Emptyeye

In the end, I proceeded from a faulty train of logic. Forgetting that Maya was actually Layan (And thus Ayn was a hybrid Orakian/Layan), I decided that I wanted to keep the bloodline as Orakian as possible, and elected to marry Sari.

Sari quickly put Ayn in his place, telling him “No more adventuring!”

Wow.

With that, I began the third generation. Ayn and Sari produced a nearly blond-haired offspring, Crys. The story so far: For twenty years after the end of the second generation, Ayn and Sari defended Landen from the cyborgs. But now Siren is back, and he’s pissed. Like “Hurl the Planet Into the Sun” pissed. This mad-scientist-in-a-bad-50s-sci-fi movie plot is made more plausible by the fact that the planet is not a planet at all. And cheesy or not, I wouldn’t like it if the Earth were suddenly hurtled toward the Sun either, so I took up the quest to prevent this catastrophe.

Finding myself back in Landen, I assessed the situation. Wren and Mieu, my faithful cyborg companions, were once again with me, both at Level 39 and with the equipment they had at the end of Ayn’s quest. Crys began at Level 1, with 145HP and 72MP, slightly stronger than Ayn. However, he needed close to 13000XP to reach Level 2, and worse, he no longer had his father’s healing magic. Doh! He did retain his father’s equipment (And possibly even some slightly better equipment–I didn’t remember giving Ayn Laconian Armor, but Crys had a Laconian Chest and Helmet), as well as any items I’d need to gain access to various places.

Plot-wise, I found out that besides the primary Siren threat, Lune was amassing a cyborg army to the west. I still don’t know who this “Lune” character is, other than he is apparently bad news. Armed with this information, it was time to explore the world.

The third generation’s world is different in that I could now access the half of Landen that was closed off to me before. Exploring, I found a deserted, bombed out castle, with no explanation as to how it got that way. Creepy stuff, so close to my homeland. More exploration yielded a cave that would take me to the next continent. This was a long dungeon, and in truth, I didn’t fully explore it. The fact that I lack a reliable method of healing everyone in the party made this a fair challenge, especially once I emerged from the dungeon, looking desperately for a town with no real clue about where to find one. A trek to the east yielded nothing, but finally, near the continent’s center, I came upon a town called Northern Divisia. And yes, there’s a Southern Divisia, but I haven’t gone there yet, electing to save and quit here. Apparently, a pilot awaits me there.

-EE

In the previous chapter, I noted that Lyle revealed he could change into a dragon and then he died (This grammar, by the way, is not much worse than what the game actually said.). I feel like this should somehow have had more time spent on it, since it was a pretty important plot point from the first generation and all. This was also the first time I really regretted the relative linearity of the game. Lyle, before he died, begged me not to tell Rhys of this revelation–but it’s not like the game left me much choice other than to keep it a secret, since I was trapped on the island Techna was located on. The only way to go was forward.

Doing that involved going through the castle to Sattelite (Despite what I may have written earlier, this is how the game actually spells the place I’m looking for)–a place that, despite the tales, was very much not peaceful. The totality of the dungeon was actually quite long. First, I had the passage to Sattelite proper. Near the end, I was told that the Power Topaz proved my worthiness, and to continue on to learn the truth about my world.

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t a “world” at all, but a giant spaceship! I’ll admit, I found this pretty cool. Sattelite, or Azura, was a similar ship. Once I got there, though, there was still Sattelite itself to traverse, plus a second dungeon beneath it. This wasn’t particularly difficult, thanks to my being ludicrously overleveled. Still, the sheer length of a dungeon with no way to recover fully did make me a bit nervous–and the multiple passages, only one of which was correct, didn’t help. This was actually the first time I didn’t make a complete map of every path, because it was that confusing. Nonetheless, I eventually found Siren, a pissed off cyborg who was aligned with Orakio before being forced onto Sattelite by Laya. And he was the toughest challenge to date, reducing my party’s damage to under 50 per attack (When I had been doing several hundred per attack on average). Fortunately, Wren played the hero, doing as much damage as he always did (About 130 per attack) thanks to his Pulse Cannon. Siren was soon defeated, and thus ended Generation Two.

When I got Sari into the party, I had considered the fact that I may be near the end of this generation, and wondered how they were going to tie the marriage part into the plot. As it turned out, they didn’t really try. I was told that “Two women express interest in marrying Ayn”. And wouldn’t you know it, it was the two human women in my party that wanted Ayn’s hand in marriage! Here, I realized that the developers probably came up with the “Three Generations!” concept early on, and didn’t bother to try to make the transitions flow cohesively at all. Really, there was only a slight reason for Thea, Lyle’s daughter, to want to marry Ayn (In true old-school RPG style, saving someone from a dungeon means they must fall in love with you. See: The original Dragon Warrior/Quest). And there was, frankly, no reason at all for Sari (Lena’s daughter whom, you’ll recall, tried to kill me in combat before joining my party) to want to do so.

Still, I had to make a choice to get on with the final third of the game. Who did I choose?

…find out next time.

-EE

I have a number of gaming related things going on, and to actually do them all is going to require that I don’t spend hours watching streams. Let’s go over them all.

On the speedrunning front, I have to finish up Golgo-13: Top Secret Episode. Hopefully I can get that tonight when I stream my own play. After that, sometime in the future will be the sequel, Golgo-13: The Mafat Conspiracy. But again, that’s in the future.

Before that, I have to stream the winner of my poll. Currently, Ninja Gaiden II 360 holds a slim lead, presumably because people want me to suffer. Once I finish whatever game wins, I have another project I want to stream.

On the non-streaming front, I’m still working through Phantasy Star III (Watch for another installment in The Phantasy Star III Chronicles late tomorrow). Also, in late July, I’ll be taking part in The Speed Gamers Community‘s Final Fantasy marathon, playing through the Dawn of Souls version of the very first game in the series. Currently, I’m scheduled to lead off the entire marathon, although that’s subject to change. Additionally, I signed up for The Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, a challenge playthrough of Final Fantasy V, where you can only use some combination of the jobs given to you by Gilgabot, and people can pledge money to the Child’s Play Charity. While I was a bit old for the target audience, so to speak, when I was in the hospital, the idea of giving kids in the hospital a distraction from whatever treatment they’re going through is something that appeals to me.

Finally, I want to get back into the development of Hysterium, the game I mention in passing in this post (And several other times on the site). For now, I’m going to scale it way down, and basically turn the first quest into the game. I’ll then expand it at a later date.

So yes, busy busy. I’ll try to periodically update on the non-Phantasy Star III stuff as I make progress.

-EE

After entirely too long, I’ve resumed my playing of the third Phantasy Star game!

Being back on the first continent in the game, I wandered through a bunch of deserted villages, until coming upon the dungeon I escaped from way back at the game’s start. Within the confines of the dungeon, I came across Sari, Lena’s daughter. She had the Power Topaz…but wasn’t about to let me take it without a fight. Fortunately, I came prepared for this, and Sari and her army of robots fell quickly. After that, she, naturally, joined my party.

Sari has a huge amount of HP, 206. Her equipment at the onset was okay–mostly steel stuff–and she starts at level 1 with over 12000 EXP needed to get to level 2. Putting a Force Knife in her other hand made her a force (No pun intended) to be reckoned with.

At this point, I had a bit of an issue. I had the Power Topaz…and I had completely forgotten what to do with it since it had been so long since I last played the game. Making my way to Aridia, the pieces slowly began to come together. Making my way to the fourth continent and going down the Cape Dragon’s Spine–something I tried multiple times before, revealed a dragon that took me to Techna.

The game actually threw me something unexpected storyline-wise here, for possibly the first time. It turns out that, while I guessed Lyle was Layan, I did not guess that he could turn into a dragon–nor did I guess that he was the one who actually kidnapped Maia way back at the start of the game. I then was greeted with a bit more early-localization-effort translation, being told that “Lyle bid farewell to Lena and then he died.” Sure, game, sure.

Actually going into Techna, I found that it was an Orakian faction town, and that the cyborgs had taken over the castle. After purchasing a set of Laconian weapons for everyone who could use them (And a Pulse Cannon for Wren), I learned that the castle’s dungeon would take me to Satellite…and that Satellite was a place called Azura. I suppose this is supposed to be significant in some way. Either way, I feel like I’m close to the end of the second generation, but we’ll see.

-EE

Not much has happened since my last entry. Having successfully discovered the cave that allowed me to progress, I went through it, and discovered something that previous dungeons lacked: new equipment! Primarily, a Force Sword with enough power (I can do close to 500 damage on particularly weak enemies) that it made me abandon the dual-Royal Needler strategy, since the rest of my party has enough power that it doesn’t really matter. I also obtained a Force Claw for Mieu, which made her even stronger as well.

Exploring the rest of the cave and re-emerging on the other side, I found I was on the other side of a cave that was previous blocked in the first generation, and I ended up back in a village in the first generation. Next time, I’ll explore a little more, and try to find Lena’s daughter.

-EE

At last! Pandemonium Progress!

This update actually covers two sessions of me wandering around looking for what the heck to do next. At the end of the first session, I was actually closer to my goal than I had realized, having stopped at the cyborg town in Aridia. Yet I went back to the fourth continent to try and see if I could get to Techna, which I still couldn’t despite wandering all around and trying to get a land bridge to appear a la the end of the first generation.

At this point, I should point out that poking around Phantasy Star.Net spoiled the fact that Landen wasn’t just a town, but a continent. Looking at my Monitor, there were no other new continents available that I hadn’t been to.

Then I realized that there was about half of the very first continent that I couldn’t access in the first generation, and since my path to said continent was still blocked by a lackey of Lune, that meant there had to be a second cave to get there. Sure enough, wandering around Aridia some more revealed, to the north, what was probably the one cave on the continent I hadn’t been to, and I can at last make some progress. The enemies in said cave are a bit stronger, but nothing I can’t handle thanks in part to dual Royal Needlers (And in part to my probably being really overleveled because of my wandering to this point). Also, I bought a Cannon for Wren, which helps his damage output slightly.

Next time, I’ll report on what’s on the other side of the cave.

-EE

As with Part Ten, I am currently, if not “stuck” per se, in “wander around the world I’ve uncovered so far, trying to find a cave that will let me in” mode.

My attempt to get to Techna was foiled by the fact that the bridge that was supposed to be there when I went down the Cape Dragon’s Spine…simply wasn’t there. What this meant was that I was effectively being railroaded into doing what the game wanted me to do. This, in itself, isn’t a bad thing–games as new as Final Fantasy XIII have mostly linear plots in that regard (Even the highly-beloved Final Fantasy VI doesn’t really open up until the second half of the game, and when it does open up, I’d argue, it literally loses the plot [SDA administrator Breakdown noted this in a tongue-in-cheek manner during Classic Games Done Quick, noting "By the time I got to Kefka's Tower, I had forgotten why I was supposed to want to kill him."].).

My main issue in this case is the fact that, possibly due to my not paying attention, I don’t really know where Landel is (No hints please). Bringing Thea (Who continued to gain levels at an alarming rate until about level 23; Ayn, by comparison, is at level 19, while Wren and Mieu are in the low 30s.) back to Lyle just earned me some accolades, a “Use the TwinsRuby”, and no more direction as to where Landel actually was. As I said, this is going to involve a lot of wandering the world, auto-battling foes (Outside of the area near where Techna is, almost nothing can survive even a single Royal Needler attack; nothing I’ve encountered so far is capable of surviving two, to say nothing of the offensive power of the rest of the group. Plus, I’ve bought some new armor which, among other things, makes Thea marginally less frail than she was, although her defense still lags way behind the rest of the group’s. Fortunately, she also gets attacked very rarely.), and hoping I find the cave I need.

Wish me luck.

-EE

Double Royal Needler all the way across enemy groups! So intense!

Armed with two totally broken (For this point in the game) weapons in the form of dual-wielded Royal Needlers, plus Ayn’s companions’ weaponry, breaking into the castle was pretty easy. The hardest part was navigating the dungeon, and I even managed to get pretty lucky there once I took into account exactly what I had seen on the ground floor, plus what I presumed Phantasy Star III’s dungeon philosophy was (In short, “take the longest, most roundabout path, it will likely lead somewhere good”). In short order, I had located and rescued Lyle’s daughter, Thea (Who was decidedly not a sassy black woman like I think of when I hear the name “Thea”, but that’s another story). Thea, besides starting off incredibly weak (18HP/15TP), was the first character who could use slicers, which is a development I would have been a whole lot more excited about if I didn’t have Ayn already wrecking house. Slicers are, I’m guessing, what the English translation of Phantasy Star II called “Slashers”, basically boomerangs capable of attacking entire rows of enemies at once. Again, this would be a lot cooler if I didn’t have two stronger group-targeting weapons (To be fair, how the Royal Needler decides its groups is a bit different than how the slicers do it).

Nonetheless, Thea quickly became a bit less frail as I leveled her up from level 1 to level 14 in no time at all. One interesting thing that I noted is that I’m already doing damage equal to (In Thea and Wren’s cases) or greater than (In Ayn’s case when you factor in the group damage, plus Mieu’s individual attacks) the endgame of Phantasy Star II, and I still have at least an entire generation to go.

At this point, I’m supposed to bring Thea back to Lyle, her father. But screw that, I’m going to Techna to learn about Satellite (And see if they have any awesome new weapons) first.

-EE

Besides non-obvious paths for where to go next, another thing that old-school adventure and RPG games are known for is the triggers to advance coming down to “talk to a random person in a town”. In this case, coming to the new, nearly deserted village (Except for some new weaponry), the gate to the castle was closed. I also learned about an island called Techna, where I could learn about Satellite (Much like the Save Maia quest, this seems to be the second generation’s “Oh yeah THAT’S my overarching goal….” quest.). Walking across this new land to another village (With more new weapons, making me feel kind of stupid that I had bought more weapons at the previous town), I learned that in the village I had come from, a girl was being held in the castle against her will.

Wait a second.

I also talked to a guy who said he had opened the castle doors, but couldn’t save the princess.

Hey, remember that castle with the close gate?

Yep, it was open, but I only did a little bit of exploring before returning to Hazetak. This was where I bought the Royal Needler for a stupid amount of money (Seriously, I don’t think Sega expected you to be able to afford it at this juncture). Now, the Royal Needler does about 100 damage on enemies, can hit groups…and, unlike swords, is a one-handed weapon.

Naturally, this meant it was time to purchase a second one. Ayn can now wreck pretty much everything single-handedly, and with the new weapons that Mieu (Two Ceramic Claws, if I recall correctly) and Wren (A Laconia Shot..interesting that Laconia was the legendary metal in the original Phantasy Star, and here I’m getting equipment made from it in Generation Two out of three), wield, they can clean up what Ayn can’t finish off on his own.

Something that I finally found in the passage to the fourth area (Where the two new villages were) was some new equipment, and more specifically, some new armor. I did find a Laser Shot as well, but that was quickly obsoleted by the Laconia Shot I bought on the other side. I’ve barely bothered upgrading armor, preferring instead to upgrade my weapons and take a “Either enemies will die in one round or I’ll die in 3″ approach to combat. With 2 Royal Needlers, somehow I think I’ll be okay.

-EE

I’m making progress again!

One thing about old RPGs of all sorts is that the method for advancement can range from “not obvious” to “outright counter-intuitive”. The first Lufia, for instance, has a point where you have to backtrack to a village you have no real reason to backtrack to, and I can’t remember if the game ever informs you of this fact.

How does this relate to Phantasy Star III? Well, I knew that the villagers had retreated “far to the west”, which sent me to a cave immediately to the left of where I acquired Wren in the first generation. Sadly, I couldn’t get in there, and trying to explore the rest of Aridia netted me no further progress. Going all the way back to the beginning of the game was not an option, as someone acting on the orders of someone named “Lune” blocked my way. Finally, out of options, I went back into the cave I had acquired Wren in…where a person told me my family was waiting for me.

Brilliant.

Navigating my way back through the maze (How did my family, who ran from the cyborgs, survive this enemy-infested cave? And make no mistake, there were a multitude of enemies in said cave.) and talking to Lyle, I learned his daughter was kidnapped and taken to the east. More exploration revealed a cave near the east that I hadn’t explored, and the Dragon Tear I got from Lyle let me into the cave. And that was as far as I got.

My wandering around for the entirety of the second generation to this point got me enough Meseta to afford a Royal Needler. Essentially, Ayn can now consistently do 100 damage to any enemy, not just defensively weak ones. And he can hit multiple enemies at a time. It’s pretty amazing, since most enemies right now don’t even have 100HP.

Next time: Hopefully, actual progress!
-EE