What's a MAGI, anyway? Let’s Play Final Fantasy Legend 2

[Büge]

You know, you could have called him "ARTU"

 

[Beowulf]

You know, you could have called him "ARTU"

 

[Torzelbaum]

You know, you could have called him "ARTU"

No. That path only leads to the dark side.

 

[Mogri]

I adore a number of things about SaGa games. I love, love, loved the individual stories and the changing world in Romancing SaGa and the sheer amount of exploration in Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Frontier as you piece together the fully story. But I need to play them in "tourist mode" with cheats or I just can't get into a mindset to enjoy them.

That's fair! The only other thing I'll say on this topic: as the game allows you to save anywhere and retry failed battles, it's very difficult to lose large amounts of time. (FFL1, on the other hand, has a point of no return in the final boss chamber, where there are no more encounters. I thought I had soft-locked myself when the final boss ended up being more difficult than I anticipated, although I did end up winning after several attempts. I'd put money on someone, somewhere getting into an unwinnable situation there.)

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #3: The First World

Now that we’re adequately prepared, let’s actually set out.

As a note: I’ve only overpowered R2 against single foes. He’ll deal this massive damage to one enemy in a stack; and later we’ll need to get him some grenades or something so he can attack multiple enemies at once.

This world isn’t actually that large, and it’s surrounded by mountains. We travel through the forested area and find a massive shrine, much larger than either town we’ve been to.

This is the Shrine of Isis.

The friendly monsters who hang around here have things to say.

Next world is Ashura’s Desert. And next to it is Giants’ World.
I’m going to talk about the overall geography of this game in the next post.

Ki: I’ll heal you! Okay! All done!!
Luke: Do you know anything about the MAGI?
Ki: What will you do with them? Be a god?
Han: No way! Luke’s father is going after MAGI. We’re looking for him.
Ki: That man with a hat on?
Luke: Do you know? Where did he go?
Ki: He dropped in, asked me about MAGI, and left.
Luke: Oh…. Okay. Thanks..

(The party starts to leave.)

Ki: Wait!
Ki: People say that there are MAGI in the relics of the ancient gods. It’s 4 to the east and 3 to the south from the Big Rock in the Southern Forest.

Well, that’s a genuine lead.

Mind you, though, Luke’s dad left years ago. Ki is not the slightest bit specific as to when he stopped in. Was it years ago? Was it last Tuesday? Did he stay for weeks? Has he dropped in more than once?

I do, however, love the fact that “that man with a hat on” is sufficient identifying information for someone Ki might have met for ten minutes a decade earlier.

On the walk down, Luke gets immunity to poison.

This narrow pass leads to the Southern Forest.

This is the Big Rock. We head easy and south, and sure enough, there’s a dungeon.

Welcome to the relics of the ancient gods. (Which I suspect would be better translated as “ruins”.) The size of this dungeon tells us a lot about how space is being compressed on the world map, because not only is it a really big structure, it’s invisible due to the forest around it.
This is the kind of game design that makes it easy to suppose that 1) Towns are actually really far apart, so the hike from our home to First Town could have been several days’ journey; and 2) There are plenty of places and things that simply don’t appear on our map. Our hometown was surrounded by forest, then plains filled the rest of the seemingly-tiny valley it occupied alone. The map doesn’t even include any lakes or rivers. (In fact, there are no water squares anywhere in the first world.) But if the world map is a big abstraction, then there can be rivers, farms, and more than a dozen people living in any town, we just don’t need to worry about them for purposes of our adventure. There might also be lots of other ruins left by the ancient gods or earlier settlements, but they don’t matter because the Prism won’t lead us to any MAGI in them.

Most of the enemies in the ruins, especially farther in, come in stacks. The best way to fight stacks of enemies is with mutant magic. The boost I gave their mana scores lets them take down these mobs easily. Battles against 6-8 Lizards are not uncommon.

I’m still going to get stat ups and such, I’m just running a pleasant 10 points ahead of where the game expects me to be; which I also could have gotten (along with more HP) by grinding for an hour or two.

I’m set in case a problem comes along.

Luke gets a second copy of Warning. I’m not impressed by their Jedi abilities yet.

The next floor has two rooms, each with four chests, but they’re all empty.

Down again, and this time go left first to get some Cure potions.

Big stacks of Flys also pop up. Both Flys and Lizards are weak to Blizzard.

They do, in fact, take the MAGI. Presumably they were also responsible for emptying the four chests further back, though we can deduce those didn’t contain MAGI.

But in their hurry, they miss the three in the next room.

And Luke gets an actually useful ability: Fire! Unlike Flame, which hits all enemies, Fire hits a single stack, but deals more damage.

We are Guardians. Came to hold back Ashura’s plan, but we failed…. Ashura’s men.. took .. the.. M.. MA..GI.. .. .. .. ..

Looks like these were the good guys, but we were too late to stop them from being ambushed.

We’ll go report our failure to Ki.

Ki: I’ll heal you! Okay! All done!! What? Ashura’s men took the MAGI?
Luke: We are going to the Ashura’s Base.
Ki: I’m coming with you. I must save this world from Ashura.

And Ki joins as our second NPC. She’s no Mr.S, but she’s quite nice for this stage of the game. Her ability to fully heal the party is apparently limited to using a Cure book while she’s traveling with us, though.

We head north from the Shrine of Isis to get to Second Town. We could have gone here before, but our gear loadout is fine and there wasn’t a reason to before this.

Ashura is willing to get the Statue of Goddess and become the only god to rule the whole world.

I’m not sure if “willing” is the word you really wanted there. It seems more like something he’s definitively interested in.

(Ordinary people doesn’t include Ki. If you try to come here without her you’ll just get kicked out.)

We can’t get into the Pillar of Sky because of that Ashura’s Base.

It actually makes a lot of sense that Ashura would build his base to block access to the Pillar, if that’s the only way to reach his world.

I pick up an Ice book and a Cure book; they’re both things that might come in handy down the line.

We take a little jaunt into the mountains, and there’s no missing Ashura’s Base.

It’s a high-tech sort of structure. It’s easy to think of the FFL games as fully medieval fantasy because you’re running around with swords and bows, but even if the robots and grenades hadn’t tipped you off, the rows of computer monitors should.

This Speed potion is a single-use, unlike my special ones. I just have Han drink it.

The zombies running around will cause a random encounter (though probably not with a zombie) if you bump them.

I give the silver gauntlet to R2 and dump his bronze shield.

In a normal game, you’d be leaning very heavily on Ki’s Thunder and Cure books. My mutants are strong enough to wipe out big groups by themselves.

Hello! Cure is great. Handy in a pinch and saves you money.

This Axe can get added to Han’s loadout.

The Rhino is the boss of the area. He’ll be a random monster in the next world.

He dies in a single lightsaber strike, but my party gets some boosts regardless.

Rhino: It’s too late! Most of the MAGI’s already in Lord Ashura’s hands! B A N Z A I !!

Ki: Let’s go out that door! It’s blowing up!

We grab the rest of the store of MAGI as the screen shakes. There’s no time limit or anything, though, you could go back and fight zombies for an hour while the screen shakes if you’re really feeling it.

You can’t open the door to leave without getting the three MAGI, and the base disappears once you leave.

Ki: Did it! But Ashura will be stronger with MAGI and assail you again….
Luke: We’ll go get him before that!

And now we can reach the Pillar of Sky and access Ashura’s World.

Ki: Good-bye. I must stay in this world.

Ki: Good luck!
Ki left.

For the first few worlds, Nintendo Power gave a breakdown of the plot sequence. As you’ll see, they get more succinct for the later ones.

Han’s Log, Days 3-4: Okay, so, I thought this was going to be a twenty minute fool’s errand and that Mr.S would have dragged our wounded bodies home in time for dinner. Turns out that despite Luke’s optimistic tendency to see his dad everywhere, there were some leads to find this crazy god-making hidden treasure. And that Ki lady, she’s something, I wouldn’t mind a little time getting closer to her…or even [CRUDE REMARK CENSORED]. Hopefully we’ll do a quick jaunt over to punch Ashura in the face, and then we can come back here to visit.

 

[Mogri]

I’m set in case a problem comes along.

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #4: MAGI and the Celestial World

The Pillar of the Sky takes us flying up into the Celestial world; the description of it as an elevator isn’t inaccurate. (This general image and animation actually gets re-used in FFL3, when you board the Talon from the Temple.)

The segments here are very short; you can generally only access two stalks at a time: The one you’re coming from and the one you’re going to. It’s very linear in that regard. There are no monsters in the Celestial world.


The game doesn’t really go into depth about the nature of the world beyond the very basics: The ancient gods (who are no longer around) made it and the Celestial world connects all the others via pillars of the sky. It looks like an orrery, but with the Celestial world at the center; and the individual worlds aren’t globes, they’re all valleys that face up/inwards. Which means the entire world is either a hollow Earth pocked with these valleys, or each valley is a satellite. The fact you can see stars when traveling to the celestial world and that there doesn’t appear to be any way to traveling between worlds besides the pillars or teleportation (you can’t fly between them, for instance) leans us very heavily towards the second interpretation.

How does a world come to exist like this? The game is mum, but my personal theory is that the gods created a more standard globe, but then either they or the humans messed it up so badly it broke apart. So what we see is a patch job; each intact piece of land got wrapped in a mountain range and tethered with a pillar of the sky.

(And what happened to the ancient gods? Eh, they’re gods, there’s always a reason for them to fob off. Maybe they had a war and all died, maybe they got bored and moved on, maybe they left the stove on in Godlandia and had to go home and turn it off.)

Oftentimes there will be a second door in the new area, which will lead to the next world, but you can’t open it until you’ve collected all the MAGI in the current world. This is the same message that pops up if you try to leave Ashura’s Base without collecting the MAGI there, and for a couple of other random plot-locked doors later.

From a worldbuilding perspective, this is a plot hole. If you can’t travel from world to world without MAGI, how do characters like the Guardians, Dad, or Ashura’s minions do it? The best explanation is that Luke has the Prism and also is obsessive-compulsive: He knows how many MAGI are in an area, and he’s going to be thorough and get them all, dammit.

Let’s also take a minute to talk about MAGI. I’m going to kinda-sorta spoil a few things, but only in abstract terms.

Interestingly, despite being pieces of a statue of a goddess, there are only two MAGI that are described as body parts (one eye and a pair of wings). We can interpret the Prism as a pendant (which the manual does) and there are two MAGI that are a sword and shield; but other than that they’re all either stat-enhancing (Power, Mana, Speed, Defense) or elemental (Fire, Ice, Thunder, Poison). And they presumably all look like little stone puzzle-pieces. Actually, not little: The final statue is twice the height of a PC, which if it’s solid stone is easily over 1,000 pounds. So each MAGI would be more like a 15-pound cinderblock.

(Then again, as you’ll eventually see, we can equip multiple panzer tanks on little R2D2. So who cares about encumbrance, really?)

There are four stat-enhancing MAGI: Power (strength), Defense (defense), Speed (agility) and Mana (mana). Each one increases the corresponding stat by 5+the number of MAGI you have. This does NOT show on the status screen, though; you can only see it in the in-battle effects. So if we equip someone with the Defense MAGI we found in Ashura’s Base, their effective defense will be 6 points higher.

This means you’ll generally want Power on somebody who uses Strength weapons and Mana on a Mutant, though that’s complicated by the elemental MAGI: Fire, Ice, Thunder and Poison. Each of them is supposed to increase damage dealt with the appropriate element and reduce damage taken from that element. Due to programming errors, what actually happens is that:

• Fire MAGI grants O-Fire and increases damage with all magic attacks
• Ice MAGI grants O-Thunder and increases damage with Fire attacks only
• Thunder MAGI grants O-Ice and increases damage with all magic attacks
• Poison MAGI grants O-Poison and increases damage with Fire attacks only

By the time elemental magic attacks are really an issue, we’ll have acquired armor to cover those immunities. But especially where Mutants are involved, Fire and Thunder are always the superior choices. Also, if you have a mutant or a monster with a weakness (X-Fire, X-Ice, etc) and apply immunity via equipped MAGI, the immunity takes precedence and your character won’t take damage from that element.

There are nine of each of the eight types of generic MAGI and five unique MAGI; the Prism is one of them. There’s also a trick relating to the number of MAGI you have, but it’s most beneficial to do much later in the game, so I’ll talk about it then.

 

[Beowulf]

I have covid and am trapped in my basement, away from my family and with all my plans cancelled. On the plus side, that means plenty of time to play FFL2.

Entry #5: Ashura’s Desert

Ashura’s world opens with a new town easily accessible.

Ashura wants to get the ultimate MAGI and conquer other worlds.

He’s clearly making efforts on the “conquering” front. (This phrasing implies there are some MAGI that are stronger than others. I suspect a better translation would be that “he wants to get the ultimate power from MAGI”.)

Ah, conflicting reports of where the tower is. Helpful.

Giants used to live in the next world, but not any more.

If we buy a drink from the bartender, he says:
I saw a shadow of a tower in a sand storm. It must be Ashura’s Tower! Go 7 to east and 7 to south from the cactus south of this town. You see a cactus there. The tower is south of it.

That’s some actually useful info. If you don't get these directions, you'll end up wandering in the desert and discovering sandstorms that will push you around.

Did I mention that this town has random encounters?

I don’t need any weapon upgrades at the moment, given that I’m replying mostly on mutant abilities and R2’s lightsaber loadout. I upgrade everyone’s bronze helms and gloves to silver at the item shop, hit the Inn to recharge, and head out into the sandstorm.

The main gimmick to the sandstorm is that the segments function like “rooms” in a dungeon, and are covered until you enter them, so it’s easy to get lost.

Here’s a cactus south of town.

We go 7 east and 7 south, and there’s a cactus over there. You can't tell from the screenshot, but the covered parts of the sandstorm use animated tiles, so you can see where stepping off the path will put you in another area.

And south of that… a town?

A goblin used the power of MAGI and became a monster with 3 heads and 5 arms. That’s Ashura.

This town is affected by the same sandstorm “roofs” as the rest of the area, but that’s just a gimmick here that might make you miss a person to talk to. There’s no challenge from it.

Hey, let me know if you see Guardian’s spy. He’s a guy with a hat on.

A hat?! The only guy who wears a hat is Dad!

A spy went into the Tower to get Ashura. But he got caught!

This town doesn’t have any armor for sale and the weapon upgrades aren’t worth it for me right now. I hit the Inn and continue on. (As a note, HP totals and a few stats have ticked up, but I’m not going to note things unless there’s an exciting now power.)

Just south of town is Ashura’s Tower.

It has a collection of enemies that are mostly bigger groups of what we find in the sandstorm.

I like the art style of the Tower. I don’t think it appears anywhere else in the game.

The BabyWyrm that was the boss of the very first cave is a normal enemy here. Even without Mr.S, it’s not a big challenge.

Most of the floors are small and straightforward.

We also find our first upgraded enemy (that would be a palette-swap if this wasn’t a Game Boy game). The Red Bone is an upgrade from the Skeletons in the first world.

On the lower floors, you can see the shifting sand outside the Tower.

The Sabre is an Agility weapon; I’ll either toss it on Han or Leia. (Leia’s old Bow is basically useless now.)

The Woodman has very simple dialogue.

Man: Thanks a lot! I am.. well.. Call me Mask! I came here to defeat Ashura. But you saw what happened to me! Why don’t we work together?

Mask joins, and in a break from video game tradition, was actually stripped of his equipment in the jail cell.

Fortunately, you find his equipment on the next floor. He has crappy equipment, but his stats will make up for that.

You can add equipment to NPCs, but you can never remove it. In this case, giving Mask a Long sword or Axe would up his damage output, but his Hammer will still one-shot any enemy here and I don’t need the help against Ashura.

We head up a few more floors, and we get a gun and a silver shield that under other circumstances would be great on R2.

I pop the single-use potions on Luke and Han, and give Han the Battle sword. Nobody needs a new silver helmet because I already bought a set back in town.

Ashura: HA! HA! Well, hello. I was about to send someone to tell you.. that.. My man already micronized and went into Ki’s body!
Luke: What did you do to her?!
Ashura: Ki was born with MAGI in her which gave her the power of healing. I get those MAGI and she fails!! ….Killing 2 birds with 1 stone…. Well…. Now I get yours and that’ll make it 3 birds!!
Luke: …. Never!!

Ashura has roughly 1,000 HP, meaning that after R2’s lightsaber attack, we needed Mask to hit him with a hammer to finish him off.

Luke gets Cure, which is nice even though Leia already knows it.

Ashura: No.. No!! .. I .. don’t .. wanna .. die.. .. AARGH!

We receive Power, Speed, Mana, Fire, Ice, Thunder and Poison MAGI. Then we teleport outside.

Mask: I’ve done what I wanted to. See you!
Mask left.

Luke: Ki must be in a trouble! Let’s go to her!

We are teleported to the Shrine of Isis. We’re also fully healed in the process.

Ki is seriously sick from MAGI in her body! They are trying to get out! Take them out or she will die!!

This feels like another mistranslation: The MAGI in Ki’s power gave her healing powers and weren’t a problem before this. The micronized monsters are making her sick, are trying to take out the MAGI, and are what we need to remove. Right?

The only way to get inside a body is to micronize! Giants should know how. By the way, Ki told me to give you this.

Received Defense. Please ask Giants how to micronize and save her!!

The reason for us getting that Defense MAGI is story-gating: We could turn around and leave the Shrine without talking to the fairy and learning about the giants and our need to micronize, but then we wouldn’t be able to open the door to Giant’s World because we wouldn’t have enough MAGI.

This gating also makes it obvious how bad the Prism is at doing its job. If you use it in the first world, it’ll say there are 6 MAGI, which is the correct number that we find: Three in the ruins and three in Ashura’s base. But! The Rhino implies there were more MAGI that had been in the base (and possibly in the ruins—the ones stolen from the dead Guardians) that had only recently been taken to Ashura’s world. There are also MAGI in Ki’s body (and Ki lives in the first world) and this random Defense MAGI that the fairy had. So the Prism, like the automatic doors on the USS Enterprise, clearly has read the script and only tells us exactly what it’s supposed to. (This problem will come up again!)

Also: How on earth does someone get born with 15-pound chunks of stone in their body? I think we’re adding to the commentary about MAGI with several important new fan theories:
1. MAGI can change size and shape. Clearly most of the MAGI that make up fingers, toes, nipples, whatever are in more generic shapes most of the time, and perhaps they shrink for easier carrying. For that matter, maybe they’re harder to recognize in the wild than we’ve guessed because of this feature, so normal people have a hard time just stumbling upon them. You can only recognize MAGI if you already have some, which is why Dad leaving us the Prism was so important.
2. MAGI randomly—or not—teleport around the worlds when not actively being carried or used. That might explain why none are forever lost by getting dropped off the side of the Celestial world and how the ones in the ruins went unfound for so long—especially if Dad was searching for them. The new gods, particularly Ashura, seem to have come to power relatively recently, and it might be because the MAGI came out of hiding and started appearing in findable places only recently. Ki was born with MAGI in her body because they teleported in when she was born, magically shrunken to a size that fit without hurting her.
3. Ashura had seven MAGI, and it transformed him from a goblin to a god-beast. Our characters can only equip one type of MAGI at a time, and they only get small benefits from them despite now carrying twice as many as Ashura had. Either you become a god by using more than one MAGI at once (which our party somehow knows to avoid) or—and this is my preferred theory—there is a more complicated method of “using” MAGI, perhaps a secret ritual, that draws out greater powers than the casual equipping would.

Here’s the Nintendo Power coverage of Ashura’s World.

Luke’s Log, Days 5-8: We traveled through the Celestial world and to a new world, Ashura’s Desert. Boy, it was hot and sandy. I haven’t really spent much time in the sand before, but for some reason I feel like I should hate it. It’s rough and course and it really does get everywhere; but that doesn’t seem so bad. Weird, that. Anyway, we met a man who dressed just like Dad except for a big ugly face mask. He didn’t have a gun or whip like dad usually carries, and Dad never wears masks, so clearly it was some other guy. I should have asked if they knew each other.

 

[Lokii]

I always considered the connections between the worlds to be more metaphysical rather than some sort of shared place, kinda like how the worlds in Legend 1 are floors of the tower and contain the tower itself.

Ice MAGI grants O-Thunder and increases damage with Fire attacks only

: psyduck

 

[Cadenza]

The space limitations of the Gameboy are generally not doing this game many favors, but I like this line a lot.

Hope you recover soon, Beowulf!

 

[Mogri]

I love Ashura's progression in the series from "end boss" to "major boss" to "roadbump." In the world where they made a FFL4, I'd like to think that Ashura was a random encounter.

 

[Lokii]

The cosmic destiny of a clown

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #6: Giant’s World

I love Ashura's progression in the series from "end boss" to "major boss" to "roadbump." In the world where they made a FFL4, I'd like to think that Ashura was a random encounter.

I think it’s interesting, upon reflection, that Ashura was the fake final boss of FFL but the first real boss here. I wonder how much of that was deliberately designed as a fake-out. The first world plays up Ashura as a big threat, this new god who came from another world and is sending his minions all over ours. But when you get to Ashura’s world, one of the first things you hear about is the Giant’s world beyond that…and then you go ahead and kill Ashura. In that game he was almost the final boss…in this game he was already speedbump, at least in terms of plot progression. The party doesn't even really stop to reflect on beating him, because even with him dead, his scheme to hurt Ki is already in effect.

We set out from the Shrine of Isis and head to the home world pillar of the sky again. (This game isn’t as linear as its predecessor, though as we’ll see, it becomes more sequential in the latter parts.)

Through the stalk that leads to Ashura’s Desert and to the door we couldn’t open before. We have enough MAGI now.

There’s a small town just south of the pillar in this world.

Giants wanted to be like us humans. They became small and left here.

Giants’ Town is still there! But it’s too big, nobody’s living there anymore.

This town sells the weapons we were only finding in chests in the last world.

This is a Giants’ Store here. Where does he get the giant goods?

The Giant equipment is a massive improvement over the silver and bronze stuff I’m currently carting around, and each piece gives a strength bonus to any wearer. As a kid, I did So. Much. Grinding. in this world to try to get as much of this stuff as possible. It’s not actually necessary; but a couple of pieces wouldn’t hurt.

There’s also a level-appropriate armor shop if you’re not feeling any grinding.

Oh, a named NPC. Interesting.

And the bartender clues us in to Johnny’s backstory.

You can circle around into a back area of the town from the entrance.

Is it Mask? Or the weird old man?

Luke: D.. Dad!!
Father: Uh? Luke ..?
Luke: Yeah!! Remember me?!
Father: Of course! .. Oh, Luke …. How’s Mom?
Luke: She’s fine! .. Waiting home. Let’s go home together, Dad!
Father: .. No .. I can’t yet.
Luke: For MAGI? But .. We defeated Ashura!
Father: There are more of those like Ashura .. going after MAGI.
Luke: MAGI.. We’ve got some! Here!!
Father: You’re gathering them, too?! Then, take this!

Received Thunder!
Father: Nobody would imagine that kids like you have such a things.
Luke: I’m not a kid anymore.
Father: We’ll meet again and long as we go after MAGI. I’ll come home with you then.
Luke: Promise?
Father: …. Yes. I Promise.
Luke: Okay, Dad …. ….promise….

(Dad vanishes)

A couple of important points here: We’re still not really that far from home. Even if the wacky old man and Mask were both other people who happened to have similar fashion sense as Dad, he was still pretty close in the grand scheme of this world. And his hunt for MAGI is clearly hot and ongoing if he just happened to have one to pass on to us. (The real reason for that, of course, is continued plot gating.) Dad also seems to simultaneously believe that we are meek little children that no one would suspect of having MAGI and competent warriors who can do things like “defeat the god who was ruling an entire desert world.” Which isn’t out of character for a parent of a teenager, upon reflection.

We can continue past Dad to the back door of the Giants shop.

Luke: Excuse me. Where do you get those Giants’ goods?
Man: WAAA!! Gee.. ..Where did you come from ..?! You surprised me….I get them from the Giants’ Town. ..Why?
Luke: How did you get in?
Man: Johnny told me how. ….But, don’t tell anyone else! I’ll be out of business!

Johnny: That man at that Giants’ Shop told you? Okay…. There is a spot in the stairs in the northern part of Giants’ Town. It is colored differently than the others. You can get in from there.

Johnny: You think I’m a giant? (Yes) Well, That’s not true!

I’ve always thought that Johnny was one of the last giants to micronize and was still hanging around, but that also could just be a nasty rumor and he’s a semi-competent treasure hunter instead. This game has some timeline problems—FFL1 did too, but it had an excuse—because again, it’s unclear how long Ashura has been in power, how long the giants have been gone, how long the MAGI have been “findable”, etc.

Anyway, time for this world’s “dungeon.”

There’s a giant wall east of town, and a big set of raised areas beyond it. We can go up and find a set of steps.

With a secret door that gets us to the top.

The doors of these houses are much too big to move, so we need to go in through mouse holes. (Is anyone else concerned about the human-sized mice? Is that just me?)

But not this door yet. This is another indication that MAGI-doors are self-inflicted by the party, because while I’ll accept the worldbuilding that you need MAGI to travel through the celestial world (or I won’t, but that’s another discussion), it makes no sense for a random GIANT MOUSE HOLE to require a certain number of lost goddess statue pieces to open.

I told you we’d see this guy again.

I’m not sure how one supports the worldbuilding of human “terrorists” rampaging through an abandoned giant town. Are they from the small town? Are they treasure hunters? Who are they terrorizing?

We can get into a house in the south.

And we find two MAGI in it. The storekeeper apparently has been finding plenty of suits of giant armor (that I guess he micronizes to sell to people?) but missed these MAGI. More support for the "normal people can't find them" theory.

Shoes off the giant bed!

Then back to the plot-locked door.

Over the course of this, Luke loses Cure and gets Warning, then trades that for xFire, then trades that for Blitz. (None of these abilities are worth keeping around.) He also goes down in a single attack from one of these enemies, indicating that if I wasn’t killing everything in a single round, it’d be badly underpowered for this area. (Though, to be fair, you recover from death at 1 HP after battle; you were clearly intended to die a lot by design.)

I should really put Han in front; he’s got more HP and better armor at this point. Whatever, he’s not the main character here.

I can climb across these dressers to get up to that weird orb.

It’s the Micronizer, which we’ll need to get into Ki’s body. Upon reflection, it’s interesting that this is an item and not a MAGI. Though I suppose that would explain why we don’t try it use it in other places after this.

The Prism confirms we have all the MAGI from this world, so next we’ll go back to help Ki.

Giant’s world. It’s a fascinating setpiece. There are only four giant houses (and only two you can enter), but that goes with the usual convention of “towns are bigger than we display because you only see the important parts.” The use of overworld mountains as random rocks and forests as lawns is neat—if the giants were ~3 blocks tall, they’d been ~18 feet tall. (Compare to Ashura, who was 2x2 blocks.) At that height, an 8-foot area of vegetation that we’d see as a forest would seem more like a badly overgrown lawn. And 6-foot steps to enter the town would be big steps (I believe the standard for American homes is a 10” riser) but not totally unreasonable.

And why leave? My guess would be Giant equivalent of the movie “Downsizing”, because resources go so much farther when you’re tiny.

Leia’s Log, Days 9-13: You’d think we’d actually be done by now! We found Luke’s dad, but apparently just letting him run off to find more MAGI was an option! Idiots, all of them. Exploring the giant town was fascinating, though. I wonder how well the remaining houses could be fortified in case of a siege? Actually, I also wonder if the giants left their giant food stores and the townspeople have just been living off them for years…

 

[Lokii]

Giants world is great. This game is so imaginative. SaGa!

 

[JBear]

When I was a kid, I saw Giant's World in Nintendo Power and was obsessed. I never owned the game as a kid, but I spent so much time looking at those maps and imagining that I did.

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #7: Ki’s Body

Hey, it’s been a while! Covid, then vacation, then more covid. It’s been a heck of a month.

We need to hike back across the Celestial World to the home world, and to the Temple of Isis. It’s not actually that far, all told.

Luke: Ki! Ki!
Han: Let’s go in!

Fantastic voyage time. (It’s you’re wondering how we eat and breathe and other science facts, you should also have wondered how the giants in the previous world survived the cube-square law.)

Given the shape of this area, we seem to have entered through either Ki’s nose or mouth. You can’t really tell in the still shots, but the walls all continuously ripple from dark to light.

There’s a door above that seems to lead to her brain, but we can’t enter there for some reason.

Some of the enemies are clearly supposed to be Ki’s bodily defenses. Others are clearly Ashura’s forces, micronized. I’m not sure what they’d do if they succeeded now that Ashura’s dead, but we’re probably best off not finding out.

We can head down and left into Ki’s arm, and there’s a “door” into her hand.

In Ki’s ring finger we find a MAGI. Claiming it teleports us back to the main body.

These guys are clearly Ashura’s minions. Dude apparently had a big supply of Micron and a real interest in getting Ki’s MAGI—he sent an army in here.

The pointer finger of Ki’s right arm has the second MAGI.

Heading down, we can get into this central door.

Ki’s heart has four chambers, and one MAGI.

From there we can go down the left side of her body into her left foot.

Where there’s a MAGI in her big toe.

You need to hike all the way up, then come down the right side to get to Ki’s stomach.

And you need to pass through her intestines, too.

We get a bunch of stat ups from the battles here, and the mutants swap around powers, but it’s mostly this nonsense.

Once you’ve wriggled through enough intestines it opens up into the stomach and you can snag the MAGI.

Down in her right foot, MAGI in the pinkie toe.

Then we can head back up to Ki’s brain and open that last door.

This is a strange bit: Ki’s body hasn’t shown any interest in stopping us from taking the other MAGI, and it’s unclear what purpose this one serves.
It calls me back to that oddly-translated line, “Ki is seriously sick from MAGI in her body! They are trying to get out! Take them out or she will die!!” Somewhere in either the writing or translation process, it got confused whether we needed to take out the MAGI because Ashura’s army was going to cause problems until we did, or we needed to remove it because the MAGI itself was a problem.

Also, the Phagocytes have Dissolve, a HP-absorbing attack that ignores defense which you might remember from Mr.S’s moveset. It’s the worst attack in this game when enemies have it, because there’s nothing that can protect you from it. (It appeared in FFL1 as MELT and DRINK, and it was terrible there, too. But I think—and I’d need to double-check this—that those abilities could let an all-monster party without SAW defeat the final boss.)

Oh, great upgrade Leia, well done.

It seems vaguely fitting that the “magic” MAGI was the one in Ki’s head. We teleport out (and un-micronize) after taking it. The game skips over dealing with what happened to any minions left in Ki’s body—I guess we either killed them all, or once the MAGI was gone they also climbed up her nose and left.

Ki: Thank you. You saved me. What are you going to do now?
Luke: We’re going after MAGI to the next world.
Ki: I wish you luck. So long!

The Shrine of Isis is deserted now. Even the fairy that was watching carefully over Ki is gone. Ki won’t give you free healing any more, apparently those powers were connected to the MAGI. This says not-nice things about the crowd of folks who were hanging around here before.

Also interesting to note is that Ki had seven MAGI in her body—the same number that Ashura had and used to turn into a god. If her time as a party member was any indication, Ki wasn’t using her MAGI to their fullest potential. (Which was probably better for her in the long run.) But perhaps that’s why she had those followers: Her nascent godhood attracted them even though she wasn’t actively using it.
Perhaps the MAGI even somehow “chose” Ki to gather them and gave her a head start, but she didn’t understand or actively rejected that destiny.

An interesting follow up to my earlier theory about the MAGI being able to change shape comes up here: It might just be gameplay conceit that the map sprite of these MAGI is as big as the player, but it also might be that they’re that large (relatively) and we need to use the Micron on them to take them out of Ki. “Small enough to fit in a blood vessel” is still much smaller than a fifteen-pound lump of marble, though.

Here we have Nintendo Power’s details on Ki’s Body.

And here’s the current status of the party. From here it’ll be back to the Celestial world and through to the world beyond the Giants, which is probably also the largest of all the worlds and one of the most complicated.

Luke’s Log, Day 14: EWWWWWW. Ew. Ew. Ew. I need to shower for days.

 

[Cadenza]

Wow excellent job Luke, lmao

 

[Mr Bean]

I really like the body dungeon map. Just a neat way of doing the shrink down inside someone bit on the limited graphical budget of a Gameboy.

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #8: Apollo’s World, Part 1

We depart again from our home world, and this time we can unlock a second side door in the Celestial world to access a new area.

The first landmark we find is this magnificent palace. It’s the biggest overworld structure we’ve seen that wasn’t designed for giants.

Apollo, you say? Hmm.

(Maybe I should take back the “not for giants” thing. Apollo is three blocks tall; he’d fit in well with what we’ve hypothesized about the giants.)

Apollo: We welcome you, the hero of the world! I’d like to show my gratitude for defeating Ashura!

Received Defense!
Luke: Why do you do this?
Apollo: I have enough power already. I do not need any more.
Apollo: I hear we still have some MAGI in our world. The clue is left in a riddle.
One is where wind blow underground….
One is where flame burns under water….
One is where darkness shines brightly….
You must be able to solve the riddle. Good luck!

Apollo is a merciful god. He is away from such ambition to conquer the world.

Well, this is moderately unnerving, to be honest, but I won’t look a gift MAGI in the mouth. I suppose it’s possible that Apollo heard about us killing Ashura, knew we were already carrying a cartload of MAGI, and opted to err on the side of not pissing us off. The explanation that he already controls his own little world and has a giant palace is moderately believable. I mean, I’d be happy with that.

Just north of Apollo’s palace is a town.

Dunatis, the god of the mountains lives in the Cave of the Mountains!

Apparently Apollo isn’t the only god in his world, just perhaps the newest one.

I don’t know if Apollo is really a good guy or not. You should be careful.

I thought that I could never make it back alive when I went into this white cave!

I am a scholar! There’s no such thing as Dunatis! It’s just a noise of the wind!

That scholar says there is no Dunatis. But there is!

Apparently there’s a lot of debate about Dunatis.

Ho? You look just like Lynn’s father! You relatives?

Is Lynn’s father also a terrifying mutant with half a face? (This is, of course, foreshadowing, but only makes sense if your character is human. It’s even weirder if your main character is a monster.)

This town sells the Lightsabers I put on R2 at the beginning; we’ve started to catch up to my initial loadout already.

A cute girl named Lynn lives here in this town. But her mother is sick and her father is missing. I wonder if I could do anything for her.

My daughter went to the Cave of Mountain to get me a potion! Oh.. my dear Lynn..

Whelp, I know what we’re doing next. Time to hit the mountains to rescue a well-meaning but clearly stupid girl.

Just north of the town is an entrance to the Cave of Mountains.

But it’s a dead-end. There’s just one treasure chest and then a hole. I swap the Geta shoes I had on Han for these Hermes shoes, which give him +10 AGL instead of +5 STR.

It occurred to me that I had no idea what a “Hofud” was supposed to be, so I looked it up. Apparently it was the sword of Heimdal in Norse mythology, though these monsters were called Durandal (the sword from the Song of Roland) in the original Japanese. Regardless, they use Defense to ward off physical attacks and Stab to, um, stab you.

Around the back of the mountain range is another cave entrance.

This lets us come around the other way and get deeper into the cave.

Oh, boy, Medusa. Remember how death wears off after battles? You need to be really careful with these ladies, because Stone doesn’t wear off automatically.

The second floor is uneventful.

The third floor has some doors.

And a Rocket, which I swap R2’s old Colt pistol for. (It still only hits one enemy, and for much less than a Lightsaber strike.)

Also noteworthy: Our original Flame and Blizzard powers no longer one-hit most of the enemies, even with the stat boosts I applied.

The fourth floor is again pretty boring.

A Kelpie gets a lucky kick on Luke and does over 100 damage, which is probably an indication that I haven’t grinded enough for a typical game. They can come in stacks of 5, you know.

The fifth floor opens with a slide the drops us down. Can’t backtrack from here!

Hey, a potion!

That looks like the girl we came to rescue. Maybe she wants this Elixier.

Lynn: I came here to get a potion for my mother. But…. I fell down the slope and got stuck here. Dunatis is in my way ahead and I can’t go back.
Luke: Let’s go together! We’ll take you home.
Lynn: Thank you!!

Lynn joined!

Lynn is nothing to write home about, though it’s very impressive that she made it this far into the cave all by herself.

And blocking the exit is…a robot?

Dunatis: Intruders detected. Eliminate. Eliminate! Eliminate!!

Dunatis is cut down by a single strike from R2.

He drops a ChainSaw, most of the party gains stats, and Leia gets a mediocre skill upgrade. Steal is a higher-level ability, but you can only steal gold, not items, so it’s pretty much useless to me.

Received Power! Received Speed! Received Mana!

He also automatically drops an X-Cure. So maybe that’s what Lynn wanted for her mom? She doesn’t end up taking either of them. Maybe this cave is just known to be rich with potions.

We never get any real explanation for Dunatis: It’s a robot in a cave that blows wind, and it’s been there long enough (with no one actually encountering it) for the locals to decide it’s a god. My guess is that it’s a relic of the old gods that was originally there for some other purpose that’s long lost. The fact that some MAGI ended up in there with it is either because that’s where the gods left them or that’s where the MAGI “choose” to go. (Actually, I have one other theory, and I’ll discuss it much later when the plot makes it relevant again.)

We teleport to Lynn’s house. Lynn is literally only in the party for that one fight.

Oh, Lynn…. Are you alright?
Lynn: Oh!

Luke: What? Dad?! Why is he bumming around in a place like this? I thought he was a hero!
Luke charges outside.

RRDD: What are we gonna do now?
Leia: Let’s go on and gather MAGI. What else can we do?
Han: Right. We’ve come this far. We can do it all!
Luke: Alright. Let’s do it! And I’ll triumph over him!

This sequence is one of the most weirdly translated and truncated in the entire game. If you read between the lines you can piece together what’s really intended to be happening here: Luke gets the impression that, rather than keeping the world safe or whatever, his father has been keeping a secret second family, which is the real reason that he hasn’t come back to the home town to be with Luke and his mom. That’s why the bartender comments that the hero looks like Lynn’s dad (because it’s Dad).
The outside sequence is Luke and company deciding to charge ahead with the quest to collect all the MAGI and keep the world safe, even if Dad isn’t going to.

We’ll obviously see more from this plotline, so I’ll deconstruct it more later.

(You can go back into the house afterwards. Dad is gone; Lynn and her mom will thank you.)

Han’s Log, Days 15-18: This Apollo guy doesn’t rub me right, and I can’t say why. Maybe it’s just because I know from scoundrels, being one myself. But hey, the “riddle” thing worked out, so I can’t complain too much on that front. And it turns out that Luke’s dad is a jerk, which I hadn’t seen coming, but really should have. I mean, disappears for months at a time before vanishing for years, I’d be shocked if he didn’t have a piece on the side, y’know?

 

[Mogri]

A piece on the dark side.

 

[nosimpleway]

Elixirs just won't cut it for really tough jobs, so you need something Elixier.

Pray we never find the malady that demands an Elixiest.

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #9: Mutant Powers

Let’s have a little aside to talk about mutant powers, because we just passed a popular spot for save-scumming them.

(I already mentioned that mutants always replace the fourth power in your list, right? You can re-sort abilities so that you always keep the ones you want, which is a massive improvement over FFL when your DeathGaze could turn into a worthless ESP with no warning.)

Unlike the original FFL, where your mutants could get pretty much any power at any time, the powers in this game are divided up into levels. (These levels aren’t displayed in-game anywhere.)

Special: Flame and Blizzard are starting-only abilities; you can never get them back if you lose them.
Weaknesses (Level 0): xThunder, xFire, xIce.
Level 1: Warning, Cure, Fire, Ice, oPoison
Level 2: oPara, oQuake, Thunder
Level 3: Steal, Blitz
Level 4: Gaze, Stonskin, Hypnos
Level 5: oWeapon, Surprise, oStone, Explode, Heal, Stongaze, Charm
Level 6: Mirror, Teleport, Touch, P-Blast, oChange, oDamage
Level 7: oAll, Recover, Flare

What enemies you fight determine which level abilities you can spark, as you might have guessed from what we’ve seen so far. Random battles in Ashura’s world let you get level 2 abilities; the Giant’s world and Ki’s body give up to level 3, and the random battles here in Apollo’s world go up to level 4 abilities. Bosses typically allow you to get abilities one level higher than the rest of the area: Ashura and the Phagocyts allow you to get up to level 4 abilities.

But Dunatis is a special case. A mutant can spark ANY level ability from him. Save-scumming until a mutant gets oAll or Flare is pretty nice, but Teleport is important for a game-breaker a few worlds from now, and this is one of only two opportunities to snag it.

If I was feeling it, I’d keep re-fighting Dunatis until I got something better than a level 3 ability I could get anywhere in this world that isn’t particularly useful. But I’m lazy and I’m not playing “honestly” anyway.

The next two worlds after this one (despite the manual claiming there are 9, there are actually 12) stay at level 4, and honestly, level 4 abilities are nothing to write home about. Steal takes gold and Blitz reduces agility, neither of which is really of value when you could be dealing damage instead. Gaze paralyzes a group and Hypnos puts them to sleep, which can be useful if they land but, in the grand tradition of such abilities, don’t work nearly often enough on anything worth using them on. Keeping Fire/Ice/Thunder to kill groups outright is more valuable. Stonskin is an instant kill on most enemies, but only if they hit you first, which means you’re taking damage and if they don’t target you, you’re wasting turns.

But if a mutant gets Stongaze, I’ll certainly be crowing about it; I’d argue it’s the best level 5 ability. Explode isn’t useful at all: It kills all non-boss enemies but also takes out the caster, which means you’ll survive that battle but probably be toast in the next one. Heal cures status ailments, and always feels like it’s going to be more useful than it turns out to be. The rest are fine but often situational.

Level 6 is when you start getting the really meaty stuff: Touch is the defense-ignoring draining attack. P-Blast hits all enemies. oChange makes you immune to status ailments and also includes oWeapon, which halves physical attacks. oDamage protects you from all elemental attacks. And when you get to level 7, oAll combines both of those. I’ll probably just end up buying Flare books, but getting Flare on a mutant is a lovely thing.
I suppose we’ll see what I get! I haven’t played far enough in advance to know.

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #10: Apollo’s World, Part 2

Well, it’s been about a month, and I have been lax in my LP duties. Hopefully I won’t fall behind again, but who knows? Regardless, there are still two parts of Apollo’s riddle to solve, so let’s get to it.

We left our party at the north end of Apollo’s world, and we found the MAGI where the wind blows underground.

Just to the east is a cave nestled on some mountains.

But the darkness shines too brightly! We can’t see!

Leia makes a vague upgrade. Honestly, she and Luke are likely to shuffle through powers I don’t care about for a while.

Anyway, we’ll head south to the shore town and see if they have any fire burning underwater.

Neptune is living off shore over the headland. Ships get wrecked with his poison breath.

Neptune seems to be angry lately. The sea sometimes flashes in red!

Wait, Neptune is here too? How many gods are in this world? Hopefully Neptune is not also a robot.

That Neptune is really bothering our business. I if anyone could get rid of him….!

This is one of those interesting worldbuilding questions: What is their business? Is it fishing, or maybe aquaculture? It’s unlikely to be trade, unless there’s more land to Apollo’s world that we can’t reach on the other side of the sea.

A man fell in love with a mermaid and walked straight into the sea .. and never came back.

I missed the screenshot, but someone in the tavern also notes: The man fell in love with the mermaid and went into the sea from the headland south of this town.

I am a scholar! There is no such thing as Neptune! It’s a submarine volcano!

Well, that would explain a lot. Presumably it erupted sometime in the past and people cam up with legends about it, and then it erupted recently, disrupting business and scaring people.

There is this cave that’s so bright and luminous that you need the eye to see the truth.

Also, did you notice that everyone in this town is a sea creature of some sort?

Okay, so the man just walked into the sea from this headland? Yep.

You can just walk around underwater. Just like in Ki’s body, we’re not worried about eating, breathing and other science facts.

And sure enough, the scholar had the right idea: There’s an undersea volcano!

The lava tiles do a point of damage to every character when you step in them. It’s not a lot, but it can add up.

Does that Tortoise sprite look familiar? The designers clearly repurposed Gen-Bu from FFL1 into a normal enemy.

The first floor of the volcano doesn’t have anything noteworthy. This little side room leads father in. The screenshots don’t show it, but the entire area “wobbles” as you walk, indicating either that you’re underwater or the heat from the lava.

The second floor has a long hallway out of the lava.

Two enemies unlikely to be found in an undersea volcano. The MapleMan is even weak to fire!

Leia’s growth is…unhelpful.

On the third floor, we find a Power potion (I just give it to Han) and a Gold Sword (that Han can take as soon as he uses up his old Axe).

The fourth floor has a Fire book that I can load onto one of the mutants. We don’t have fire-themed enemies in this volcano at all.

It also has this strange tile…which is a healing spring. Definitely worth walking over 4 lava tiles to reach.

This door leads to the final floor.

Then you can climb up to these three chests.

Two normal MAGI, and a unique one. I suspect this was the “eye” the bartender told us about.

Entertainingly, I get this encounter on the very last square before the exit. It’s not spiked or a boss battle or anything, it’s just a coincidence. Also, they’re weak to fire and Luke takes them all out in one shot.

Exiting here puts you out at the top of the volcano. You can’t re-enter from there. And there’s nothing else to see under the sea.
So next time, we’ll check out that bright cave.

Leia’s Log, Days 19-20: Physics is a load of crap and I’m upset that I had to take all of that time learning it. Turns out that you can hold your breath for days, fire spells work great underwater, convection is bullshit and water only boils if it feels like it. Phooey on science!

 

[Cadenza]

Also, did you notice that everyone in this town is a sea creature of some sort?

Delightful! As archaic as this game seems to be, I do appreciate these whimsical touches.

Leia’s growth is…unhelpful.

Sick

Also I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but I appreciate you posting this update at exactly 4:20 pm, lmao

 

[Beowulf]

Also I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but I appreciate you posting this update at exactly 4:20 pm, lmao

It's a shame Leia didn't learn Blaze. (It was a coincidence.)

 

[Beowulf]

Entry #11: Apollo’s World, Part 3

We set out from the shore town for the last place on our list in Apollo’s World: Where darkness shines brightly.

The TrueEye shows the way. (I believe it’s actually possible to do this cave out of order but bumping into walls or following a printed map, but there’s no point in doing so.)

The tiled floors are animated and move, but they aren’t conveyors—it’s just to disorient you and/or to look cool.

The second floor has a bridge and a C-shape to it, but nothing to find.

The third floor has two doors. If you take the right door, it leads to treasure.

Then I got ambushed by this group, who paralyzed Han and Leia and killed Luke in their first turn. RRDD fled and I had to heal up before continuing. I was lucky Medusa didn’t stone anybody, because that’s the only status ailment that doesn’t wear off after battle.

(I had to flee the same party that ambushed me and killed Luke again on the next floor. There is absolutely still danger even when you’re “overleveled”.)

The fourth floor has two more chests. The Giant gloves would be great if I hadn’t already bought them for everyone; the Thunder book will see use by my mutants.

A small detour on the fifth floor nets me a lightsaber. My equipment loadout is basically level-appropriate at this point.

This place isn’t much for traps or puzzles, but damn does it look cool.

The sixth floor has three paths. The right one leads to a Revenge sword, which is generally not useful because it works like a shield. I need to check the charts to see if it’s useful to R2, though.

The encounters in this cave can get really brutal, especially if you don’t have high-Mana mutants to wipe stacks of enemies quickly.

The middle path is the next flight of stairs, the left one is a dead end. The seventh and final floor has three chests.

All with MAGI.

Like the volcano, there’s no boss or plot-event when you finish this dungeon. You just take the MAGI and go. I kinda wonder if there were supposed to be three robot bosses or something else and they changed their minds or lost track of it. The first segment of Apollo’s World is plot-heavy, but the volcano and the light cave are actually pretty empty.

And with that, we have every MAGI from Apollo’s world and can move on.

This is Nintendo Power’s tips on Apollo’s world. Which include a spoiler.

And their depiction of Apollo himself. It’s interesting that they mess with your expectations with the new gods: Ashura goes from being the almost-final boss to the first one, but he’s really a boss and can give you trouble if you aren’t prepared. That sets up a “four fiends” thing from the new gods, but then Apollo just helps you out and you don’t fight him at all. Dunatis is the only boss in this world, and he’s really just a dungeon-end miniboss.

Han’s Log, Day 21: Okay, so the four of us need a magic stone eye to keep the cave from blinding us all. What about those millions of monsters? They all could clearly see fine!

 

[Kahran042]

Han’s Log, Day 21: Okay, so the four of us need a magic stone eye to keep the cave from blinding us all. What about those millions of monsters? They all could clearly see fine!

Obviously, these particular monsters have the ability to see in...intense blinding light, I guess.

 

[Falselogic]

On hiatus? Abandoned?

 

[Beowulf]

On hiatus? Abandoned?

...Hiatus, he said hopefully.

 

[Falselogic]

Gotcha!