Egg, so it's time to talk about what they do. If you collect all 8, you can take them to a shrine and trade them for a wish from a magical dragon. We'll visit the shrine later this update.



Ulupp Island is laid out as a raised central plateau that is inaccessible to the surrounding cavern. You can circle the plateau, but there's no way to get up there. Since both pieces of Alumina are on it, we can't reach them from here.



We can flip this switch, though, which opens that door above. But this is all we can do from this area of the island. In order to advance, you need to pay attention to Brant's hint about Elba and Ulupp being linked by warps.



You can see one such warp here. We also find the HiPower Ring, which raises attack power a lot. We have better rings than this by now, though. It's hard to compete with the Wave Ring.



Since we can't finish the island cave from this area, we'll need to return to Elba and find another warp point.



This final door on Elba Island leads to a branching hallway. One branch leads to the warp point to Ulupp. The other leads to a switch. Flipping the switch changes which warp point on Ulupp the nearby warp links to. We'll need to go to both to find our two pieces of Alumina.





Alumina: 5/7



Once we have one piece, we move the switch back to access the other point.



You still need to visit the “main” section of Ulupp, however, in order to open this door. Make sure you do this first!



Alumina: 6/7

Huzzah, at last, we've found every piece of Alumina the Fargo Islands have to offer. But... there's a problem. Even though we have every piece, we're still one short of the seven we need. There must be another piece somewhere.

The person to ask would be Brant, but I just know he's going to tell me we have to go to that pirate tower to find the last piece.

Port



Surprisingly enough, Brant instead directs us to a nearby kingdom which we haven't visited yet. The king of Herat has some Alumina, and maybe we can convince him to give us some to help us on our quest to save the world. I mean, we all know authority figures in Estpolis are reasonable and helpful, right?



Yay!



Herat is a bit west of Marse, and you can reach it by sailing this river. It's the only way to access several of the locations on this continent, actually.





The gossip of Herat is that the king is a fat, greedy bastard. This doesn't bode well for us.



In other news, the Purple Newt we heard about back in Lyden apparently lives nearby.



As does the legendary Egg Dragon. This fellow will tell you about the 8 Dragon Eggs if you don't know what they're for.



Well, no getting around it, we're going to have to talk to the King of Herat to complete our quest.


Castle



Remember how back in Lyden, we heard the Wizard of taste was off exploring the world? Apparently, he came here, hoping to learn more about the Purple Newt.



Seems the king does have some Alumina lying around, and isn't shy about giving it out. Maybe he'll help us after all.



Unfortunately, the king's treasure trove is guarded by the most impervious of barriers; the unmoving NPC. Looks like we're going to have to take this to the top.



It looks like the king has been very hard to please lately, and no one can find any way to keep him happy. The people of Herat seem to be at their wit's end dealing with this tyrant. Let's go set him straight.



Okay, you know what this is? The king is offering to reward us only if we find him a satisfying meal. We are trying to save the world, we need the piece of Alumina he has locked in his storage room, but he won't give it to us unless he eats first. And it's not like he's actually hungry, he has plenty of food, but the food he is is not good enough.

The final obstacle to us acquiring a submarine and recovering the Dual Blade is this guy.Of all the useless authority figures in Westland, this guy is by far the worst. We are trying to save the world from the Sinistrals and he is standing in our way for the most petty reason imaginable.

He shall hereafter be referred to as King FatAss the Terrible.

Lufia apparently isn't in a scolding mood today, so looks like we'll have to head to the castle kitchen and find out what kind of food King FatAss likes.

Castle

Once we reach the kitchen, Jerin gets volunteered to test the chef's latest dish. Exciting!



Oh my...



Jerin reacts about as you'd expect someone to in this situation.



Aguro can't pass up an opportunity to make fun of Jerin, since it is a pretty funny situation, and apparently Aguro is a bit of a jackass, at heart.



So Jerin's reaction is, of course, to tell on Aguro.



Medi, being the level 20 goody-two-shoes that he is, immediately leaps to Jerin's defense. Jerin is a frequent source of conflict for the party, and it always falls to Medi to resolve things.



Aguro bristles a bit, but it's not worth arguing over, and Medi promises that no one will make fun of Jerin anymore. I'm quite certain this situation is resolved and there will be no more-



Uh oh-





This is probably one of the best exchanges in the game.



I'd say it's because you're acting like a child, but honestly that's what Jerin is doing too.

That's one of the key aspects of Medi's relationship with Jerin that Lufia doesn't seem to grasp. Medi treats Jerin like a child. He does not acknowledge her as an adult. This is very possibly a source of frustration for Jerin, but it's a strong indicator that he has no romantic interest in her.

Besides, Lufia makes Medi food and kills his enemies. Seriously, ladies, if you want to win a man's heart, try killing his enemies. Guaranteed results.



The chef reminds us that he's part of this scene, but admits he has no good ideas for pleasing the king. If we come across something, we should bring it to him.

No one else in the castle seems to know what to do, so naturally the best person to ask at this point is any old men who happen to be about.



This elderly gentleman reminds us that Lyden's Wizard of taste is the greatest chef in the world, if you happen to have forgotten, so naturally, Lyden is our next stop.

Town



back in Lyden, the wizard has returned, but apparently hasn't discovered any great new dishes lately.



The wizard and King FatAss apparently go way back, and his insufferable appetite is no mystery to him.



Since the wizard doesn't have anything new, Medi decides to ask if there's any meals he particularly enjoyed in the past.



In the original version of the script, the “Magic Flavor” was actually a type of Soy Sauce. It was translated as merely being a “flavor,” which is less interesting but perhaps makes it seem a little more magical.



The wizard explains that he created the flavor to make any food edible, but doesn't consider it a substitute for true cooking skill. Nevertheless, if it will satisfy the king, that's what we'll need.



The Wizard tells us that we need a Purple Newt for him to finish his recipe. Purple newts can be found only in a cave east of Herat, but he couldn't find any the last time he was there.



Back at Herat, you can see the cave the wizard mentioned, but the way to get to it isn't immediately obvious.

So, our quest should be clear at this point. All we have to do is get to that cave, find the Purple Newt and satisfy King FatAss, right?

Well, actually, no. You don't actually have to go to the Purple Newt cave at all!

Once you speak to the Wizard of Taste in Lyden, a plot flag is triggered with the chef in Herat so that you can continue your quest once you have the magic flavor. However, due to what I assume is a bug, the game doesn't actually check to see if you have the Magic Flavor or not. If I went back to the castle chef of Herat right now, he would thank me for bringing him the Magic Flavor, and the Alumina would be mine for the taking.

This is apparently a very obscure bug, as I've read a lot of guides and walkthroughs for this game, but I've never seen any of them mention it.

How did I discover this strange glitch? Well, a long time ago, nine year-old Solitayre was playing this game, but couldn't find his way to the Purple Newt Cave. You can see the cave there, from Herat, but I mistakenly thought the way to reach it was to sail there (you can see water nearby.) You can't reach the Newt Cave by sailing though, as it's actually landlocked. Perhaps it was because nine year-old Solitayre was really dumb, or perhaps because the walkthrough for the game that came in the instruction manual happened to run out at exactly this point, but I was at a loss for how to proceed.

The way to the Newt Cave is actually to land on the shore west of Herat, and walk around. Naturally, such an arcane geographical trick was beyond my ken in those days. So I spent quite a while in this game wandering lost, and happened to wind up back in Herat's kitchen, trigger the event, and proceed to stand slack-jawed as the game opened up for me at the exact point I was stuck without me having to actually solve the puzzle involved. It was as though I loved the game so much, that the game loved me back.


Field

Anyway, I've long since discovered how to reach the cave for real, so we don't need to sequence break. We'll go find us some Purple Newt the way the prick gods of Estpolis intended. And besides, there's a stop to make on the way.



This is the Dragon Egg Shrine.


Shrine

The Dragon will offer us a wish in exchange for the 8 Dragon Eggs. I forgot to screenshot it, but here's the four options.

1. Raise everyone two levels.
2. Three each of Power, Spell, Great, Mind, and Speed Potions.
3. a Might shield
4. a Might Bow

Wishing for two levels is a phenomenal waste of a wish, since two levels is very easy to get on your own. And stat potions are nice, but you can find them anywhere. Meanwhile, the Might Shield and Might Bow can only be acquired here.

The might Bow is Jerin's best weapon, and is very strong, but the Might Shield is an excellent piece of equipment that Medi, Aguro, and Jerin can all wear. Not only does it raise defense by a ton, but it also raises magic resistance. It's probably the best wish, in my opinion.



Your wish has been granted. Now, I bid you farewell.

Honestly, it's kind of mind-blowing that one of Lufia's biggest influences is DragonBall of all things. The parallels only continue to ramp up in the sequels.

Once you make your wish, the Eggs will scatter to various treasure boxes throughout the world. This includes boxes in places we haven't been to yet, so this can keep you from getting treasures later if you care about such things. You can collect all the eggs up to two more times, if you felt so inclined.



We'll give the Might Shield to Aguro since he's always hurting for magic defense.


Field

Anyway, continuing southeast past the Dragon Shrine brings us to the Purple Newt Cave, which is fortunately the last cave we'll have to deal with for a while.

Cave

Just as with the Fargo Island caves, the chest we want is in plain view, but getting to it is the real challenge. Fortunately, the Purple Newt Cave is a lot smaller than the other caves we've been seeing.


Battle

It's a shame I missed this place as a kid, because there are a couple unique monster designs only seen here. Lufia II players likely recognize these Lizardmen, for instance. They can drop Carbo Shields, which we already have, but are a pretty decent drop for this point in the game.




The whole “flip a switch to change the target of a warp point” gimmick will appear in most of the rest of the game's dungeons. It gets ramped up to an absolute fever pitch in the very last dungeon, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.



Killing something here gets Jerin the “Vulcan” spell, which is the highest tier Fire magic. May she live long and prosper.



Who's ready for more secrets?! This hallway may look like a dead end, but it actually holds a useful treasure.



It leads to a hidden room, which contains the Engage Ring. Wearing this will reduce the price shopkeepers charge for items. It's very handy.




It's the only treasure in the cave worth mentioning, so we're all done here. Time to take this newt back to the Lyden Wizard and finally get our shiny, delicious Alumina.

Town

Once he has a Purple Newt, the Wizard of Taste quickly whips up a batch of his magical sauce for us to take back to King FatAss.


Castle

The chef of Herat quickly capitalizes on this opportunity and uses it to whip up a meal to satisfy even the King.





By the power of the magic flavor, the chef's dish meets even Aguro's exacting standards.



Hehe.



Having been given a pleasing meal at last, King FatAss is more than happy to give away his entire treasury to us.

You know what bothers me, though? The king apparently didn't learn anything from this ordeal. The people of Medan and Belgen came away from their trials better people, but King FatAss is going to continue to make his people suffer and there's nothing we can do about it.

Depleting his treasury for trivialities, coupled with his voracious appetite, and I think it's fair to say Herat will soon experience famine beyond anything Westland has ever seen, no doubt leading to bloody revolution, probably lead by the king's kitchen staff, who will slay King FatAss and eat his heart because in Estpolis, Hell is all about irony.

Hmm, does Estpolis even have a Hell? Wait, since the gods are assholes, maybe there's only a Hell...That's a scary thought, I think I'm done thinking about that.



Anyway, Herat's jewel collection is now open to us!







Alumina: 7/7

At long last, we've found all seven pieces of Alumina! The other treasures in FatAss's hoard range from decent to good, the Royal Statue isn't good for anything other than selling though.


Field

Anyway, our search is finally over! We have all seven pieces of Alumina and can repair the Falcon! Can you believe we never had to go the Pirate Tower to get a piece? That's unbelievable! Sort of makes you wonder why they spent all that effort building up those pirates if they were never going to do anything with them.

Oh well, let's return to Carbis, so that we can finally repair the Falcon and-



Oh goddamnit

Having just gotten to this point in the game in my own (1st!) runthrough, I'd have to recommend my own way of dealing with those damned Flood-casting frogs. Have Lufia and Jerin both use the Wind Flute each turn while Hero and Aguro attack; each frog should bite the dust in 2 hits if you're at the right level, and the 2x Wind Flute negates most damage from Flood even if you find multiples of them spamming it. I've since adopted that strat for all random encounters with great success. Wind Flute is seriously OP.

Great LP, pal. This got me to play the game, and I'm still trying to figure out how I never knew about it until now.

Thanks!

My plan is working.

Well, if I had to guess I'd say it was because you were about a year old when it came out. This game is ancient.

I'm really impressed that you crammed the quest for Alumina into a single update, and I'm trying to remember if I had discovered the purple newt/magic flavor glitch as a kid. I wasn't using the feelie map for my replay, so I had a hell of a time figuring out how to get to the purple newt cave, and I suspect 12-year-old Beowulf would have had similar problems.

It mostly just worked out that way, whenever I got to transfer my images to the hosting site, it usually turns out to be around 350 images. The update before this one was considerably longer since I did a lot of sidequests in that one. I was considering including the Tower of Light in this chapter instead, but I decided ending things on a cliffhanger was better. Next update will be fairly normal, but the one after that will probably be another really long one.

I'm really, really interested if anyone else ever encountered the Purple Newt glitch. I've never come across it on the internet anywhere.

Also, you reminded me that I haven't talked about the world map much yet, I should probably do that next update.

Lufia: The Abridged Series



Yay!



Yay!



Yay!



Yay!



Yay!



Yay!



Yay!



FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Shaia Labs

Chapter 10: The Dual Blade



-UUUUUCK.

What is he thinking?! Why would he go there?! Didn't he hear about the pirates?! Does he want to write an essay about the cost of piracy? Couldn't it wait?!



Medi is just as exasperated as I am.



That just raises further questions! Why would the pirates kidnap Lou, and what was Lou even doing out there alone anyway? I mean, we've learned that Raile was apparently pretty badass in his youth, but you'd figure the least he could do is put his old team back together first. Clack is going to be pacing in a cave for the rest of the game, it's not like he has anything better to do!



So why did he go alone? Surely Cooper would have gone with him.



So this is your fault then! Some friend you are! You're all incompetent! I'm talking to King Odel as soon as this is over and having your funding cut off. I'm almost positive there's no demand for serums that turn you into four-armed mutants or machines that turn people into frogs.

But I guess there was no demand for undersea vessels until it turned out to be the very thing needed to save the world.

Anyway, we can't repair the Falcon without Raile, so once again it's up to us to save the day. We'll find Raile, rescue Lou, beat up the pirates, and then go get the Dual Blade. That's right, in this chapter, we'll hopefully finally find the lost sword that Maxim wielded long ago!

There will be some pretty serious plot spoilers in this update, so if you're one of the people playing through this game alongside this LP and haven't gotten this far yet, you might want to stop here.

Anyway, back to the Fargo Islands!


Battle

Once you've been prompted to go to Aisen Island, the sea is suddenly populated with new monsters, But though these new monsters are stronger than their previous counterparts, they're no less flammable.


Field

On Aisen Island, we can see Raile's ship outside the tower, but no sign of our nutty professor. Guess we're going to have to go inside.


Tower

The pirate tower is actually pretty short and straightforward, but the monsters here are the toughest we've ever faced.


Battle

These Fire Plates aren't particularly noteworthy enemies on their own, but they have a very small chance of dropping the strongest type of armor in the game, the legendary Might Armor. You could spend hours fighting groups of them and never get one from them though, but I actually have seen it happen, unlike the Might Sword, which I've never seen.



In this tower, Lufia unlocks the vaunted “Sunder” spell. This is the last and mightiest of the Blast magic, and one of the most devastating attacks in the game. The sound you are now hearing is all the challenge any random encounter will pose all the way up to the final dungeon fleeing in terror. It is the sound of Lufia completing her ascension from mere mortal to a death-dealing terror. And this isn't even Lufia's strongest spell.



Those mounted horsemen dudes, the Steel Lords, are cool-looking, though. Enemies like this generally have a lightning-weakness, but Lufia has evolved beyond such paltry limitations. Sunder is one-size-fits-all kind of solution.



Those Dark Spooks, the grim reaper-type enemies, were actually called “Death” in the original Japanese version, which is at least a little strange considering Estpolis already has a physical personification of Death, and these aren't it. Erim isn't around, though, so maybe these guys are filling in for her? The Sinistrals haven't even made mention of where Erim is yet, though. Maybe she went on vacation? Death does that sometimes, ya know. Being Death is probably a pretty depressing job.



Anyway, as you might expect, they can use instant death attacks, but they also drop Gloom Guards, which prevent such attacks from working. It's not really worth wearing though. Might come in handy when we fight Erim though, since her signature attack is generally an instant death type attack.



The pirates are apparently pretty advanced at engineering, having created a sophisticated lock mechanism to guard their booty. However, they haven't quite mastered it yet, since they leave the instructions visible for any intruder to read.

At one point in the tower you'll face a fork, one way leads to the boss, the other will lead you to the prison where Raile is being kept.



Hey guy, you've got a lot of nerve running off after we found all that Alumina for you!



Raile may have gotten caught, but he does provide us with a useful clue, telling us that the first switch to hit in the sequence is the upper-left one. This eliminates a vast majority of the possible combinations, but in the end you still have to use trial and error to get the right combination.

It's not a very sophisticated puzzle, it's the kind of grindy/random chance puzzle that was popular in older games. I won't apologize for it. And it's not the worst puzzle of this kind in the game, either.



Let's try this combination.



Huh, nope, that isn't it.



Oh hey, I was wondering where all the pirates were. If I didn't know I'd have guessed this tower was overrun with ghosts.



After cramming as many pirate aphorisms into their speech as possible, the pirates proceed to attack us and try to take our booty!


Boss?

This goes about as well for them as you'd expect.



Tower

This is the correct combination. Any other combination will trigger an encounter with the pirates.





After some more pirate trash-talking, the first mate calls the totally badass-looking pirate lord to take us on. Man, he has a unique sprite and everything, I forgot about that one.

Boss

The real boss of the tower is the Priate Captain and his Bosun. Due to what I assume is a misplaced text string, the Pirate Lord is just labeled as “Pirates.” Either that, or the guy is actually named “Pirates,” and I mean, what's he supposed to do then? Not form a pirate crew?

Incidentally, the Japanese name for the first mate was actually "#1 Follower" because literal translations are hilarious.

Anyway, the Pirate Captain is one of the most fearsome enemies in the game, though we're more than well-equipped enough to take him down.



We'll go ahead and let Medi try out his Fake spell here.



The Bosun mostly uses support abilities on the Captain, so eliminating him first is important. He's not too hard to take down.



The Captain has some powerful attacks though, Foul can cause random status effects, and ex-bombs deal damage to everyone.



As the fight drags on, he'll upgrade his efforts to the powerful “Storm” spell which is basically an enhanced version of Flood.



I remember having a lot of trouble with this guy as a kid, but nine year-old Solitayre is long gone, and all that remains is the older, wiser Solitayre who crushes puny SNES villains beneath his fist.


Tower

Now we can rescue Lou, who is less than pleased to see us.



We heard in Marse that a kid was looking for Raile, but Lou tries to play it off as though he had something more important to do.



But Lufia, being a level 20 Tsundere herself, sees right through him.



Lou is, understandably, extremely shocked that the father who left him alone in a city with no food or money came to rescue him from pirates.



We may have beaten the pirates, but we still have to go find Raile. We'll need the captain's key to rescue him.



The Pirates Key will unlock the prison doors in the tower. The Silver Tarot is just some pirate booty to sell.

This is the last time we'll have an NPC follower in our group. Not that Lou does anything useful during his two minute tenure as a party member.



Before freeing Raile, we pick up the Heavy Ring locked in the adjoining cell. The Heavy ring gives a monstrous attack bonus, but, as its name implies, it is very heavy. I wouldn't bother with it, personally.



Huzzah! Crisis resolved, now everybody's safe, and we can totally get the Falcon repaired!



Lou's first words to his father after not seeing him for months and after he put himself at risk to rescue Lou from the pirates is to chew him out for being such a weakling.



Raile's response is to express how he barely recognizes his own son.

I hate awkward family reunions.



I just love how Lufia isn't the least bit shy about scolding a grown man three times her age. Or random strangers she meets. Including gods. Of course, as an orphan, Lufia certainly has very specific ideas of what it would be like to reunite with long lost family. If she ever reunited with her relatives, it would definitely go down differently than this, let me tell you!



Medi is glad Lou and Raile are safe and all, but there's still the slight matter that the biggest, baddest Sinistral could come back to life at any moment and we really need the Dual Blade before that happens, so if he could kindly get his head in the game and fix our submarine before the world gets destroyed, that would be totes awesome.


Field

Once they're free of the confines with the tower, Raile's first move is to try to ditch Lou again.



But Lufia and Medi aren't about to have that.



Aguro, of course, has a more practical suggestion, like having someone around to tell Raile not to wander off like and make us chase him through a series of comical mishaps akin to a Buttons and Mindy short.








See, right now Raile is thinking of making some impractical and useless invention, and Lou reels him in. Good thing we've got him, let me tell you!

Despite there apparently being no love lost between Raile and Lou, it's clear they have some affection for each other. Weirdness kind of runs in the Shaia family.



Back to Carbis!


Shaia Labs

Back at the lab, everything seems to be in order now that the Professor is back.



Let's get this show on the road!





Time to see if Raile is really as good as his word.



A few moments of humorous clanking ensue, but Lufia sadly lacks the graphical capacity to convey anything more amusing.



True to his word, Raile has the Falcon seaworthy again in only a few moments.



Raile explains how the submersible version of Falcon works. It can dive underwater only where there's an eddy. Considering his ancestor Lexis made a submarine that could dive anywhere 100 years ago, this presumably does not bode well for the general scientific advancement of Westland in the last hundred years or so.



That's the most enthusiastic anyone has ever sounded about going to a place called “Doom Island.”



Raile and Cooper give us directions to Ring Island. The village of Soshette is nearby, but the real goal is the Fortress of Doom, somewhere deep under the lagoon.




The Ocean

A short jaunt under the sea indicates that, yes, the Falcon can navigate beneath the waves without its occupants drowning.

Our next destination; the Fortress of Doom itself.