Name: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Author: somestrangeflea
Started: 24/04/2009
Completed: 25/08/2009
Genre: RPG
Description: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was a spin-off from the Final Fantasy series, released in 1992. It's purpose was to introduce Western audiences to RPGs and broaden the appeal of the genre. It was touted as an "Entry-Level Role-Playing Adventure". The game was received quite poorly, with the main complaints being that it was too dumbed down, and it was much shallower in comparison to Final Fantasy II, which was released less than 12 months earlier.

Why Final Fantasy Mystic Quest?
In 1993, FFMQ was released in Europe under the title "Mystic Quest: Legend". The intention of this was so that it would be associated with Final Fantasy Adventure, the first entry of the Mana series, which was itself released in Europe as "Mystic Quest". It was not until a few years ago (after playing FFX) that I even discovered that MQ:L* was a Final Fantasy game.

It was the first RPG I ever played, and the first game I remember calling my "favourite" (This probably speaks volumes for the games dumbed-down-itude). Nostalgia is the keyword here, and I want to show it off!

*This is the only point where I will use this abbreviation. Promise.

No, I mean, why are you doing a Final Fantasy game when there are already 2 Final Fantasy LPs going?
BECAUSE ONE WASN'T THERE AND ONE DECIDED TO UPDATE ON THE SAME FUCKING DAY I STARTED

Contents
Chapter 1 - Axe Me No Questions
Chapter 2 - "Elixir?" "Yeah, 'e does!"
Chapter 3 - It's Been Five Years and I'm Still Shipping Her with Joey
Chapter 4 - Getting Blocked
Chapter 5 - hArrowing
Chapter 6 - What's Yours is Mine
Chapter 7 - Reverse the Polarity of the Lava Flow
Chapter 8 - Presumably it's Mount Fuji
Chapter 9 - Bridge over a Troubled Abyss
Chapter 10 - Tree of Terror
Chapter 11 - The Clue There is in the Name
Chapter 12 - Futurama Told Me It Was a Gargoyle
Chapter 13 - Rock, Dock and Two Speedy Bastards
Chapter 14 - Captain Mac: Where Did it All Go Wrong?
Chapter 15 - Hidden in Plain Sight

Can I submit fan content?
You certainly can! Here is some that has already been submitted!

Rath-Dragonatrix fights the Minotaur, Flamerus Rex and Squidite. (YouTube)
It Opened! by Rath-Dragonatrix, earning him one million points.

What's going on re: these chapter numbers?
Right.
Chapter 4 was a tad long, so I split it into Chapters 4 and 5. This bumped up all the other numbers. Unfortunately, I needed a post into which to put the "new" chapter 5, so I had to modify one of my already existing posts. This post by ZwobotJones talks about a very, very long Chapter 4, which doesn't exist anymore. The post that now contains Chapter 5 used to contain conversation-related stuff that isn't really important now, but removes some of the context from subsequent posts. Bear that in mind when reading the stuff that the posts around that time may make less sense than subsequent posts.

A picture you linked to isn't working or, at the very least, it doesn't make any sense. What should I do?
Tell me! During the image host changeover, I may have made a mistake when making the new links. This wasn't a problem with the displayed images because phpBB "helpfully" refuses to let me submit a post with a broken image. It is not as "helpful" with regards to broken links.

A broken thread and broken hyperlinks? Your LP is very bad. I am leaving.
Aww.

Chapter 1 - Axe Me No Questions...


We join our hero Benjamin at the bottom of the Hill of Destiny. Sounds like rumbling. Everything's shaking. Sounds like an earthquake.


Apparently, ascending the mountain is the best course of action in the middle of an earthquake. A mysterious old man seems to be waiting for him. Benjamin walks up to him and sparks a conversation.


Old Man: This place is going to sink any second! Lets climb up quick!
He then rushes up the steps and across a narrow gap. Benjamin follows him to the edge.


Finally, got some control over our friend Benjamin. Sure, I can't do anything except press B to jump, but what more could I want?


OH SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT


OH THANK CHRIST. The foreboding old man moves towards the north ledge, and Benjamin follows.


Old Man: An old Prophecy says, 'The vile 4 will steal the Power, and divide the World behind 4 doors. At that time the Knight will appear!' The Prophecy has now come true. 4 monsters have locked the doors of the Focus Tower and escaped with the keys. They're draining the light from the 4 Crystals of the Earth, and the World is in chaos. The people are in desperate need of help. Benjamin, only you can save the Crystals and the World.
Benjamin: Me?
Old Man: Yes, you Benjamin! Only you could be the Knight spoken of in the Prophecy...

You'd think that the world was called "World", considering how every single instance of the word is capitalised. But the capital E on Earth suggests otherwise.
Still, the fact remains: draining light from Earth's Crystals has thrown (the) World into chaos, and now we have to save them all!

So, let's get star-OH FRICK



And now we're in our first battle. Nevermind that we still don't know how to move, lets fight! We're up against a Behemoth. Pay no attention to the menu above. You can't run away from the plot-relevant battle, and "Control" does nothing for now. So we're just going to have to "Battle"!


Most of this menu is a lie as well. We don't have any items, we haven't learned any spells yet, and the enemy always does the same move, so defending is pointless. It takes four hits to kill the Behemoth. After the first two hits, this happens.


It's horns fall off! Every enemy has at least one of these changes, which occur when it takes a certain amount of damage. We keep attacking it, and because the Behemoth only does 6 damage per hit, it can't possibly-


AW HELL NO


Uh huh. The first battle in the game can be lost because of the random numbers.


And here we have the first major deviation from other Final Fantasy titles. If you decide to Give Up, you end up back at the title screen and have to reload, a la almost every other Final Fantasy game. If you don't give up, the battle simply resets to how it was when it started.

So yeah, we have another battle, during which the Random Number God deems me the victor and it doesn't feel like much of an achievement. Afterwards, the Old Man gives some encouraging words.


Benjamin: But you said you were SURE I was the one!
Old Man: Well, actually it was more of a guess...

It is at this point that Benjamin does something bizarre. Something that he will repeat many times throughout his adventure.
Shruging is FINE. Shruging whilst outstretching your arms out to each side is A LITTLE WEIRD BUT OK. Shruging whilst outstretching your arms out to each side and repeatedly closing and opening your hand is RIGHT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
You know that film where Keanu Reaves finds our that basically everything is a computer-generated lie? You know the bit where he fights Lawrence Fishburne using Kung Fu? You know that weird "come get me" hand thing Lawrence Fishburne does? It's like that, with both hands, in different directions, whilst raising your shoulders. IT'S NOT RIGHT.


Old Man: It's up to you to find them.
Then some more rumbling happens.
Old Man: This place is becoming dangerous! Follow me to the Level Forest!

The Old Man then flies towards the tower, leaving Benjamin on top of a collapsing mountain. Thanks, guy, you're a great help. I'd almost feel pity for Benjamin if he didn't do the crazy arm thing AGAIN.


Benjamin: Who is that guy anyway?
Seriously. I want a name for that guy just so I don't have to type "Old Man" over and over again.

So Benjamin descends the mountain and ends up on the world map. He walks away from the mountain which promptly completely collapses behind him.

Completely.

Like, from a whole mountain to no mountain at all.


And so Benjamin makes his way to Level Forest.


The greenish-grey arrows mean that we can go to, just not now. Since that's both arrows, we're gonna need to go into the Forest.


Oh, there's that guy!


Old Man: Save the Crystal of Earth. See you!
He then flies off again. Jackass. Also, "the Crystal of Earth"? I thought there were four "Crystals of the Earth"? Now there's only one? I think we can pretty much conclude that this, combined with the "Well it was more of a guess" incident, means that this guy has absolutely no idea what the fuck.

Then Benjamin does the frickin' hand thing AGAIN. We take a look around, and the only thing we can get to is the guy in the top right corner.


Well we kinda need you to move out of the way so we can get pa-ah screw it.


Yes, that's right. We jumped over a man. Because that's reasonable. So we push the boulder out of the way, and the man seems happy.


Man: and show her this.


I can almost imagine her reaction: "WOW I LOVE TREE WITHER OMG HOW DID YOU KNOW?"
So now we can push the boulder further in order to get at that treasure box.


Cure potions are one of only four items we can get in the game, and they recover HP. So, now that we have those, lets go! There's an exit to the right which takes us back to the World map...


...and now we can go to Foresta!


The town of Foresta has been hit by a curse, turning everyone old. Seriously. Kaeli's house is the first (and only) house onscreen when we get into town, so let's just head on in?


Oh, these two women seem to be immune to the curse for no adequately explored reason. I can accept this.

Let's talk to the girl on the left first. "Excuse me, are you Kaeli?"


Kaeli: There's a tree blocking the north end of the Level Forest. I can chop down the tree, but monsters have taken over the forest, and I can't get to it.
Benjamin: I can help you with that. Come on, let's go!
Kaeli's Mom: Don't you dare take Kaeli anywhere dangerous!
Kaeli: Listen, Mom...
Something surprises Kaeli, as indicated by a !! bubble above her head, in an eerie foreshadowing of Metal Gear Solid. Tragically the sound effects are not similar at all.


Kaeli: How much the trees must be suffering! OK, you win.
I like how Kaeli declares Benjamin the winner of the argument when the argument was Kaeli/Benjamin vs Kaeli's Mom so I'm not sure she gets argument. She then goes to collect her axe from the wall. I suppose you don't need to be good at arguing if you have an axe.


"Mom, I am currently holding an axe. If there's anyone you should be worried about it's this guy. What'd you say your name was again?"


Woo! Crazy axe bitch joined! So, on we go!


If you climb into the bed in this house, your party will be fully healed. Note: This is not an inn. This is someone's house.


This house, on the other hand, has more interesting treasures!


Oh thank you!


Oh that's just mean! Why would you put anything there if you actually planned on giving it to people? WHY? So we have to go outside...


...over the bridge, across to the right, jump over the skipping stones, and come in the back door. So what's in the chest?


Ah! Cure! It's a magic spell! I guess now would be as good a time as any to go over the menu. Pressing Y opens it up.


Here it is! Navigate with the pad and press A to use things!


The item menu shows all the items and key items that you have. The Cure Potions that we have are in the top left, with the Tree Wither also shown.


The Spell menu shows the spells that we currently have. On the left side of the screen are the spells that Benjamin currently has (i.e. Cure), and the right side shows the spells Kaeli has (i.e. Life).
Each side is split into three colums, each representing a class of magic (White, Black or Wizard). At the bottom of each column is a number which shows you the number of each type of spell you can cast.


The Armor menu shows you the armor you and your partner have equipped. On the left side of the screen is your armor. There are four different types of armor you can get, and you can get three of each. Only the best of each armor type is equipped. You cannot manually change armor. The right side of the screen shows Kaeli's armor, which also cannot be changed.


The smaller symbols below the defense power when the armor is selected shows the resistances of the armor. Kaeli's Magic Ring provides protection from Silence, whilst her Relica Armor provides protection from water attacks and Petrification.


The Weapon menu works in a similar way to the Armor menu. Unlike armor, the Attack power of weapons increases as you level up.


Your Status menu shows the amount of GP (money) you have, as well as the amount of EXP you have and need to level up. The menu also shows your battle statistics.


The Customize menu can be used to make various changes to the game. I will be changing the Life Indicator from Scale to Figure.


I'll also change the Control to Manual, allowing me to decide Kaeli's actions in battle. This can be changed during battles by pressing Y.

So, now that we're done with the menus, and we've done everything that needs to be done in Foresta, we're gonna go back to the Level Forest!


We arrive in the forest, and Kaeli drags us up to a tree.


"Uhm, OK. Maybe I could just jump ov-"
*THWACK*
Kaeli:We've got to reach the north exit.

Hidden behind the text box was a Brownie.


Fairly easy to defeat. Two hits with a sword, one with an axe. This is why I set Kaeli to Manual. The AI isn't particularly clever see. On Auto, she'd hit the first one. It'd die, and I'd hit the second one. Fine. Next round though, she'd hit and kill the already weakened second brownie (just for the sake of overkill, the crazed loon), leaving me to half kill the third, wasting time and HPs!


On the quest north, we went on a detour towards an item box. Where there were some Slimes. Same as the Brownies really. One with the axe, two with the sword.


When we got there, we found three Heal Potions. These heal any and all status effects. We've only barely started the game and have already encountered half of the items. Go us. We start heading north again.


"Gee, you sure it's the glowing orange one?"
*THWACK*


Monster: Surprise!


She's fallen over and picked up a stutter, because apparently that's what happens when you're poisoned. She pulls it together though, and we launch into a boss battle!


"Hey Kaeli? If he just poisoned you, how come you aren't inflicted with... you know, poison?"
It's not that the boss is particularly difficult. Having a perma-poisoned partner might have made it somewhat more interesting actually. The Minotaur attacks with his axe, but will occasionally Scream. After a few rounds of back-and-forth, probably with at least one use of Cure, he'll go down.
After the fight, Kaeli goes down again. Her mom appears. Somehow she managed to know about the poisoning which just happened.


"Wait hang on, if you didn't know about the poisoning, why are you here?"


Kaeli's Mom: That's in the Sand Temple.
Benjamin: Don't worry, I'll get it!

Kaeli jumps up, making it quite obvious that she's NOT ACTUALLY SICK.

OH HELL YEAH.


And then her mom carries her back to Foresta but we won't miss her because we have her axe now. Now we can swap weapons with L/R and *THWACK* things with our axe. This mostly amounts to "chopping down trees".

Coming Soon - Chapter 2
In which some guy uses Ninja Stars and then tries to sell us bombs because they're comparable...

Also Old Man might have a name by this point if I get any good suggestions.

Chapter 2 - "Elixir?" "Yeah, 'e does!"

When we last saw Benjamin, we were about to leave the Level Forest, alone, with only an axe to remember that whom we have lost...


We have now left the Level Forest, alone, with only an axe to remember that whom have lost. Foresta and the Level Forest have nothing left for us, so we'll head upwards. Into the unknown!

As you have probably gathered, there are no random encounters at all within this game. Enemies within areas can be seen and avoided. "But what about the World Map?" I don't hear you ask but am going to answer anyway, "There aren't any enemies on it! Surely there must be random encounters!"


Nope, instead we have Battlefields. Battlefields are totally optional, and can be moved straight past, but completing all ten battles within each battlefield gives you a reward. For now, we'll leave this battlefield and head upwards into the sand.


Ah, here we are. The key item is bound to be inside such a minor location on the map!


Wow! No enemies! Getting a vital item has never been this easy before! We'll just head up through this cave and...


...here's the chest! Man this was so easy Kaeli could have done it herself even if she was as sick as she claims to be...


OH MAN I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING.


What you see is Benjamin reacting to is a sudden change from deep and reflective background music to upbeat jazz as a new character walks in.


Benjamin: First of all, my name's Benjamin, and I'm looking for Elixir.
????: I'll sell you some for, say, 9000GP.
At this point, Benjamin becomes so shocked he gains the ability to phase through solid objects.


Benjamin: Whoa! That's way to much!
????: Listen kid, this stuff is precious, right?
Benjamin: My allowance is only 2GP a month!
????: Then let's do it this way. I'm going to the Bone Dungeon to find treasure. You come with me and help. If I get the treasure, you get the Elixir.
Benjamin: Do I have any choice? When do we go?
"Well, Benjamin, you could always not care about the girl you just met..."
"Hey shut up man, you're nothing but a thinly veiled metaphor for the pharmaceutical industry!"
Benjamin turns to leave.


Tristam: Why don't you whack a few monsters there, and maybe win something, kid!
Benjamin: The name's Benjamin!


Oh, apparently we found out his name without him actually telling us. Tristam must be wearing a name tag or something. He probably stole it from some orphans because he just seems like that kind of guy.
So now we leave the curiously heart-shaped room, exit the temple and return to the World map. We'll head back down into the battlefield.


This one consists of Mad Plant/Mad Plant/Mad Plant and Mad Plant/Poison Toad. Mad Plants are weak against axe attacks. Well of course they are. They're trees. We've chopped down, like, a traspillion of them, and I have little to no doubt that Kaeli chopped down, like, a godrillion PER DAY. Predictably, they go down in one hit from an axe.

Tristam's weapon of choice is the Ninja Star. He only carries 99 of them, but, and regardless of what the battle animations tell you, he only uses one at a time. They basically last forever. They also inflict poison. The Poison Toad is, understandably, NOT poisonable.

So after some long hard battles, we finally kill the last batch of enemies.


The tedium and repetition of the battles was annoying, but forgiveable. The thing that really annoyed me (and still does to this day) about Battlefields was the fact that SOMETIMES THE PRIZES WERE SHIT. On rare occasions, you'd end up with items that were useful, but the majority of the time, you'd end up with a tiny amount of EXP or GP. When I say "tiny", I mean that the prizes were often smaller than the rewards for the individual battles. And that reaaaaaaally sucked.

After this Battlefield, we return to the Sand Temple, then go to the second Battlefield to the left.


This Battlefield consists of Poison Toad/Poison Toad/Mad Plant and Poison Toad/Poison Toad/Basilisk. Basilisks are generic enemies with no real resistances or weaknesses.


And for our efforts at this Battlefield, we get the Charm! The Charm is a piece of armor which increases defense by 1. That's all it does. It's somewhat less infuriating than the EXP/GP bullshit but it's still pretty bad.

But, now that we've cleared out all the Battlefields (and levelled up Benjamin from 3 to 5), it's time to head to the Bone Dungeon.


"Dude what the hell makes you think that there's treasure inside a giant decapitated skull?"
"The glowing eyes?"
"What glowing OH MY GOD FUCK THIS I'M GONE"
...or so any sane man would say.

What Benjamin and crew do is go inside.


Inside the Bone Dungeon, we are greeted with enemies leading up each side, and some shifting sand in front of us. Obviously, it's difficult to see shifting sand on static screen shots.


Everything inside the border is shifting sand, and the arrow shows the direction it's moving. You can move against the sand, but you can't make any progress "upstream".


We're dragged up to a pair of enemies surrounding a treasure box with some Cure Potions inside. Thing is, you can just jump over the treasure box so you don't actually need to fight either of them. Here's a tip for game designers: Don't block passage with things you can get around very easily. It just makes you look like you don't know what you are doing. The sand, on the other hand, does a far better job of forcing conflict. Because you can't go back the way you came, you have to fight one of the groups of enemies down the left and right sides of the room. You can do them now, since enemies only respawn upon leaving the dungeon, or you can do them on the way out.

We'll leave them for now, and head up through the mouth of... something. Seriously, I have no idea what it could be. It has the skull of a ram or demon or something, yet a long, thin body... Maybe it's a Ramaconda?

Maybe not though.


We jump over the stepping stones in order to cross the water...


...then down some stairs to the right and into the water. It's probably not actually water. Firstly, we're in a desert, and secondly, water is not GREEN. It looks sort of weird, but it does give a sort of decayed "hey remember you're meant to be in something's skull" feel.

Through the ribs, out the other side, up some stairs, and we come across a blocked up door.


Benjamin goes ??
Tristam: Watch this!

He then proceeds to blow up the wall. Tristam is not a man of subtlety.


Tristam: Aren't these something? I'll sell you some, cheap! How about 50 Explosives for 30GP?
We, the players, are actually given a choice in the matter. We can reply "Okay!" or "Sorry." I decided that we didn't want the bombs.


I still do not want any of your lovely explosives. Some Ninja Stars would be nice though...


FINE OK. I know RPGs will occasionally repeat a question over and over until you give the correct answer, but I haven't seen a game which does it with a question as aggressive as "Will you buy my bombs?"

"Would you like to trigger a nuclear winter? Y/WHY NOT?"


Unlike every other weapon type in the game, explosives do not increase in power as you level up. They start off as strong as they're ever going to be.

So now that we have the bombs, we can go back to the previous room and blow some stuff up! Just to the north of the stepping stones, there was a small clump of bones.


We couldn't move it because it's so heavy. Basically what happened was someone put a T-Rex skeleton into a trash compactor, then put the resulting, and perfectly rectangular, set of bones in front of a corridor of the exact same width.

...


WELL THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION I CAN THINK OF

Anyway on the other side of the compactosaurus was a chest.


The Steel Shield has a defense of 5 and so, unlike the Charm, it's actually useful. Wait hang on, I've just compared a huge metal plate to a necklace. Whatever. Back in the other room, we walk through the door that Tristam kindly detonated for us...


...and through a tunnel which leads to an identical door. Not sure why the tunnel's there. Somewhat superfluous really.


We end up in a room full of new enemies. We have the bird, called Roc, to my right, the skeleton, called Skeleton, to the bottom right and the worm, called Sand Worm, to my left.


The Roc is weak against shoot attacks (i.e. the Ninja Star). So is The Rock. The Skeleton is, in true RPG style, vulnerable to healing magic and items. This is phrased as "weak against zombie attacks", and it puts a new perspective on the Life spell if you think about it as a "zombie attack". Oh sure, you can bring your buddy back to help in your struggle against Garland/Golbez/Kefka/Sephiroth/Ultimecia/Kuja/Sin/Vayne, but they'll be subject to an eternity of untold suffering and endless pain. If you go through every Final Fantasy game and substitute "Phoenix Down" for "Vial of T-Virus", you'll find that the plot still fits together fine. Square has been setting this up for a long time people. If you view FFMQ from the right angle, it throws the rest of the FF games into a brand new perspective. FFMQ is the key which holds the Final Fantasy franchise plotline together but anyway where was I? There's some stairs to the left that we can go down.


To the right of the stairs, there is an enemy.


Wait a minute that looks kind of familiar...


Aww. We're not even out of the first main dungeon of the game and we're already seeing re-skins of existing enemies. This one's not even that different, it's just a darker shade of green. I don't even really see the need for it. There's three brand new enemy types introduced in this dungeon alone, and they probably could have gotten away with just using re-using Behemoth with some stat upgrades. Re-skinning was inevitable, but I'm disappointed they've resorted to it so soon.

Oh, and I forgot to get the third state of the Behemoth, so here's the Gorgon's.


Oh yeah, like that's not going to scare tiny children. It's frickin' demonic! The eyes have gone from red to HOLY SHIT RED, and the mouth has gone from black to HOLY SHIT RED. The Gorgon's rage is so powerful that their eyes can light up their mouth. How is that not terrifying?

Anyway, once we kill it and NEVER SLEEP AGAIN, we head north and past a Skeleton.


If it looks weak, bomb it! Say what you will about US foreign policy, it works!


The skeleton collapses! To the right is a room with some stepping stones to Ninja Stars.


To the right are some enemies guarding MORE Ninja Stars. See what I meant about never, ever running out? We'll head up north.


More sliding sand here!


So we're forced to go through the enemies.


More bombing to do. Wait, what's that to the right..?


AW HELL NO


...

They've re-skinned the fucking boss of the Level Forest and put him in the very next dungeon as a standard enemy. AND THEY SPELT "MINOTAUR" WRONG AS WELL. Why did they feel the need to reuse old enemies so early? And it's not like there aren't any new enemies! I know there are, I've SEEN them! So yeah, being a "Zombie Minotar", he is of course vulnerable to Cure and the like.

So yeah, we fill him full of health, then we move on.


Past the sliding sand and down the stairs.


Past the skeletons and up to the mouth of the Ramaconda.


BOOM!


We run up the skeleton and into the cave.


Seeds! Seeds are the third of the four usable items in the game, and they recover your magic. Back out we go, and out the side of the Ramaconda.


The sand forces us to fight the Skeletons and Minotar Zombie. Rather bizarrely, the actual sand appears to be sliding from right to left despite going in the opposite direction. I imagine this would have confused a few people looking for a shortcut.

So we destroy them (all with Cure), bomb the Ramaconda, and run through it.


Another cavern at the tail end of the Ramaconda...


...and we get our first Black Magic spell.

Back outside, we kill the Minotar Zombie, bomb the next Ramaconda, and go through it into the next room.


OH GOD. As you can probably tell, this would be the boss of the Bone Dungeon. Appropriately enough, he is a giant skeleton. I'm not entirely sure how a red skeleton would even be formed, but it has been, and we're going to have to live with that. Except we aren't, because he kill him.


Monster: I have the power of the Crystal of Earth!
Whoa, whoa. Hold up a minute. You're trying to tell me that the place Tristam was looking for treasure just happened to be the same place where the guy who had the Crystal of Earth was hiding? I CALL BULLSHIT ON THAT GOOD SIRS.


This is the first real boss fight of the game. The Minotaur was technically a boss, but it wasn't really on the same difficulty level as most of the bosses are. I say "technically a boss" because the battle was accompanied by the Boss theme music, one of the shining stars in a superb soundtrack. I'll point out more examples of what I think are terrific pieces of music as I encounter them.

But anyway, Flamerus Rex can be a nasty boss. It's Bone Missile attack fires one of its ribs at one character, and Chew Off does a significant deal of damage to a single character. Twin Fangs will hit a character twice, for moderate damage. I'm not sure what effect the "being hit twice" has on proceedings, but I don't think it's very much. Rip Earth, on the other hand, will do moderate damage to both characters and can be devastating. He can also inflict poison on someone with Poison Flour, which can cause trouble. We need to Cure at the right times, or else we'll die pretty quickly. Also: Tristam has Life, but Benjamin does not. Benjamin dieing can be recovered from, but Tristam's death cannot.

After a few rounds of Quake from Benjamin, Flamerus Rex loses some of his ribs.


After a few more, he loses the rest.


Interestingly, now that he's lost all his ribs, he won't use Bone Missile anymore. I realise that this is a fairly minor touch, but it's a nice touch that makes me think that someone up there cared! After a few more hits, he goes down.


I said "go down", not "die". Apparently he can still attack whilst lieing in a heap on the floor. He's the first thing we've encountered which changes three times, so I suppose he's allowed to play with expectations. A few hits later, he dies.


Somehow, he's standing up again. He's also EXPLODING. Maybe he's red because he's made from STICKS OF DYNAMITE? Once he's gone (again), Tristam immediately runs off to grab the chests.


He's interrupted by the Crystal of Earth appearing and floating down the the ground veeeeeery slowly.
Benjamin: Look! The Crystal!
Tristam: Nevermind that, get a load of this stuff!


I'll admit it. Tristam's a bit of a dick, but he has excellent taste in awesome frickin toys.


PLACEBO GET!


PLOT COUPON GET!


Sure, I helped you get the treasure, you gave me the Elixir. A deal's a deal. Pleasure doing business with you. See you around!


WHAT? HOW IS THAT CONFUSING? SHUT UP.

So now we just have to get out again. Backtracking's easy, because we've already cleared a path from here all the way back to the first room.


It's just a case of picking a side (let's go for right) and tearing your way from there to the front door.


AND WE'RE OUT! FREEEEEDOM.


As you can see, freeing the Crystal has fixed everything. All the trees don't look dead anymore, and everyone's the age they're meant to be again. Hooray! Let's get Kaeli that water Elixir, shall we?


"OH I SEE YOUR STUTTER HAS CLEARED UP NICELY IMAGINE THAT"
Benjamin: Here's the Elixir.
Kaeli: Thank you. Now I can visit Spencer in Aquaria...
Benjamin: Why don't I go to Aquaria first and look around? Where is it?
Kaeli: It's through the Focus Tower, and to the northeast.
"Okay, you stay here and 'get better'."


After setting off towards the Focus Tower, we make a stop off at a Battlefield. Today we have Minotar Zombie, Basilisk/Minotar Zombie and Land Worm/Land Worm. All enemies we've encountered before. Nothing unexpected. Our prize: 150GP.


AND NOW: THE FOCUS TOWER.

Coming Soon - Chapter 3
In which Benjamin becomes Wolverine.

And: The Return of Old Man!

Dear everyone;
Don't post here post here.
Love, Flea.

P.S. Old Man still really wants a name. More relevant now because he's like RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER...

...OR IS HE?

Oh man, I am loving this LP. This is already WAY better than Nakar's in my opinion.

As for Old Man, call him Cid. IIRC, this game doesnt have one... and EVERY FF has a Cid (bar the original; the remakes, however, do), even that crappy Spirit's Within movie had a Cid.

I agree. Call him Cid.

Calling him Cid would be the obvious thing to do.

Still, I'll vote for Magic Johnson McCoot.

I'm with ZJ because I'm a dick and like ties.... also it's an awesome name.

Chapter 3 - It's Been Five Years and I'm Still Shipping Her with Joey

When we last saw Benjamin, he was about to enter the Focus Tower.


In case you haven't figured it out, this is the inside of the Focus Tower.


You see that little notch to the left?


Yeah you can walk straight through that. Neither the shortcut nor the long way round contain anything particularly useful or entertaining which makes me wonder why the hell they bothered with it but whatever.


Oh, you'll be able to sneak up behind this guy, but it makes absolutely no difference to anything.


"Hey your name's Cid isn't it?"
"WHAT HOW DID YOU I MEAN UHM NO IT'S NOT."
"Yes it is. It has to be because it isn't anyone else's and it has to be someone's..."
"OKAY FINE. My full name is "Magic" Cid Johnson McCoot. Everyone just calls me Magic Cid though."
"'Everyone'? I'm the only person who knows your name!"
"Exactly..."


Benjamin goes ??
Magic Cid: A girl named Phoebe will help you.
Benjamin: But I'm going to Aquaria!
Magic Cid: Maybe you'll find her along the way...
"Man if this turns out to be another one of your guesses I swear I'm gonna *THWACK* something..."
Magic Cid flies off. Benjamin goes !!, then waves, then does the hand thing.

Look man, Magic Cid can either predict the future or has the power to make his crazy ramblings come true. Which he can do doesn't matter, the fact remains: YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A PAWN TO THIS MAN. None of the decisions you make will matter. You have become part of events in which all your actions and reactions are determined by an unseen puppet-master who will manipulate you, and anyone else he needs, to do whatever he needs done. If there's one thing that this isn't, Benjamin, it's confusing. So put your god damn hands down and GET ON WITH IT. You've got a job to do.

...

Let's head up the stairs.


To the right, there's a door with a sword on it. Hey, didn't the Sand Coin have a sword on it?


Yes, it did, and the door opened as a direct consequence of this.

I really love the idea of a coin operated door. Sure, people can get through the door without the Sand Coin, but the Sand Coin is worth a traspillion GP and the machine only gives 100GP change from that, so... yeah...

As you can see, there's another door as well. There are four doors, but only three of them are accessible from here. The fourth can only be accessed from a staircase, the location of which is unknown.


Going through the door, we come across some stairs leading up. You can go on around to the right, but it doesn't go anywhere, so we head up the stairs.


We come out the top and head down to the right. There's a chest, but it's not on the same level as us, so we can't get to it yet.


Heading on around, we get to a gap we can jump over to get to a chest.


Ah, some more Black Magic. Wonderful stuff. There's another chest to the left, but we can't get to it either. I've no idea why the designers felt the need to taunt us with such beautiful, unattainable treasures...

Anyway, we continue on, and end up back where we started. We head through the door above, and come out back on the World Map.


We head right, then up past the Battlefield.


The path stops at Libra Temple, so in we go!


Hmm. There's an OMEGA tile on the ground and ooh who's that?


????: It's hopeless, I give up. Aquaria is frozen, people are sick, Grandpa is trapped...
Then she walks off. How rude.


The girl goes !!
????: Why... he's my Grandpa!
Benjamin: What luck! Let's go free him.
????: But we can't! I'm going home...
"Hey, wait a minute! Maybe if I don't go home, we can save him!"
Then she walks off. Again.


YOU'LL NEVER GUESS: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Phoebe from Aquaria.
Benjamin: YOU are Phoebe? Then I'm going with you!


Oh woo, she's going to be a real laugh...


We're introduced to new spells Heal and Thunder, White and Wizard magic respectively. She's also got Cure, Life and Fire.

Now, let me tell you about Cure and Life. As you have probably already gathered, Cure cures, and Life brings people back to life. You may not have gathered that Life gives people full HP. You may also not have gathered that Life does this even if the person it's cast on isn't dead. Now, considering that all spells expend the same amount of magic (i.e. 1), having Life makes Cure completely and utterly worthless. GOOD JOB DEVELOPERS.


She also has a claw. It inflicts poison and... sparkles, apparently. Maybe it used to belong to Stephanie Meyer! LOL TWILIGHT SUX.

Anyway, outside, the path to the right has opened up, so we head along it.


After going past two battlefields, we wind up at Aquaria.


Heading left, we see a man and a house. Turns out, this is Phoebe's house.


Phoebe: In the tunnel he was digging under here. The dirt is frozen solid, so he can't get out.
Benjamin: Can't we melt it?
Phoebe: Not until we get Wakewater from the Spring of Life. But a monster in the Wintry Cave stole the Libra Crest which Warps us from the Libra Temple to the Life Temple.
Benjamin goes ??


Phoebe: Right! To the Wintry Cave!

SO MANY QUESTIONS:
1. Why did we have to be in your house for you to tell us that?
2. You knew all of this already, so how is everything all of a sudden not hopeless?
3. If this house doesn't belong to the man outside, why is he walking around in your garden?
4. Why would a monster steal an item which is only useful in two places, particularly when the only purpose of the item is to allow transport to the other place, and the only thing in the other place is Wakewater?
5. Where/who was it stolen from?

So, we have to go to the Wintry Cave to get the Libra Crest so we can teleport from the Libra Temple to the Life Temple to get Wakewater from the Spring of Life so we can melt the ice so we can save Spencer who is your Grandfather who Kaeli also wanted to see?

...

The plot may be shallow, but it's a bastard to keep up with. But at least there aren't any arc words...


AW HELL NO


Anyway back outside, we head right, cross a bridge onto an island. There's some sort of plant there, surrounded by trees.


Across another bridge, there's some stairs. We head up them and into a house.


The woman here will sell us a Steel Helmet (don't ask) for 200GP.


The Steel Helm has a Defense power of 4. We now have all the lower-tier armor, and a total Defense power of 16.

To the right, in the bedroom, there's a treasure box.


And now we've found all of the usable items in the game! Refreshers are very useful because they do something that other items don't do! They're great! I'm not sure how I got this far without them! I mean they're just... OK, I don't know what they do. Never did. I actually had to look up what they did. Apparently, they remove stat changes from your characters during battle. Considering I've gone through the entire game before whilst not knowing what they do, it's abundantly clear that they don't actually matter.

Anyways, heading down the stairs, we find something that looks familiar but different.


Oh, it's another one of those crazy tiles. This one's an HOURGLASS tile. Appropriately, we will probably use it in the FUTURE.

But anyways, now that we're done here, we leave Aquaria and move onwards! Except we don't! We head back to the Battlefields we skipped on the way here!


Here's the first one. It consists of Mintmint and Mintmint/Mintmint. It's a fairly low-budget Battlefield, it seems.


Mintmints seem to be basic enemies. Not too strong. No weaknesses or resistances.

Our reward?


OH YAY.


Next, the Battlefield next to the temple. It consists of Mintmint/Mintmint, Giant Toad/Giant Toad and Giant Toad/Giant Toad/Mintmint.


Giant Toads are strong against paralyze attacks (OH SO THAT'S WHAT THE CLAW'S SPARKLES ARE).


300GP? The cash rewards seem to be getting... I dunno... fair?


Next Battlefield, more enemies. This one is Scorpion/Scorpion, Scorpion/Scorpion/Giant Toad and Giant Toad/Giant Toad/Mintmint.


Scorpions are weak against Fire, so hooray for that.

Also, Thunder is basically a gamebreaker at this stage of the game.


Three enemies die with one shot of an attack that hits everyone. That's fair...


Ooh! A Magic Ring! Phoebe's already got one, and it's the first mid-tier piece of Armor. It replaces the Charm, provides protection from Silence, and bumps the Defense power up 2 points. Because a ring is obviously going to do three times better than a necklace at defending physical attacks. Obviously.


And finally. Edgehog/Edgehog, Edgehog/Edgehog/Scorpion, Scorpion/Scorpion/Giant Toad.


Edgehogs are weak against Fire. Again. Woo!


And they go BALD when you attack them! BALD! I mean why?!


Anyway yeah the prize for the Battlefield sucks again.


Anyway, now it's time for the Wintry Cave.


To the left are some items which I didn't get. If memory serves me rightly, they're Cure Potions. We head past the Scorpion to the right.


Up the right side of the room and up some stairs, then past an Edgehog.


Ah, a reskinned Sand Worm. What's it called?


Land Worm! You're not even trying are you? Anyway they're still weak against axe attacks so they're pretty easy to kill.


So anyways, we just head around here and OH SHIIIIIII-


-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

Phoebe climbs down the wall after Benjamin, the unlucky son of a bitch.


Phoebe: Select the claw, hold the A button down, and press the Control Pad. Now it's yours!


"Well thanks that's great but what about my broken legs?"
"Oh, it's hopeless..."

Now, unlike in the Bone Dungeon, when Tristam pulled some Explosives out of hammerspace for the sole purpose of selling them to us, Phoebe needs to pull something out of hammerspace to replace the Cat Claw she just gave us. What she has is this:


The Bow of Grace. Yet another weapon with a completely pointless ammo restriction. The Cat Claw had an Attack power of 32, whilst the BOG has an Attack power of 79. That's more than double. Which raises the question: Why the hell was she using the Cat Claw in the first place? The BOG also inflicts... uhm... tanned Imperial Stormtrooper status.


Around the corner to the left of Benjamin's bones, there's a Scorpion. Beyond it is a climbable wall.


The platform we're moving onto is the same place that the path that we were on (before we fell to our pleasant landing) led to. So we've dodged that enemy (whatever it is). The blocked door you can see to the right needs detonated, so detonated it gets, and through we go.


We head through the Land Worm. It turns out that Edgehogs are strong against Blind attacks, showing that tanned Imperial Stormtroopers are, in fact, Blind.


We take a look around first. There's an enemy to the left, in the middle of the room, but we can't get to it yet.


Around the other side, there's some previously unencountered enemies for us to take care of. We'll start with the bird.


"This is Roc!"
"Roc... THIS. IS. SPARNA!!!"

...

Oh god I'm so sorry.

As we've discovered, the Bow of Grace is very strong. Bows shoot things. Sparnas, like Rocs, are weak against shoot attacks. Combined with a Critical Hit...


...and we get damage of 1375. That's OVERKILL.


Next, we'll go for the mole-type guy.


Oh apparently the mole-type guy is a Centaur. I suppose if you squint... Centaurs don't have any resistances or weaknesses, but their attacks are quite strong, and it can inflict Confuse, so they can be dangerous.


The fact that he continues to use Bow & Arrow when he clearly DOESN'T HAVE ONE counters the points I gave Flamerus Rex for not using the exploding rib move when he ran out of ribs. GOOD WORK CENTAUR.


The treasure box above has Cure Potions. Let's take a look at the monster to the right.


Land Turtles are also apparently weak against axes. A lot of Land things are weak against axes. Well, both of them. Anyway, the second treasure box contains Arrows. With nothing left in here, we need to backtrack back to the climbing wall, and drop down.


We head through the Edgehog, then around to the left.


Kill the Scorpion, then use the wall to drop down the the ground.


Continue down, then kill the Edgehog. Climb up the wall...


...and to the left. Then go through the Scorpion and up the wall onto the platform.


I'm sure you can figure out what happens here. Just in case you haven't been paying attention to THE WHOLE GAME, we kill the Edgehog and bomb the door.

..?

*sigh* THEN GO THROUGH THE DOOR.


Hmm. A room full of enemies. You gotta fight at least two of them in order to get through, and that Land Worm in the middle is NEVER one of them. WHY? Anyways, we kill the Land Turtle, get the Cure Potions and Arrows in the treasure boxes, then kill the other Land Turtle.


Through the Centaur...


...Land Turtle and Centaur again.


We head through the bottom Edgehog, and either the Centaur, Land Worm or OTHER Centaur in order to get the the Arrows and Heal Potions below.


Then, up through the Land Worm and Edgehog, then down the stairs.


If you look closely, you'll see Benjamin under the floor/through the roof. This is SUPPOSEDLY the room we were in earlier, but the fact that the old room had no monsters under the floor and the new room has no monsters on the roof leaves me unconvinced! It's a conspiracy! The monsters are doing confusing things of no consequence to further their agenda of evil things!

"Hey Flea, maybe it's a way of conveying the fact that YOU CAN'T SEE THROUGH THE ROOF. You know, JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE"
"SHUT UP."

Anyways, we only need to kill one enemy in order to proceed: the Land Turtle on the right.


We need to kill the Land Turtle and either of the Sparnas. Doesn't matter which. Then we kill the Centaur and get the arrows from the treasure box.


This is the boss of the dungeon. He completely subverts expectations by having absolutely no dialogue whatsoever to answer the many, many, MANY, questions I have.


The Sparnas go down in one, so they're hardly worth talking about. Squidite is sort of weird, since he has no weaknesses whatsoever. He's like a giant meatbag full of seafood that will occasionally try to electrocute you in a hilarious fashion.


During the animation, Benjamin's arms flail about wildly. The consequences of this? "Benjamin's magic down!" and 1 damage.


He loses his side tentacles, then his viagra wears off.

This boss fight was incredibly easy, probably because I'd been saving up Phoebe's magic throughout the dungeon. I realise that Squidite was only meant to be a boss in the same way that the Minotaur way back in Level Forest was meant to be a boss, but the fact that the Wintry Cave could realistically be described as a dungeon raised my expectations a bit. Then again, I expected some form of exposition as to why the hell the Crest was here in the first place, so maybe the game just likes screwing with me.

Anyway, back in the dungeon, the monster vanishes and a chest appears. Phoebe goes !!


Phoebe: Stand on it, and we'll be Warped to the Life Temple!
See, now I can't be the only person who was confused when she refered to the Libra Temple as "there" when the last time she mentioned it was quite some time ago. Also, why the hell is "Warp" capitalised? She did it earlier, but I figured it might just have been a typo. But here it is again. Maybe it's like Earth or World except even that doesn't work because there's no such thing as a proper verb.


How many times are we actually going to use this? Seriously? Then again, we're still carrying a piece of dead tree around so I guess we should worry about that first, eh? Anyways, we backtrack out of the cave, to the world map, then back to the Libra Temple.


This is the square which must be stood on.


We warp to here. The sound effect is quite pleasing.


Then, she walks up to the Spring of Life and is so shocked by what she sees that she goes !! twice, on different sides of her head.


Phoebe: It's hopeless now.
Benjamin: Don't give up yet. There's someone inside. Let's have a look.
Wait, how the hell do you know that? Anyways, there's a door at the top, which is the opening to a tunnel.


Oh fancy seeing you here...


Magic Cid: I know that. We need Wakewater to melt the ice...
Phoebe: But the Wakewater has dried up! It's hopeless!
Magic Cid: Hear me! All that's left of the Wakewater is in this bag. Take it and go back to Aquaria.
"Hear me"? He's talking like some sort of god-type-thing! This would be fine if he hadn't spent the rest of the game spouting cryptic nonsense!


So wait, even though the Spring's dried up, everything's going to be OK anyway? I DON'T BUY THAT. Anyways, the Temple does have a door out.


But it leads here. There's nowhere to go, and apparently, nowhere we can ever possibly go. Which raises the question: How did the temple get built? Anyways, we need to head back to Aquaria. Upon entering, we're dragged back to the the plant in the middle of the town.


She puts the Wakewater on the plant and it flashes from frozen light blue to the standard plant green. That's it.


Benjamin: Then we'd better hurry to the Ice Pyramid!
Wait what? The Wakewater didn't thaw the town, so now we have to go free the Crystal. Fine. Except, once again, Phoebe, YOU KNEW THIS ALL ALONG. When all the Wakewater was dried up, it was hopeless. But now that you've shown the Wakewater does nothing, you suddenly have a plan!

My theory: Multiple personality disorder.


So, Phoebe, Phoebe and I, head off to the new Battlefield in the area. It opened up once we beat the Wintry Cave and is just to the left of it. Enemies here are Desert Hag/Desert Hag and Desert Hag, in yet another low budget Battlefield.


Wait, this isn't a Desert! This makes slightly less sense than the Land _____ monsters! Anyways, they're weak against Fire and strong against Paralysis for no adequately explored reason. And when they're hurt...


THEYRA FIRIN THEYR LAZAR.


Hmm. 600GP is actually pretty OK. Anyways, we need to get to the Ice Pyramid, but it's not as easy as just going straight there oh no.


Falls Basin. It's an anagram of A Balls Fins, but that's not important.

Coming Soon - Chapter 4
In which we have the obligatory puzzle segment.

It's not that bad..?

I must admit... this makes me laugh. Quite a lot. Great work so far.

"Magic" Cid Johnson McCoot, eh? Well, that's a compromise I can live with. Anyway, I have serious problems following the plot of this game... and why doesn't Benjamin just say "okay, let's just go to the Crystal thing." whenever he meets someone new?

Benjamin is a man. He is from a village which was destroyed. He then made his way to the Hill of Destiny, atop which a mysterious man informed him of the situation. Four monsters have locked the doors of the Focus Tower (cutting off the four parts of the world from each other in the process) and began draining energy from four Crystals. This caused each part of the world to fall victim to an elemental disaster. Benjamin was told that an old prophecy mentioned a knight, and that he was that knight. He would be charged with finding and freeing the four Crystals.

The first Crystal he needed to save was the Crystal of Earth but to do that he needed to go through the Level Forest, and apparently Kaeli was the only person who could help. So he met Kaeli then they made their way through the forest but right at the edge Kaeli got poisoned so he had to find Elixir to heal her. The Elixir was meant to be at the Sand Temple but Tristam got there first and wouldn't give him it unless he helped him find treasure in the Bone Dungeon. Benjamin helped him and Tristam gave him the Elixir. In the process of finding the treasure, Benjamin and Tristam killed the Flamerus Rex, who was guarding the Crystal of Earth. Afterwards, Tristam left Benjamin, and Benjamin returned to Kaeli with the Elixir. Kaeli mentioned that she was going to Aquaria to visit someone named Spencer. Benjamin decided to go and have a look around.

On the way to Aquaria, the mysterious man told Benjamin that he would meet a girl named Phoebe, who would help him on his quest. Indeed, further on his journey, he met her in the Libra Temple. She was trying to save her grandfather, who, it turns out is Spencer, from the tunnels under her house, which had frozen shut. The only way to melt the ice would be to get Wakewater from the Spring of Life in the Life Temple. Unfortunately, the only way to access the Life Temple is using a Warp in the Libra Temple, which requires a Libra Crest, and the Libra Crest had been stolen by a monster and taken to the Wintry Cave. After retrieving the crest, it turns out that only a small amount of Wakewater remained, which was not enough to melt the ice in Aquaria. It is decided that the only way to melt the ice is to free the Crystal of Water from the Ice Pyramid. First, however, they must travel through Falls Basin.

Simple, really...
Yeah the main thing stopping Benjamin going straight from Crystal to Crystal is the fact that everyone who's supposed to be helping him has, encounters, or, in Tristam's case, causes some problem of their own.

Also, it turns out that the townsfolk (who I've forgot to speak to for most of the game) are the people who give Benjamin the answer to the "Where are the Crystals?" question. So that fills up that set of plotholes...

Gotta agree with Saki. I was laughing through pretty much all of the last update.


Ah, NOW it makes sense (I've only beaten this game once before... and I payed no attention to the plot as per usual).

Geez, even when making a game practically intended for kids, Square knows how to confuse the shit out of ya.

In my eyes it's not Square but Japanese story-telling in general.

Nah, too me some, for example, pre-merger Enix games made sense insofar as they could be followed (Illusion of Gaia for one).

Chapter 4 - Getting Blocked

When we last saw Benjamin he was curled up in a ball in the corner demanding to be told just what the hell is going on except that's a lie he was actually about to enter a place called Falls Basin with a woman who can at best be described as conflicted and at worst be described as two people one of whom seems to have a vague idea of what the hell is going on and the other is the most pessimistic person ever and this sentence could really do with some punctuation now huh?


Welcome to Falls Basin, the game's puzzle area which all RPGs are required to have at least one of BY LAW.


There's an empty space of equal size to the pillar on each side of the pillar, how the hell is it in our way? Anyways, let's take a look around first. There's only one way we can go for now that actually leads anywhere.


Ah, a chest! We're going to be getting the contents of that before we leave here, that's for sure.


You see that little notch at the top?


Yeah you can walk straight through that. The Desert Hag is easily disposed of, and you see that little notch at the bottom right?


Yeah you can walk straight through that as well. I think it's pretty safe to assume that the crab thing guarding the door out of the area and standing within 3 feet of the chest is the boss but I COULD BE WRONG.


And we find ourselves at a dead end. But there is a solution to this problem!


See it turns out that what Phoebe said earlier was a good idea, but it sure as hell didn't make any sense the way she said it. Then again, if she'd actually said "Let's use this to jump across," I'd be making fun of her for apparently being able to see the future so maybe it's better this way.


So we push the block so it's between the two ledges. Be careful not to get the block stuck anywhere, because if you do, you'll have to exit the area and come back in.


And now jump across using the block!


So we go through the Desert Hag, and come out the bottom near some stairs.


To the right, another gap precisely three times the width of a block! I wonder, could we possibly use the block located RIGHT NEXT TO this gap in order to cross it? I THINK WE CAN.

BUT FIRST!


Ah, Lamia. You put us to Sleep annoyingly often, but unfortunately for you, you're weak against Thunder and are thus going to take several godrillion times as much damage as is actually necessary for you to die. Tough break there.


So we push the block into the gap, and over we go!


WHEEEEEEEEEE


Oh, it's a gap that is precisely three times the width of a block but may look two times the width of the block but then you realise that this it only looks this way because of the camera and yes, the top of the block can in fact overlap with the portion of wall which is visible. Hey, do you think we can use the block right below us in order to cross it? MOST DEFINITELY.


So the block gets pushed all the way around into the middle of the gap.


So we cross the bridge, fight the Desert Hag and head up the stairs.


You see that little etc?


The treasure box contained Explosives. This Lamia is DEAD.

UCETC?


And another three space wide gap. But there isn't an obvious pillar to use!


So we just use this one!


And we're done with the jumping puzzles. Now, I like the concept of the puzzle, but the execution isn't great, mainly because it's not particularly difficult and kind of repetitive. The third block isn't actually necessary to complete the puzzle, so just taking it out would have made the puzzle far more interesting. And all the gaps are three spaces wide! I mean, if they'd put a FIVE space wide gap in somewhere that would have needed TWO blocks to clear, at least there would have been a little variance. The only real mix-up in the formula was the last one, in which we had to backtrack OVER ANOTHER BLOCK to get a block in the final position, and that's not exactly ground breaking.

It's ground making. BOOM TSS.

So anyway lets head up these stairs.


So, here's this giant enemy crab.


We'll get the Heal spell from the chest first though, just so we don't forget about it.


Like the Squidite in the Wintry Cave, the Snow Crab has (well, "had" is a more appropriate word) two buddies to help him. They were both Desert Hags, and as such basically died instantly out of overexposure to pure awesomeness and Fire. Rather bizarrely, the Snow Crab itself isn't weak against Fire. My research tells me that its actually weak against Axe, but why they expected any player to try their Axe against a crab which quite clearly should be an ice monster is beyond me. I mean, when I do boss battles, I try a lot of things to see what their weaknesses are, and I didn't even TRY Axe. THAT'S HOW LITTLE SENSE THIS MAKES TO ME.


Anyway after a few hits he catches rabies.


After some more, his top of his pincer and horn falls off. Then he dies. So I go to use a bomb on the blocked up door he was blocking, but Phoebe has something else in mind.


WHOA WHOA WHOA. Where the hell did these come from? Apparently we had them the whole time, since we learned how to use them (as opposed to being given them). On the other hand, we apparently "learned how to use" Bombs even though we very clearly bought them off Tristam. OK fine, so it actually means that Phoebe gave us them, but that raises some questions of its own.

She starts off with a Claw with 32 attack power, then gives it to Benjamin. To replace it, she uses the Bow of Grace which has 79 attack power. Then, later on, she decides to give away the Jumbo Bombs which have an attack power of 112!

1. Why didn't she use these herself?
2. Why didn't she give them to us earlier?
3. How does she have exactly the same number of Jumbo Bombs as Benjamin has regular Bombs?

1 and 2 can be answered with "Maybe Phoebe didn't know she had them, and we're talking to the other Phoebe now." The theory is feasible thanks to the already established existence of hammerspace!

So we Jumbo Bomb the door, and exit the area. We're back on the World Map!


We'll take care of this Battlefield now. There's just Mage/Mage in here, it seems.


They're strong against Earth magic (i.e. Quake), which makes sense. Why would an earthquake effect them? They're levitating. See, now this ia a resistance that is actually pretty reasonable, because it's somewhat possible that you'd work that out on your first battle with them. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than the fact that they're weak against Fire. Here's something else that does make sense.


This is sensible. Annoying as hell, but sensible. Anyways, ten battles later, what do we win?


D=<


Ah, the Ice Pyramid. The journey's been long and tiring, but mostly confusing.

Coming Soon - Chapter 5
In which there are random encounters.

...

Wait, what?

Nice update and all, but... why does it have to be so long?

It's almost as long as the other three chapters together. Try to do one dungeon at a time in the future, jeez =P

Chapter 5 - hArrowing

When we last saw Benjamin, we were about to enter the Ice Pyramid.


Upon entering the Ice Pyramid, we are greeted with a completely empty room, from which there is no exit but the one we came in. But wait, there is a part of the wall which is very clearly a different colour than the rest of the wall! Maybe it's significant in some way?


Phoebe: Let's push it with something...


Benjamin has an idea which isn't verbalised, which I think makes this a puzzle.


A puzzle with an incredibly obvious solution, but a puzzle nonetheless. You can't claw it because it's not climbable, and you can't bomb non-explodable walls, so the only other thing you could possibly do was Axe it. If you couldn't complete this puzzle, you don't deserve to get any further in this game. Or any game. Or life. Or AFTERLIFE.

There's a few directions we can go. We'll head right, around the corner, and then up that corridor to the right.


Oh so it's going to be one of those dungeons...

Alright. We'll head down, then go to the right instead. There's a thin path running up the left wall.


Yep, that little square offshoot has nothing in it either. There's a treasure box at the end of this though!


...

Wait what? This game doesn't have random encounters! What the hell happened?

Anyways, we kill the Desert Hags, and grab the Explosives from the box.


We head back down, and up into here.


OK what?


OK seriously what?

There's a treasure chest at the end of this path, I bet there's another encounter before we get to it.


OK I was wrong. Well, that's everything over here, we'll backtrack to the front door again.


Wait, that monster wasn't there before... Oh I get it! The monsters are (well, were) invisible, but getting the Magic Mirror made them appear! This doesn't make any sense! How can one mirror let you see monsters in every direction at the same time? Oh wait, it's magic.

Anyways, we'll leave that Desert Hag where it is, and head down. There's some treasure boxes, but they contain Refreshers and Arrows and as such may as well be EMPTY. We'll head up the first path, and run into that Desert Hag right at the top left.


There's a Mage here. What's more important is the fact that the Desert Hag we left behind earlier can now be seen to be guarding NOTHING. Dick. Anyway, through the Mage and up the stairs.


Oh no.

Oh please no.


Why? Why must there be reskins within the same section of the game?! It's not as bad as the Behemoth/Gorgon, Mintoaur/Minotar Zombie bullshit, mainly because in this case there was at least a minor dungeon before the reskin, but it's still pretty bad.

Anyway, the Phanquid is, unlike it's predecessor, weak against Fire. Sphinxes have no weaknesses, and can inflict confusion, which can make them really difficult to fight as, outside of a Critical Hit, they will not go down in one.

The treasure box contained Heal Potions, and there's nothing else we can get here, so we'll head back downstairs.


As you can see, this is where those Arrows and Refreshers were. We'll head up this second path now.


We'll take care of these here Lamia...


...then this Mage, and up the stairs we go.


Hmm, this Lamia appears to be guarding the end of a corridor.


Oh wait, it turns out that wasn't the end. The box contains arrows. Let's head back downstairs.


We'll take care of this Desert Hag, and the barely visable Lamia to the right.


Down and around the corner, then all the way back up again. The philosophy of this dungeon seems to be "Fill up all the space with NOTHING".


We'll kill this Mage, then head upstairs.


Hmm. Meanwhile, on the bottom side of the wall...


Oh, it's some arrows. Beyond that barely visable Lamia is linear corridor containing a Mage and...


...a Phanquid. We'll take care of it then NOT head up stairs. No point heading up to floor 3 when we haven't finished on 1 yet. I'm not sure how fulfilling this will be, but whatever.


We'll head to the left.


Then down and through the Desert Hag. Just below those stairs is a Mage, which kill and head back up to the second floor.


Hit the blue thing and the door to the left opens.


More arrows. That's the fourth set so far. That's TOO MANY FUCKING ARROWS. Anyway, we kill whichever Lamia, then whichever Mage.


Ah, a new enemy.


The Stoney Roost! They're weak against shoot attacks! Which is reasonable because it's a bird and the Sparnas were weak against shoot attacks! Yay for consistency!

But, if you attack it with the Claw, Sword or Axe, it'll counter with petri-touch. This will petrify you, but you would be forgiven for thinking it turned you into a dish of some sort. No, it petrifies you, which is as bad as death. In terms of gameplay, I mean, obviously. But even if you don't attack it directly, it can still use Stone Beak, which petrifies you, as a standard attack. So if you don't kill them quick, they'll turn you to stone to death.


So after the Stoney Roost, we get through the Phanquid, and there's a treasure box at the top right.


WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE ARROWS.


There's another Phanquid. We kill it, then head up the stairs it was guarding.


There's a Stoney Roost up here that needs murdering.


Oh, there's still some enemies we haven't discovered yet. Let's take a look at these.


Gather? Gather is a VERB. You cannot call things by VERBS. Therefore, Gather is also a noun. Presumably, a gather is something that gaths. Or something from Gath. Either way, it's something that doesn't really make sense.


Oh, well that's good to know. It doesn't really make sense though. Gathers can blind you, and can also reflect magic. So basically, you can end up killing yourself with Thunder. That wouldn't be clever, so don't do it.


AW HELL NO. The distance between the Snow Crab and this Freezer Crab is a fucking Battlefield. The reskin's less blue and more silver, just in case you cared. Anyway, we kill the Crab, and get the treasure boxes. There's Heal Potions in one, and...


OH SHUT UP.

Anyways, there's some more stuff on the first floor that we need to take care of.


We'll kill this Lamia...


...then this Mage, then head up the stairs.


Through this Stoney Roost, then stab the statue, and open the treasure box.


WHY DID THEY THINK WE NEEDED SO MANY DAMN ARROWS?

Back down the stairs, and on along the corridor.


Aw hell no.


So we're ready to head up onto the third floor now. FINALLY.


We'll head down to the left, through the Desert Hag and into the badly hidden attempt to fill space. The ridiculously snake-y path contains a Stoney Roost, Gather, Freezer Crab, Desert Hag and artificial gameplay lengthening!


At the end of the winding road, there's a door. We'll head through...


..and there's another Stoney Roost. To the right, you can see that room what were in earlier. They were really trying to fill space, huh?

Anyway, at the top of the room, there're two treasure boxes, containing Explosives and...


I maintain that it's absolutely impossible to run out of ammo for weapons.


Back outside and down the corridor, there's another Stoney Roost, and a path leading up.


Ah, I see what's going on here. We've got to go to the other side and hit the switch in order to open this door. So let's head back, shall we?


We've got a Desert Hag and Stoney Roost to get through.


There's a Gather here, and if we want that treasure box, there's a Freezer Crab to get through.


OK WHAT THE HELL?


Further down, there's another Freezer Crab, and a treasure box.


THIS IS GETTING FUCKING RIDICULOUS.


We get through the Gather, then stab the statue.


Obviously we didn't just teleport across, but you know how we got here...

UCETC?


Yeah you can walk straight through that. Oh, and there's stairs, terrific! Maybe the next floor will have items that are actually useful!


I see a chest. A chest cannot possibly contain arrows, so I'm happy to see it, even if it's full of bricks or something.

We'll head to the right.


I have a distinct feeling that this dungeon was designed to infuriate the player in a manner as passive-aggressive as possible.

AND IT'S WORKING.


So we have a Mage here. We kill it, then walk all the way around the room. There's no way into the centre section from here.


Note: We've met this monster before. It's a Sphinx. This is just the first time we've seen it outside of battle. It's only recently built up the confidence to take control of its own life. So we kill that, and head on up the stairs.


Do you get it yet?

...

I'll give you a minute...

...

That's right! We have to jump off! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!


And we end up in here. Alright, let's start with the treasure boxes at the bottom. Heal Potions and...


WHY?


We'll take care of the Gather in the middle.


OH FUCK THIS. THE OTHER ONE CONTAINS A CURE POTION BY THE WAY.


OH SHUT THE FUCK UP


I actually stood here for around ten minutes stabbing and *THWACK*ing this, just to stop the whole room from glowing red.


Let's kill this Phanquid and OH GUESS WHAT?


And some REFRESHERS! Let's see what's in the chest then.


Hmm. This is pretty good. We're protected from Poison and strong against Water attacks, and the Defense power is double that of our old stuff, so yay for that.


Back upstairs and to the left, there's a Sphinx. With some treasure boxes. Surprisingly, neither of them contain Arrows. They both have Explosives instead.


WHY WON'T YOU GIVE ME ANY FUCKING SEEDS THOUGH?


Let's kill this Stoney Roost, and follow the needlessly winding path to the centre of the room.


It's actually surprisingly easy to fall off. So, you know, don't.


So we kill this Gather, and NOT kill that Freezer Crab!


FUCKING A. The box contained a potion of some sort. Not sure what. It wasn't arrows though so SUCCESS.


So now we jump across this...


...and over this. This also contained a potion of some sort.

We have to jump over the box and fight this guy, because we can't turn around without moving and that would send us falling to our DOOOOOM. Also, we can't get onto that long staircase for some reason. If we try to jump onto it, we just stop on the tile before and drop down.


We've got to kill this Sphinx to get through.

See that cracked piece of ground? Guess what we do to it! No seriously, guess!


WRONG!


And down we go!


We've got some falling to do! Three floors of it, to be precise!


And we're back in the very first room of the dungeon. You may recognise this area from the past.


Wow, that's a huge door.


This really isn't as much of a clusterfuck as it looks. We'll take out the Lamia at the bottom, then open the chest.


OH HELL YES. The Knight Sword has an attack power of 95, making the Steel Sword's 52 look pathetic! Because it is!

Now we can just jump over this chest, and run around the outside and grab these treasure boxes. Heal Potions, Cure Potions and...

...

...ARROWS.


Oh that must be the boss.


Monster: I'm enjoying our little game...


...THE HELL? What the hell was he talking about? What game? The Game? This game? Did he just break the fourth wall? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE.


We now have to talk down these stairs to get under the floor. This will allow us to reach the door, which is on floor level. Why the hell they didn't just make the floor the only level and have the door on it is beyond me.


These can be blown up to reveal a bare wall. There is nothing to be gained from doing so, though. Anyways, we take care of this Lamia, and head on through.


We'll kill this Sphinx, and start climbing up the wall. At the top of the wall, there's another Sphinx to kill. Beyond that is a door.


Ah, so that's how we get onto this staircase.


Ooh, another stabbable statue.


It reveals these two treasure boxes but, they don't seem to be on the same plane of existence as the staircase, so if we want them, we'll have to fall off the staircase and do a lot of backtracking.


AW HELL NO.
FUCK FUCK FUCK.
So we fall all the way down the big hole again, climb up the wall, walk up the staircase and end up back at the doorway, beyond which is a long, winding path leading up to the boss.


Monster: Take this!
"Hey man, mind explaining why you bothered teleporting to a room when the only thing between your two positions was a Lamia and two Sphinxs?"
"SHUT UP."


Alright so here's the Ice Golem, and yes, he IS weak against Fire. If he wasn't, it would be the single greatest lack of sense this game could possibly make. He's clearly MADE OF ICE. If he's not weak against Fire, this game is fucked.


He can inflict Sleep, which can be a bit of a problem, but it's not too serious.


Ice Block deals quite a lot of damage, which can cause quite a few problems.


Benjamin's recently found strength against water attacks is actually quite useful in this battle, because a few of Ice Golem's techniques show up as water attacks, Snowstorm in particular.

If you kept Phoebe's Black Magic (and thus Fire) saved for the boss fight (like I did!), you'll find the battle a lot easier. That said, the battle is somewhat tougher than those encountered previously. There's a far greater need to Cure and Heal than there has been in the past, and failing to do so can cause disaster (well, as much disaster as you can have in a game where you can retry any battle you want).

After the battle, the Ice Golem explodes (?) and the Crystal of Water appears.


Phoebe: Don't forget to see Grandpa!
Benjamin: Right. Bye!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot that Spencer was the reason Phoebe was even here in the first place.


ILLEGAL TENDER GET!

And now, we have to get out of here all by ourselves. It's not hard.


Oh, everything's thawed out already. I know the fiend was keeping everything frozen, but you'd think that the thawing process would still take TIME. I let it slide with the Crystal of Earth because it was sucking the life out of everything, and that basically NEEDS magic in order to make sense. But this! This is thermodynamics for frick's sake! You can't screw with thermodynamics!


Also I'm not happy with how the plot-important plant just vanished for no real reason.


UCETC?


Yeah you etc.


Up these stairs, and around onto a seriously long path. Seriously. And it's just a series of stairs and bridges, and it's possibly the most boring, pointless segment of the game.


Once we get to the bottom, we head into that notch which is actually a door.


And here we are. Let's head on down.


Ah, Spencer! Glad to see you made absolutely no effort to get out the door!


Benjamin: Phoebe and I restored the Crystal of Water's light.
Spencer: Then you're the Knight in the Prophecy! The shield has found its owner!
Benjamin goes ??
Spencer: A shield used by a Knight in days gone by. Captain Mac found it.
Benjamin goes !!
Benjamin: Captain Mac! I've heard that name before!
Spencer: For years Mac's been studying a Prophecy. On his way back from doing some research, the lake dried up and his ship ended up on a rock ledge.
Benjamin goes !!
Spencer: But that's no problem. If we dig from here, we'll be able to reach the ship. Anyway, here's a key. The shield is hidden in the Focus Tower.


I like how Mac trusted Spencer with the key but not with the exact location of the actual shield. SO MUCH FOR FRIENDSHIP HUH?


Translation: The plot is in Fireburg, go find it.

So, with nothing left here of any real importance, its time to head back towards the Focus Tower.


Ooh, a new path has opened up! And it's got a few Battlefields in!


This one's Phanquid and Phanquid/Sphinx. And our prize is...


Exit! It's a White magic spell that... well, why don't I show you?


This Battlefield is Freezer Crab and Freezer Crab/Gather. You wanted to see what Exit does?


Exit, ladies and gentlemen, is an instant one-shot kill on everything it works on. It doesn't work on major enemies, such as bosses, but apart from that, it's pretty reliable.

Our prize for this Battlefield?


MRPHRPHSUCKSGRRRPH


AND NOW: THE FOCUS TOWER

Alternatively...


AND NOW: THE FOCUS TOWER

Coming Soon - Chapter 6
In which we use Exit to basically kill everyone without breaking a sweat.

Also, hey did anyone notice how Benjamin went two whole chapters without doing the stupid hand thing? MAYBE HE ACTUALLY LISTENED TO ME!

Yeah, you're showing us unimportant things, like walking four feet to the next staircase and such. Try to do less of that. Rath does a good example of this by not showing us every single room in his KH:CoM LP. I guess you just picked the wrong game, but keep going, it's fun to read... just... put less in an update =P

And I don't want to look at this thread when the forum or my internet is being slow, it would take ages to load, so we should start a discussion to get this on page 2.

This forum goes slow far more often than my internet connection does, and I'm certain my connection is just an average speed, but discussion is good, and if I'm right, the post after this one will be the last one for the first page.

And if you don't make mistakes you can't learn from them, and learning is also good. At least it isn't a massive screw-up unlike Metroixer's extra 10 minutes of nothing at the end of one of his videos...