Make a Memory: Let's Play Wild Arms 3

[gogglebob]

We close out Wild Arms 3 Chapter 3 today, June 29, Twin's Day. Considering the fact that twins can synchronize their minds, twins boast the world's fastest communication speed. Today is the day this theory was established and caused a major sensation at the annual Telepathic Mage Convention.

Chapter 64: Imagine Dragons on top of The World

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Siegfried is defeated! The Tear Drop is reclaimed! Maya is going to die alone in an exploding castle!

Wait! That last one is a problem!

But seemingly necessary, as Siegfried appears to have survived, and is teleporting into his All the Dragons room.

On one hand, Siegfried is on the ropes. On the other hand, he has a hangar full of Fafnir dragons. Just one of those required a boss fight earlier in the dungeon. That could make our lives difficult…

And Siegfried is the only villain in this piece that understands how healing works. He may have lost the Tear Drop, but he has alternatives.

Drag on, my brother.

Though my sister has objections.

Once again, “we” have gotten pages of backstory on the ARMs and how demons work, but Maya has had to pick it up on the fly. The good news is that she has been picking it up well…

This sounds like it could be the introductory phrase for a Guilty Gear round…

Maya vs. Siegfried!

Spoiler: Round 2!

Round 2! Extra phallic edition!

ARMs as we know them are dragon fossils. So it makes perfect sense that Maya should be able to utilize a more recent “fossil”.

Siegfried has doubts, though.

Maya doesn’t.

It was referenced briefly during the first Siegfried vs. Maya battle, but Maya is apparently an extraordinary neosapian.

Her whole "book magic" power? It is just a silly manifestation of Maya’s seemingly innate ability to do damn near anything.

So this confirms two things:
1. Siegfried (and the Prophets) were wrong all along. Neosapians have evolved past demons even on the “battle” rubric that demons cherish. Maya’s abilities are undeniable, devastating proof.
2. Maya is the goddamned Chosen One for Filgaia.

Just a quick note about Maya before she continues to kick ass. Insomuch as one can believe there is a direct “timeline” link between Wild Arms 1 and Wild Arms 3, there is circumstantial evidence that Maya is the descendant of Cecilia Adelhyde, the main female protagonist of Wild Arms. Cecilia was a tomboyish princess who had a grand destiny as princess of a kingdom and the woman who could communicate with the Guardians. Additionally, her treasured heirloom was the Tear Drop, and she spent half the game reclaiming that gem from demons. She is a third of the team that saves the world, and she is the most spiritual of the trio, with a greater ability to channel Guardian energies than her two companions.

So the connection between Cecilia and Maya via the Tear Drop is obvious, but the fact that they are also both powerful “mediums” is present, too. Additionally, Maya’s new dream to be the queen of the world is appropriate for someone who has royal blood coursing through her veins. Also, when Wild Arms 5 decided to have a “version” of Cecilia make a cameo…

They sure did pick a design that looked a lot like Maya’s “nerd” form.

Whatever the case, there is an overt connection between Wild Arms 1 Cecilia and Wild Arms 3 Maya. The correlation between Wild Arms 1 Calamity Jane and Maya is superficial; Maya is a secret princess.

And princess beats knight every time.

Of course, it doesn’t work out all that well for Maya, either.

Might have overdone it, too.

She’s not wrong. Siegfried and an army of Fafnirs would have been a hassle. Guess Maya noticed Sieggy’s movements on her surveillance monitor last update, and the rest of that “I have to stay behind” crap was a feint so she could square her debts.

The raging inferno seems to say “yes”.

Aw, it’s that book we returned. Maya needs deeper pockets.

Yeah, being kidnapped really cuts into your leisure time.

Go out doing what you love.

Todd has The Shining, but he doesn’t talk about it a lot.

Virginia is barely keeping it together.

Looks like Maya survived one collapsing ceiling.

But she is not out of the woods yet.

So she does the coolest thing possible.

Rapid-fire Maya transformations!

We only ever fought one Maya “form” at a time, but…

She can apparently swap powers on the fly. Magic ice to flying kicks!

So… yeah… Can we please get a game where Maya is a playable character? Swapping between Maya “Jobs” sounds fun.

She’s jump kicking her way here, Alfred.

There we go.

And no one will ever know how awesomely she navigated her way back to Lombardia. We just leisurely walked!

We already blew a hole in the place to get in here, but it doesn’t hurt to bifurcate the castle again.

The good dragon.

See you next mission.

Hold up.

Guess Maya forgot to blast a hole in the bomb chamber so the little girl could escape.

I’m sure she’ll be fine, though. Probably not relevant to anything.

Blammo. Really hoping this thing is going to crash into the Sand Sea and not, like, Boot Hill.

Back with a vengeance!

Maya may have kicked his ass, but Siegfried merged with a Fafnir was too good of an opponent to pass up.

So Lombardia fight!

I guess the “real” heroes must have a moment to beat the bad guy once and for all.

Siegfried basically did this in Wild Arms (1), too. He returned after his “final battle” to be the final-final fight while the good guys were leaving the last dungeon on an elevator.

And those protagonists didn’t put up with Siegfried’s shit, either.

So this is the final mandatory Lombardia battle. Those of you paying attention may have also noticed that this is the second mandatory Lombardia battle.

Siegfried’s attacks are pretty consistent with his abilities from earlier.

These attacks would probably be a pain if we didn’t have 950,000 HP.

Aw! His sword got bigger, too.

I like the random mishmash of body parts that is now Siegfried. This final form was not planned.

So anywho, same Lombardia plan as before: power up your FP with basic attacks, buff your attack, and then use the death laser.

Couldn’t be easier.

Naturally, we have to close out all this nonsense with a cutscene of sorts.

Note that finishing Siegfried also grants the Chapter 3 Complete Trophy on modern systems.

Anybody notice how everybody apparently has “flying” character portraits?

Does Lombardia have a four-person “Voltron” style cockpit?

Clive always wanted to be a G Gundam protagonist.

Siegfried is the only one with a sword in this whole game!

And… we use the exact same super laser we already used in this battle. I have always assumed that this “super attack” was going to be an unlockable upgrade that is granted after this bout… but then someone noticed that, if you complete the UFO sidequest before entering the flying castle, there will never be another Lombardia battle again. Not just mandatory, mind you, as after the UFOs are trounced, there will never be aerial random battles, too. So no more Lombardia fightin’ at all.

You can still take the sandcraft out for a spin if you really need some WA3 vehicle combat.

Sore loser.

And that’s it for gameplay in Chapter 3.

Siegfried is vaporized, and the castle wreckage is probably not starting a whole new ecological disaster.

All of your enemies are dead.

If that doesn’t work for you, make a new metaphor.

Hey, does Lombardia have additional seating, or were these dorks all squished in the cockpit with our heroes? Was this entire adventure an excuse for Maya to sit on Virginia’s lap?

“I was thinking we could grab a gelato at that place you like.”

Just as well. Maya probably is going to smell like smoke for the rest of the week.

“Ever seen Pinky & the Brain? It’s going to be like that. But better!”

Oh! Todd! He has a sword, too. Two people with swords.

Typical cat dénouement.

“So… were we supposed to get paid for rescuing Maya? Or…”

“I heard something about gelato?”

Oh yeah! The Blue Menace! That was a running threat going back to the start.

Cowabunga.

“Remember when we all nearly shot each other? Good times.”

“And the mysterious entity controlling us with a Playstation 2 Dualshock.”

Woo! Gramma time!

And they walked happily ever after.

Jet is preemptively bringing the party down.

Have you been paying attention at all? We’re a team and a sword of justice or whatever.

Learn and grow, stupid!

Oh, right! Did he blow up?

And that’s it for Chapter 3, ladies and gentlemen. Save a game and get ready for the final chapter.

Hmmm.

Not today.

So here are our stats for Playstation 5 version, and…

“New game plus” Playstation 2 version. In both cases, I have done a lot more sidequests than are usually required at this point.

And thus concludes the story of Siegfried, the Prophets, and Janus (if you were somehow expecting him to return). The Blue Menace has been trounced, and there are a scant few dangling plot threads left to address. Virginia is still daddyless, Gallows is still entirely too sober, and.. That’s about it, right? We have taken out the major threats to Filgaia, so we can rest easy.

…

Oh, wait. Maybe we should do something about that whole “the planet is a wasteland” thing.

Let's look into that.

Next time on Wild Arms: A chapter break is in order, so let’s chill and listen to some tunes.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Hey, does Lombardia have additional seating, or were these dorks all squished in the cockpit with our heroes? Was this entire adventure an excuse for Maya to sit on Virginia’s lap?

I mean.... yes? Wars have been fought over less worthy causes.

 

[gogglebob]

Time for a break. Let's take a look at the ol' forums...

Sounds neat...

Well, surely...

Oh, I see how it is.

I am fuming on July 6, Carbonara Day. I love spaghetti carbonara. The name carbonara is so poetic and delicious sounding. It makes my mouth water.

Act 3 Complete Interlude: Music Appreciation

It is a sad side effect of the construction of these Let’s Plays that I very rarely discuss the music involved in a game. Without delving too far into how an official Goggle Bob Co. Let’s Play is designed and rolled off the assembly line, understand that by the time I am actually writing about some particular section of the game, it has likely been months since I played that portion. And, since I often dice up and catalogue these screenshots while my computer is muted and I have my television streaming some random nonsense (currently rewatching Gravity Falls!), the first and last time I ever hear music and gameplay together is “early” in the whole process. If I want to jam along with a particular dungeon, I ultimately have to go out of my way to do it.

And never mind that there are usually about ten thousand things to cover over the course of the Let’s Play anyway. How am I supposed to take time out for tunes when I already must choose between discussing battle systems or lesbian overtures!? Bah!

So let’s take a break from all that to talk about the music of Wild Arms 3. And, since music is subjective as hell, I am just going to be looking at my favorite songs from the soundtrack. This is my Let’s Play! You deal with that!

I am going to attempt to link to Youtube uploads of these tracks. If the links rot, or some random song is secretly Never Gonna Give You Up, I accept zero responsibility. Go find your own Wild Arms 3 soundtrack!

… Which you actually can within the game. There is a complete "sound test" at the bar in Little Rock. However, all the tracks have extremely nondescriptive titles like “BATTLE_03” and whatnot. Additionally, their order in the game-based soundtrack is founded on “purpose”, so we’re going to go with the official soundtrack listings today. As that soundtrack more or less follows the chronology of the Wild Arms 3’s plot advancing, we are going to start with…

Advanced Third
Here is what plays on the title screen, so I have heard it ten thousand times. It is appropriately exciting, and uses trumpets, which was used to great effect in Wild Arms 2, too. It is also only a minute long, which is appreciated when you start reviewing an entire RPG soundtrack.

From Beyond
One of the many dungeon themes in Wild Arms 3. I can close my eyes and see random protagonists using tools...

Gunmetal Action
There may be a lot of general dungeon themes, but there is only one main “random battle” theme. This was well before RPG battle themes could be more dynamic to accompany the actual flow of battle, but it does seem generally timed to work with a “contemplative” starting menu of choosing your moves, and then the actual fight starting. Whatever the case, it is appropriately peppy for smooshing giant bugs.

Spoiler: Time for more tunes...

Scars of Leftover Memories
Our second dungeon theme. I feel like this one has more of a “you are definitely solving puzzles” vibe. I want to say this one is very distinctly tied to the “memories” of Ruins of Memories, but also appears elsewhere.

Blood, Tears, and the Dried-up Wasteland
One of the boss themes. The start of this track now just makes me think “remember to use a Lucky Card”. Like the main battle theme, it has a sort of “plot” that picks up at the :50 mark when the battle should really be kicking into gear. By 1:15 or so, it is downright menacing.

That Which One Aspires to and Seizes
WA3 basically has three modes: dungeon, fight, and cutscene. This is one of the cutscene songs. No, I cannot recall exactly when it is used. Probably when Virginia first takes the stage as a drifter that will fight for justice at the end of Chapter 1? Whatever the case, it is triumphant as hell (heaven), so we’re giving it a listen.

Long Days of Rest
What would an RPG be without memorable town themes? … Probably Xenosaga. But still! This is a fun little ditty to listen to while talking to random people and hoping at least one of those bookcases contains useful information.

Let's Run Around, Let's Look Over There
Much like Super Mario Bros. 3’s “Running”, the title of this track tells you everything you need to know. I believe this theme is deliberately reprised every time you enter a dungeon that involves Maya and her family…

Flying in the Midst of the Storm
This is technically more cutscene music (traditionally used for good times), but the opening vocal bit of some dudes belting out the main theme acapella is not heard in the game proper. I mean, it might be in there, but I would have noticed if it was at all featured, and doesn’t happen during some distracting important event. Whatever the case, this one wins for something I like listening to divorced from actually playing Wild Arms 3. Because I can’t get enough WA3, apparently.

Wild Bunch
Wild Bunch is the (well, "a") theme of Maya and her gang, and also the name of their Triple Tech during their final battle. Not my favorite song, but “goofy team theme” would get on this list even if it wasn’t associated with my favorite side characters. And I think I hear something about “wetting the sofa” in those few words spoken?

Migratory/Wandering Bird-Scoundrels
The main overworld theme is confusingly named. Wild Arms 3 is the kind of game where you can spend a lot of time on the world map if you don’t know exactly where you’re going, so it is good that the theme of wandering around the wastelands is so… whistle-y. That’s the way you do it. My only issue is that it is basically a 1:30 loop, and you are going to spend a lot more than a continuous minute on that world map.

Scenery Called ''Everyday''
Another town theme. I like this one better than the other one. I think it has just enough rhythmic clapping.

A Person's Warmth
This is the theme for the Secret Garden area. As a result, it is, essentially, another town theme. If the title of the track is the thesis for the song, it nails it. This is a very “warm” ditty.

Losing One’s Way in Darkness
This is my favorite dungeon theme. It deeply reminds me of Wild Arms 2 songs, and sounds just “mechanical” enough to be appropriate for when the Prophets start rearing their pseudo-science heads. Just a shame it has to be associated with that damn sand sewer…

The Stage is full of miscast people
You can tell that Wild Arms 3 is good, because it has multiple themes for its resident “comical” characters. Another Maya theme, this one occurring more often with “here comes trouble” scenes wherein Maya introduces her latest kooky plan. You can feel how badly the whole thing wants to underscore Bulk and Skull. This theme would go on to graduate high school, get a masters, and then become the Goron theme for Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

That’s Just a Rumor
And this is the song for when Maya actually successfully pulls something off. Or maybe when our team decides to rescue her? Whatever the case, it is an excellent mixture of “goofy” and “we’re gonna go kick some ass”.

There’s only one family named Schrödinger
This song is probably about cats or something.

You Look Defeated when Sad
Despite the title, this is not the Game Over theme. This is the tune that plays in Virginia’s head every time she gets sad about dad. It’s sad dad song. It incorporates the main theme, but is slow and contemplative. Virginia would appreciate its place on this list.

Bad Guys and Bad Land
The official town theme for the “shady” town, Little Twister. You might hear this one for a while as you shuffle around your inventory for sale at the Black Market. Other than that, you will probably forget about it pretty quickly.

Ready Lady Gunner
This is the “happy” version of You Look Defeated when Sad. Considering it is once again a variation on the main theme, we may as well identify “the main theme” as “Virginia’s theme”. Virginia must enjoy whistling, too.

Crossfire Sequence
Our second boss theme. I don’t feel like this one does a lot to distinguish itself musically from the previous theme, but it is ringing in my mind as a familiar tune for gunning down giant monsters.

Fate Breaker
If you’ve got a dungeon that could marginally be described as “radical”, it will be assigned Fate Breaker as the theme. This sounds like something that could come out of a sentai show… or at least accompany a group of heroes saving the day. Which is technically what happens all the time in Wild Arms 3…

Black as Sin Red as Blood
The Prophet boss battle theme. Complete with that… sound at the start, this is otherworldly for the bad guys that are literally being rejected by your mother planet. Remember when they used to have that little alien guy follow them around everywhere? Whatever happened to him? … Oh, we killed him? Sorry, forgot.

Puzzle Maniac 2000
This is the theme for all the Millenium Puzzles. This is a fun little song for doing what is essentially Geometry homework, but I would have been happier with something longer than three minutes. You could spend hours on those puzzles…

Higher than can be carried by Wings
This is the air battle theme. It follows the same “battle theme” pattern of having a sort of intro before getting into the proper fighting bits. It could work as a land battle theme, but it does feel vaguely flighty.

Lightning Blade in the Blue Sky
The normal flying theme. Given how the radar system works, you are either going to hear this song continuously for seventeen minutes as you circumvent the globe over and over again, or it is going to cut in and out as you land, fly, and land again repeatedly to find your exact destination. Any RPG that makes the airship theme and overworld theme one in the same to avoid interruption is making the correct choice. Sorry, Wild Arms.

The Weight of a Heavy Life, The Meaning of the Meaning of Life
Hey, it’s no The Weight of the World, but we just didn’t have the technology for that back then. It’s pretty alright.

Walking into the Heart of the Sunset's Light
One of the cutscene songs that works on a sort of crescendo. It must have been difficult to properly time music to cutscenes back in the day when a player could advance dialogue at any speed.

Have you told your beloved ''SAYONARA''
Kiss your loved ones goodbye, because Siegfried is big and scary. Also: complete with the signs that are seen in various locales, nobody on Filgaia speaks Japanese. I wonder if the implication of “SAYONARA” is that that is a demon dialect…

A Party So Long As the Stars Exist
Now we are getting into music that has not technically appeared in the Let’s Play yet (insomuch as music appears in this Let’s Play at all). This is the theme of the pseudo-ending that kicks off this coming chapter. At around the :45 mark, it moves into a very cool, subtly victorious bit. Aways happy when it gets to that part on its infinite loop.

Only You Can Cross Your Own Barriers
Get ready for some spooky music as we deal with a dream demon through Chapter 4! Uh… Spoilers!

Succubus Princess
Really spooky! Like, finale of Breath of Fire 1 spooky!

If You Reach Your Dream
And speaking of older RPGs, this is a Final Fantasy 4-ass final dungeon theme. Whether you are on the moon or in a nightmare castle, apparently there are similar sounds to use.

The End of the Beginning
In what will soon be the end, it all comes back to whistling. Please whistle along as we now enter the finale of Wild Arms 3.

But don’t worry. I’m sure everything is going to turn out fine.

Next time on Wild Arms: “But I wanted to have an adventure, too!”

 

[Kahran042]

I may not agree with all of your opinions, but I do love the WA3 soundtrack. Thanks for posting all those videos!

 

[Purple]

Well, surely...

Oh, I see how it is.

In my own personal defense, when it was my turn to throw out noms there was just all this obvious low-hanging fruit it seemed weird for nobody to have grabbed. I didn't even throw in any of those weird Shadow Hearts tracks I'm usually good for. And I'm not just saying that because I can't remember if the whole "double kickstarter" thing got mentoned in here, with its promised serials-filed-off sequel and needed an awkward segue.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Hey now Goggs, you're as guilty as the rest of us for not nominating any Wild ARMS music to that T-dome. Let he who is not black as sin cast the first, uh, wild bunch.

I stuck with a specific theme to my noms this time but if I were inclined to use a track from Wild ARMS 3 it'd probably be the Maya and friends battle theme.

 

[gogglebob]

In my defense, I will claim that being the guy who has been writing a comprehensive Let's Play of Wild Arms 3 for over a year nominating a song from Wild Arms 3 feels like... sigh... I don't know. I have other interests!

 

[gogglebob]

I was in a state of enchantment (Delaware) yesterday, but I'm back now and ready to update on July 14, Tornado Day. It's tortillas and nachos day!
Eat your heart out, cowboys! Yes, yes. Bad pun, I know.

Chapter 65: All Downhill from Here

Before we go any further, you must understand that Wild Arms 3 contains the longest ending in videogame history.

Endings are special in videogames. Whereas a story in any other medium has a general expectation of seeing a satisfactory conclusion, videogames require the player to earn a finale. Thus, there is a greater emphasis on there being a “good” and acceptable ending. Likely as a result of this implicit fact, a number of games go out of their way to have bombastic endings. Remember the Playstation era? When a game might have to be multiple discs just to contain a suitable number of ending FMVs? Or earlier, when it was not uncommon to see text and/or dialogue for the first time after you beat the final boss? And even today, it is normal for a game that has nothing to do with its own plot to be judged by its ending. You just beat a game that required pressing the X button seventeenthousand times to beat seventeenthousand random monsters! Why did you expect an ending more complicated than “You are a super player”!?

This begs the question of what players actually want from a “good” ending. Are all the loose threads supposed to be tied up into a recognizable ball? Should there be assurances that, even if there is some tragedy involved, everyone is going to be okay? Or should it be global? After all, a great many videogames feature protagonists literally saving the world. Shouldn’t there be a guarantee that that world you spent hours exploring is going to be better for your efforts? And that’s all before you get into the concept of “optional content”. I went out of my way to rescue Vincent Valentine from his crypt, dammit, somebody at Square should model that weirdo doing something during the climax.

As we remember from previously on Wild Arms 3, Siegfried, the erstwhile villain of the piece, has been defeated. Additionally, we saw the Prophets, ostensibly the weirdos responsible for Filgaia being a wasteland, turned to goo. We rescued Maya, protected the Guardians, and set the world back on the right path to peace. Wild Arms 3 could end right here.

Keep in mind, gentle reader, that there is more Wild Arms 3 to go. There will be a new(ish) danger, and, in grand plotting tradition, she will somehow be a greater threat than anything that has come before. But, from a gameplay perspective, this is a playable ending. There are four main dungeons to go, and, not coincidentally, you have four main characters that will learn lasting lessons from these dungeons. Hell, you might even call ‘em denouement dungeons. After that, we’ve got the grand finale dungeon that involves tools, skills, and battle strategies from across the whole of Wild Arms 3. Then there is a final boss that has more phases than I currently feel like counting. And after all that, there’s “an ending”. It’s not much of an ending in scope or length, but after everything else we’ve seen in Chapter 4…

Well, anyway, just keep it in mind as we move forward on these last 15 updates.

Chapter 4 is the final chapter of Wild Arms 3. But who cares about all this finality business? A new chapter means a new section of the opening animation! And it features Maya!

The final shot of the Schrodinger gang is seemingly meant to mirror (almost literally) the closing shot of our more recognizable heroes. You only see this Maya bit once you’ve reached Chapter 4, after you have seen the “Virginia Version” through every other chapter, so the parallels here should be almost subconscious to the average player.

And immediately after Maya, we get a brief glimpse of that happy little girl we’ve been seeing randomly for a while…

Okay, let’s get Chapter 4 going in earnest.

I was not kidding about Wild Arms 3 featuring gaming’s longest ending. Presumably in an effort to trick absolutely no one, this chapter starts with a faux ending of the gang celebrating back at Baskar.

Happy little camera pans, happy little stars shining, happy little music playing…

Miserable little Jet.

Spoiler: But there is dancing!

We even get someone’s 3-D modeling masters thesis for entertainment.

No dialogue for this bit, just vibes.

Virginia decides to stretch her legs.

Is it snowing?

The sky is crying happy tears… Or… Something?

Oh, we did blow up a nanomachine plant. Maybe these are dead robots.

It’s nice when you can go ten minutes without shooting someone.

You always think of yourself as a rookie…

(I can't believe a cub Drifter like me got involved in a battle over Filgaia and won with the help of many comrades...I fought to save the world...Maybe it's natural that it doesn't feel real...I mean, this was like a fantasy straight out of a picture book...)

“Then, what kind of things do seem real? ... Nothing comes to mind...I guess these things aren't supposed to...”

You do professionally fight mythical demons to protect random gods. I can understand the confusion.

Did Virginia save the world any more than anyone else? Seriously! I’m asking!

Is your face hot? Because it’s killing me! … Wait, I never got that joke quite right.

“This is a village of, like, seven yurts, and you managed to lose somebody?”

Get your slashfic ready!

Probably just involves turning your head slightly…

Virginia: drunk as a skunk.

See? Jet is just over there.

With Shane! Convenient.

Shane has not had much of an opportunity to show his personality over the course of Wild Arms 3. He has mostly just been there to reflect how Gallows could be… not Gallows.

Shane is jealous of Jet’s adventures. Also: Jet might secretly be, like, nine.

Is Jet trying to cut this conversation short, or does he genuinely have such a high opinion of all his traveling companions?

Shane, every RPG needs exposition. You serve an important purpose! Somebody has to stand next to Granny!

Shane has led a sheltered life, Jet has had next to zero life. Hooray?

“Did one of those dicks tell you I’m a robot?”

He did have to get those Ark Scepters from the intro from somewhere…

If you revisit Baskar at any point in the game, Gallows will provide a Gallows-filtered recap of recent events to Shane. We’ve seen it a couple times in this Let’s Play, but I am sure there are neurotic people that would visit Shane after every episode to see how the dialogue changes.
While revisiting him is never required (unlike Shane here), Pike and Jet have a similar relationship/dialogue updates. Amusingly enough, Clive and Virginia do not do this with their actual families.

Shane asks Jet if he’ll have his time to shine and fight demons, and Jet basically replies that you fight because you can’t do anything else. So that is something like a yes…

And then Jet teaches Shane how to box.

Or not.

Virginia is drunk and offering beer to minors.

There’s the Jet we all know and tolerate.

“Jet out!”

This is what happens when your heroes never look up…

Hey! We have control for the first time since we evacuated that flying castle.

Not that you can particularly go anywhere. Guide Virginia around, and be told of all the places you can’t go.

We know where Shane got to.

“He must have terrible spatial awareness.”

“Really thought I would find the two sad sacks together…”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

Not everyone has a drinking problem, Virginia!

Just naming our favorite states today?

Maybe not a good time, Shane.

Virginia is not going to remember that come morning.

Shane might, though.

Virginia! Dammit!

The following morning.

“Other than your BAC?”

“Dammit! Did you ask the dancing guy?”
“I’m right here.”

Virginia did almost go a solid ten hours without an adventure…

“So they kidnapped Shane and the secret key!?”

… Gallows, you are making this too easy.

“Secret” or “sacred”, Granny!? I just got through a Zelda game where this was a serious problem!

So anyway, Shane has apparently run off to play Pokémon.

Sacrificial Altar, eh? Sounds great. Shane should be fine.

Considering Gallows himself is a pillar, you understand why this might be the one thing he would automatically remember.

Gallows and Shane having a grandmother but no actual parents makes a little more sense now…

And we’re off!

Says the woman who just immediately gave up her on grandson five seconds ago…

Alright! Back to the world at large.

Doesn’t hurt to check in on the locals talking about the Sacrificial Altar, though.

A couple of different NPCs note that the Hydra has a weakness to flame. Write that down!

Now we’re off. Sacrificial Altar is, like, seventy feet away from Baskar.

Compare the maps in the bottom right. It is a really quick trip.

“I didn’t even have time to eat my hangover burrito…”

Nope, we got all of those. No more slots left.

Is “billowing” a sign of power? And not just… uh… balloons?

“That… is probably bad!”

Man, this was supposed to be our day off…

This whole “can summon an unstoppable monster” ability of Shane’s never came up before now?

Anytime an RPG starts you outside a dungeon, go ahead and have a look around the perimeter.

Sometimes there’s treasure!

And a secret room.

Not much going on in here now, but it certainly looks like something that will be important later.

Obelisks are always cool.

Alright, let’s try the real entrance now.

Gotta walk all the way around…

Okay, take two.

Looks like there will be more to see from this doorway.

Dungeon puzzles! How I’ve missed you.

Create a partial path by pushing blocks into position with the steady doll…

Try to avoid monsters while you are working on puzzles.

Whether someone thought it was time to reuse these specific monsters randomly or not, the last time we saw fish-lizards, it was at the previous Baskar monument, Infinitum.

Eels really shouldn’t have legs.

Punish them for their hubris!

Or be smacked around with a water attack.

They are apparently electric (walking) eels. They do not have elemental weaknesses, but will literally feed on any lightning you throw their way.

Meanwhile, the Gargoyles…

Like to use wind attacks.

So throw rocks at ‘em.

One of these weirdos gave me an Earth Ring, so you have to hear about it.

Also available: Scorpius.

Wouldn’t your tail be more effective?

They apparently are not fond of water.

Okay, back to block pushing.

And now we have a passable walkway. I assume Shane manifested flying powers to make it past here.

Nothing much to this room.

Except some obvious treasure.

You have to use the steady doll again to reach the goodies in this duplicator-sealed room. Gallows is our MVP.

Now we can move on.

That’s some good ol’ Baskar puzzle tablet nonsense.

This one is straightforward.

Ice out the flames…

And the path forward will eventually reignite.

Solve for a couple of different rooms.

This is a fun little puzzle, but feels more like something that should have been earlier in the game.

Noticing a pattern with who is required as party leader most often in this dungeon?

Finally! A new room!

Ominous hallway.

Never a good sign when everybody is present.

There’s our boy!

Lotta name shouting this update.

The hands are inviting, but the character portrait is possessed.

“We still have left over fiesta eggrolls from last night!”

I wonder how close Jet is to just shooting Shane…

Shane wants to get stronger to fight… uh… whatever comes next?

“Just as weak as we need you to be!”

Because you have absolutely zero combat training in a world where there are six random encounters between here and the closest convenience store?

Get equipped with Shane.

Or else.

Incoming summoning orb!

The much-discussed Hydra finally makes the scene.

Big ugly.

Do not use water. Do use ice. … Or don’t.

The Hydra is a pretty basic fight…

If you need to defend against an element, water would be a good pick.

Use ice or hit ‘em hard. Ice is the official weakness for creating big, red numbers.

But! Hydra can recover HP! And while it is not quite Siegfried’s full heal, that is still a healthy heal there.

The trick was relayed by the villagers: Hydra isn’t technically “weak” to fire, but a burn will reduce its healing ability.

Every time you use a fire attack on Hydra, its healing payload is reduced by half. Only a few casts will effectively negate its signature skill.

And without the ability to heal, guess what happens.

So much for the great beast of the pillar…

But Shane has apparently run off, and there’s more dungeon to go!

Next time on Wild Arms: Bro force!

 

[SpoonyBard]

Man the opening for the final chapter goes and includes Maya's gang but they're nowhere to be found in the big celebration. I wanted to see Maya getting white girl trashed with Virginia, I'm sure she's just as disappointed as I am.

I have mixed feelings about the final chapter here. It is definitely unique and I remember it going some interesting places, but I also can't help but wonder if the game as a whole would have benefited without it? It's like the developers looked at Wild ARMS 2 and were like "Hey remember in the last game where you beat the proper final boss but then there was another final boss that served as a resolution for everything? What if that but like 10% of the game?"

 

[gogglebob]

Don't you know me, Kansas City? I'm the next chapter of the Let's Play! Right here on July 20, Squash Day. I had a friend who used to blend squash into his drinks before imbibing them. When I asked him why he liked it, he just said he likes things squashed.

Chapter 66: The Desire of Gallows
or
A Bea in Your Bonnet

Previously on Wild Arms 3: It looked like everything was going to be good forever, but then Shane got it in his head that he wanted to “help”. Now we have to fight through a whole dungeon to make sure he doesn’t sacrifice himself to the planet or some silly/genocidal thing.

So we just slayed the (a?) hydra, which was the guardian beast of the Guardians. Guess it will be clear sailing from here?

Still more dungeon to go, though.

Tingle senses tingling.

Never gonna give you up, bombs.

This treasure room includes at least one Imitator.

We are well past

Spoiler: the point of caring about these boxboys...

the point of caring about these boxboys.

Virginia just obliterated the whole pack with one mystic’ed gem.

Talismans generally sound useful, but…

Talisman grants the ability Resurrection, which has the possibility of allowing a party member to survive a fatal blow. It is all based on PS and FP, but I believe the maximum chance of a revival is still a meager 15% or so. Doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Immediately valuable treasures are available, too.

Moving on.

Shane did more walking for this quest than he did all game.

BRACE FOR INCOMING PUZZLE.

Just dust off the tablet here…

Okay, sure. Already have that white breath out and ready.

So we have an invisible path that is only (temporarily) revealed by Gallows’s ice blast.

The nice thing here is that Gallows pivots while using his Freezer Doll. This means you can rotate around and scope out the area as often as you desire.

This puzzle only exists for one room, but if you fail/fall at any point, it is back to the start. Best to be cautious and assume you have no spatial memory in the dark.

And that’s our last puzzle for the day. All that is left…

Is a family reunion.

“I’m helping, dammit!”

The kid’s going full Cloud Strife! Somebody stop this!

This would be an excellent time to use your Freezer Doll to cool things off, Gallows.

More hydra?

More hydra.

We’re doing that end of the game thing where a unique creature has a color swap like three rooms later. Meet Salamandra.

Hydra was water-based. Looks like Sally has gone to the toasty side.

Complete with activating Flaming Zone, this is a fire dragon through and through.

Flaming Zone will boost the damage of Volcannon Trap about as high as it can get.

Though these fire attacks won’t do a lick of damage if you are equipped with Fire Wards. Considering Fire Wards are all but required if you want to do the Wild Arms 3 bonus content, now might be a good time to distribute those Fire Rings.

So this guy has an ice weakness, right?

But it is another situation where hitting the weakness incurs an immediate counter. If you have a main caster (it’s Gallows), definitely equip them with a Fire Ward.

If you are still in Hydra mode from the previous battle, note that Sally does not heal, and using fire on it would be a terrible idea. Just smack it if you don’t have any ice abilities handy.

Compared to the relative “puzzle” of the Hydra, this is just a straightforward slugfest.

Yet again, a reward that would have been useful for the fight. That has been happening a lot since Humbaba…

Oh. Good. More pointless boss fights.

Seriously! We don’t need to see some lightning lizard next!

Brother versus brother.

“And where were all these mythical beasts when we could have used them!?”

“And if the dream child told you to jump off...”
“Yes. Immediately.”

She wasn’t wrong!

Hug attempted and denied!

The translation/localization for Wild Arms 3 is really great, but they could have sprung for a thesaurus for this one. Something like “the covenant” sounds more appropriately creepy.

Shane is trying to draw on the power of Filgaia to grow stronger, but even he admits it could go poorly.

“Already started the whole thing… would hate to quit now because of a little thing like the destruction of the planet.”

Look out! Stuff happening!

Go with what you know.

Stop hugging the light this instant!

His heart is in the right place.

Bro is getting tired of this nonsense.

Yes? We covered this.

Yeah! Get Socratic up in his ass, Gallows!

Woo!

Yeah! Your memories suck!

Sad Johnny Mnemonic.jpg

“I’m the big guy! You’re the little guy!”

“You have a future that doesn’t involve getting eaten by lizards all the time!”

“Chill, my brother! Chill!”

Aaaaaand it works.

Been here the whole time, Shane.

Woo! World saved! Twice in 24 hours!

He just said that!

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Just like back in the intro!

… Does anyone remember that part at this point?

“… who is surprisingly good with math.”

That’s our Gallows! *canned laughter/applause*

And that’s that for our adventure at the Sacrificial Altar. Let’s take a moment to talk about Gallows

As was noted last update, each of the final dungeons are meant to focus on one party member. As you have no doubt realized at this point, Gallows gets today’s feature. This is a quest to save Gallows’s brother, 90% of the puzzles here were solvable via Gallows’s tools, and even the two bosses had solutions that were primarily based on Gallows’s magical skillset. Inside and outside of the script, this was the Gallows show, and everybody else was just along for the ride.

And, since Gallows will be in that “along for the ride” position for the remainder of Wild Arms 3, we may as well take a look at how Gallows has matured over the course of the adventure. We started with a guy that desperately wanted to escape his own destiny and see the world, but he got sucked back into his “destiny” almost immediately. From there, he initially seemed to be a reluctant participant, but some significant events with the Prophets and Janus got Gallows’s back up, and, while he still had an overriding philosophy of “freedom is best”, he also identified that anyone attempting to shackle the freedom of any other person (or god) should be stopped.

In short, Gallows stayed true to his beliefs, but found a reason to fulfill his mystical destiny: he fights so everyone can have the same freedom he himself enjoys.

And then we have today’s adventure as the culmination of all that. Obviously, Gallows must stop Shane, because a world that has detonated thanks to a careless priest summoning hydras willy-nilly is not a world where anyone can have freedom. But even beyond that, we get a lovely moment for Gallows where not only does he have the opportunity to save the world and his brother, but also do it through the “destiny” that he had initially forsaken. This is not the first time that Gallows embraced his pillar-ness (recall that Infinitum ended with a plan for time-manipulation that 100% relied on Gallows’s holy powers), and you could easily make the argument that Gallows’s impressive magic stat has been his greatest strength in the party all along; but here is a straightforward, palpable example of Gallows saving everyone though his exceptional lineage.

Oh, and being a good, caring brother, too.

So if this is Gallows’s featured moment, it is a great note to go out on.

Back at the start of all of this, the narration noted…

“… he has yet to realize the true meaning of his actions. Little does he know that it is his very lineage and destiny that gives him such strength…”

Yep, sounds about right. Good job, Gallows. You embraced all of yourself. And Shane! So that’s, like, 150% embracing!

Now we proceed to new business.

Virginia’s Daddy Sensors were blocked while deep in the dungeon, but the alarms are all blaring now.

Reminder: we last saw Werner fighting an unstoppable golem in a castle that then flew into the sky and then exploded.

That is the last hug for the update! I swear!

At no point did you consider it might be a good idea to just, ya know, visit?

“Yeah, the solution was love. Do you know what love is, Daddy?”

Virginia’s self esteem should have its own level up screen.

“I mostly just shot a hydra. Twice!”

But someone arrives to put a damper on things.

Shane recognizes our recurring creepy little girl.

So does Werner. Buh?

The last time she had dialogue (see update #58, true believers!), she was simply identified as “Girl”. Now we have a name: Beatrice.

Probably because Werner knows who he is looking at.

So Beatrice was the “dream child” all along… And it was the dream child that gave Shane prophetic visions of Siegfried… And it was because of Shane’s visions that Granny assembled the ark scepters… and it was because of the ark scepters that our party came together on that train… Beatrice has been behind everything from the beginning!

And she can turn herself into television static before teleporting away. That’s new!

I guess she was blocking the sun?

“Is Beatrice my mom?”
“What? Gross.”

Lades and gentlemen, It’s exposition o’clock.

Summoning a hydra is curiously bad for your cholesterol. We’re still trying to figure out why.

Later, back at the yurt.

This is Virginia playing it cool with her father.

“When we finally arrived at the Yggdrasil System after searching for the cause of the world's decay...You were pondering about the darkness beyond Yggdrasil, were you not? Please tell us... What happened behind the scenes of the Yggdrasil accident?”

Clive finally demands answers to questions that were ignored like a month back in game time.

“That was no accident...It was an act of evil...The tragedy began in the same manner as it did the boy. One of our colleague's minds was taken over by a demon...”

Great! The destruction of the world has a cause that we can punch.

(Flashback to more laboratory-based times.)

Note also that this was heavily foreshadowed by Duran’s journal back at the research lab.

Character Portrait Virginia is so excited by this news.

Duran was the man in charge of the generator, and Beatrice wormed her way into his brain. Just for clarity’s sake, we will confirm that Duran was one of the original seven Yggdrasil researchers, but we have never actually seen him (beyond one possible appearance in an old photo). Like Jet’s clone daddy, Duran was a coworker of the Prophets, but did not survive the experience.

“Beatrice, who concealed herself in the information library Hyades, took advantage of the fact that she herself is composed of electric signals...She managed to connect with people's minds...dreams, which are also composed of electric signals...That is what happened to Duran, but I'm sure there are plenty of other victims...”

All of this has been foreshadowed by NPCs, books, and Siegfried talking to himself, but here is the rundown: Beatrice is a dream demon. She originated in the demon internet, and she is technically still “there”, but she can invade people’s minds because of electricity-based technobabble.

“The dream-demon, due to her unique composition, is hardly capable of affecting the real world herself. However, she can manipulate people by controlling their minds through dreams. That way, she was able to reach out to the real world, without having to directly intervene.”

The good news here is that Beatrice is absolutely a dream creature, so she has no physical body. Siegfried was actively downloaded and “overwrote” Janus. Beatrice can only think at you really hard.

But, as we have seen, she is really good at manipulating… uh… teenagers.

“I dunno. Dream stuff?”

“She was really into you guys killing Siegfried. Now that that is over, I guess she wants to kill me? I don’t know. I’m still trying to grapple with how my prophetic vision ‘power’ was apparently a literal internet troll.”

Beatrice doesn't socialize. Got it.

Legitimately, I don’t see anyone willingly cooperating with Siegfried. Guy had his own agenda for days. The prophets only joined up because they were a pack of compliant nerds to the bone.

“You guys good with all that? Great. I’m gonna go break the internet.”

“What!? But I’ve got all my photos in the cloud!”

Clive, I say the same thing about Twitter every day, but sometimes you just have to let it go.

“I haven’t seen my adorable daughter in days, and nobody remembered to invite my family to the party last night…”

Suddenly! An earthquake or something!

A mesa. Have I ever said “mesa” before in this Let’s Play? It really is a mesa-based world. I should have said mesa before…

Oh, guess there are other things to worry about.

Let the kid sleep, Gallows!

New dungeon detected.

How’s that whole “she can’t affect the real world” thing working out now, Werner?

“Yes, Daddy. Right away, Daddy.”

It is a father’s solemn duty to reboot the modem.

“You heard the only man in my life that matters! Let’s roll out!”

To distant shores!

Next time on Wild Arms: The word “technorganic” is a threat.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The whole 'internet phenomenon affecting the real world in a destructive way' plot lands a whole lot harder now than it did when the game first came out, huh?

It has an anime girl avatar and everything.

 

[gogglebob]

Smack your hands on your chest, because we are updating today, July 27, Baboon Day. A girl, whose face was a red as a baboon's behind, sacrificed herself to save Filgaia. She stopped Filgaia from going ba-boom!

Chapter 67: The Hope of Jet
or
Robro Code

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Gallows saved the world through hugging. I’m as surprised as anybody. However, the real threat was revealed as a “Dream Demon” named Beatrice. She isn’t supposed to be able to impact the real world, but this is a videogame, so she manifested a dungeon somewhere out in the wilderness. Let’s go there!

After we talk to some of the Baskar locals!

Beatrice cannot impact the real world (like the Guardians!), but she is apparently using something like an ark scepter to get this plot going.

Videogame power scaling is in full effect.

Alright, let’s be on our way.

If you can see in the top left, the Secret Garden is just north of this spot. We technically could have walked over here.

But why walk when you have a dragon?

Welcome to

Spoiler: Demondor Pillar...

Demondor Pillar. If you google “Demondor”, the top results are all Wild Arms 3.

Welcome to whatever is happening here. At least there’s a door!

Getting all Beast Machines up in here.

Gross.

Yeah, but you felt this way at the party last night, too.

“Should I console him? Offer a rousing speech about friendship?”

“We weren’t doing anything else today.”

Going up?

So I guess the technorganic structure of this place is supposed to confirm that Beatrice is a Dream Demon in the Wild Arms 3 definition of “demon”: she definitely comes from Siegfried’s old country (planet) in some fashion with her love of metal tissue.

And I don’t know if this all means that when we are solving puzzles in this mechanical-flesh tower, we are hurting a sentient tower-creature…

Whatever! Use dem bombs.

Is this dungeon supposed to be like a human body? Are we dealing with stomach acid? Did we enter through…. Nope, not thinking about it.

We cannot quite get over to that platform from the overpass here.

May as well fight some monsters while we figure this one out.

Gargyoles still gonna garg.

Are they hidden, or made out of animal hides?

Well, they are named “bombs”.

They are pure white, so hitting them with a dark attack will ruin their day.

Also available: other round boys.

You may recall the “Tin Man” boss from a few dungeons back. These guys are remarkably similar.

Just don’t let them make you sad.

Okay, back to the puzzle. There may be a more elegant way to coordinate this trip, but using the Change Crest to teleport over to the white gem is the way out.

Wild Arms 3 loves its towers.

The next challenge room is basically platforming. The white gems stay in one place, and you must teleport over when they have proper footing available.

Once you are on the faster moving platforms, you really have to coordinate your throws.

Or, if you know what you’re doing, you can go for par 2.

Pillars in pillars…

The first group of these already had some cracks. In order to “crack” and then eliminate these obstacles, you must use the game’s favorite method of freezing…

And then firing. After that, a bomb will do ya.

Pillaring along.

I know what a room like this means…

Yep.

In a weird way, this is the last “straightforward” dungeon in the game. Every dungeon past this has some significant gimmick.

But for now: Gespenst the Ghost.

He’s got some kind of dark aura, he is strong against dark attacks, and he is weak to light attacks. At least he is themed well!

Ghost Rider here feels like he would be more at home in Darill’s Tomb.

Bro really digs the darkness.

So light ‘em up if you want to move this thing along.

This guy pretty well defines the concept of “mini boss”, so there is not much to worry about.

And if you really want to embarrass him, he is 100% undead, so using Requiem will obliterate Highwayman in one hit.

You could have equipped Dark Rings to weather his attacks, but it is not remotely necessary.

Guest architect Georgia O'Keeffe designed the doorways.

Yes?

“Do you think we could ride them?”

Oh yeah, Jet is still grappling with that whole “artificial lifeform” thing.

“We have always thought of you as a man. Well… like… at least a mini man? A boy?”
"No, he's something different. Mini man sounds right."

“I’m just like the giant death demon we just demolished.”

Gallows is all out of hugs.

Clive’s over here like, “Should I tell Virginia I still think her dad is a robot?”

Revenge is a good reason to save the world (?).

“Thought I was going to get some memories out of the deal! But nooo! I distinctly recall not finding any memories!”

“I was getting paid.”
“Not now, Clive.”

You got some other planet you can visit, Jet?

He actually apologized! This place must be getting to him.

“Maybe we should start a book club? Maya and I were talking…”

No pressure. Just have to find Sulky here a reason to live.

Let’s see if we can get through this mental breakdown all in one update.

Because you damn well know we will have an answer before we leave the dungeon.

So let’s get to it.

This looks like another “hallway” room, but there is a switch we have to boomerang.

Have I noted yet that the doors in this place have teeth?

This room has some different elevations that appear to be inaccessible at the moment.

Hard to parse in a screenshot, but some of those gems are “floating”.

Whatever, moving on.

Everyone is working together! Except Jet!

The next room has these mobile serpent traps. If you get hit by one, you will lose health, and most likely be knocked off the platform by the recoil.

And there is a trick in this room…

Use the Gale Crest at the spot in the previous screenshot, and you’ll soar over to some treasure. Jump back with Jet’s radical sneakers.

Power Boost is pretty straightforward. If you weren’t already kitting Clive out with every power-boost skill in the game, this could be useful for him. But since he is likely already using all of his skill points, Jet might be the best runner-up.

We now return to snake dodging.

Now we are up top.

If you want to repeat the lizard room, feel free to drop down and collect the gems. If you actually want to make some progress, Gale Crest over the gap.

And then jump along.

It’s generally easy to tell when a Wild Arms 3 dungeon is about to end.

Or maybe I’m just used to it at this point.

If this pillar was supposed to be like a body, we just reached the mouth.

“Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem?”

“I was unable to confirm any type of control device up until now...But I believe this receives orders from remote locations to mass produce monsters automatically...”

Super. Just super.

Virginia knows what to do with monster producers.

“I’m sorry? You want me to not shoot the monster machine because it has wi-fi?”

A very good point!

Going to be real awkward when we shoot Clive.

Or… moot point.

The girl exists at the speed of thought, but she took a leisurely trip over to her tower.

Dammit, Clive!

“This is going on your permanent record!”

“Who liked those nerds? Nobody. That’s who.”

We covered this last week!

“My wish has been the same over the past one hundred years...I want my own world...I don't wanna live inside the boring library any more...I want another Filgaia—one where I can live...”

Honestly? If I was trapped in the internet for a century, I think I would be willing to destroy the world to get out, too.

What’s this!?

Asgard! They’re back after surviving a fight with Werner/the explosion of a flying fortress!

And speaking of surviving things…

Somebody around here is doing a good job of ruining Beatrice’s day.

Always have a backup dungeon available.

Beatrice out!

“If I cannot punch the little internet girl, I am going to take it out on you.”

“I thought maybe you could join us now? Maybe be a summon or something?”

“Your bosses are dead, remember? We killed them? Totally dead? Because we shot them?”

Welp, can’t argue with that.

So fight we shall!

Going to plan ahead and equip wards against instant death attacks…

Asgard has been creeping around the corners of the plot since they returned from the past at Ruins of Memory, but we haven’t actually fought them since back at Infinitum. And, at that time, they were still suffering from power issues thanks to Werner’s disrupter bullet. Before that, it was either a plot battle or they had effectively just been born. So this is a longwinded way of saying that we have not fought Asgard at full power ever.

And Asgard is anxious to show us all of their tricks.

So they’ve got an attack that hits everyone for significant damage (well, significant when you’re not over leveled).

And that earth splitting move that outright killed us way back when Melody was around.

That ability always cleaves your HP in twain. It cannot kill you, but it certainly stings.

And sometimes he just punches ya.

Wide Barrier is rarely used (or at least I didn’t see it a lot on my two playthroughs), but that is an instant death attack that hits the entire party. To my knowledge, it is not 100% instant death (unlike Humbaba’s ability a few dungeons back), but it is very likely it will take out anyone without a Death Ward equipped.

For trivia’s sake, this is the attack that was teased in earlier battles, but never used for anything but plot progression, because Asgard was low on battery power.

Asgard has no weaknesses, so fire away. You basically just have to manage your HP relative to how often you are hit with “halve HP” attack.

Eventually they will get contemplative.

Asgard, you gonna drink that?

Woof. My good ‘bot, could you not stand in front of the teeth machine? It’s weirding me out.

“Glad to help?”

“Now activating moral protocol.”

“I am depressed as all hell.”

“Query: Have you tried not being an idiot?”

Sometimes it takes an immortal fighting robot to tell you you’ve been a dumbass.

“Maybe see a therapist?”

Asgard has discovered the greatest battle available is the one against your own ego.

Extremely loud incorrect buzzer.

There she is now.

“Asgard and I are going to start a jam band.”

“I kinda had fun hanging out and travelling with these chatterboxes. I was able to experience disgust, shock, and anger, more so than when I travelled alone...”

You experience all sorts of new emotions when you suffer the many odors of Gallows.

“One time I saw a cow.”

Woo! Breakthrough!

Stirring music and all that riot.

Baby steps, Asgard.

Thanks, 87% of Astro Boy stories.

Jet, maybe next time you can have a heart-to-heart with somebody before you riddle them with bullets.

Asgard has always had the orders to protect the Prophets…

And since they’re burning in Hell, Asgard had to find a way to the afterlife.

“That’s messed up, new best friend!”

“Worry not...By no means did I throw this fight. For as long as a golem is a golem, there is a fundamental rule he must follow. 'A golem must secure his own safety to the best of his abilities.' You are the true victors.”

And with his final breath, Asgard reveals he uses he/him pronouns.

And Asgard disintegrates.

Remember that, Jet.

“I absolutely was going to leave you dorks to hang out with my robot buddy, but that plan isn’t looking so great now.”

“Did you seriously think you were a free agent for the entire game? You ain’t Shadow, Jet.”

Affectionate headlock!

Jet is always going to be unfriendly, and that’s Jet. Some people are just like that.

In fact, let’s talk around Jet Enduro a little.

As we are in the homestretch here, I have been thinking about why I always found Wild Arms 3 to be “good”. Actually playing through the game again twenty years after its release has proven one thing: it ain’t the gameplay. There is nothing bad about the general activities of Wild Arms 3, but there is nothing particularly amazing here, either. It’s good, but not something that would somehow inspire the Wild Arms 3 Four Job Fiesta Challenge or something. Absent the game part of the game, that leaves me to fall back on “it’s the characters”. And the characters are pretty great! And I gradually realized that, thanks to the plotting, the stars of Wild Arms 3 come off as a lot more “real” than many of their contemporary RPG protagonists. These are relatable characters in a fantastic situation. And, while they gain powers based on ephemeral gods, they are recognizable as real people.

So let’s talk about the most real person of them all: the robot baby clone of the planet.

On paper, Jet Enduro aka Adam Kadmon is complicated. His whole backstory is that he was a science experiment to see if the spirit of the planet could be transplanted into something more human-sized. Along the way, one of the scientists lost their son, so, he decided the new Filgaia would look like his boy. Then, the whole place went sky high, but “Adam” was rescued by Virginia’s father. For reasons partially altruistic and partially as a sort of “backup plan” for attempting to save the world, Werner raised the newly christened Jet to be… a confused drifter. He never told Jet his secret origins, and he set him off on a quest to merely survive in a crapsack world. Shortly thereafter, Jet coincidentally wound up with Team Virginia (set on that path not by Werner, but by Pike, a random dude who was starting a new job shoveling horse crap), and Jet managed to get caught up in saving the world through sheer inertia (and a little bit of greed). By the time his origins were revealed (first hinted at the end of Chapter 2, and then definitively established at the end of Chapter 3), Jet was able to save the world in just the right way at just the right time. His favorite weapon is actually an ethernet port to the planet, and his very soul remembers the best the world can be.

But none of that really matters for actually knowing Jet. Jet is a surly teenager that begrudgingly likes his allies, and fights for a world because he knows deep down it is the right thing to do… but mostly because of peer pressure.

Jet is just kind of there most of the time. And that’s brilliant!

Let me tell you about how Jet would be handled in most any other game (other titles in the franchise included). Jet’s “mysterious past” would be emphasized about 10,000% more, maybe with villains continually taunting that they know exactly what is going on. His secret origins would be revealed, and maybe some puppy he has been caring for would be thrown off the side of the flying castle. This would enrage Jet, and he would summon The True Power of the Filgaia Sample. Leehalt would shout that exact phrase as the scene unfolded. Jet’s hair would change color. His ARM would transform into a blazing white. His Level 4 Super Ability would be unlocked, and his new tool would allow him to interface with terminals that you had been seeing in dungeons since early in the game. After an epic battle, Jet would have the ability to transform at will (when you have enough MP), and the ending would definitely see Super Jet saving the world by… I don’t know… bicycle kicking a meteor or something. Oh! But before that, we would have a “triumphant” final battle where Super Jet has all his hyper abilities unlocked with unlimited energy, so you can go hog wild on the main antagonist (who may have been Jet’s real father all along).

Yet in Wild Arms 3, Jet finds out he’s The Filgaia Sample, and… it mostly just annoys him for two dungeons before he gets over it.

Look, I’d probably have the same reaction to finding out I was a clone baby.

And that’s the crux of it. As much as I love a heightened reality story where someone doesn’t just get mad at their dad’s boss/murderer, they get Legendary Super Saiyan mad at the alien who wiped out their entire species (who also is their dad’s boss/murderer), sometimes it is nice to play an RPG where characters have very real limits and emotions. Jet saves the world with his “secret origin powers” once because he is in the exact right place at the exact right time. After that? Being Adam Kadmon is neither a burden nor a boon, it just is. And that’s real! It is possible that tomorrow you will find out you are adopted. But it is extremely unlikely you will find out that your birth parents are royalty, aliens, wizards, or whatever was going on in the Animorphs universe. It is something that can happen and that you would have to reckon with, but the chance of you getting a magical laser sword out of the deal is low. That’s reality.

And that’s Jet in a nutshell. He has a big, secret past… and it doesn’t matter. Jet is Jet through and through, and he barely changes one iota after his dramatic reveal. This information will change him, the course of his life will be different with this information… but not right now. Give or take inn stops, there are probably like three days left in the Wild Arms 3 plot/timeline. And Jet isn’t going to have an epic epiphany in there. He is just going to find a reason to keep fighting thanks to his golem frenemy. And after that? Who knows! It is Jet’s future to make!

Jet is an ordinary, surly teenager hanging out with his friends, and he discovers his own fantastic origins. Then he gets back to being an ordinary, surly teenager hanging out with his friends.

And which of those friends is going to have their showcase next? Guess we’ll find out soon enough…

Next time on Wild Arms: Screw you guys, I’m going home.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Oh! I know!

It's Maya right?

 

[gogglebob]

No :-(

But no time to lament that now, as it is August 3, Broth Day. Pouring broth from a juicy steak onto your food makes it taste better. Just a tad of advice from yours truly.

Chapter 68: All Tied Up with Ribbon

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Beatrice the Dream Demon created a monster-spewing tower, and we destroyed it with the help of a vaguely suicidal Asgard and Jet overcoming his tragic origin PTSD. Beatrice did make mention of a backup tower, though…

So no sooner do we leave the old tower…

Than another earthquake occurs!

“The old one, or the new one?”
“Probably new!”

Reminder: Beatrice is using something like “Guardian tech” to create these pillars, so Gallows knows what to look for. ... Sense for?

“All my stuff is there!”

Quickly! To Clive’s adorable daughter!

Good news! I don’t see any monster pillars distinctly in town…

But

Spoiler: may as well do a survey...

may as well do a survey.

Statler and Waldorf felt that earthquake.

“It’s not the gob living under the bridge, right?”
“No. But I do hate gobs…”

Man, even the normies are sensing the evil god powers today.

Just a normal pillar of light, citizen! Go about your business!

“We’re the… pillar police? Is that a thing?”

Clive has not pooped on his own toilet in days.

“Why ever would you visit your own home when it is five steps away?”

Huh. Clive officially just left the party. We’ve only got a team of three at the moment.

Not that that impacts anything. You cannot leave town without your buddy (yet).

“Clive! Did you and your wife used to be much fatter? That is one hell of a wide chair.”

Can’t a man sit in peace?!

Did you deadname Jet again?

“Solvable problem! Some monster hit him with the Downhearted status effect. Gallows? Grab the Peppy Acorn.”

“I understand that the Demondor Pillar is a terrible, dangerous device that summons monsters...Even still, I would like to analyze the Demondor Pillar and investigate what's beyond it -- Hyades...I am not worthy enough to fight shoulder to shoulder with you all, for the sake of this planet...For the sake of Filgaia...”

This is something that has been foreshadowed as early as Chapter 2 (when Werner first mentioned Hyades to the team), but Clive has finally had it all come to a head. He cannot fight against technology that he wants to study, even if he knows said tech is being used for evil.

Jet has become the wise, old planet clone he was always destined to become.

If Clive would burst into song here, Wild Arms 3 would be the best game ever created.

Mission accomplished?

“Maybe we should plant a tree somewhere?”
“A what?”

“Deep down...I know what must be done, now...And I know how I've been bound by the chains of the past...But the truth is... I do not have the strength to break them...”

There are some very human moments in Wild Arms 3. In the previous update, Gallows initially reacts to Jet’s melancholy with “you have a very good life with all of us! What is wrong with you that you think something is wrong with you!?” which is a very common reaction to depression. Similarly, here we have Clive outright admitting that he knows the “right answer”, he just cannot bring himself to do it because he cannot see past the possibility that Hyades could be helpful.

What I’m saying is that Clive knows the internet is actively killing him, but what if he misses Cats vs Inanimate Objects after it is gone?

Virginia really regrets not recruiting a psychiatrist to this team.

Welp!

“This whole ‘pillar creating monsters’ thing is an emergent issue. You get that, right?”

Clive is just gonna sit here and flashback for the afternoon.

Now he’s thinking about all sorts of regrets.

Crushed under the weight of his dead father-in-law! Who, ironically, was himself literally crushed!

And I guess we’ll check back with Clive later.

Or immediately! Screw you, well-paced plot, we can enter any house we want!

They really should have given Catherine another character portrait…

Good memory, Clive.

Anywho, time to get going. This random NPC reference to a “demon ship” is about the only plot explanation for why these pillars are popping up where they are. Looks like Beatrice is using some old tech that has been buried for a whiiiile.

Hey, now that we had our little Clive breakdown, a green dot is appearing in the south. Guess where we are going next.

The pillar is really close, but it is in some deadlands where we can’t park our dragon.

The Abyss and this stupid place are the only two mandatory dungeons that ever pull this trick. We’ll have to land over here.

We have to walk a ways, and we only have 75% of a party.

Because of how the encounter/Migrant system works, we can cancel battles just as easily with a party of three or four.

But if we do choose to fight, the local battles are scaled for a full party.

We have two mages and “the fast guy”. Without the strong guy, these battles can last for friggen ever. Do your best to focus on elemental weaknesses, and realize how much Clive has brought joy to our lives.

Maybe it is best to cancel any and all fights on the way to Demondar Pillar-Rear.

This place is just plain named wrong. “Demondor Pillar-Rear” sounds like the back entrance to the previous dungeon. It should really be more like “Demondor Pillar – Backup” or “Demondor Pillar – Redundant”. Maybe even “Demondor Pillar – South” for its global location.

Those cracked pillars can only be demolished by bombs… and Clive stayed home with his bombs…

I miss Clive.

While the overworld shows no mercy, the encounters in this dungeon are scaled for your limited party. These dorks actually hit a lot softer than the jerks outside.

Which is not to say they are not visually imposing.

Like with the Hide Bombs in the previous dungeon, the dark elemental is going to be your path forward.

And maybe protect against light attacks. It has been a while since this was relevant, but recall that Clive is something of a glass cannon. Just because you have lost your attack guy doesn’t mean everyone remaining is vulnerable.

If you were concerned there was some enemy variety here, don’t worry!

In general, your Clive-less battle strategy should be to blast these dorks with dark abilities, and have Jet on healing duty (if it is remotely necessary). If you want to go nuts, summon Lucy the Wolf to wipe out any given gang.

And speaking of “in the absence of Clive”, we will have to take the route that features Virginia’s tools.

Welcome to Arkanoid.

These pillars are wigglin’, and if you touch ‘em, you’ll be hurtin’.

They are also vulnerable to nearly every tool you have.

Fire melts ice. You should really know this by now.

And the boomerang will slice off everything above waist level.

So for this room, you just need to whip out the boomerang…

And jump along.

Demondor Pillars are architecturally similar.

Trivia mentioned way the heck back in the Let’s Play: this is one of two times in the game where you have a party of three. Solo acts happened during the introductory chapters, and we never see a party of specifically two. Exactly one battle in Infinitum and Demondor Pillar Rear are all we got.

Aw, fignuts.

“We’re stuck in a forcefield! And it is super gooey!”

“EVERYONE BREATHE AS HARD AS YOU CAN TO USE UP THE OXYGEN FASTER!!!”

Hugging won’t be the solution this time.

Fighting might.

So this silly miniboss…

Obviously, we are at a disadvantage here with our meager three-man group. As a concession, we are granted a choice on how to die. Yay?

Every round starts with that question, and you absolutely get to choose. This is not a trick! Nebiros plays fair.

And he has an elemental weakness, so get ready to use those light abilities this time.

So whatever you choose winds up being the element of an attack-all, generally strong spell. The trick is that since you can choose the element, you can choose an element you are protected against.

It is not quite as simple as “always choose fire”, because there are many possible elements (fire, earth, water, wind, thunder, ice… I never saw light/dark in my fights), and you only ever get a choice of three. In other words, you could be equipped for “hurricane”, but if it isn’t an option, you must choose something.

The good news, though, is that the choice is always before your round selection, and you can juggle or equip wards at will after having answered the question. If you selected blizzard, you have ample time to then prepare.

And this loser doesn’t have much HP, either. I’m not going to say you have to try to lose this fight, but it is more of a scare on “can we do this without Clive?” than an actually threatening battle.

Thanks for the vegetable!

“Oh, Beatrice? When did you come in?”

“I should have known you would be responsible for this dungeon you already distinctly said you created!”

Good reaction, Gallows.

“See, Jet, she might appear to be a little girl, but she is actually centuries old, and that means…”
“Gallows, why are you telling me this?”

We already had a boss fight. What could be more fun than that?

More battles. Got it.

So Beatrice is the living embodiment of “remember this picture from your timeline?”. She is evil. She is pure evil.

Meanwhile!

WARNING! INFINITELY CUTE ENTITY APPROACHING!

“This house has two rooms, Daddy.”

“Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir comes on in five minutes, and I need the room.”

You didn’t miss any dialogue here, Clive just immediately brings up his buds unbidden.

Fuck yeah, adorable little girl, get to the heart of the matter.

“Monsters are probably going to spew out of that tower, and… Dammit. I just realized this place has way too many windows…”

Get your tissues ready, folks.

I have now died from diabetes.

“You bought me this ribbon when I was really little. It's filled with lots and lots of memories of you and Mommy. It's my most favoritest thing. It's my most favoritest thing, so...”

I was in the afterlife, and then the sweetness of this continuing double killed me, so now I’m alive again.

Kaitlyn’s favorite people include “everyone in the whole wide world”. Girl is a lot more social than I thought.

Clive has also died. He is physically incapable of getting up now.

There is so much hugging in this game!

“I expect 5% ribbon interest when I get back.”

Is the implication here that Clive had a depressive episode where he refused to leave the chair, and Catherine took that time to go out and buy groceries? Actually… Mom had Dad home for the first time in the whole game. Of course she went out.

“I have both you and Kaitlyn. And I have this moment. In order to bring forth another moment tomorrow, the day after, and in the future, I must go!”

“What? What did I miss while I was at yoga?”

“Gotta go save my idiot coworkers! Don’t wait up!”

“Can I choose the cat?”

“Hey, guess what, dead father-in-law? I love your granddaughter more than I love science! Weird!”

Lombardia just circling the town now? Does she miss Clive, too?

“Mommy, since when does daddy have a dragon jet?”
“I guess since the last time he visited, Kaitlyn.”
“Do you think he’ll let me ride it sometime?”
“Sure, Kaitlyn. Sure…”

Next time on Wild Arms: There can only be so many doting daddies.

 

[Kahran042]

Not just a dragon jet. A Gundam dragon jet!

 

[gogglebob]

True!

Oh, hey, you know...

... Also, you will be expected to explain your favorite pick in a few posts.

*sweatdrops*

Now that Gallows has had his dénouement, if you want to elaborate on him being your favorite character, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Kahran042]

Scheiße. The truth is, it's not easy for me to understand why I like the characters I do, but I like having the big dumb guy being the main caster, and he has some funny lines and interactions, especially with Jet. Honestly, I don't think I have a favorite character among the main four, because they work best as a team. Sorry if this is disappointing.

 

[gogglebob]

Not disappointing at all! I always enjoy hearing other people's opinions on the cast/game. Thank you for that!

 

[gogglebob]

Dang, would have been better if we nailed this like two weeks ago, but today is August 10, Hope Day. Ages ago, a scholar was given a mind-reading machine from the Guardian of Wisdom. Although repetitively falling into despair over the fate of mankind, he held on to his hopes that all was not yet lost in the hearts of men. His stalwart faith in the future helped revitalize the Guardian of Hope.

Chapter 69: The Loves of Clive
or
4 - 1 = (3 + 1) / 2

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Clive had a momentary lapse in judgement and let the rest of the party start the next dungeon without him. They were captured immediately, so Clive independently got over his love of the internet and rushed to rescue them.

But I’m sure they’ll be fine.

“Might need your knockin’ hand later.”

Do we count Lombardia? Who could probably blow up this whole stupid dungeon from space?

The end… when we run out of oxygen?

You do not have to make the trek back to Demondor Pillar -Rear- with just Clive; Lombardia drops him off right at the entrance. This is significant, as why couldn’t she do that for the rest of the team?

They’re not.

So same dungeon, but now

Spoiler: you just have Clive...

you are a solo party of Clive.

And you cannot take the other team’s route, because that would require Virginia’s tools.

Clive has tools of his own, though.

This is a totally different path that just happens to look very similar to the other course.

Clive also has to deal with monsters.

As previously noted, the random encounters in this dungeon are not difficult. Clive can handle them alone with his big ol’ ARM. The only thing to remember is that Clive is slow as heck, so if HP does manage to get low, chomp a heal berry immediately. Maybe cancel a turn if you have to.

This orb-y thing kind of reminds me of something…

And we’ve got some switches that apparently open doors.

But they are pressure sensitive, and the doors will close if you leave the plate.

Whatever. Let’s blow up the orb.

Hey hey! Clive came through!

And now we have the signature “two parties” dungeon. This was more common in previous Wild Arms titles, but now we finally have an opportunity to work together through splitting up.

The basic concept here is that Clive and Team Not Clive will be stepping on switches and opening doors for their corresponding parties.

So Clive standing on a switch in his distant room opens a door for Team Not Clive.

And now goodies are available, too.

This isn’t rocket science: if you see a switch, stand on it and toss it over to the other party.

And thus is progress made.

And money, too.

There are three different switch/door combos: yellow, blue, and red. A switch will open all corresponding doors, but only when someone stays on said switch.

But, again, the dungeon doesn’t complicate things too much.

And not like you can blow past a switch anyway. Stand on that yellow switch, or you will be stopped by a blue door all of five steps later.

Every little bit helps.

Oh boy! Choices!

Team Not Clive was halted by a blue door, so can you guess which switch Clive should stand on?

And what’s this?

A yellow door? What should we do now, toddlers who are having difficulty with this puzzle?

What’s that? Move Clive slightly? You win!

Good thing Team Not Clive took this route, as those treasures can only be obtained by Gallows.

It’s Adventure Book 8! Kaitlyn does deserve a prize for inadvertently saving the whole party.

Did I get a shot of the whole random encounter trio yet? Here they all are lined up.

Some of these wiggly pillars are blocking the way forward, so eliminate them at will.

To hit that switch, freeze a pillar…

And then bounce a boomerang off the ice.

Nothing to it.

Oh no! Is Clive capable of slightly moving again?

He is!

And now Team Not Clive can hold down a switch so Clive can get out of that room.

Kicking ass and descending stairs!

Ha! I encountered Arioch aka that damn random encounter “super boss” while solo’ing around with Clive. Good thing this loser is still in his power infancy.

“You guys got a red switch on your end?”

“Yep!”

And we are reunited!

Okay, that would have been funnier if you did it in reverse.

“Did you abandon your father… I mean family… Did you abandon your family like my father?”

He’s back/polite, baby!

That is what good waffles do.

Yay! Full party! Gonna wreck these stupid metal guys.

So now we have Clive’s tools available in this room with the switches, so pressure will be applied.

And all doors are open forever. Seriously. If you revisit this dungeon, you can now take both paths unencumbered by nonsense.

And placing blocks on all the switches will open the way forward.

We find treasure and immediately start a fight.

It’s our old friends, the Die Almost Immediately Gang.

Gentle sneezing will knock these guys down at this point.

And our reward is disproportionately amazing.

Prism Crown allows one party member to resist all elemental attacks. Considering most of the bosses and super bosses have a strategy that sounds something like “protect against x element”, this is a tremendous boon. The only drawback is that it requires an appropriately costly amount of personal skill points, so make sure you equip it on someone that can afford to use it. Jet usually fits that qualification on my plathroughs. Remember that you can free up a number of PS points by dropping all the elemental wards that Prism Crown will protect against anyway.

Note that there is only one Prism Crown "treasure" in the game, but you can find them as rare drops from Agawogdent in the Abyss if you are really lucky.

Sweetest plum plucked, moving on.

This feels familiar…

But we are not at the ultimate chamber yet.

This Mario-ass room has those snake-rotating things from the last dungeon. Don’t get hit!

And what’s with this pillar in the center?

Red pillars regenerate quickly.

And the center pillar needs to be frozen before it can be detonated. The team is working together!

Apparently that pillar unlocks the door forward, so now we just have to tiptoe on over to the exit.

And now for the finale.

Remember last time? This ended poorly.

But Clive has made some progress.

“Memories are like building blocks that keep piling up... Great memories you want to hold onto, sad memories you want to forget...They just keep piling up and are meant to continue rising so that you can bring forth a new tomorrow.”

You’re thinking of Tetris, Clive.

“They’re blocks!”

“And metaphors are stupid!”

Eat it, teeth machine.

“Learning is for squares.”

“I am politely going to accept your metaphors today.”

“Except you, Jet. I really do not care for you.”

Looks like this is as good a time as any to talk about the proud sniper, Clive Winslett.

As was stated with Jet’s dénouement, Wild Arms 3 is unusually understated for an RPG. Clive seems to embody this concept, as his archetype is obvious (he’s the smart one!), but he is not written as Data the Android every other dialogue box (“There is a 3.7% chance this plan will work, Madam Maxwell”). He is introduced as an old man of thirty (cough), and is literally labeled as the one layabout in this cast that has a job (“A Drifter Guardsman”). His family is kept secret for a surprise reveal at the top of Chapter 2, but once his saccharine home life is revealed, it is simply background characterization for why Clive has a reason to fight. And, of course, Clive’s major driving force is his desire for knowledge and grief-debt to his mentor/father-in-law. But, aside from spouting off his “a shortcut will lead you astray” credo, the plot doesn’t grind to a halt every time he references that particular tragedy (Virginia, we do not need to hear about your daddy issues ever again). Clive is just quietly there, and his rare spotlight moments are a lot more subtle than what we see in contemporaneous RPGs.

But when Clive does get the spotlight, consistency shines through. Clive basically has two motivations: he loves his family, and he is pathologically indebted to his mentor. The latter purpose not only works to explain a number of Clive’s decisions across the plot, but also gameplay: the man that is slow and powerful in battle is naturally the guy who thinks shortcuts will get you killed. And past that, his love for his family influences events before we even know Clive has a family. Despite being the eldest and most capable member of the group, Clive almost immediately throws leadership over to Virginia. Why? Well, once you ignore the obvious narrative crutch that she is the main character, you might notice that Clive is a father himself, and sees a young woman that needs responsibility more than Clive needs to be in charge. And, of course, his crisis here is born of the fact that his two passions finally came to a head: he must protect “knowledge”, but at the expense of his family/friends? And he gets over it because his family is more important than the whole of demon history. Let the dead bury the dead!

And this wholly works for an old man (30) such as Clive. He is established as a person, and his guiding principles have served him well in his profession as a gun-for-hire. But it was all bound to have a sticking point somewhere, and that finally comes through the Demondor Pillars. And Clive triumphs over his own obsession! And the day is saved! He’s not a drastically changed person, and it’s not like he took the time to piss on his professor’s grave or something, he just has a more focused view of the world now. He might not have found out he was a secret robot clone or whatever, but is a better husband/father/scholar/Clive.

And he was already a pretty good guy to begin with, so good job, Clive.

But no time for kudos now!

Something starts pouring out of the teeth machine. Mist? Isn’t that a different franchise?

Other. There’s just the one.

“It’s still… uh… belching?”

But there is still a room left, so that’s convenient.

Probably a good time to heal up and save…

Because this is looking ominous…

And we’ve got…

Her!

Beatrice didn’t even notice they were usually a gang of four.

“And we have ARMs.”

Being an internet troll is the strongest thing to be.

Didn’t we already cover this? I swear we covered this.

Beatrice confirms that she was the one that caused the Yggdrasil Disaster, which was previously relayed by Werner, the most reliable narrator.

And Beatrice admits the whole plan was a longshot. So she basically screwed up the whole planet on a whim.

Oh yeah, that is why The Prophets were so jazzed when Asgard showed up with data from “old” Filgaia. Beatrice apparently had to pull “memories” from somewhere else…

Bum bum buuuuum.

So there is kind of a “don’t think too hard about it” metaphysical component to how Yggdrasil malfunctioned, but the end result is…

The Yggdrasil Disaster not only screwed up the planet royally, but it (and Beatrice’s involvement) is also the reason no one remembers a better world existing more than ten years back. Yggdrasil ate everyone’s memories!

Virginia only ever has one focus.

The Daddy Factor.

Hm?

Oh, that’s not good!

We last saw Werner when he was leaving to shut down Hyades. Guess it didn’t go well.

He was going to fake electrical signals! Of course! That fact is important to know!

“He actually just tripped, but I couldn’t resist taking a picture.”

Always important to learn from your mistakes.

Yes, it was Beatrice that stole the Yggdrasil generator during the finale of Chapter 2. How she did it without a body is kind of a question...

So you’re going to use the exact same plan as last time? The plan you just claimed you learned from?

I have been saying recently that my mind has too many hoops.

Big deal, girl, monsters are all over this planet already.

She going to go fish out a bigger monster?

Huh. Guess we do not get a boss fight this time. Beatrice, you tease.

They have been doing fine as miserable townsfolk of the wastelands. I wouldn’t worry about it.

You know Virginia was daddy-worrying the whole walk back.

Clive trying to work out our next move…

I know, right? Usually the bad guy tells us exactly where to go next.

“No. I noticed they had the same daffy floor pattern as Yggdrasil, though.”

“Flowers don’t grow indoors, stupid! We’re going in circles!”

Virginia can only ever see Daddy when Daddy is within her vision.

Something that has maybe come up randomly in the plot like six times?

Come on, the player, help Virginia out!

“Well...Uhh...The white flower does ring a bell, but I can't pinpoint what...White flower...Tiny, white flower... That tiny white flower is Mom's favorite flower. And the person who would sometimes place it on her grave was... Let's go to Boot Hill. There must be some kind of message from my father waiting for us there.”

That is super specific and, obviously, completely correct.

To Boot Hill!

Next time on Wild Arms: I don’t really feel like completing a dungeon right now.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The explanation for why no one remembers a non-sucky world is ridiculous in a way only PS2 RPGs could be. It's kind of amazing just how much you have to gloss over so it doesn't fall apart, I admire the chutzpah to make this silly, silly plot point work.

 

[gogglebob]

Get your tissues ready for today’s update, August 17, Star Festival Day. Once, a guardian from the stars landed in front of a starving young boy. Introducing himself as Rigdobrite, he ripped a chunk of his own flesh and offered it to the ailing boy. As a token of his gratitude, the boy became a baker and made Rigdobrite flavored cookies. Since the cookies tasted like shrimp, Rigdobrite became known as the Shrimp-Flavored Guardian.

Chapter 70: The Courage of Virginia
Or
The Final Daddy-Daughter Dance

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Clive rescued the gang, and then everyone confronted Beatrice. But the nightmare imp had a trick up her sleeve: she revealed that she had bested Werner Maxwell! Or at least knocked him over! So we better go help him up!

But we’re still at Demondor Pillar-Rear.

Since we have the Teleport Orb, we don’t have to worry about the walk back to Lombardia. And let’s not think too much about how Lombardia could pick up Clive on demand…

Boot Hill! Home of the Maxwell family.

Lore you probably forgot: Roykman the traveling salesman was saved from angry dogs by Werner. There is not much more to that story.

Tesla, brother of Werner, is too much of a nerd to understand the rest of his family.

Ah-ha! Virginia’s mother’s grave appears to have more than a flower on it.

Mail call!

Where do people keep getting envelopes in this universe? There does not appear to be a postal system…

Yes yes, we knew that already…

While Werner has granted us a few dungeon leads here and there, this is the first time he treated Virginia’s team like his backup. Progress?

“I’m just glad we’re talking, Daddy.”

“I must kill the internet!

Spoiler: For my father...

For my father!”

So… uh… any idea where this Mimir’s Well is at?

Ah! That’s better. If you “use” Last Letter, you get the whole spiel again, but Last Letter’s item description is coordinates.

“Shut-up, Neil! I have to go save the world now!”

So let’s fire up the radar and track down those coordinates. You know, if you never found the Map Scope back at the Ark of Destiny, I am not certain you would have any idea how to proceed.

Appropriately enough, Mimir’s Well isn’t all that far from Yggdrasil.

Kind of a nondescript hole in the ground for the most important location in this whole plot.

Fun fact: this is the last discoverable dungeon. We are barreling toward the finale!

I remember that floor!

And that corpse!

"Daddy? Did you go back in time and kiss grandmom?"

Incoming static ball.

If Wild Arms 3 really wanted to be mean, you would be ejected from the dungeon, and be forced to fight your way back to an explanation.

But we are forthcoming today.

Reason Wild Arms 3 should have voice acting: Beatrice would be delightful. (Also: it would be a guaranteed job for Mela Lee.)

“Aren’t you, like, 18? I am embarrassed for you.”

Hey! Holo-Daddy is getting up. Good?

“Because you’ve only thwarted 100% of my plans so far, you losers!”

“Stop insulting noncorporeal Daddy!”

Final dungeon has already been prepared? Cool.

Beatrice drops a literal key on the ground, and then pops out to leave us with daddy fallout.

That’s your question? Nothing about the whole “clearly a ghost” thing?

“Don’t make me wave my hands through your chest!”

The rare reverse-Vader.

GHOST DADDY!

“Are you getting this, daughter? I mean… uh… person?”

She’s having a Xenogears! Everybody back up and stay clear!

LIVING DEAD DADDY!

BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY!

They pulled this trick in Wild Arms 2, and I will never fault it: we are going to get a big ol’ info dump, so we may as well walk and talk. It tricks the audience’s stupid monkey brains into thinking something is actively happening other than random talking, and it works every time.

Oh, and plot-wise, “Werner” is actually the downloaded backup of Alive-Werner from before Yggdrasil exploded ten years ago.

“I told you guys he was a robot. You all owe me ten bucks.”
“Clive, not the time.”

Werner believes he is just… oh let’s hit this nail on the head… a memory of “real” Werner.

And if you want a scientific explanation for how he could do things, Memory Werner has been using Hyades tech to simulate existence with forcefields.

Which also explains why he has intermittently exhibited superpowers (generally when fighting Asgard, whom you may correctly recall was an artificial lifeform).

“And I was really confused as to why you guys never asked about that whole thing, but whatever, just a gimme.”

Considering we have immediately gone from Sacrificial Altar to the two pillars under threat of monsters invading the world, Werner is talking about an event that happened that morning.

I also remember what I had for breakfast.

Which is apparently something you can do with one (1) mystical teenager.

Somebody put Shane on lockdown!

“Girl really wants her own planet. Can’t blame her.”

Did anything in that sentence make logical sense?

Did I mention that this whole segment auto-advances? There is a timed, set amount of space that they walk to this door. It isn’t an infinite background loop cheat. This is a real dungeon we are ignoring.

Somebody write that down!

“It is also the same combination on my luggage.”

“Would you like a small flower suspended by my magical gravity science?”

“This is a garbage flower. Absolute dogshit.”

“Do I have to give you the lecture again?”

On one hand, Werner was a good husband who left flowers on his deceased wife’s grave. On the other hand, he was nowhere to be seen when she actually died.

“You… uh… only kinda-failed? 50%?”

Hope there isn’t a boss in there…

Werner is really coming around on this whole “I’m a real boy” thing.

“Filgaia’s spawn”? Yep, gonna start calling Jet that.

And that explains Jet having a mental breakdown looking at pods over at the old lab a billion updates back. Any other plot threads we need to tie up?

“So how long did you work on socialization skills with Jet? Like five minutes? Ten?”

“Wow! You accomplished, like, nothing in ten years.”

“I had no intention of revealing my identity, but… Since our paths kept crossing, I figured I couldn't hide any longer… I want to hunt down Beatrice, and stop this calamity from happening. At the very least, I consider this an atonement for my sins. However…”

“It was getting to be a hassle.”

For a hologram, Werner is sure having some trouble keeping it together today.

Virginia is only accepting Holo-Werner because she doesn’t want to figure out a new name.

“I am wounded,” would be faster.

“Right. Destroy the internet. Whole reason we’re here. Got it.”

Oh yeah. That would mean…

Patricide.

“Look, I’m gonna die anyway. You may as well shoulder the emotional burden of killing me.”

Not sure I follow the math on that one, Werner.

Werner, did you think this whole thing would make it easier on your daughter? Follow up question: Can a living memory be insane?

This is a pretty big ask!

“Come on, man. I’m already dead. Make me double dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is shooting the living manifestation of your dead father making this hard for you? How about if I remind you that if you don’t do this, everyone you love will die? Does that help?”

“Is there a switch to toggle, or…?”

“Your father is talking, young lady.”

Oh. Oh! We are going for maximum trauma today.

“You were kind of a weenie of a kid. Figured you needed a crutch.”

“That would have been some amazing forward thinking.”

“Others. Like me.”

D’aw. Considering Virginia’s speech to Maya way back in Chapter 1, you can see how Werner really is significantly responsible for Virginia’s beliefs.

“This seems like a gray area!”

Virginia? Do you need both guns to shoot your father?

Guess redundancy works.

Pow.

Time for some imaginary imagery.

Chase the ball!

The Daddy Ball.

Barbie: The Motion Picture totally stole this scene.

Oh? Are you just figuring this out?

Next, he will reveal this is all happening on Virginia’s birthday.

“It was because of you, if you’re not getting that.”

“I could have at least bought a new hat…”

“I mean… It’s true… Just it’s not that bad.”

Please do not look back to earlier in the Let’s Play and see Virginia’s interpretation of “joy”.

“You know? I swear that whole ‘shoot me’ thing made more sense in my head.”

Finally being honest with Daddy.

“And I have the worst strength stat on my team. Good job.”

Is… is this forcefield based?

“You did just shoot me. Twice.”

Gots to go.

“I will always remember you, Holo-Daddy.”

“One high five for the road?”

Cherish the Daddy Ball.

CHERISH IT.

Yay! A whole new grave at the only cemetery on this planet!

“You’re right. It is cliché.”

“But there's someone out there who's trying to take this dear memory of my father away from me. Not just mine, but everyone else's precious memories, too! It might not be as grand as saving the world...But my goal right now is...
...to protect everyone's memories. That is my reason to fight! And my reason to live on Filgaia! If that's okay with you all, I need to ask for your support!”

If we weren’t going to fight Beatrice before, we’re sure as hell gonna do it now.

“How come your dad didn’t ask me to shoot him? He was my dad, too…”
"Cram it, Filgaia’s spawn."

“How long is this going to take? Like one more dungeon?”

“I will destroy my own memories on my own time, thank you!”

To the grand finale!

We will save the world! Forever!

Next time on Wild Arms: Wait! Crap! We were talking that whole time! We forgot to actually explore that dungeon!

 

[gogglebob]

Don't just stare, because it is August 24, Care Day. Shouting that you wish to be cared for is so embarrassing for grown-ups. You're just telling everyone that you're vulnerable and need sympathy, like a spoiled child.

Chapter 71: The Dungeon That Never Was

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Virginia learned the truth about her father, and they had a touching moment where she shot him until dead.

So now we’re at the cemetery, as that is usually what happens after that kind of thing.

“Hey! Whatshername! Stop walking over my daddy’s not-corpse and telling strangers about caring!”

“I was kind of half-assing it before…”

So we picked up two items during that last part. The Old Terminal is the Daddy Ball, and it is basically Data-Werner’s bones. Or… something. Virginia is keeping it for sentimental value, and sleeps with it under her pillow.

We also have the Dream Key that Beatrice dropped on us. That is the more straightforward key to the final battle.

You would think Tesla would have more to say regarding the final fate of his brother.

Roykman’s subbest of subplots is now concluded.

Is Janus going to pop up again?

“I never got to say goodbye to that dude with the hat!”

“Are you sure you don’t mean to say, ‘I’ve got a ham,’ Gallows? I would believe you having a ham.”

“I've got a plan. If all goes well, we might be able to find out where Beatrice is.”

“Really?”

“We'll see...But let's stop by Baskar Colony first. Heh, I'm pretty sharp today.”

This is our plot hook for where to go next if we want to advance the story (straight through to the end).

But we’re going to ignore that!

And go right back to

Spoiler: Mimir's Well...

Mimir’s Well.

You may recall that a cutscene kicked in the absolute moment we hit Mimir’s Well the first time. We never got to actually explore a single inch of this place.

So let’s do that!

Mimir’s Well is two long hallways with a series of random doors interspersed around the area. The hallways we walked through during exposition time, but we haven’t seen a single other room in this dungeon.

A room with nothing but treasure! Score!

Ah! A random encounter! We will use the plot excuse that Werner was using his forcefield to keep the monsters at bay during our last visit. Either that, or we left the door open like idiots, and they all crowded in while we were crying at Boot Hill.

A land lamprey? Why not.

Like their eel-y friends from a few dungeons back, these lampreys will only grow stronger if you hit them with water or electric attacks.

They have their own water…

And electric attacks. Plan accordingly.

Other monsters include the Gamygyn. If you are curious, these guys are mythological demons that were popular in medieval grimoires, but you don’t hear about them much anymore. I think centaurs stole all their thunder.

And speaking of thunder, feel free to use any damn element you would like on ‘em.

Otherwise, they’ll eat ya.

And lastly, we have Jammer Imps.

Watch out for their big heads.

And show them the light.

Those are the encounters that Werner had to deal with every time he stopped back “home”. Moving on.

More easy treasure!

Slightly less easy than expected.

This is the last pack of imitators in the game. They are not appropriately scaled.

This was Werner’s walking around money.

Come to think of it… The prophets are dead… The Seven are dead… Werner is dead… did we just inherit Mimir’s Well?

And its many block puzzles?

We are going to see a couple of these today, as they are apparently the gimmick of this dungeon. You have a limited space to work with, and you have to push/pull blocks to make progress to an obvious endpoint.

You don’t need any tools to solve these puzzles, and they are basically a matter of moving a few blocks at a time to keep the party moving.

And our first reward is a duplicator. Some of these Mimir’s Well doors are locked, so that will be used immediately.

At least the return trip is easy. Walk all over that puzzle!

See? Great place for a duplicator.

The final Migrant Seal!

If you have been good about finding Migrant Seals across the game, this is the final one. There are 19 seals (you start at level 1), and now, at Level 20, you can cancel most any encounter. Well, if you ignore the Abyss and the final dungeon…

On the PS4/PS5 version, this earns you a trophy.

Second hallway.

Second block puzzle.

The trick is that you cannot just aim down the middle with that obstruction. Other than that, this is the same deal as last time.

Adventure #9! We already won Adventure #10 from the porn mags at the laboratory, so this is about where we can complete the Kaitlyn’s Story Time quest.

We are so ready to read to Clive’s adorable daughter.

Remember! You can just walk back over the top of the blocks. You don’t have to reverse-solve this puzzle. Learn from my mistakes!

Back on track.

Just about at the end here.

Final block puzzle.

Push and pull around the perimeter.

I like that these puzzles use the same basic concept as the Millennium Puzzles, but work in an entirely distinct way. Very different goals involving blocks.

Woo! Clearing status effects!

Oh man. This was Werner’s flower stash. I feel bad now.

Let’s get out of here before I cry.

And here we are at that terminal from the cutscene.

We have two options.

This was the password used by Werner. He made a big deal about it.

This will unlock the door forward.

Virginia was too busy shooting her dad to notice the two treasure chests in the server room.

Full Libra is well worth the trip.

Like the Prism Crown from the previous dungeon, this is one of those all-purpose accessories. Full Libra will protect against all status effects. Status effects aren’t that much of a bear in Wild Arms 3 (they are rarely exploited by the bosses), but this would be great if you are going UFO hunting.

And there’s the server hole. Virginia friggen’ obliterated Hyades.

Note that Mimir’s Well contains the last treasure chests in the game. If you have kept up on exploring every dungeon, returned to previous dungeons with new tools, and now looted Mimir’s Well, you have opened every treasure chest across Wild Arms 3. There are no treasure chests in the final dungeon.

But there is still one last to-do item in Mimir’s Well.

(flashback to reading times)

You may recall a book at the Ark of Destiny which said “The Ice Queen has been assigned to guard Mimir’s Well, the place where wisdom is granted.”

And its activation code is the Hebrew word for truth…

We're gonna meet Elsa!

It’s another Wild Arms legacy golem!

Lolithia was one of the golems of Wild Arms (1). It was the first discovered in the plot, and arguably the reason the cast of Wild Arms gathered at all. It is a bit shorter here (Golems were building-sized in Wild Arms), but is otherwise immediately recognizable. Oddly, when Lolithia returned in Wild Arms Alter Code: F (a remake of Wild Arms), this model got scrapped, and she was redesigned to be more obviously robotic (aka she dropped her sweat beard).

Lolithia is an ice boss to the core, so use fire, and ward ice.

Naturally, her first move is to increase the attack strength of ice abilities.

Cold Sleep is appropriately named.

It is an ice attack that may inflict sleep. And I just got done saying status effects weren’t that dangerous in Wild Arms 3…

Cocytus is the big scary ice attack that may murder everybody if you’re under leveled.

But there is not much to worry about if you have faced other optional bosses. Unlike many of the super bosses, Lolithia seems to be scaled for exactly this point in the plot.

I would guess that Lolithia was planned as the “real” boss of this area, but was demoted to optional when the directors decided that Virginia’s big scene would work best not interrupted by a random battle with a robot.

Anyway: burn the witch.

Lolithia is not very strong. Asgard is embarrassed for his sister.

That’s it for Mimir’s Well’s security system.

This complete nothing of a fight earns you a trophy on the PS4/PS5.

Our reward is a decent amount of cash and an ice ring. Ice Rings aren’t all that common, so it is a reasonable prize for a reasonable battle.

And that’s that. After you have entered both passwords (TOMORROW and emeth… case sensitive!), the terminal no longer works. The door is open forever, though.

Mimir’s Well is now thoroughly explored. This whole adventure is optional, but, as you’ve seen, it houses the finales to multiple game-long quests.

And right about now we could head straight for the finale of the game-long quest of the game. But we’re not going to do that, because…

Next time on Wild Arms: The side quest roundup begins!

 

[SpoonyBard]

Wait how many sidequests are left? I thought just about everything was done?

Oh well, Beatrice has been waiting a millennia to enact her evil plan, what's another week or two?

 

[gogglebob]

I thought just about everything was done?

Monster.

 

[gogglebob]

There is a smudge on my glasses and it is driving me nuts but there is no time for that now as it is August 31, Kaboom Day. Kaboom is such a great example of onomatopoeia. No one knows who invented the word, but you can literally see the sound in the air. Kaboom!

Chapter 72
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We explored Mimir’s Well. And that barely has anything to do with anything, because today we are…

Completing Every Side Quest in Wild Arms 3
Part 1

I’ve been talking about those EX File Keys for a while now, so we are going to look at how you obtain every last one. Count ‘em down, ladies and gentlemen!

The Arioch Quest

We will begin with the quest we are not completing. Arioch can be unleashed as early as when you obtain Lombardia. Once he has been fought once, he can be confronted as a random encounter literally anywhere monsters are found (including the final dungeon, Abyss, and the “solo” dungeon). You must fight him 99 more times to earn his EX File Key.

As covered when I first unlocked this quest back in Part 45, this requires way too much grinding. Even if you unlock him as early as possible, there are not 99 dungeons in the game, so there are not enough opportunities to encounter him without some dedicated wandering around.

I have seen some “strategies” that involve flying between the first three dungeons, trying to force an encounter within the first five random battles, and then teleporting to another dungeon to try again. My understanding, according to FAQs, is that this method only takes about two to three hours to complete the whole quest.

I ain’t doin’ that.

But we are going to count this EX File Key for completion’s sake.

Sidequest Grade: F. Absolute garbage.

EX File Keys: 1/15

Additional Note: Unlike many of the EX File Key Quests you will see in these updates, Arioch does not grant the player a trophy on the PS4/PS5 version. Everybody knew this thing was bullshit best ignored.

Buy Success

The most obvious EX File Key is for sale at the Black Market. Recall that you cannot access the Black Market until you explore It’s a Trap Tower with Maya, collect the Black Card there, and then remember to find the Black Market back at Little Twister, a town you would otherwise have no reason to visit again.

Arguably, the best way to collect the necessary funds is to farm the Calupdis monsters in the Abyss.

These frogs steal a tenth of your gella on their first round, and then run on the second. If you kill them before they escape, you get all your gella back, plus a little prize. But! If you use a gella card on them while they “have” your gella, then it doubles your payout.

Since these things are fought in groups of two, you basically earn (((Your Gella) x .1) x 2) x 2) per battle. Mind you, that is only if you successfully pull this all off. You obviously earn less if a frog runs away with your money.

So earn as much cash as you can in the Abyss, and also remember to cut the final cost in half by defeating the super boss Heimdal Gazzo at the Dissection Facility. The Gold License takes the cost down to a mere 4,999,999.

Fun trivia: the EX File Key is the only item in the game that disappears from a shop menu after purchase. So, no, you cannot buy 99 EX File Keys if you farm enough cash.

Sidequest Grade: C. Your pretty typical “get as much money as possible” quest. Not that complicated, but not that creative, either. We have found out that you can just, you know, buy psychological validation

EX File Keys: 2/15

Spoiler: Quests Recklessly Continue...

Search the Yggdrasil Area

Our first EX File Key that we already saw “completed” in this Let’s Play. There is an EX File Key on the world map in the Yggdrasil canyon. It is something of a bear to get to (no teleporting to Yggdrasil allowed), as you must complete the Nidhogg Pass dungeon again to get there. Also, you cannot obtain this key on your first visit, as you absolutely need the Item Scope prize from the coliseum for this key to appear at all. If you eventually obtain the Sonar Kit from the coliseum, you will eternally see this green dot of “please find me” as you zoom by on your airship. As a result, a lot of people probably find this EX File Key without much FAQ’ing.

Anywho, that’s three down.

Sidequest Grade: B. Better than another “search the map” quest we’ll be seeing soon.

EX File Keys: 3/15

Conquer Gunner’s Heaven

And speaking of the coliseum, you receive an EX File Key for defeating Bad News in combat. Note that you can only challenge Bad News after defeating Emperor Marduk, and Emperor Marduk is only available after conquering the three different tiers of coliseum challenges. In general, you should be leveled enough to pull all of that off by the time you are ready for the final dungeon. Trying it before that point is a real challenge, as the third level of the coliseum has a time limit and the monsters hit really hard. See Part 46 for more details.

When completing the Bad News challenge on PS4/PS5, you also get a trophy.

Sidequest Grade: A. The battle coliseum is an RPG mainstay, but this is one of the few places where the battle system of Wild Arms 3 actually has an iota of nuance. It is mostly because of the time/turn limit, but you have to think a little harder than “protect against element, keep hitting it.” Combine that with superbosses that are in a friendly area where you can rematch as much as you need without the consequences of having to complete a dungeon again after a failure, and this one works out pretty well.
EX File Keys: 4/15

Conquer the Abyss

Simultaneously the most straightforward and most difficult challenge for an EX File Key: You must descend through all 100 levels of The Abyss to defeat Ragu o Ragla (twice) and earn his EX File Key.

Part 47 includes a whole video of this challenge when overcame on the Playstation 2, but I did it again on my Playstation 5 playthrough, because I am a masochist. In an effort to justify such an endeavor, please enjoy a few screenshots of the unique monsters I encountered on the PS5, but not on the PS2 run. It’s random!

Also: here is a picture of some scrap cardboard I used to keep track of the last 40 floors. Note that the Tracker item, which is supposed to denote your dungeon floor, does not work in the Abyss. You had one job!

Back to the monsters of this monster quest.

These guys are swaps of that panther-slime monster from Part 58. They are not normal slimes.

This is just your average giant bivalve.

Not going to lie: I am pretty sure that is my usual pho order.

You have too many heads, and you should feel bad about that.

I had a slightly easier time of this Abyss run thanks to remembering techniques I worked out during my previous journey. It also really helps that the Playstation 5 has an easy suspend/sleep function, and I could take breaks at my leisure.

Naturally, you receive a trophy for your troubles. Also: congratulations to Virginia for earning four times zero experience.

And if you are curious about my not-level max levels on this Abyss run, here we are. Looks like my lowest is Jet at Level 74. So don’t let anyone tell you you must be in the 90’s to beat the greatest challenge in the game.

Sidequest Grade: B-. Aggravating, but the kind of aggravating you expect from an RPG of this era. A big, long dungeon with limited (zero) save points was just the style of the time. The science fair volcano of EX File Key challenges.

EX File Keys: 5/15

Solve the Millennium Puzzles

There are twenty Millennium Puzzles all over the world. Find ‘em and solve ‘em.

See Part 48 for more details on that one (and another video!). If you are not using a FAQ, finding all the puzzles becomes a lot easier after you win the coliseum’s Sonar Kit.

Since this is all tied to talking to a specific dude after solving all puzzles, this one can be done in any order. The earliest you could accomplish this is after earning Lombardia, but you do not need to be “leveled” to solve puzzles. Technically no combat involved!

Sidequest Grade: A-. My only issue here is Millennium Puzzles are scattered across the map with no rhyme, reason, or order. Solve that with a FAQ or Sonar Kit, and the block puzzles are ingenious and entertaining.

EX File Keys: 6/15

Search Sunset Peak

The Millennium Puzzle quest is important because you will find the Teleport Orb as a reward for Puzzle #14. As covered in Part 48, if you have the Teleport Orb in your inventory and take a train from Southfarm to East Highlands, you will be “accidentally” teleported to the abandoned train station, Sunset Peak. That whole sequence is esoteric, but you will naturally find some clues if you stick to the “talk to every NPC” rule.

Sunset Peak is necessary to the UFO and Millennium Puzzle quests, as Sunset Peak is not accessible by air, but there are mandatory (optional) locations nearby. However, just finding Sunset Peak earns you an EX File Key if you (literally) run into the nearby clock.
… I have no idea how you are supposed to know to do that. But whatever!

Sidequest Grade: A and F at the same time. Finding Sunset Peak is a matter of parsing out clues and a reference to Wild Arms 2. But actually knowing to run into that clock is cryptic nonsense.

EX File Keys: 7/15

Conquer the Aliens

As outlined in Part 56, you can activate the UFO quest after completing the Dissection Facility dungeon. Note that the quest is seemingly glitched, and some people have had trouble activating it if they wait until after completing the following dungeon (Cradle of the Metal God). You only need to start the quest to avoid the glitch, though.

This whole stupid quest is basically an excuse for status effect warding and vehicle combat.

You like trophies? You get a trophy.

Sidequest Grade: D. This was covered ad nauseum during its featured LP section, but this is the potato chip bag filled with 95% air of sidequests. This quest would be good if it wasn’t the same thing over and over again with little to no variation.

EX File Keys: 8/15

Conquer Balal Quo Naga

So remember a long time ago when we had to eliminate Balal Quo Naga to open a channel and earn the Goddess Statue? It was Part 43. Well, afterwards you can do it again, just so long as you have Lombardia to launch some missiles at her new domain. We did that in Part 60.

And we got an EX File Key for our troubles.

Sidequest Grade: P for Pass. This quest is stupid and pointless (if you can beat Balal Quo Naga I, you should have no problem with Balal Quo Naga II), but it also only takes five minutes. You pass, quest, but you’re not worth considering beyond that.

EX File Keys: 9/15

Make Your Garden Grow

Now we are back to quests that were not already completed in the Let’s Play. Way back in Part 22, we saved the soil around “Florina”’s garden. We have been producing bumper crops of heal berries ever since.

If you want to grow more of a particular item, you have to “sacrifice” one of your items to improve the “breeding”. Every item contributed to breeding adds one point, and a crop is at its maximum when it reaches Level 100. Basic items start at level 70 or so (so you only need to contribute thirty to reach maximum), while rare items (like the Tiny Flower) start at level 1. This means that you must grow and then ransom a lot of the more valuable items…

I kept careful track of my garden contributions over the course of my two playthroughs. Assuming you are playing a straightforward game of Wild Arms 3, and are not wandering around the countryside with no idea where to go next, you will never find/grow enough plants to reach level 100. Boo! There is simply not enough “game” in the game to max out your Mega Berries. But you can fool the system by resting at inns a lot, thus meaning you have more time for Florina to grow Full Carrots. The beds at Baskar are free and nearby, so go ahead and sleep for days.

Soon you’ll be seeing large harvests of the more valuable veggies. Take ‘em all, and put ‘em right back into the breeding program. Get more next time.

You don’t get to see the level of any given plant, but Florina’s descriptions change with your progress. It is easy to ascertain how many more weeks Virginia needs to nap.

And, eventually, you’ll achieve 100% with all plants.

And we have…

An EX File Key! Score!

Note that while the whole EX File Key situation seems to indicate that the directors want you to max out the garden, doing so absolutely breaks the combat system of Wild Arms 3. Virginia has the ability to spread any of these items across the party by using 25 FP to perform Mystic… But a Full Carrot restores 100 FP instantly. This means a Mystic’ed Full Carrot will grant the entire party 100 FP immediately, and the only cost is consuming a Full Carrot (to be clear: Virginia winds up with 100 FP after “using” 25 FP in that situation, too). With maximum bred Full Carrots in the garden, you effectively have access to infinite Full Carrots. And with infinite Full Carrots… Well… Even Ragu would quake in his monster shoes…

Uh… good luck with that.

She still has a crush on The Filgaia Sample.

While we are here… This isn’t for an EX File Key, but if you pump up everyone’s luck to BEST by using Tiny Flowers…

You will receive a trophy on the PS4/PS5 versions. “Best of Luck” can occur naturally/randomly (as your character’s luck stats bounce around haphazardly over the course of the game), but feeding (?) everyone small flowers will guarantee luck gains. It does not last, though…

Sidequest Grade: B+. This quest is the “good” version of the Arioch quest, as you can unlock it early in the game, and you can put in as much time as you want. The only downside is that it really does require some level of grinding (even if that grinding is easy to do), and completing this quest disproportionately makes you a god. Though maybe a game all about a world suffering through an ecological disaster should reward you excessively for properly cultivating plants…

EX File Keys: 10/15

Fill in the Map

Part 21 revealed that Uncle Gob is living under Clive’s house, and he wants to see a completed world map.

This quest is stupid. Like any proper world, a lot of Filgaia is mountain or (sand) ocean, and there is never a reason to traverse either of those. If you are piloting your sandcraft, you are making a beeline for the next beach, and not “exploring” the ocean. I am almost certain any “random” island on Filgaia contains a treasure or sidequest location that already rewards you for discovery. And mountains and alike are 100% inaccessible and not traversable through any method but air. As a result, while you may spend a lot of time wandering around the walkable areas, there is never any reason to hit the places you can only see by vehicle.

Basically, there is only ever a purpose to explore 50% of this map (at most), and the rest is just “fly in straight lines so you fill in every dot”. This is not difficult with your dragon pal (for most of the game, there are no air-based random encounters), just tedious.

And since the visual difference between “filled in” is gray versus light tan, if you miss a single square or two, you are going to have a bad time. This screenshot is missing three squares. Can you find them?

Over here!

On the original PS2 version, you have to check with Uncle Gob to confirm your progress. On the PS4/PS5 version, you immediately earn a trophy when you hit 100%. Leave those trophy notifications on!

Would do it all again if it meant seeing you happy, Uncle Gob.

Uncle does live in a sewer.

You knew this was coming.

Uncle Gob breaks the fourth wall slightly by offering the tiniest explanation for an EX File Key. Not like you can accidentally use them up before they are relevant.

He does offer the excellent information of numbering your prizes, though.

Sidequest Grade: C. Fun concept, but dumb execution. A reward for finding every random item on the world map might be more appealing. As it is, this just feels like busy work.

EX File Keys: 11/15

Reunite the Family

Now we’re really getting into the complicated quests. Before we even completed Chapter 1, we met Martina in Part 10. Martina hadn’t heard from her mother in a while, and was stuck with her aunt Myra. Myra made reference to “inheriting” Martina’s family’s inn from her sister, but, more importantly, looked like a Disney villain. She must be evil!

By Part 12 (immediately after meeting Maya for the first time, but before Janus climbed Ka Dingel), Myra made mention that Martina left a note and “disappeared”.

This quest can (and should) be started at that point. You will find Martina at Westwood, the train station closest to her hometown of Claiborne.
Here’s how this one works: when you see Martina, talk to her and anyone around her until they start repeating their dialogue. Sometimes (but not all the time), you have to talk to Martina, talk to someone nearby, and then talk to Martina again. You cannot progress until you have heard everything everyone has had to say. Then, stay at an inn or complete some mandatory plot progression, and Martina will move on to her next location. Find her in the new spot, and repeat.

Martina follows a set “path” through her quest to find her mother, and it may sync up with your own progression through Filgaia. That said, if you forget to activate Martina at a location, she will never make any progress, so you will have to return later to get her going again. While no part of this quest involves combat or anything “difficult”, it is best to keep Martina going so you don’t have to bother with finding where you left off later. There is no Martina radar (or anything else that will ever tell you where to pick up the trail).

Anywho, her second stop is Little Rock, where she finds her mom used to work at a local bar.

And hot. She learns her mom is hot.

“When I let Von take over this place, I did a little remodelin'. We closed the shop for that, but Mileux said she wanted to pay back the loan as soon as possible. So, I found her a job at a saloon owned by a friend of mine. Never thought I'd get to meet her daughter...”

Mama Mileux is working around the world to pay off a loan to her (obviously evil) sister.

Next stop is Little Twister, which is backtracking from Little Rock if you are following the plot progression.

“My grandmother mentioned this town by a slip of her tongue once...I thought maybe it had something to do with my father's bankruptcy...”

Apparently Martina is trying to get some info from the Black Market, but there is no indication she gets anywhere during this visit. (Future info indicates this may be a glitch or some kind of translation flub.)

Next up is Clive’s hometown, Humphrey’s Peak. Here is where we get the pathos.

Martina has a new mom now.

If you speak to Cheville before the Martina quest, she will note that she is depressed as hell because her daughter died. Now she’s had a mental break, and believes Martina to be her departed Alice.

You don’t have to go anywhere, but you have to catch a few z’s to move Martina forward here.

“She...looks exactly like my mother. And coincidentally, I apparently look like her late daughter. I understand the pain and loneliness, so I wish to be by Cheville's side for a while. Perhaps I can ease her pain by doing so...”

Martina has wandered outside, and is contemplating living the rest of her life in a bad sitcom plot.

“A day ends, and so will tomorrow. What is the meaning behind this cycle? To live like a surging wave, that will only erode the shores of your heart...”

Sleep some more, and Martina seems to move on. Cheville decides to spend this time ranting.

Apparently Martina just went out for a pack of smokes or something. Cheville is now... better? I think?

Whatever. Time to move on to Bell Starr Saloon at Jolly Roger. If you time this right, you will be returning here anyway to obtain your sandcraft.

Martina found religion?

Oh. Chevelle taught her religion.

So Martina sees the whole Chevelle incident as a net good for everybody, and she’s going to hang out in this bar until she finds another new mom.

After what the Jolly Roger newspaper describes as “the worst bar brawl involving a toddler in history”, Martina moves on to Ballack Rise. You need Lombardia to get to this town in the first place, so this one can only happen as of mid-Chapter 3. If you had Martina moving properly “with” the plot, you don’t see her for a while (basically the difference between Part 27 and Part 45).

Ballack Rise seems to be the only town on Earth with a healthy child population, so it makes a certain amount of sense that Martina would hang out here after evidently scaling a mountain.

Heartwarming or whatever.

It’s coming from a kid wearing a leather jacket, you know that’s legit.

A lead! Mileux was looking for work, and she was supposed to be a great chef, so now we’re all heading over to Laxisland.
Note that this is the first time in this quest that you are distinctly told the next location.

To the bar!

Dammit! We found mom, but she is not doing well.

She might be blind from a fever? Or has poor peripheral vision?

They have a guy who is obsessed with aliens. Could he help?

The solution is to head back to Humphrey’s Peak and call in the cavalry (Cheville).

Cheville teleports over (or something), and now it is just a matter of talking to everyone sixty times and staying at an inn.

Terrible doctor. This is why *REMAINDER OF SENTENCE DELETED DUE TO LACK OF EMPATHY*

“We came this far on a dragon.”

Eventually, Mileux gets better.

Heck yeah! The next stop is probably Little Rock or something.

Did we actually do anything? We mostly just watched.

And thus ends Clive’s quest to increase his property value by improving the sanity of the woman living next door.

Also: do Cheville and Mileux look anything alike? They kinda have the same haircut... I guess...

Back to Claiborne.

Mom is behind the counter, and Martina is back to her spot standing by a barrel.

Okay, so somewhere in the script it is discovered that Myra pulled one over on Mileux, and she somehow obtained the inn through dubious means. Theoretically this was supposed to be part of the dialogue at Little Twister, but it might not be programmed correctly or something. I never saw it, and it doesn’t appear to be in the (GameFAQs compiled) script. Martina makes reference to some denizens of Little Twister (and specifically Ian) clueing her in during the “Mileux is sick” section, but the details or how Martina found this information is never clarified. Anyway, Mileux is back in charge, and Myra is out.

More importantly: this quest is over.

And that means we get another EX File Key.

Thanks for playing!

Both Uncle Gob and Martina note that the EX File Key sparkles, and Cheville’s post quest dialogue claims that the strength of hope derives from purity with a “dazzling sparkle”. It is supposition, but it appears the “physical” answer for “what is an EX File Key” is something like “pure hope/determination”. It is as good an explanation as any.

And if you swing by Little Twister, you can find Myra.

Sucks to suck, Myra.

But it turns out that Mileux and Martina are infinitely good, so they are willing to forgive Myra. Happy ending for everybody!

Anywho, this is a… Well, it is hard for me to say this is a “fun” quest. This quest is neat if you follow it organically, as the whole concept of a random NPC having an expedition parallel to your own is delightful. Unfortunately, there are a number of sticking points in the requirements for this quest that make it really unlikely it will be naturally solved. Martina always seems to make a beeline for inns… except when she doesn’t. She follows the general arc of the party… except when she randomly returns to a previous location. She always moves on from town to town… except when she sticks around with Cheville for a while. There is rarely an indication where Martina will go next, and, after she leaves, there is never someone puttering around offering clues to where she has gone. If you really want to “solve” this quest, you either have to hit all the towns on the planet repeatedly until you find Martina, or check a FAQ.

Sidequest Grade: C+. There is an interesting idea here, but the execution could use some polish. You want me to track a little girl all over the world, at least throw me a bone once in a while.

EX File Keys: 12/15

And we are going to stop there for today. Still miles to go before our heroes sleep… or… well… you know. We are just assuming they don’t have narcolepsy from all those inn visits during this update…

Next time on Wild Arms: A talking box, a light novel, thievery, the last three keys, and what they actually do.

 

[Kahran042]

Personally, "Bad Guys and Bad Land" is one of my favorite RPG town themes, so for me, I sometime visit Little Twister just to groove on the music.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Ultimately the side quests are all worth it just to talk to Uncle Gob again, gob-gob.

 

[gogglebob]

Are you ready for story time, today, September 7, Appendicitis Day? Before you ask why we have unnecessary organs like the appendix, think of it the other way around. Yes, you thought correctly. According to the appendix, you are the one that's not needed.

Chapter 73
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We took care of a number of sidequests, but we still have a few to knock off the checklist. So without further ado…

Completing Every Side Quest in Wild Arms 3
Part 2

Picking it back up with some boxes…

The Treasure Quest

In Part 23, we encountered a talking treasure chest at Fortune Gear. If you miss them that first time, Clive’s wife will have random dialogue about investigating all the boxes at Fortune Gear. Point is you can’t miss ‘em.

By the time you have completed Mimir’s Well, you may have found all the chests in the game. But, like me, you probably missed a couple. Happens to the best of us.

So what do you do if you are missing some chests and want to catch ‘em all? Well, you have Jet’s radar tool for identifying if a room still contains treasure. Also, you can use the Tracker (found as a reward for completing Millenium Puzzle #10) to confirm that you have entered every last room in a dungeon (ideal for discovering if you should be uncovering a cracked wall). Unfortunately, our dear talking chest does not offer any clues as to where in the game to look… so get ready to waste some time. In my own playthrough, the absolute last chest I missed was found randomly in Dragon’s Roost.

Don’t forget: all treasure chests can be found at all times once you have finished all the dungeons. There were a few caves that exploded, but they did not contain chests. Saves a little time…

Once you have found 319 treasure chests…

Spoiler: Get ready for things to happen...

You have treasure and options.

The Threatening Box.

Fight time!

This is the final mimic. Technically, we have a “super boss” here, but you cannot tell me this fight isn’t intended as a reward unto itself.

The Black Box is appropriately named, as they are black…

And actively a “black” elemental creature that uses shadow magic and is weak to light.

The thing is, they only use dark magic.

So if you have a dark ward equipped, they will never do any damage with their magic.

And once you turn off their attack/magic boost with a casting of eraser…

You really have nothing to worry about.

With dark ward equipped, Black Box will only be able to (randomly) use their physical attack to do damage. And it barely even damaged Clive. He has the worst defense here!

And, of course, you can hit their weakness for mega damage.

Black Box ultimately goes down simply.

B.B. knows O.C.D.

So while you can kill Black Box pretty quickly, you may wish to dawdle. This is the results screen from hammering Black Box like a normal boss. As you can see, with those dark wards continually soaking up dark attacks, my team got at least 3.5 times experience for the battle, with Clive and Gallows (my main attackers) earning nearly 5 times experience. If I had just sat around defending for a round or ten, I could have achieved the coveted x 9.9 experience. And multiplying that by 102,000 EXP would shoot levels up through the roof.

So, yes, you earn an EX File Key here, but it is also one of the few occasions where there is an “extra” reward beyond the key. Appropriate, given how much effort you have to put into finding every treasure chest.

Sidequest Grade: A. A game-long quest with a clear win condition and an obvious checklist. And you get bonus prizes beyond the key! Would be an A+ if Black Box was a little more forthcoming with clues.

EX File Keys: 13/15

Adventure Time

Kaitlyn, Clive’s adorable daughter, would like you to find her some reading material.

Book roundup! Adventure 1 is already in Kaitlyn’s possession. You can start this quest officially the first time you visit Humphrey’s Peak (Part 21).

Adventure 2 is hiding in a secret room in Fortune Gear (where our friend Black Box lives).

Adventure 3 is in a secret room in Infinitum (Part 31).

Adventure 4 is hiding in Nidhogg Pass. You have to hit this dungeon a couple times if you are doing all the sidequests anyway, so you should find it on at least one trip. (Part 33)

Adventure 5 is a mandatory drop from a mandatory boss at the end of the World’s Footprint (Part 42). You literally cannot miss this one.

Adventure 6 is in a hidden room in Fila del Fia (Part 50). Given this one is behind a nondescript bombable wall in an otherwise innocuous area, my opinion is that this is the most easily missed book.

Adventure 7 is in a treasure room on the way to breaking in to the bad guy citadel on the Dim Root Path (part 57). Some people have reported having trouble accessing this dungeon later due to a glitch, so be sure to find it on your first trip.

Adventure 8 is in the supremely gross Demondor Pillar-Rear (part 69). If you are curious why there is such a gap between books, it is likely because there were a lot of volatile dungeons in between there. Either that, or the author needed time to recharge their creative batteries.

And Adventure 9 was Mimir’s stash. This is the only book that appears in an (marginally) optional area.

Adventure 10 is the most difficult to obtain: you must have a Migrant Level of at least 18, use a duplicator to unlock the “Adult Mag” back at the Leyline Observatory (from Part 19), and then beat the Adult Mag superboss(es). This was all showcased in Part 60.
Note that this makes this quest the only one that makes collecting Migrant Seals mandatory.

This is the only part of the quest that contains an optional fight, and thus may require some leveling.

And for a complete set…

Speak to Catherine after finding every other book, and she will hand over…

Adventure 11.

It is not enough to have a full library, you have to actually read those books.

Let’s go to town.

You can read these books at any time after they are obtained. I personally recommend waiting until you have the full set, as I despise waiting for the next episode to come out. Netflix this bitch.

You even have the option while reading to read continuously once you start.

And you can break and pick it up again at any time.

So here’s the story… uh… literally.

This is a roughly 20,000-word light novel. It is appropriate for children (good job parenting, Clive), and is the story of three kids and their whacky vampire pal. I considered copying the whole script into the Let’s Play (and said script would be directly from this Gamefaqs FAQ), but then I figured I would treat it like a typical LP event, and just give you a few reports and pictures.

Each of the chapters are mostly words, but with Wild Arms 3 music to suit the mood. To my knowledge, there is not any “unique” music played here. But, for example, a battle theme is a battle theme, and appropriate to play when our protagonists are in danger. The art that appears with these books is wholly unique, though, and I’ll make sure to get a pic of all of it as we move forward.

-Complete Side Story Summary Starts Here-
-This has nothing to do with the main plot-

Jack is our star and narrator. He is a schoolboy who loves airplanes. He is also a victim of protagonist syndrome: his parents are unaccounted for, and he lives with his kindly ol’ grandma. One day, he accidentally crashes his model airplane by the gates of a nearby castle (!), and is mauled to death by wolves. End of story. No moral.

But wait! He is saved by a “cute girl” (his words) with mysterious red eyes. Said girl reveals herself to be a Crimson Nobel, which is just what Filgaians call vampires (presumably in an effort to not be eaten by vampires). Despite being a bloodsucking creature of the night, she claims she would never eat someone so young, and also reveals she is something of a mechanic herself. She is cool with “playing airplanes” with Jack. Also: she’s Marivel Armitage.

We’ll address that later.

By Chapter 2, Jack and Marivel are hanging out and visiting each other frequently. Marivel is apparently trying to inflict knowledge on Jack, and sharing Crimson Nobel books on airplane maintenance with him. Marivel also has her own personal robots, Red & Blue, which she built herself. Also, if you are worried about mythology, Crimson Nobels need to consume blood, but they can drink tea and eat sweets to hang out with the cool kids.

Speaking of cool kids, Jack lives in the small town of Quartly, and apparently goes to some kind of “group school” with a mere 17 students. There is only one kid that is his age. She is Violetta Bubka, the daughter of the richest guy in town. By Jack’s admission, she “looks like a cute girl”, but is more of a menace (pictured here being menacing). And there’s a transfer student! Because that’s how light novels work! The transfer student is a boy that is their age and is distinctly noted as effeminate. Reese Farlain plays violin, and is rather shy. Jack and Reese have to share a textbook, so they become lifelong friends immediately. Reese was previously homeschooled, apparently, so he’s a little socially awkward.
Later, Jack tells Marivel about his new friend.

Violetta teases Reese until it is revealed that Reese is the son of famous pianist Kareen Farlain. Reese is evasive about his relationship with his mother, and Jack considers helping out his new friend, but he has a date with Marivel today, so he skips out. Later, Reese spies Jack buying sweets for Marivel. Later still, Jack crashes his airplane with Marivel, and has an emotional breakdown. He reveals to Marivel that his mother, who used to just work in Slayheim, bought him the airplane in the first place. His mother now apparently “left him” to live in Slayheim, so he has put a lot emotional weight on that little plane. While he is bawling his eyes out, Reese reveals he followed Jack to this fountain (to deliver some missing homework, natch). Jack has a double emotional breakdown, and runs off in embarrassment.

A week later, Reese has spent 168 hours attempting to apologize. Jack spent that week fixing his grandma’s radio with Marivel… and then Violetta came along at school and clumsily ran into Jack’s bag. The radio was fine, but she smashed up Jack’s plane but good. Jack and Violetta clash, with Jack calling Violetta a brat, and Violetta claiming the airplane was trash to begin with. They’re both right.

Presumably because Jack was having the worst week ever, Marivel invited Jack back to her secret lab. Said lab is filled with fierce monsters Marivel has been studying/dissecting, and… Jack immediately leans on the wrong button and releases some manner of beastie. Jack runs to stop the monster (with the help of Marivel’s powerful-but-dumb robots), and finds it menacing Reese and Violetta at the edge of town. But! Marivel mentioned that this monster likes music, so Jack quickly shouts for Reese to play his violin. Music tames the savage beast, and Marivel captures the monster without anyone (but Jack) seeing her. As a result of this shared trauma, Reese and Jack officially become best friends.

Reese and Jack start hanging out more, and Reese reveals he likes Violetta. Jack doesn’t get it. Now Marivel is hanging out with Reese as well as Jack, presumably because Reese can bake sweets all on his own. While they are chilling at Reese’s house for tea, Violetta swings by and whines that her prized ribbon was stolen. Violetta heard there was a stranger at Reese’s house, and assumes Marivel is the thief. Marivel reveals that she has her own super awesome better-than-yours ribbon, so why would she ever bother with Violetta’s trash ribbon? Violetta is shocked at what is apparently the Quartly version of the greatest diss ever delivered, and runs away in shame. The boys are embarrassed by both Marivel and Violetta being catty bitches.

Some time later, Reese and Jack are hanging at a train station because there is absolutely nothing to do. There, they see Marivel (bundled up because the sun literally would cause her to catch fire). Marivel explains that she is meeting a “pen pal” of sorts that she met over shortwave radio. The friend turns out to be Anastasia, a woman who is three years older than Jack, and very beautiful. Everyone greets Anastasia, and they decide to have a picnic together.

Anastasia reveals herself to be a Goku-level hungry girl. Violetta shows up, is upset at seeing Reese with this new woman, and runs off. After eating all the food in town, Anastasia notices Reese’s “fine fingers”, and correctly guesses he is a violinist. Anastasia plays, too, so they become violin buddies over shared callouses. Violetta then returns to goad Anastasia and Reese, but Reese is oblivious. Anastasia is a seasoned mean girl, though, so she puts Violetta in her place, and then whispers something to the younger girl. Violetta is left dumbfounded, and Anastasia heads home.

A season (?) later, it snows for the first time, and the boys have a date with Marivel to ride her bitchin’ snowplow. Violetta suggests they all play checkers together since it is a snow day, but Jack and Reese are way too excited about that snowplow to bother. When the boys reach the castle and start playing in the snow with their vampire pal, they find Violetta has tailed them. Since Marivel dresses a little more casual at home, Violetta finally notices that she is dealing with a Crimson Noble. Violetta implies she is going to tell everyone in town. Marivel, ever the coolheaded adult in these situations, decides to go full vampire mode and “I’m not touching you” menaces Violetta until she passes out. Marivel then ejects Violetta and sternly demands the boys go home and “never set foot here again”. Marivel shuts the front gate, and the boys are expelled.

Later, Jack has worked out a plan to send an apology letter to Marivel by flying his airplane with a letter over the castle walls. Also: they are going to attach some of Reese’s sweets to the craft. Nothing about this plan is going to work. Violetta was returned home somewhere in the prior chaos, but Marivel pulled off some kind of mind wipe thing, and the boys have been avoiding Violetta ever since. Anywho, Reese’s guardian/uncle reveals that there is so much snow, there is likely to be an avalanche in the mountains. Now the kids are concerned such an avalanche would crush Marivel. They ditch the plane plan and immediately run off to save their vampire friend.

… Who did not need saving at all, as she has a mechanical forcefield ready to go for any avalanches. She initially seems angry at Jack and Reese’s presence, but it is shown that she is only irritated because the boys put themselves at risk for her. Marivel accepts them back as her friends, as she claims she must now guide them herself, because they are “potato-heads”.

After a thaw, Marivel and Jack take a carriage to Slayheim, because Reese is going to be in a musical contest. Violetta is competing, too, and she is being a general jerk to everybody involved. And then, just when Reese is going to take the stage, his musical score is gone! Violetta is obviously the thief, and Marivel and Jack attempt to get the score back before Reese must perform. While they are searching, they bump into Anastasia. Anastasia has her own copy of the score, which would solve the problem if Reese wasn’t going on right now. But Jack hatches a plan! Reese takes the stage, and Marivel, Anastasia, and Jack fold the score into paper airplanes, which sail up to Reese. Reese doesn’t win, but he gives a good, memorable performance that involves a lot of unfolding thanks to his friends.

(Frankly, this whole bit is super adorable, and easily my favorite part of the story.)

But! Shortly thereafter, Violetta is kidnapped! And the boys feel extra bad about it, because apparently the kidnapper asked the kids for directions to Violetta’s house earlier, and they were happy to oblige. Not your fault, kiddos! Naturally, Reese and Jack approach Marivel for help. Marivel decides she will be the one to handoff the ransom to the thief, and, when she has the chance, summon her robots to beat him to death. But since the kids feel like that will make them “look like chickens”, they decide to go in Marivel’s place as the classic “two kids in a trench coat (dress)” gag. They also have a machete. Yada yada yada, Violetta is freed, but the boys freeze up on actually decapitating a dude. Marivel then reveals herself, summons Qubeley the Golem to trounce the kidnapper, and the day is saved. The thief escapes, but the whole town congratulates the trio for their bravery. Violetta acknowledges Marivel kinda sorta risked her life to save her, and Marivel officially invites Violetta to join the boys on their next castle visit. Everyone is friends now!

So, naturally, it is time for the drama bombs. Jack reveals to the audience (and probably Marivel) that his mom didn’t just go to Slayheim to work, but also because she met a new man and wanted to be with him. And mommy dearest has apparently been sending letters back, but Grandma was burning them. This was weighing heavily on Jack’s mind as he picked up Violetta to join Reese and see Marivel. But before they collected Reese, they were visited by a surprised guest: Reese’s mom! She seems nice, but when Reese returns home to find his friends talking to his mom, Mama announces she is taking Reese back to Slayheim. Reese reacts to this news poorly. Reese storms out, and Jack chases after him to chat. Reese reveals to Jack that he doesn’t like his mother, and is straight up jealous of the fact that Jack doesn’t have a mom. This causes Jack to pass out with anger. I did that in reaction to a Nintendo Direct once, so been there, buddy.

So Jack mentally acknowledges that he wanted to help his friend, but failed spectacularly. Whether it be a kidnapping or social anxiety, Marivel is the answer, so Jack heads to the castle. Violetta joins (as was the original plan before the day went to crap), and they relay the situation to Marivel. Marivel notes that the two boys are in conflict right now because they have such similar cruddy parental situations, and Violetta suggests the solution may be Marivel summoning her giant robot again. This proposal is stupid and unhelpful, but it instantly makes Violetta the most relatable character in this story. Marivel says they should all head back to town, enough time has passed that cooler heads should be able to talk this out…

But the drama bombs just keep on booming, as now that same thief as before has kidnapped Reese’s celebrity mom. This time, the ruffian decided to bring an ARM, and, when the whole gang tries to save Kareena, he attempts to shoot Reese. But Kareena nearly takes a bullet for her son! Reese and Jack then immediately work together perfectly, distract the bandit, and allow Marivel to cast some magic to save the day (while Violetta leads mom away). And this time they actually captured the guy!

Reese and Mama tearfully reunite, and Jack hangs with Marivel as everybody has Feelings.

Some time later, Jack comes home to find his grandmother crying. She was holding a letter, and, before she could burn it, Jack nabbed it and ran off to the castle. Once he had a moment to sit down, he opened the letter, and it was apparently a notification that his mother had died. In a grief fugue, he went into the lab of the castle and wrecked all his airplane plans, literally torching everything (though, to be clear, this is like a trashcan-sized fire). Marivel arrived right about then, and offered a consoling reminder that Jack has spent the last year kicking ass and taking names with musical paper airplanes and at least two thwarted kidnappings. Marivel also reveals that she always felt kindred with Jack, as… well… You didn’t see any Crimson Nobles Moms in this story, did you? So Jack gets over it, and resolves to resume airplane construction in the near future.

Later, Violetta invites Jack and Marivel to her sister’s birthday party. Everybody dresses up, they all have a nice time, and Reese and Violetta decide to entertain guests with a duet. Marivel teases Jack that he will find his own girlfriend in good time. He still doesn’t get it. At the end of the evening, Marivel and Jack happen to notice a new star in the sky…

Everyone is having fun being friends, and Marivel even lets her guard down and leaves her “daytime” protective disguise at Violetta’s for laundry. But the Crimson Noble seems concerned about this new star in the sky…

Bad news! That wasn’t a new star, but a meteor that is going to kill everybody at midnight. Marivel discovers this in the morning, so she runs into town during the day to warn everyone. This causes her vampire-skin to partially immolate, so, ya know, smell of burnt Crimson Noble is wafting around town. Now she must rely on her young friends to persuade the townies to evacuate Quartly and hang out at Chateau de Marivel (which has those avalanche-and-presumably-meteor-repelling forcefields) until the danger passes. Violetta proves to be the MVP here, as she convinces her daddy the danger is real, and he tells the locals that he is transporting his vast cash reserves to the castle, and everyone can keep whatever they can carry. Whatever it takes to preserve everybody breathing! They all get a little antsy at the castle, but Reese calms ‘em all down with his violin. Probably a fun night for everybody, considering they just lost their homes in fiery ruin.

But there is a cost. Marivel messed herself up but good going to town with the sun out, so she is going to need to recuperate in her coffin for a while. She summons Jack, and asks that he contact Anastasia, who is a daughter of a nobleman. She should be able to help rebuild the town. And then she makes Jack promise that he will not give up on his airplane dreams. Marivel says she wanted to do it together with him, but she is going to have to take a little nap now…

Seven years later, Jack returns to the castle to wake up Marivel.

Jack explains that his grandma married Reese’s uncle (didn’t see that coming), Reese and his mother have a successful album on the charts, and Violetta’s dad became mayor of Quartly after the incident. The town is back and rebuilt. Reese and Violetta are living together, but still bickering as much as ever…

And Marivel tells Jack that she was glad they became friends as they climb aboard Jack’s newly constructed flying machine to take off on a maiden voyage.

-Complete Side Story Summary Ends Here-

It sure was!

That’s my book report on Adventure Volumes 1-11. Go ahead and give it a read on your own time. It is surprisingly affecting.

So let’s talk about the loopy lore of this thing.

Fun fact: this whole story could be Wild Arms 2 canon.

The big, important backstory of Wild Arms 2 was that Anastasia, a daughter of a nobleman of no great renown, was just a normal girl until Lord Blazer invaded the world, and she was called upon to become the Sword Magess/Saint and beat back flaming death. Anastasia also had a friend, Marivel, who was an immortal Crimson Noble. Marivel survived into the “present” of Wild Arms 2, and, at that time, she was integral in saving the world not only as a combatant and (playable) member of your party (with golems and magic), but also the “gadget girl” of the gang that gets your flying machines going. Additionally, Quartly is a town that is close to Marivel’s castle, and Quartly is also near Slayheim, a once-great city that is ravaged by war by the time Wild Arms 2 gets going.

So that whole meteor bit at the end? And Marivel asking Jack to summon Anastasia for help? That could be the inciting incident of Wild Arms 2’s backstory. The “meteor” was Lord Blazer (or part of his opening salvo), and Anastasia being involved with the restoration of the Quartly area could be where she is called to becoming the Sword Magess. Additionally, it is confirmed that Marivel is the last remaining Crimson Noble by WA2’s present, as the rest of her clan died fighting Lord Blazer. It sure would make sense that Marivel only survived because she was already recuperating and unavailable when the rest of her people were storming into battle…

There is nothing in Wild Arms materials that confirms nor denies this “origin story”.

But how does this all relate to Wild Arms 3? Well, this story could be simply that: a story. This could easily be one of those situations where the “real world” of WA2 is fiction in the world of WA3. Or, if you want to get crazy, you could claim that this is essentially a historical record of this world from waaaaay back in the past. Or, given we know the “neosapians” came from another world, it could be implying that this is the history of the previous planet of our characters’ ancestors.

And how does this make any sense? Are we to believe a children’s series contains the secret history of Filgaia? Well, Kaitlyn never really notes where she got her first volume, but we do know that the final chapter was found amongst Clive’s things. And every other book? If you scroll up and take a look, we only ever found Adventure books in ancient ruins, or a place where someone might have something from an ancient ruin (the lab). And considering Clive was an archeologist with Kaitlyn’s grandfather, it is possible the first and final volumes came from ancient ruins, too.

So, yeah, Kaitlyn totally got addicted to a book series from a millennium or two ago. She is just too young to have the context of knowing that she’s looking at (literal) ancient history.

Anyway, having read every last word of this thing…

EX File Key! And a trophy!

Going to have to get this kid checked out…

Sidequest Grade: A+. Some mad lad shoved an entire novel in this game. Finding ‘em isn’t all that complicated, and the reward is pleasant. Even if you don’t enjoy Wild Arms 2 fanfic, this is an entertaining approximation of a children’s story, and is conceivably the kind of thing you might read for fun on your own time. If you really do not feel like reading, hammer the X button. No complaints here.

EX File Keys: 14/15

Pickpocket the Final Boss

And the final EX File Key is always the same: you can use pickpocket on the final-final boss. This will 100% net an EX File Key. You just have to remember to do it. I will mention this again when we reach that final boss.

Sidequest Grade: P for Pass. Just kinda there as a thing to do.

EX File Keys: 15/15

Everything in red is the main path of the plot.
Everything in yellow is optional at its first availability, but eventually intersects at an outlined point to rejoin the main path.
And anything in green is wholly optional for the rest of forever.
So that’s it, all the EX File Keys. As an update to the diagram from back in Part 57, here is a complete flowchart of how early you can complete which sidequests. As you can see, Lombardia and Mimir’s Well seem to be big choke points.

What EX Keys Do

And why did we bother? Well, skipping ahead to actually beating the game…

After the credits roll and everybody says their goodbyes (give me another six updates), you have the option of creating an EX File. The only reason you shouldn’t do this is if your PS2 Memory Card is already full.

The EX File is just another save file on the list.

You cannot boot to an actual “playable” game from an EX File, but the EX File is 100% based on your final save.

So what are our options there at the top? First choice is “Status”. This allows you to see your final game stats.

In order to view your stats, you need 1 EX File Key. Considering the last boss does not drop any experience, anything you would see here is 100% the same as your final save before the last fight.

There is pretty much no reason to unlock “Status”, but may as well give it a look for Let’s Play completeness.

Speaking of completeness, here are Virginia’s final stats on my “real” PS5 playthrough.

Here are her stats on my PS2 New Game Plus playthrough.

And here she is on the save file I have from 2002 or so when I first beat Wild Arms 3 (which should match the beginning of my New Game Plus playthrough/this Let’s Play, as that was the base file used).

Jet on PS5.

Jet on PS2 New Game+.

Jet on PS2 Original Save.

Clive on PS5.

Clive on PS2 New Game+.

Clive on PS2 Original Save.

Gallows on PS5.

Gallows on PS2 New Game+.

Gallows on PS2 Original Save.

For the record, my PS2 Original Medium setup was slightly different than my modern playthroughs.

I don’t even recognize you, Early 21st Century Goggle Bob.

I gave Jet Finest Arts? How dare you/me.

Here are the final stats for the Sandcraft…

And Lombardia. They don’t get comparisons.

Second choice on the EX File choices: Opening Movie.

You can watch all the opening movies at your leisure for 8 EX File Keys. This is the most expensive purchase available.

They are not labeled well/at all, but these are the four opening movies with either the English or Japanese singers. Note that the Japanese versions have different lyrics for each chapter, while the English version is always the same. There are not subtitles, though, so you would only realize this if you speak both languages.

Next option is Exit Movie.

Watch that same silly movie that plays every time you tell a save amigo you are done for the day for 4 EX File Keys.

The Japanese versions have different lyrics. I cannot tell if there is a difference, visual or otherwise, on the English ones. This was all much more impressive before the advent of Youtube.

And our final choice is New Game EX.

New Game+ is available for 2 EX File Keys.

Note that the only things preserved are your levels, cash, and if you have a Sheriff Star (you get exactly one for defeating Ragu/The Abyss). As such, it is in your best interest to sell literally all of your items before beating the game, so you have as much gella as possible on the next run through.

And if you want to see what a New Game EX looks like, please restart this Let’s Play from the beginning.

That’s the EX File keys, everybody! Since it is impossible to save after creating an EX File, you really only need a minimum of 8 EX File Keys to see everything. Spend your keys, see what you want to see, reset, and then load the file again to find your keys have returned. The maximum 15 EX File Keys will obviously allow you to unlock everything all at once... but you cannot even save that you have accomplished such! What’s the point!?

Note that you can play Wild Arms 3 more on any other save file except the EX File. If you find more keys, you must actively beat the game and create a new EX File to use your new keys. They will not simply automatically apply to a preexisting EX File. Though, if you are curious, after you beat the final boss once, you really shouldn’t have issues doing it again.

In the end, this all means that the EX File Keys are a “mix and match” sort of affair. You are not expected to find every last key. Do the quests that interest you, because you only need a little over half the keys to see “everything”. Considering some of these quests are real goose eggs, this is appreciated.

There ain’t no platinum trophy for Wild Arms 3.

So let’s talk about how you get the platinum trophy for Wild Arms 3. All trophies were added to the game two console generations after the initial release for the Playstation 4 rerelease.

Is the Platinum Trophy's name, "Legend of Filgaia", a reference to Legend of Legaia?

Many of the trophies are basic rewards for clearing chapters, upgrading your ARMs, or disarming traps. Milestone trophies, if you will. If you play through to the end, you literally cannot miss many of these.

Wild Arms 3 Trophy Strategy: Trophies for things like “best luck” or fully upgrading an ARM do not care if you save your accomplishment. So you can blow all of your cash upgrading a single ARM, collect your trophy, and then keep the trophy as you reset from an earlier save to retain your cash.

Only 20% of the people playing Wild Arms 3 on PS4/PS5 got past the first chapter…

And less than 2% of people have completed the Abyss. How many people did it twice? I am a rare breed.

The only trophy I didn’t earn on this playthrough was “get everyone to Level 90”, because I was trying not to over-level on my PS5 file, and didn’t exploit every EXP boost in the game. I could have hunted more UFOs! Regardless, I am not going back to earn a platinum trophy, because I have better things to do with my life. Like write a Let’s Play that takes nearly two years!

Next time on Wild Arms: Enter the nightmare.

 

[SpoonyBard]

I'm glad to see that Marivel is the best character across two Wild ARMS games.

 

[gogglebob]

The sun is out and we are ready for September 14, Moon Day. We make special sweets to offer to Celesdue today. They're wonderful snacks with a clear gelatin skin and a yellow peach in the center. Eat too many and your hands will turn all yellow, but that's just the moon goddess letting you know you're overeating.

Chapter 74: Waking to the Nightmare

Previously on Wild Arms 3: We did everything there was to do in the world. Yay! Now we can close it all out with…

The Ark of Destiny!

We do not actually have to go here, but I figured I would stop by and see how these guys ‘n gals were getting along. The last time this place was mandatory was in Part 57, when we were infiltrating the Cradle of the Metal God.

Anywho, everyone is all psyched about the Ark of Destiny getting ready for takeoff.

Just a reminder that good leader Lamium has been receiving visions from a mysterious “Saint” that appears in his dreams.

Yep! Totally gonna happen!

Alright, now we’ve confirmed the status of our Ark of Destiny peeps. Just wanted to make sure everyone was having a good day!

Now we head to Baskar.

Hey! Didn’t you hire us for this job? This your way of delaying payment?

Gallows’s hut

Spoiler: activates the next scene...

activates the next scene. I wonder how much of this location was designed with multiple exposition cutscenes in mind…

Yes yes, we all remember the beginning of this chapter.

It was going to blow up the planet with Shane as the conduit, so that tracks.

This supposed to be revelatory?

Yeah, Granny and I are on the same page.

Poor old lady…

Glad to see this family is going to put the fun in dysfunctional to the bitter end.

“This was in the homework, Gallows.”

Gallows is the rare RPG hero that thinks to blame the plot macguffin for any and all personal problems.

Granny “training” is why Gallows has such great HP and defense for a mage.

Possible Wild Arms (1) reference…

The Elws had a teleporter system going in Wild Arms. In a weird way, this may be an attempt to tie those devices to the Sacrificial Altar.

Gallows, man, have you not learned that Shane is always right? (When he’s not attempting to destroy the planet.)

“We also haven’t had any Elws handy for centuries…”

“What’s the worst that could happen? We teleport to some moon prison or something?”

We just covered this!

“And then we won’t even remember that we failed, so it’s win-win.”

“Bring your brother! He hasn’t been out of the yurt since the incident.”

Everybody wins! Woo!

“Three-person parties suck. Let’s never do that again.”

This ain’t Final Fantasy 10, Granny.

Okay, so that’s about the last plot thing to do before entering the final dungeon. If you are the type that doesn’t like leaving a dungeon after you’ve started it, take care of everything else on Filgaia now.

But we already did everything we’d like to do, so to the Sacrificial Altar!

This is the same dungeon/location as before when we were rescuing Shane. It is still just a brisk jog from Baskar.

This time we are deliberately ignoring the “usual” entrance…

And heading straight up to the “secret” entrance.

There are likely players that re-explored the whole stupid old dungeon trying to find the proper path forward. I pity them.

Now we know what this room is for!

Kind of how the plot works, Granny.

…. When you put it that way….

“A talking box said we found all the treasure chests in the world, so this has to be the last place left.”

“Protagonists an’ all that…”

We are the four people on this planet with Ark Scepters, and they let us fight intangible gods once before.

I think Virginia and Granny could become (weird) friends after WA3 is over. Similar energies.

Remember when Beatrice gave us a literal key back at Mimir’s Well? Well, here it is.

And everything else we have done has been so carefully considered?

“Man, we have been close to the jaws of death so often, we know their name.”
“Yeah! It’s Steve!”

Virginia read that in a book somewhere, and has been waiting all game to say it.

Let’s get this party rolling!

Cash?

Not cash.

The Exodus Orb is an infinite-use key item. It is the “exit spell”, and will take you back to the entrance of any dungeon. Some people like to activate the final dungeon to obtain the Exodus Orb before attempting to find every treasure chest on the planet, as it really saves time in exiting dungeons you know have been completely looted.

Quick aside: There have been a number of dungeons in the past where the act of “walking out” of the area is what trigged the dungeon boss or a cutscene. It is pretty clear that the designers gave you this “exit spell” at the absolute end because it would break events earlier in the game, and there are no such events left.

Also: this will be a secret tool we will need to use later…

So do not break the orb.

Away we go!

Huh. Guess this is what happens when you can never see the ceiling.

“They say a fool may go to any extremes, but...that may just mean it takes a fool to do the extreme...”

Granny, are you writing a song?

Meanwhile!

Sweet! This is gonna be a classy affair.

You’re new.

Beatrice really hasn’t had any “generals” up to this point…

Meet the Disasters! Bashful, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, and Plok.

For being the gods of this planet, the Guardians are probably best described as merely “useful” over the course of this plot.

But we are getting a clear statement on what to expect with the Disasters here…

I called Macarena!

Who could she be talking about!? And, on a completely unrelated note, scroll back up to the start of this post for absolutely no reason.

Welcome to wherever we are! There is this mirror-static thing going on…

Getting’ lucid up in here.

Virginia is ready to dance!

Beatrice has her own castle. Of course she does.

Oh, that’s Na$ty.

Are we surprised here? Or angry?

Keep that metaphor rolling.

But that’s how the internet works, Virginia.

“I have the damndest time dusting the place, so I’ve been calling it my nightmare for the last few centuries.”

Final dungeon! Get hyped!

So, even after all that nonsense about the Exodus Orb, leaving the Nightmare Castle is just a matter of pressing X on this door.

And considering we will learn that this castle is basically set up like Mario 64, exiting is fairly easy.

But we’re not leaving now!

Here is the main hall.

There are a lot of branches from the main hall, but we are going to ignore all of them during this update, and head straight forward.

Hell yeah! Ooze!

Never had any problems with horrors before…

So we agree to move forward, and find that Disaster fellow.

Hiya!

The Disasters are basically “mirror” Guardians. There are seven, and they correspond to the seven “lesser” Guardians that we collected earlier in the game. There is not a matching Disaster for Time, or the four High Guardians (Hope, Love, Courage, Desire).

This is Disaster Luck, so they can…

Perform Lucky Shot, the summon attack of Chapapanga, the Guardian of Luck. The “joke” here is that that attack is meant to be difficult to use/weak because it works like a pokéball: use it as a final hit when the enemy is exhausted to obtain a rare item. Disaster Luck is never going to get a rare item off the party, so it barely does any damage. Sorry, Disaster Luck! You suck!

And we certainly do our share of damage to Disaster Luck.

Now is when things get dicey…

Disaster Luck transforms into Tiamat… Who, if we are being honest, is probably a rejected “dragon” design.

And Tiamat claims to have absorbed the powers of all the disasters.

She still takes her lumps, though.

This battle starts immediately after Disaster Luck is defeated, so no time to rest between fights.

And here is our fun time.

Final Disaster is an attack comprising all the summons of the first seven Guardians.

It includes five elements, and damage is calculated “per phase”, so a Fire Ward will guard against the fire section, but no other damage.

The Moon Guardian portion does not have an assigned element, so there is no guarding against that section of the attack.

Also: as it involves seven separate summons, this attack takes forever. It is like three minutes!

Let's see... We have elements fire, water, wind, earth, and light. You technically do not need to guard against ice, lightning, or dark.

You see the same order of attacks every time. Not that you can pause or account for what is next, of course...

It ends with the same meager Lucky Hit as before.

This is my “underleveled” party, but it is still a party that has defeated every super boss in the game. And you see those HP counts? After “one” attack, Wirginia and Clive are nearly dead. Jet and Gallows have more elemental wards equipped, but there are literally not enough wards to cover my whole party.

No elemental weaknesses to be found here, so…

Clive has to hit back…

And heal everyone as much as possible at the top of every round. We will be nearly dead after every Final Disaster, and the only answer is continual full-party healing.

Tiamat will use Final Disaster every single round. You will never have a reprieve from the disasters.

We can either use every Mega Berry in stock and see how long this war of attrition lasts, or tell Clive to kick in the Finest Arts. At least losing all that health is great for hitting 100 FP.

And we win!

Thanks?

And that’s Tiamat down! That battle was scary, but we survived by using our most powerful attacks and healing. We need only walk forward to fight the final boss!

Next time on Wild Arms: … Or we could actually complete this dungeon the real way, and see a very different world where Tiamat is weak as a kitten.