PROTIP: Don't give your cat to the cat-eating mad-man. Let's Play Phantasy Star!

On Noah's gender (Noting of course that in Japan, and also in sequels because I guess consistent localization is for chumps, Noah=Lutz):

I did these areas in a different order, starting with Iala Cave:



At this point I hadn't figured out the rules for how Phantasy Star draws its maps, so these are a bit messy. I think the main problem is I hadn't realised that doors and stairs occupy a map space, so I wound up with corridors hard up against each other that shouldn't have been, and one diagonal corridor on the top floor to bridge the gap made by that error. Turtle's map is a lot cleaner and has fewer errors.

This dungeon was great, by the way. I marched straight into the pit, fell to the bottom, and managed to make my way out without the exit spell. If I'd died I'm sure I would have hated it, but scraping through it was fantastic.



Then I went to Maharu, and reached Noah without the letter (which is why she's identified as "Jerk" on the map). I found the hidden passage to the third floor on the return trip, which I know because it's in my map book after the map of:



Naula Cave. Looking at the complexity of the maps, it does seem like maybe this is where you're supposed to go first of the three, but it's also the most tucked away on the world map.

Nah, you've got it there. It's the monster symbol on the 4th floor. The skeletons are a fixed encounter that drops the chest. Presumably the note that you have attached to that icon says as much.

I think it's the set of its eyes. It just really seems kind of over this shit.

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully higher quality swords will be found in the future.

It does not! Perhaps I reasoned that it was a random drop.

What the note says is 'Skeleton x1~5'. I don't remember exactly, but those must have been the min and max group sizes in the times I tripped it.

I'll have to add that to the note, thanks!

I thought about making this joke, but you executed it way better than I would have, so props to you!

I’m so glad you didn’t listen to the haters and bought some hair for your dog

Speaking of random bits of PS trivia; There's a new retranslation and bugfix patch out for PS III.

The new translation's not by the same folks who sucked the life (and intent) out of PS1, is it?

You mean the SMS Power one? There are two things I like about that one:
- Names are original (consistent with rest of the series)
- FM synth soundtrack available

I haven't seen anything about this PS3 translation, where was that announced?

Romhacking.net

Just a quick update: the next update is done, but I usually post updates from my office PC, and it would be a gigantic pain to do it from home instead for reasons. Like, hours and hours of extra work. This is a problem, since our offices have been and will continue to be closed until local floodwaters subside! So please be patient; rest assured I am still very much aboard the Phantasy Star train, and will publish the next update whenever I can finally get back in to my office.

CASTS "BYE" AND FLEES TO ANOTHER THREAD IN PROTEST

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to Let's Play Phantasy Star!

When last we joined our heroes, we had purchased a bunch of gear, patronized the star system's worst cake shop, and then met the Governor of Motavia and had a very bad dream in his guest house. Afterwards, we recruited the Esper Noah to the cause and then fell down entirely too many pit traps to get a knife for our cat to put in its mouth. Noah wanted us to go find Dr. Luveno and tipped us off about a secret passage from the Spaceport, which is where we join our heroic foursome.



It's time for the sewer level!



Welcome to the spaceport sewers. It is literally a hallway. It is entirely possible to get through this entire dungeon without stumbling into a single battle... which we do! Rest assured that there are no monsters here that we haven't seen before.



This fork is the only break in the hallway, and down it we find...



Another jerk! There must be something about dungeon living that predisposes folks to be stand-offish. I'd say that it's something in the water, but, as far as I can tell, residents of the Algol Star System only drink First Food Cola.



We exit the sewers to find ourselves climbing out of the ruins of an abandoned building.



Welcome to the village of Gothic! It kind of sucks!



All of the houses, whether ruined or intact, are empty.



And none of the villagers will speak to us unless we give them a Cola.



Which, notably, the only shop in town does not sell. Good thing that we brought plenty with us! Sufficiently lubricated, the locals tell us the following:

• "Don't go near the tower at the far end of the narrow road which goes from the Gothic Forest through the mountains. A magic beast lives there. Look at it and ya turn to stone."
• "This was once the lab of Dr. Luveno. He went bonkers, though, and be imprisoned in Triada to the south of here."

Well, I guess we know where we're heading next! Before we leave, though, a couple more things to highlight:



This fellow is guarding a gate at the west edge of town, and won't let us through. Our Cola powers are useless here!



I think this is our first time seeing a village church, so here's a look at the inside of one. Nothing special, really, but I love that they have their own unique design. Also, it looks like Noah is about to level up again!

So here we are, outside of Gothic. We've got a whole new continent to explore now!



To the north, we quickly hit a dead end. I guess we're heading south!



To the south, we immediately hit a fork. Fortunately, the villagers let us know what's in both of these directions. That said, let's take a peek down this mountain path.



The mountain path is long and twisty, but eventually takes us to the tower that we were warned about. I'm sure it wouldn't do any harm to poke our heads inside really quick...



Y'know what, on second thought, I'm good.



Back in the other direction, it quickly becomes apparent that Gothic and the spaceport are actually pretty close, as you might expect, given how short the tunnel was.



Further to the south, we come to another fork, with another mountain path to our west.



Just as we start to explore it, we encounter this intimidating creature.



Its fire breath is no less intimidating.



It also doesn't feel particular nice!



Helpfully demonstrating that the previous hit was not just a result of Noah's low Defense, it immediately strikes Odin for 20 HP on the following turn.



Still, it's not incredibly difficult to handle by itself, and dies after four turns with a bit of added punch from Noah's FIRE spell. The rewards are about average for this point in the game. Serpents are a bit of a strain on our resources, though, so hopefully we wont have to deal with too many of them.



We look to be in luck on that front, as a building quickly comes into view. Is this the Triada prison that we were told about?

What lovely grey walls. Notably, this building was not dark, and did not require the use of a flashlight. Hooray for above-ground dungeons!



After taking a single step inside, we're confronted with a guard who wants to see a ROADPASS, despite the fact that this is clearly not a road. Since it is literally impossible to get here without one...



Great. But what happens if we say no?



Well this is unexpected. I guess these guys get grumpy when they haven't had any cake.



Pew-pew!



This jerk is pretty hard to hit!



And also hits pretty hard! Gah!



Fortunately, he doesn't have a lot of HP, and between FIRE and Odin's gun we're doing a guaranteed 20+ damage per turn. Now we just need to see about this whole not dying thing...



We squeaked this one out, but it was a close thing. If he had even breathed on Noah then we'd be carting a corpse back to the village. Let's hope that we don't run into any more of those jerks in here!



Triada Prison is laid out like, well, a prison. There are two cell blocks, and each block has regular gaps on alternating sides of the hallway that lead to prison cells. Also, there are zero random encounters, which is a bit of a relief.



Inside the cells are prisoners!



Thirsty, thirsty prisoners. At least all of this hard-won dungeon Cola is being put to good use. Here's a quick summary of what the residents of Triada Prison have to say (and no, they don't all ask for Cola):

• "I've got a friend in Bortevo. He's probably having a hard time because of the lava. Why not visit him?"
• "On the far side of the mountains lies a pool of molten lava created by a volcanic eruption."
• "Do you know the robot Hapsby? It's a robot made of Laconia. But it has been abandoned somewhere as being useless."
• "The tower deep in the Gothic mountains is known as Medusa's Tower."
• "Spider monsters are actually very intelligent."

That's a lot more info than we got in the village! The game could probably do a better job of conveying it, but I think the idea here is that the reason Gothic village is such a craphole is that most of the residents are political prisoners held here by Lassic.

Also, this is where young JBear got the clue he needed to try the CHAT spell on Spider-type enemies. Not content to just leave it at that, though, the game makes it even more clear when we open this particular cell:



This TARANTUL is just chilling in a cell, waiting to talk. No CHAT spell required, and no battle interface. There are a couple of other cells of note:



Who locks a trapped empty chest in a prison cell?



I guess the folks in this cell went too long between meals. They go down without incident.



Well, maybe one incident. Let's TELEport!



Too real.

All that casting TELE gets us is some looping chimes and concerns about Noah's mental health. We'll have to wait to see what TELE really does later.

That just leaves one final cell, our destination.



Dungeon jerk syndrome affects 4 in 5 dungeon residents. Please give generously.



As soon as he's finished talking, Dr. Luveno boots us out of the cell. Alis refuses to take no for an answer, and dives right back in.

(Yes, Phantasy Star liked the earlier "puzzle" where you had to ask to look at SECRETS repeatedly so much that it decided to do it again. This is the sort of thing that grates against modern sensibilities but was barely a speed-bump for stubborn, persistent kids.)





Apparently we want him to build a spaceship for us? This is news to me! Sounds rad, though. We are again ejected from the cell. One more time:






Man, screw this guy. We'll build our own spaceship!

On second thought, this is hard. Maybe let's see what the nerd in the doofy hat wants us to do after all?

Listen bud, I wasn't about to waste any worry on you. Luveno then disappears, and with him, any reason for us to be here.



Alarmingly, the guard accosts us again on the way out, but he seems to have a short memory, so we show him our ROADPASS and exit without incident.



On our way back to Gothic, we run into these handsome devils. They're just slightly more difficult Were Bat palette swaps.



Oddly, Vampires are guaranteed to drop FLASHes in addition to ample MST. Works for me!



This victory also gives Alis a level-up, and with it, her final combat spell: ROPE. It functions identically to the enemy tie-up ability that we've seen several times now, removing a single opponent from combat for up to a few combat rounds at a cost of 4 MP. It doesn't have any animation for me to show off, so this is probably the first and last you'll hear about it for the duration of this LP.



Just before stepping back in to the village, we run into this fellow, who drops this odd tidbit in a friendly CHAT.



Dr. Luveno has returned home. After a quick trip to the Hospital to heal up, let's see what he has to say.





Remember that jerk we talked to on our way from the spaceport? You'd be forgiven for forgetting-- the dungeon jerks are all starting to blend together. Anyway, that was apparently Dr. Luveno's assistant, and yes, the good Doctor is making us walk to the other side of town and literally 5 steps into a dungeon for him, which includes wasting a FLASH. I bet his assistant could hear him from here if he yelled loudly enough.





Good, because Alis wasn't going to take no for an answer, and neither was I.



Dr. Luveno's assistant lives in the other well-maintained house in the village.



He remains as charming as ever. Let's hope the Doctor is more appreciative of our efforts.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

You know, I hear Kerbal isn't so bad once you get past the steep initial learning curve...





Listen to this asshole and his passive-aggressive sympathy. We should take him back to that cell. I wonder if Lassic is hiring? We have almost 4k MST at the moment, so it's not like we can't afford to pay, but it's the principle of the thing.



Ugh, fine.



Finally.



Abso-fucking-lutely not. You're doing this now.





When we go back in and tell him as much, he boots us right back out the door. Unbelievable. Maybe we should demonstrate our patience by lighting fire to his house. Alis rushes right back in again, but he gives us the exact same message. Return to speak to him a 3rd time, though, and...




Hooray! Maybe he's not so bad after all. I'm so happy that I'm going to ignore the fact that he named the damn ship after himself.



Okay... so you're going to fly it for us, then?




. . .

You know, this would have been great information to volunteer before we got your assistant, coughed up a giant stack of cash, and probably got your mail and walked your damn dog.



So I guess we need to find ourselves a robot pilot! One of the prison inmates mentioned Hapsby by name, but had no clue where to find him. Other than that, we don't really have any leads to go on aside from bread-crumb mentions of a town called Bortevo near lava and of lava pools on the far side of the Gothic mountains. I guess it's time to go exploring!

Before Gothic is out of sight, we're confronted with some good ol' Owl Bears. I'm going to interpret this as a blessing of our journey:





And what a blessing it was! They taught Myau a new spell, and it's a doozy! At 6 MP, WALL is fairly expensive, but on difficult battles it is well worth it. Rest assured that we'll be putting this one through its paces before this update is over.



Not long after the path that leads to the prison, we reach the southern coast. I guess it's time to head west!



A long straight walk past a lot of mountains (and several enemy encounters, but nothing new) eventually brings us to the other side of the continent. Onward!



The path looks like it's finally about to open up soon afterward, but some more water quickly puts a stop to that. The game does a decent job of disguising it, but we're very much being railroaded through a linear path here.



This is definitely new. Who could forget a handsome face like that?



Ew.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is one of my favourite attacks in the game right here. In a game where Vampires didn't play Sonic Spinball, it probably would be my favourite, hands-down. These guys attack by doing a little dance, and then distending their jaws and drooling at you. Amazing.



They're not notable otherwise, though, and die for their second time without much fuss. They admittedly have pretty high defense, but most of their attacks were doing little to no damage, so it's not really a problem.



The path around the mountains continues to the north-east, and...



What fresh hell is this?

Yes, this is a video game, and we've just found lava.



As you might expect, that means that we can walk on it, but at the cost of fixed damage with each step. Specifically, 2 HP of damage to the entire party. All things considered, that's not that bad. That said...



Hey, remember how you couldn't get attacked on lava tiles in Final Fantasy? Phantasy Star is not so merciful.



It gives me an opportunity to show off a rad new animated battle background, though!



The Marmen die quickly and quietly. Let's hope that the rest of the lava encounter table is similarly easy!



Hey, we're finally getting a Sworm palette-swap.



Myau attacks first and is able to take one out with a single swipe. Looks like these things aren't worth noting either.



Lookit the cute widdle fly. Wait, what's that next one doing...?



GAH!

So, yeah, these little jerks can randomly decide to breathe fire instead of attacking normally. It kind of stings! Since they attack in groups, it's a good thing that they're squishy.



They leave behind pretty nice rewards. Pay no attention to the burning treasure chest. >_>

The far end of the lava pool comes into sight, and not a moment too soon.



This jerk decides to butt in before we can set foot on dry land, though. We take him out without too much difficulty, but not before he dings up Noah pretty badly.



To the west of the lava field, a cave and what looks like the ruins of a village come into view. Could this be Bortevo?



Signs point to "yes".



Welcome to Bortevo! It's the perfect vacation destination for folks who thought that Gothic was too nice. There are exactly two folks living here. You've already met one, and the other is standing in the centre of town. Let's see what he has to say:





HRM. Another lead on our robot pilot, perhaps?



All of the ruined houses around town have these cute little piles of trash in them, but searching them doesn't seem to turn anything up.



We're fresh out of both leads and ideas, so I guess we may as well see what's up with this nearby cave?

The enemy set looks to be similar to what we've been meeting outside lately.



We head right at the first fork and eventually come to a dead end with a treasure chest.



I hate this dungeon already.



Some older enemies are still on the encounter table in here, which provides a welcome respite.



I guess these are technically an improvement over empty exploding chests, but only slightly.



Thanks to all of the Vampires down here, I am now flush with FLASHes. I guess that's a pretty good problem to have!



Ooo, what's this?



Apparently that dissolving substance that the giant spider told us about is for sale in a town that we've never heard of.



None of the encounters down here are individually that difficult, but they're definitely starting to put a strain on our resources, and we haven't been able to rest since Gothic, since Bortevo was, shall we say, somewhat lacking in modern amenities.



And we out! But where the heck are we now?



Northwest of the cave quickly shows itself to be a dead end, so I guess we're going east!



The path to the east soon narrows and funnels us on to the beach. Before we can set foot on the beach, though...



GAH. So apparently this continent has elephants. Lots of elephants.



Elephants attack by swinging their barbed trunks at us, revealing a nasty set of teeth hiding underneath. But how bad does it hurt?



Not all that bad, as it turns out. After one round, we're still in pretty good shape. Looks like neither of us are very good at damaging the other party. Odin and his guaranteed 25 points of damage every turn are the star of the show here. Guns are pretty good, you guys!



We ultimately win the day, but with a lot of bruises to show for it. That's a ton of XP though! Both Myau and Alis gain a level.

We start making our way along the beach and run in to yet another new friend.



It attacks by peeking out of its shel and spitting some sort of pink goop at us.



It's not very notable otherwise, although 46 MST is a good payday for a single enemy.



The beach path looks to be taking us around the edge of a bay.



Well this is upsetting to look at. I bet it's no better in motion.



Yup, still upset. The sooner we move on from this R-Type reject the better.



Fortunately, it dies quickly, and killing one pays even better than Shelfish!



This beach just won't quit.



As we round the bend, a village comes in to sight, and not a moment too soon.



Oh come on.



A Sphinx attacks by baring its fangs, transforming its human-looking face into a lion, and poking us with the stinger on its tail.



Appropriately enough, it kind of stings!



Wait a minute. The Sphinx is typically depicted as intelligent, isn't it? I wonder...



Dang. Looks like their language is beyond the capabilities of my magic translator. If only I had some way to speak directly into their mind...



! Oh! TELE is short for TELEpathy, not TELEport! For 4 MP, Noah can communicate with anything smart enough to speak.



Huh. Apparently there's another Laconian pot waiting for us in this Abion as well? I wonder if that's it in front of us?



It would seem not!

Welcome to Loar. It's pretty tiny! It's also the first town in this game that NPCs haven't mentioned in advance before finding it, so presumably there's not much here of interest? One fun bit of trivia: we got a sneak preview of Loar quite some time ago, as it is briefly visible when taking a flight from the Palma spaceport. Anyway, let's see what the locals have to say:

• "We have been in decline thanks to the work of Lassic."
• "Do you know about Laerma trees? They grow on the Altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris."
• "Have you heard of a gem called "The Amber Eye"? Some say the Casba Dragon has one."
• "You are going to try to kill Lassic I hear. That's great! I have heard that a certain crystal will block evil magic."
• "There is a village called Abion on the western edge of this island."

Well, I guess we know where we're headed next!



Loar might not have much of importance plot-wise, but its shop has a couple of very notable items!



The White Mantle is just Noah's starting armour, but here we also have both a new gun for Odin that will double his damage, as well as a new weapon for Myau (that the booklet is dramatically under-reporting the attack strength of). Both are very tempting, but let's wait and see what Abion has for sale before we make any decisions. Our inventory is currently full anyway, and Loar doesn't have a Second-Hand shop for us to sell things at.



Before leaving town, we wisely pay a visit to the Hospital. Healing the entire party sets us back 234 MST, but it's well worth it.

Back when I played Phantasy Star as a child, I saw the hike to Loar as kind of a hell march, and this Hospital marked the end of it. Up until this point, the game never leaves you too far from a place to heal, but the trip from Gothic sends you on a long over-land march with new enemies, then through a damaging lava field, a new dungeon that has to be charted, and finally a beach crossing with another new enemy set. And it's not even clear why you're making the trip! I died during this part of the game more than once, and it was an early roadblock for me.



We have one final important decision to make before we leave town. Currently, the last church we visited was in Gothic, so our TRANSERs will currently send us all of the way back there. If we set foot into this church, they'll send us here instead. There are pros and cons to either option, but for now let's avoid it.



To Abion!



Here's something new. As I just mentioned, our inventory is full, mostly with FLASHes, and a group of Vampires dropped yet another one. In this case, the game kindly gives us the opportunity to drop something in order to make room.



Congratulations, Phantasy Star. You just made me feel guilty about leaving behind a flashlight.



We continue west and run into yet another new encounter. It feels like we've seen half of the game's full enemy list on this little sojourn. The SCORPIUS is about as easy as you'd expect a palette-swap of one of the game's weakest monsters to be, but I don't think I ever showed off their attack animation before, so here, enjoy:



It honestly just looks like they're trying to talk at us.



This is also proving to be a bit of a hike, but at least it's hard to get lost!



There's just something incongruous about fighting skeletons outdoors. Doesn't seem right.



Eventually the path widens out again. Hopefully we're nearing our destination?



It looks like the EVILDEADs have learned how to camouflage themselves!



They can tie us up now, I guess, but WIGHTs are pretty unremarkable otherwise. At least they pay a lot better than their cousins.



o hai

That's a big fist.



Ow!



Nope!



Nopenopenope!

Needless to say, Giants are a bit out of our depth at the moment.



We're never going to get to Abion, are we?

You might think a Manticor's attack would be the same as a Sphinx...



You would be mistaken. Does anything on this godforsaken continent not breathe fire?



Fortunately, this is a problem that we can solve with diplomacy, and we get an interesting-sounding tidbit in the bargain.



Around the next bend, Abion finally comes into view.



One final skeleton gets in our way, but I forgive him because he teaches Noah a new spell!



"WIND", eh? That sounds pretty straight-forward. I'm sure we'll get a chance to see it in action shortly.



Looks like we've finally hit the end of the line! Let's hope we can accomplish something here.

Abion is laid out in a gigantic square surrounding a small central island. We start next to the shopping district, so let's take a quick dip in to the hospital and then see what they have in stock!



The Armory has two pieces of starting gear and one piece that is anything but:



The Laser Shield is an incredibly important piece of kit, and only available in Abion, but the manual is again doing us a disservice here. I mean, it would be a decent upgrade for Alis, without question, but it would be an even larger upgrade for Odin, and, more importantly, it is light enough for Noah to use, and represents a significant upgrade to his Defense. That said, it would also relieve us of most of our money.



Usually First Food shops are nothing to get excited about, and this one isn't really either, but young JBear found this to be an invaluable opportunity to stock up on burgers for the return trip to come.



Before we take a look at what the Second Hand shop has to offer, let's make some space in return for a pittance.



Huh. No sign of Polymeteral, but there is something else new:



We can buy a doofy-looking hat now!

Despite what you might think, the Magic Hat is only as effective as Alis' CHAT spell, and remains inferior to Noah's TELE spell. As you might guess, given the price, it is consumed on use. It's neat that it exists as an option, I guess, and it's reasonably inexpensive, but we're unlikely to ever buy one.



Let's see if someone around town can point us towards the Polymeteral or the Laconian Pot.

• "I'd like to travel in outer space."
• "Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, they become huge and can fly. It's really weird."
• "Help! Lassic has come to this town!"
• "A strange man came to this town. He seems to be performing animal experiments. He brought a large pot or something."

Well. That's a lot to take in! Apparently Lassic either is or was here, as is some kind of animal scientist. Not a peep about Polymeteral, though.



All that's left is this conspicuous passage, which presumably will take us to the island at the centre of town. Let's find out!



The passage is pre-lit, and encounter-free, but still very much a maze.



It also has entirely too many locked doors. What is this accomplishing, Phantasy Star?



Other than that, all we have to show for our time in here is a couple of mediocre chests.



I'll spare everyone the mapping details (there are a couple of loops that make it easy to get lost) and jump straight to the end.



Well, this indeed takes us to the central island, but there's only a single house here. I hope this animal experimenter sells Polymeteral!



Entering the house immediately dumps us into a one-tile dungeon with... whatever the hell this guy is supposed to be.

Hey, look, it's the decision that this Let's Play gets its title from. So what happens if we ignore that advice?





He kills Myau, and then we have to do this boss fight with only three characters.

Don't give your cat to the cat-eating mad man.

One reload later...



Much better.

So, there are a few things that you need to know about Dr. Mad.



One, he is a high-defense, dodgy-ass mofo.



Two, he attacks with a blast from his belt.



Three, he hits like a truck.

This seems really bad, gang! He can kill most of our party members in two attacks and we can barely scratch him. So how are we supposed to beat this guy? Well, we have a couple of things working in our favour.



The first is Myau's WALL spell. Remember WALL? It is invaluable here. At the cost of 6 MP it does, well, this:



Dr. Mad's next several attacks miss completely. WALL doesn't work against every enemy, but it works against quite a few of them, and it is incredibly effective when it does. That said, this is quite possibly the best use case for it in the entire game, turning a very difficult boss into kind of a cake walk (it suddenly occurs to me that the term "cake walk" is possibly very misleading in the context of Phantasy Star).

Still, that leaves us with the problem of chewing through 233 HP when we can barely touch him, which is where Noah comes in. Good thing Myau is keeping him alive! Let's get a look at our newest toy, obtained just in time:



The WIND spell is pretty much just an upgraded version of the FIRE spell, since elements aren't a thing in this game. For a hefty 12 MP, it sends out three blasts of wind that deal 9 to 12 points of damage each. Just like FIRE, each individual blast can randomly strike the same target or different targets. With only Dr. Mad available to hit, all three shots hammer him in quick succession.



WALL continues to carry us through the next several turns without a scratch, and Myau takes the opportunity to CURE Noah back to full HP.



Dr. Mad is on the ropes after several turns of Alis and Noah plinking away with FIRE and WIND respectively (Odin is just kind of dead weight here), but Noah has finally run out of juice. Still, at this point it's all over but the crying.



The wall finally "disappear" just before the end of the fight, giving Dr. Mad one last free shot at us.



Dr. Mad: Still a jerk. I cannot overemphasize what a night and day difference there is between doing this fight with and without WALL.



Finally defeated, Dr. Mad leaves behind the Laconian Pot. Hooray? Why does the game keep giving this to us, and why is it so valuable? We still have no reason to even want the stupid thing. In fact, there's an argument to be made that the game doesn't even expect us to be able to kill Dr. Mad at this point, since we don't really have any reason to. We could have easily left this fight until later.

But wait a minute. We've just explored the entire town. Where the heck is the Polymeteral?



/facepalm

This isn't a bit. I genuinely forgot that they sold this in the First Food shop, and didn't notice it when I popped my head in here earlier to grab a screenshot. I was wondering why it wasn't at the Second Hand shop earlier!

We, uh... we probably shouldn't eat it.




That's probably a good place to stop for now. Noah has already caught up to the rest of the party nicely. Anyway, we're finally at the end of this death march! There's no place to go now but back the way we came. But what the heck are we supposed to do next? Feel free to make suggestions!

That goes for shopping, too. We have several new expensive toys to buy, and not enough money to buy them all, and it'll be quite a hike back here if we decide that we want any of it later. Just to summarize, the big ticket items are:

• Polymeteral (1600): Plot macguffin.
• Laser Shield (4800): The only shield in the game that Noah can equip. +30 to his Defense.
• Heat Gun (1540): Doubles Odin's current firepower, dealing 10 fixed damage to all targets.
• Silver Fang (1620): The strongest weapon in the game for Myau. +20 Attack over his Iron Fang.

We only have 6000 MST ATM, but I can grind out a little more real quick if our shopping list goes a bit above that. I don't want to sit around too long, though. We have a star system what needs saving!

Things that we know:

• Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, become huge and can fly.
• Magical locks require magic to open, or something called the Miracle Key.
• Polymeteral will dissolve all materials except for Laconia.
• Laconia is the hardest, strongest metal, and makes bad-ass equipment.
• Medusa, who resides in a tower in the Gothic mountains, has a mystic axe.
• Lassic lives above the sky.
• There exists a certain crystal that will block Lassic's evil magic.
• There is a dangerous hill named Baya Malay to the north of Scion bordered by an imposing ziggurut to the south.
• Laerma trees grow on the Altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris.
• The Casba Dragon is apparently in possession of a gem called "The Amber Eye".

Outstanding roadblocks/mysteries:

• It's not possible to pass through Ant Lions on foot.
• There's a mysterious locked door at the entrance to the ziggurat south of Baya Malay.
• There are places in the sky where even spaceships cannot go.
• "The sound of the soothing flute is a joy to both the ear and the heart."
• What is the deal with this dumb pot?
• The robot Hapsby is made of Laconia, but has been abandoned somewhere in Bortevo, and we need him to fly our new spaceship!!!

One last thing before we go. I think we've seen enough of Palma now that we can take a look at this map included in the instruction manual:



So as not to give away too much, the maps in the manual all have strategically placed cloud cover, maintaining some mystery. Both Bortevo and Abion are both just out of sight in the northwest corner of the map. Young JBear spent a lot of time pouring over this map, and some others that we won't be seeing until later. Anyway, here's a legend to let you know how this corresponds to where we've been:

1. Camineet/Parolit/Spaceport
2. Medusa's Cave (Where we found Odin)
3. Eppi Forest/Village
4. Scion
5. Iala Cave (The Iron Fang dungeon with all the pits)
6. Naula Cave (Home of the cake shop)
7. Baya Malay (???)
8. Gothic
9. Triada Prison
10. Medusa's Tower
11. Lava Fields
12. Loar

You certainly are persisitent!

Bad news for Odin. Time to switch weapons?


Is Myau permanently removed if he/she/it gets eaten?