Save a Tree, Kill an Elf; Let's Play Tales of Phantasia!

If you want, I can explain how Symphonia's a prequel to Phantasia, although that's incredibly nerdy and I haven't played Symphonia's sequel yet either.

For some reason, 240x240 is a really weird-looking resolution.


Oh, man, I love this. You'd probably never see it in an official localization because it would come off as wishy-washy (and no one wants to go to the extra effort anyway), but this is such a good idea.

Wait.

...Wait.

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.

Transpose as in "this is in C, push this button and it'll be in Db major" transpose?

What's the range on this? Any key, or only a few?

If so, this is AMASING. It's the most amasing sound test ever. It is the only sound test worth EXISTING.

I was going to write this up later, when more of it would seem potentially relevant both at the time, and at the end. I haven't played Dawn yet either, but I'm not expecting it to have much to do with Phantasia at all.

I didn't even notice the square screens until I was checking the album. It's definitely kind of bizarre. I've seen it before though; the Treasures of the Rudras guys had to stretch the resolution any time there was text on-screen. That's not quite what's going on here (check this one again for an obvious exception), but regardless, it's interesting, and kind of weird. But seriously, advanced romhacking is a miracle which I am loathe to doubt. I just wish they'd work on games I really, really like a bit more often.

I believe the agtp guys only did that with the 1.0 Rudra patch. Most of the really good hackers use variable width fonts when they have text to cram into a box now.

nunix: yeah, that's what it is. It changes by half-steps; you can go up 7 and down 8. You can't fuck with the J-Pop opening song either, but being one of the less interesting pieces on the soundtrack (aside from the technical, how did they do that on a little cartridge 14 years ago, sense) that's not so bad anyway.

I didn't actually get around to playing Rudra 2.0 yet, I need to do that sometime, since I really liked it. I checked it out a little, but basically all I remember of the game is from playing the first completed English version.

Once you get to the PS1, it's not uncommon to see different resolutions used in the same game. The in-game action in Symphony of the Night displays at 256x207, for instance, while the title screen is an inexplicable 512x480.

Actually, even the Genesis did this to some extent. The main resolution was 320x224, but the logo splash in Konami games was 256x224, just like on the SNES and PC Engine.


Because that would be Eimii, of course!

Huh. Well I've never seen it before, but I admit I pay a lot less attention than you do to visual details in games, whether it's technical stuff like that, or sprites and animations.

I also think the grasp on English sounds demonstrated by the people naming stuff here doesn't rule out the possibility of "Amy," though it's good of you to point that out since I didn't think of it. I actually never paid attention to the kana for her name, anyway. (Well, this is the first time I've played the game since I could read it) At any rate, I dislike it a whole lot less than "EIRA" but I don't want to start that again.

What.... Doesn't this happen in Symphonia too? Or something?

Yes. I think we've already discussed how every Tales game is the same game. Well... they are. still awesome same game though

It actually...doesn't happen in any of the other Tales games I've played, aside from these two. It's not exactly an uncommon trope in the genre either, though.

Well, except Abyss. Tales of the Abyss is closer to a Star Ocean game than a traditional Tales game, for many reasons.

Yeah, Chrono Cross's menus run at a giant resolution, too.

I gathered that, but I didn't know it was this blatant. I guess you could say what happens in Symphonia is an homage of sorts... Or just laziness.

The village has been completely ruined in the course of just a few short minutes. I guess it's supposed to be longer actually. PANTS arrives just in time to see his parents dying before his eyes. Miguel implores him once again to take care of the pendant.

Everyone in the village has been killed, and when PANTS asks CHAPS to come with him to Euclid, he refuses.

So he's going to stay here and take care of the bodies before moving on, but he promises to meet back up. PANTS is on his own for a little while.

There's a mountain pass on the way.

The random statue here serves so the game can explain how to push and pull things. This game involves a lot of that!


Fighting alone is pretty fun actually. There's a lot more to pay attention to, rather than just knowing your party members will take care of things behind you. Suddenly, I wonder why I'm not playing Swordcraft Story instead. It has a sexy Atlus translation, even!


PANTS' extended family lives in a house in northwest Euclid. They ask if it's true that the village was attacked, and then if he's tired and wants to rest. The answer is YES. Because it progresses the story, of course.

That night, when PANTS is sleeping, a bunch of men in armor enter the bedroom.

As they take him away, the uncle says he's sorry. Too late...

Then in a part of this scene that isn't in the Nintendo versions, a soldier re-enters the room and approaches Olson. "No hard feelings," he says, before it cuts away.

CHAPS, at some point during the day, is hard at work when he hears footsteps coming.

Could the killers have returned? We don't get to find out right now!

The soldiers take PANTS to a man in black armor, who is behind the destruction of the village.

The man in the armor takes his pendant and then walks in front of a mirror, where PANTS sees a ghostly image above his head.

The soldiers take the rest of his possessions and throw him in a jail cell. The door is locked, and can't be opened by hand. After pacing the cell for a bit longer, a woman's voice implores him to approach the hole and put his hand through it. She hands him an earring, tells him to hold it up to the wall, then requests that he saves a young girl who's also in the cells here.

The earring blows a huge opening in the wall that he can walk through, and on walking through it, he sees...

A woman who's dead, probably for quite some time. (No, it really doesn't make sense. I like that.) He takes the sword from her body, equips it, and uses it to pry open the doors. A few chests strewn about the room contain food and a Battle Axe, an item whose sole purpose is to taunt you for a brief moment. (It doesn't exist in the Nintendo versions, either)


The girl in the cell is Mint Adnade, who wears "Methodist" (in this translation...it honestly kind of reminds me of the "Presbyterian Church" thing from "Backstroke of the West" though) robes. She's the party's medic in this game.

She gets renamed DRAWERS for the next half-hour. I was going to name her HOSE for a rather lowbrow pun, but as I mentioned before, the other part wouldn't fit in the box, so I changed the whole plan.

She asks PANTS if they can go rescue her mother, who's in the cell nearby, but he decides that if she saw that, she wouldn't be able to handle it, so he lies.


There's a grate in the back of the prison that leads to the sewers out of the evil base here. Unfortunately, in the PS1 (and maybe PSP?) versions PANTS can't break it with his sword. Thus, this is the stupidest puzzle in the game. You need to equip the Battle Axe and use it to break the grate. Doing this breaks the Axe so you never actually get to fight with it. It's so dumb!


DRAWERS is initially not useful in battle. She slowly lumbers over toward enemies and occasionally swings her little staff at them. Often this does no damage at all, but it can cause enemies to enter their hit recovery animation, which means it could still be worse. She can also cast First Aid, which is accompanied by an amusing "FAASUTO EIDO!" voice clip. It restores about 30% of a character's maximum health. She doesn't start with much TP, so it's important to play carefully until picking up a couple of the Orange Gummis (30% TP restore) laying around the sewers.

(By the way, that isn't "113" damage in that picture, but 11 on the first enemy and 13 on the second, stacked conveniently on each other)

The exit to the sewers is blocked by a "Clay Demon," a flying demon with a trident, and his cohorts, two slugs and and two bats.

The slugs are honestly the most dangerous, since they hit the hardest and can poison the party, plus they're the hardest to hit. However, this battle's easy enough on this version that you can take basically any strategy you want as long as you're not too stingy with throwing items. This time I just mashed the demon into the corner, then killed the slugs and finally the last bat. After this, PANTS gets all of the things that were taken from him back for no apparent reason (another change from the SFC and GBA versions), which means there's something else I should've done in Toltus. Oh well.

Outside of the sewers is another forest (or, I suppose, potentially the same one from the beginning). Just when the two think they're safe, a slug appears behind DRAWERS and PANTS pushes her out of the way. He gets spit on, and collapses. She tries to pick him up, and then hears footsteps coming...

Ah, I know Mint's hat! Estelle can get it as an outfit accessory in Vesperia. I don't particularly like it.

Playing SO2PSP right now and all PCs are forced into having all-caps names. It makes me feel like I'm playing a Let's Play. :/

I like how Spineshark made sure to point out that both skill naming schemes were worthless in the end. With fan translations, sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

I think we shouldn't change the character names throughout the playthrough. It'll be confusing.

Yeah, and let me tell you how much fun that was when I was trying to write a FAQ for the import version on a 12" screen via composite video.

Um... "heroes rush home to find their tiny hamlet in flames" is hardly a cliche reserved for the Tales series.

I vote that you attempt to make the story of this game as inscrutable as possible.

In fact, you should just name everyone "Cow"

Oh, he doesn't need to do anything to make it inscrutable. Your crew will be doing enough weird and wacky things that it doesn't really make much sense until the middle and end. And not even then, unless you've played Symphonia in which case it makes marginally more sense if you make a few assumptions.

name everyone dhaos

I guess I just meant that it's cool, like you said.

PANTS wakes up in a strange bed.

The man tells him that he's already heard what happened, from his friend, and then mentions that the girl was carrying him when he found them. DRAWERS did some cooking while he was asleep and gives him some, since he must be hungry. This introduces the game's cooking system, another new addition in this version and continual staple of the Tales series.

I hate cooking. It's another stupid grind in a series that already has too many (not to mention searching for the Wonder Chefs who have the recipes, which is rarely difficult but still annoying). The only game where I find it bearable is Rebirth; Annie isn't allowed to cast healing spells outside of battle, because the game doesn't use a standard mana-esque resource system. Cooking thus becomes the only economical way to restore health between battles, and it doesn't have the same idiotic "mastery" system that most of the other games use.

Morrison encourages PANTS to get a breath of fresh air, so he does.

CHAPS also met Morrison, while he was still burying the bodies in Toltus, and he helped with the process. Morrison talks about how he knew both PANTS' and DRAWERS' parents quite well. He explains that he was also looking for the man in the black armor, then asks what happened to PANTS' pendant...when he finds out that it was taken, he asks the kids to stay at his house, and says he needs to do something right away. They return to the dining room and start arguing about whether they should listen to him or follow him.

PANTS also realizes that he's no longer holding the earring he got from the dead woman. Could this possibly be relevant? Not really!

Master Tristan comes by the house to meet with Morrison, but he finds of course that he's already gone. When he hears what happened to Toltus, he realizes that the men who called him away were obviously working with the man in black armor. But he also says that as a frail old man he couldn't have possibly stopped him. He, too, recognizes DRAWERS. And it was right then that I realized I *should* have taken Parish's naming suggestion, despite my initial hesitance.


Anyway, Tristan doesn't think it's such a bad idea for the kids to go exploring the crypt near the house here. They (except CHAPS) are the children of great powerful heroes, you see. He tells them to get ready and that he'll meet them in the cave.

Back in Toltus, on the top floor of the Alvein house, is a sweet sword, the best that can be obtained in the opening of the game. It belonged to one of the soldiers, but it just got left in the fireplace. You can pick it up right away after the village is destroyed, but in the GBA and SFC versions you lose it when the soldiers take your things. On the PS1 version, I guess you get it back, so I should've picked it up earlier.


Mint gets her second tech, Pow Hammer, which sucks. It stuns enemies...sometimes. More effective to use her TP for healing. Fortunately, it's possible to prevent party members from using any skill you don't want them to by just hitting "square" with the cursor over it in their skill menu. That's what the greyed-out name here shows.

The third tech is Charge, which gives 5 TP to a party member, at a cost of 10 TP. There's an accessory later that halves TP consumption, but considering that her TP is arguably the most valuable, this skill is still a stupid waste in general.

Anyway, like I said, the sword is a pretty serious upgrade.

Inside the cave, Tristan teaches PANTS how to do the first "Ougi" a skill that combines two other skills. The first one is "Demon Kick," which involves first using Demon Fang, then Swallow Kick, a close-range attack which involves jumping and kicking the enemy up to twice, then stabbing them. In order to use combination skills, PANTS has to master both of the skills that make them up, which means using them 100 times.

Generally, there are only a few skills I spam enough times to "master" them. So these won't come up much, not that they're very useful in the first place in this version since the combo system is more robust anyway.

The first hallway down here has five doors that each lead into small rooms with these coffins. Each coffin has a Mummy inside of it. They're annoying to kill, but they usually drop Panacea Bottles (cure basically every status), plus you find another item inside the coffin after it's dead.

After raiding the rest of the tomb for equipment, PANTS reaches the bottom floor, where he sees a huge statue.

It attacks. The golem is really annoying since it blocks a lot and has high defense, but it goes down eventually. It did manage to kill CHAPS, so PANTS runs from the next couple battles.

All it takes to escape is to run into the side of the field until this gauge fills up. It takes longer if you're underleveled, which fortunately we're not right now. Also, if you're immobilized through paralysis or petrify status, then you don't even need to stand at the edge of the field.

Moving the statue onto a button at the south end of the room opens a door, and through that door is a miniboss battle that I didn't remember was here. Maybe it isn't in the other versions, I'm not even sure.

It's just two Clay Demons, who are pathetic now, attacking from different sides. Reviving CHAPS so he can fight off the back one is a good idea, though.

They guard a chest that contains a magical ruby, that opens a couple doors in this dungeon. Through the door in the first hallway, that was locked before now, is a magical circle.

It leads down to a fiery pit of lava and moving platforms. There's a small puzzle here, where one of the platforms doesn't come quite close enough to the main platforms, so you need to find a switch and extend the platform a bit. However, when floating on one of the platforms, PANTS drops the ruby. He goes down some stairs to pick it up, but it falls down again.


Another magical circle here causes him to float. This is good, because going down the stairs to find the ruby leads to an area with damage floors. It's not necessary, but it does make life a little easier.

There's another battle with two Clay Demons who guard a perfectly ignorable chest down here. And not that I tend to make fun of games a lot for mistakes that aren't really worth the effort to fix, but hey, we're not floating here. The chest has a Lavender, which is a...stat boosting item of some sort. I'll tell you what it is when it actually gets used.


Anyway, the Ruby is used to open another door, and...this time it's a battle with two golems. This is, no shit, the second hardest boss battle on GBA. It's very easy on SFC, on the other hand. I didn't have any problem with it this time, but I was also a lot higher level than I usually am when I play this game, so it may be just as difficult as the GBA version.

Inside the next room, the man in black armor tells them they're all too late, then opens the coffin. He attempts to command the "Ancient King" Dhaos.

Dhaos annihilates the bad guys with a huge beam, then prepares to finish off the heirs of the ones who defeated him before. Morrison begins a new incantation, but CHAPS thinks there isn't enough time for him to finish it and rushes Dhaos to buy them an extra second. The other two kids disappear, along with a book that Morrison suddenly pulls out. Dhaos recognizes the spell as time travel and asks where they've been sent, but Morrison refuses to reveal that. Dhaos says it doesn't matter anyway, then kills him with many beams of light.

The two find themselves on a hillside at sunset. They wonder what's happened, where they are, and what happened to the other two.

Morrison's book explains the opening of the game, basically. He first describes how there was an ancient war, in which two kingdoms banded against Dhaos. Dhaos was finally defeated by four heroes in that past, but he had a nearly godlike control over time and was able to escape through time from them. The families of those heroes were charged with keeping watch so they could imprison Dhaos when he next appeared, knowing they would not be able to slay him. After a hundred years, Morrison, along with Miguel and Maria, and Meryl, Mint's mother, did so, and captured his power in two pendants, one which Morrison kept, and the other which was given in safekeeping to Miguel and Maria. Looking around again, they find

But they decide it's no use worrying for now, they need to find shelter. They're dumped onto the overworld map, where...

Does that gap in the mountains look familiar?

There ended up being two themes that seem to have some popular support, so I was thinking of just changing twice (once for each time jump) but if there's support for sticking with the defaults or something I'm not at all opposed to that. This is the only version I've played where you can rename any of the other characters, anyway.

In Vesperia total mastery nets you new outfits... Well I thought every character would have to master it to get their outfit. It's actually just one for all. Oh those wasted hours...

Oh god, Pow Hammer. I HATE that spell.

That is entirely too cheerful for asking if you want to disturb the dead.

I like the idea of screwing with names if it works out entertainingly.

Sorry about the delay; between a cascade of minor personal catastrophes I narrowly avoided and the fact that I wasn't able to upload my pictures for a few days when I finally did play more, this is the soonest I can actually do this.


The village just to the north is called "Belladem" (at least in the other two translations I've played, so I'm going to stick with it. We're not going to be here much anyway). When Cress and Mint (now Knight and Bishop) arrive, the villagers begin talking. Who are they? Where did they come from? These are actually good questions, because there's nothing resembling civilization south of the village. The village Elder comes out and asks them, but their honest answers confuse all the villagers. He asks if they've somehow arrived via sorcery.


The Elder, whose name is Lenios, invites them into his house so they can talk more. He's surprised that they consider sorcery a "lost power." Bishop shows off her own special healing powers, which impress him, and then he gives a display of sorcery, shooting a fireball through an open door, which hits a bystander who's outside.

Lenios goes on to explain that Dhaos has ran rampant across the land for years, causing destruction and lots of trouble for the people of the world. Knight and Bishop decide they must be a few years in the future now, but it still just doesn't fit. Finally they just ask what year it is, and learn that it's actually 100 years before, before Dhaos was ever sealed the first time.

Again, they're told that ordinary weapons can't harm Dhaos, and that they'll need the power of Sorcery. They want to learn magic, but Lenios tells them it's impossible; only elves and half-elves can do it. He tells them to meet a man named Klarth in Euclid.

They all go to bed, but there's only two. An awkward moment ensues and then Cress decides he's just going to sleep on the floor. He lays down, thinks for a moment, then falls asleep. Mint brings him over a blanket. I've always found the sprite kind of cute.


The journey to Euclid is completely uneventful like before. Near the entrance to the town, a girl is hunched over near the welcoming sign. Knight tries to talk to her, but Bishop thinks he did a bad job. She says the girl's in love.

This sidequest is pretty much a waste of time, but oh well. She has a crush on Elwin, a guy who's in the weapon shop, but she can't bring herself to talk to him. The party goes back and forth, relaying information, but Elwin declines to meet with Nancy, knowing that if they fell in love his father would disapprove, so he'd like to avoid the issue in the first place. He's the heir to a large trading company in the city of Venezia to the north, and he'll be returning there soon. And that's all that happens with that for now.

Klarth's house is in the northeast part of town.

They ask about his research on Sorcery, and he informs them there's a 10,000 Gald fee to hear his lectures. Mint gets kind of indignant, claiming they can't pay that (though, amusingly, for the first time ever when I've played this game, that's not actually true, as I have lots of money from fighting so many battles), and tells him it's so they can fight Dhaos. He calls her "princess" again, and she gets even more irked, when he reminds her she never told him her name.

His female assistant, whose relationship with him is completely nebulous (well, they're not married), comes to chew him out.

I'm pretty sure the kana for her name is ”ミラルド” (because DeJap used "Millard") which can't be literally transliterated into any good English name. If I remember correctly, the GBA version made her "Miranda" which I once again approve of strongly.

Anyway, Klarth isn't an elf or part-elf either, but his research has led him to believe strongly that he can still learn to use magic by making pacts with the great spirits of the world. All that remains is to try it himself, so if the pair will assist him, they can find out once and for all if this summoning thing is any good, and pick up a great ally in their battle against Dhaos.

Klarth gets renamed "Rook." I was debating for a moment whether he or the next party member after him to join should have that name, because the other one would be "King" or "Queen." Naming them both of those at the same time is just not okay, though.


The Lone Valley, where the Sylphs live, is right behind that house over there, but first the party needs to go shopping in the next town over, Hamel. The item shop has a rope and a pickaxe, both of which are needed for the next dungeon because they decided to be annoying. Also, because you're supposed to come here now and see how nice the village is.


The house belongs to Bart, a man who Rook bothers for the Pact Ring necessary to make pacts to summon the spirits. He gives it up, on the condition they'll look for his daughter Arche, a teenaged girl with pink hair.


The pickaxe breaks down various rocks around here. This is the only place in the game where it does anything.


These chickens appear in random encounters in the outside areas in this dungeon. They're not in the Nintendo versions of this game, and they're really kind of annoying. Rook only carries a book right now, which he can swing at enemies for lousy damage. So Knight's still stuck with all of the legwork.


This is also a weird dungeon because the only battles that resemble bosses come at the beginning instead of the end. The Blue Sylphs are mostly harmless, but they get in the way of hitting the Red Sylphs, who can cast Tornado, a spell that hits the whole party for a substantial amount of damage. Still, they're not too dangerous, they just can't be allowed to cast it too many times in a row.

Inside the caves, the rope is so the party can go into these little pits.

Again, it's useless everywhere else. After going through the first pit, the party fights another set of Sylphs, then the dungeon's "puzzle" starts. There are bubbling pits leaking demonic "miasma" into the valley, which is what's driving the Sylphs crazy. Conveniently, there are rocks that can be used to block these holes. All the party has to do is knock over some walls and pull the rocks into the holes. It's easy!

Also, on the second part, it's possible to get into a battle against some really evil "demon" guys. They're nearly impossible to kill at this level and cast the spell "Summon Lich" which will pretty much one-shot the party, generally. The only real solution is to escape immediately, but I didn't even meet any this time.

At the tree, reached by crossing a bridge across a wide chasm, the Sylphs are grateful that they've been spared from the demons' curse. They agree to pact with Klarth, but they have a dire warning as well. The World Tree is in danger, and they don't know why. They implore the party to look into it.

I don't remember the 2x Clay Demons fight either. I'm going to agree that they're probably PSX only.

And is it just me, or did the location of the Sylph boss battle get changed? Because I remember them being at the very end of the dungeon.

The World Tree is in the Forest of Spirits, that little place just south of Belladem.

There, Knight meets the great spirit Martel once again. She tells them that mana is being consumed too quickly for the tree to handle, and that if the cause is not found and stopped, the tree will be destroyed and mana will disappear forever. Having seen the ruined tree, Knight knows this is true. The party suspects, and even hopes, that Dhaos is the cause of the mana depletion; if he is, then defeating him will solve both problems at once.


In the north, the town of Hamel has been destroyed. Everyone in town is dead, except for one person. She's a young girl with pink hair, and the party asks her what happened. She says an evil wizard destroyed the town. And his name was...

Really? I think ascribing that Greek goddess as the intended reference here is kind of a stretch! Seeing as he's a minor character who is going to be killed off this update and never mentioned again I'm just going to call him "Demitel" like the other translations do. The girl says he headed north, and gives her name as "Rhea Scarlet."

The north edge of the continent has the port city Venezia, where Elwin lives, and Nancy has followed him.

By talking to them a bit more, a meeting is arranged. Now to the very important business of REVENGE.


A person in the Mayor's House tells the story of Demitel. He was a talented, aspiring magician, who one day suddenly turned evil and moved off to a spoooooky manor in an island near the city. Knowing this, the party needs to commission a boat to sail to the island. The one at the northern dock is the one needed for this task; the other one is dedicated to sailing the route to Alvanista, but the captain's too much a wuss to cross the seas right now, times being what they are.

In a chest on the dock on Demitel's island is a ?Book.

Unidentified items can be identified with Rune Bottles, turning them into something usable. The book means it's equipment for Rook, and...

Oh. Well then. Moving on.

Despite being one of the smallest dungeons in the game, this is one of the most confusing and difficult to solve. There's some prisms in this room, which indicates strongly that some light needs to be shined on them, for a puzzle!

So, you can open the blinds...but nothing happens. Heading toward the back of the house, there's a door that's locked. (There's also one that isn't, and has a ton of chests inside)

The key is in a random pot halfway across the mansion in the other direction. Opening the pot allows entry to a little courtyard...thing, where a huge tree blocks the light.

Knight has to check the tree about five times before it attacks him so he can cut it down.

The two Orcrots are a difficult battle on the original version of this game, but they're cake in the remakes, for one simple reason: Klarth's Summon Sylph spell is actually okay in the remakes. The trees are weak to it, and so it does four hits for over a hundred damage each. In the original game, Sylph does the same damage per hit, but each casting hits only once instead of four times.

Knight's Lightning Tiger Blade is the attack of choice, since the trees are also weak to it. Lightning Tiger blade deals one hit of Lightning damage, in the range of about a hundred right now, and 1-2 more hits on the swing down, that are much weaker.

After the battle he learns Sword Rain, a rapid stabbing attack that's very good with weapons featuring high Thrust attack, like spears and rapier-style swords. It's terrible with Axes and swords like scimitars, though, which feature strong Slash attacks by contrast. Most of the best swords are actually balanced either way and don't make a big difference.


With that taken care of, there's just a little puzzle to get the light to shine just on these little orbs. That's the easy part!

This opens a staircase into the basement, which is also really short and easy. A chest here has a spear weapon that's called something different in each version of the game so I don't even remember what it is. Except good. It's very nice.

This ominous hallway has gargoyle statues whose torches light up as you walk past, and a save point. I think there's a boss here!

Demitel offers his own version of the events at Hamel; there was an "accident" and everyone died...[i]including[i] one Rhea Scarlet. Her father was, in fact, his magic teacher, and he would have no reason to kill him, right? Whoever the pink haired girl is, it just couldn't be Rhea...


I don't know what happens if you pick #2 and I forgot to savestate; I don't even remember this choice coming up in the other versions but maybe I just forgot. Anyway, he's a right bastard, and when he walks in front of the mirror, Knight sees that he too is being controlled by Dhaos.


The battle is against Demitel, two golems, and two Wraiths. The golems can be one-shotted by Sylph attacks in the remakes and the Wraiths just have to be slammed around a bit, then it's easy to trap him in a corner and stab him to death.

By contrast, this battle is the single most difficult in the original; the golems still take a decent amount of effort to kill, because Klarth sucks. The wraiths have dangerous spells themselves and teleport a lot, and Demitel himself puts up quite a fight on his own, with powerful whip attacks and an extremely dangerous attack that shoots several small balls at the party. However, he's rather amusingly unable to turn around (I guess they didn't want to make a right-facing sprite, or even mirror the base one?), meaning that if you can manage to get Cress behind him, he's no longer really capable of blocking your attacks or hitting you back.