Bits & Glory

Hardened by the repeat trips to King Lassic’s quarters, our heroes are now ready for the final confrontation. Armed with the experience, gear and a magic crystal, King Lassic is sure to fall.

The dungeon of Lassic’s quarters is surprisingly very easy to traverse. With it being nearly impossible to get lost, it’s really just a test of will & fortitude. Do I fight or do I retreat? Alis and company must make their choices wisely for their greatest foe lie ahead. After a brief trek, the warriors find themselves in front of the throne of the evil King Lassic. This is it. This is the battle we’ve all been waiting for. Revenge for Alis, revenge for the solar system, peace must be bestowed back upon the planets!

The name of the game is simple, folks. Shoot FIRE with Alis, attack & heal with Myau, attack with Odin, and use WIND with Noah. Admittedly, I had made a boo-boo! I sold Odin’s most powerful gun before the Baya Malay tower which was a huge mistake. As you could expect, someone such as King Lassic has excellent evasion skills. The only way to guarantee a hit? Magic & the gun. Damn.

 

Having two very rough & tumble battles with the King proves to be quite the feat, but not an insurmountable one. Lassic is dead. The people are free once again! After failing due to running out of magic and missing tons of attacks in the first bout, the rematch goes much, much smoother. Although losing both Odin & Noah to Lassic’s blows, Alis & Myau survive and are able to retreat back to the nearest church to revive and rest our heroes. The final destination is to set course back to the governor to report that Lassic’s evil reign is no more.

FUNNY STUFF, RIGHT? YOU THOUGHT IT WAS OVER?! Nope. The governor’s palace has now transformed into a fallen-floor-dungeon and the crew must work their way back up to the top, or never live to tell the tale of the slaying of King Lassic.

Corridors filled with Red Dragons, Giants, Mammoths, Magicians and Androids, this is one of the heaviest-hitting dungeons of the entire game. Luckily, our crew has their running shoes on and are able to retreat from battle without much resistance – heading on towards the the top of the palace.

Alis holds the magic lamp up to the wall revealing what appears to be the final magic door. This SURELY has to be the end of the journey. Unsealing the magic door, our heroes step inside a room filled with darkness. Remember that nightmare that we had earlier in the game? Well, that’s now a reality.

The gigantic, blue, jacked DARKFALZ lies ahead of us. The TRUE evil of the solar system. DARKFALZ has no health bar, hits like a truck and it’s really up to RNG to survive. Still kicking myself for selling Odin’s gun, the crew continues on with their Lassic strategy for DARKFALZ. Ugh… not so easy. DARKFALZ vanquishes our party THRICE. But, ya know, what? What else can we do but try again?

DARKFALZ is taking a beating from the FIRE, WIND and attacks… but with it comes a price. First it was Noah breathing her final breath. Then Odin followed suit grasping towards the heavens. Even our precious flying kitty Myau was at the last of his 9 lives. It all came down to this. Alis, on her last breath of life, thrusts her sword forward gallantly towards the menacing blue-meanie. It connects. Unbelievable! To jump out of character, I was at my wits end with this fight and the fact that I was literally able to kill DARKFALZ with 2 HP left is ASTOUNDING! Fights are so tense when you cannot see the final bosses HP. I could only help but think how things would have been if Odin just had his gun & I had the Magic Key. Oh well, let bygones be bygones!

Lassic is dead. DARKFALZ is defeated. We find out that DARKFALZ was actually the governor transformed by Lassic in a last ditch effort of terror before he perished. But that’s not even the biggest news! The governor tells us that Alis’ father was the former king of Algol and it is our birthright to claim the throne. Surely, we’re not going to decline such an honor.

The journey is over. Alis avenged her brother. Saved the solar system. Continued on with her birthright and ascended to the throne. Evil shall rule no more. Hail to our heroes!

 

After wrapping up our duties on the ice planet of Dezoris, it’s time to set course back to Palma. The only area of the worlds not yet explored, held off behind a magic sealed door Northeast of Alis’ hometown.

We enter a passageway and are shortly greeted by a Robotcop asking for our road pass. Unfortunately, I show him one that he doesn’t like and he throws us in jail… yeah, that’s gonna be a reset from me, dawg! Take 2! We return, slap the Robotcop in his mouth and continue on towards a second magic door. Damn, they’re really trying to drain Noah’s MP here, huh? Mini spoiler alert: Apparently there was a Magic Key in the Baya Malay Tower (my next destination). I missed it. Oops. This could have saved some MP for Noah and potentially shot off an extra WIND spell or two at the final bosses. Luckily, our crew DID find something useful…

Early in our exploration of the Baya Malay Tower we encounter this weird old dude who asks us a series of questions. As luck would have it, I guessed every single answer correctly! Apparently if you guess wrong, you just have to try again, but not me! He rewards us with a Magic Crystal which has the ability to protect us from magic that Lassic can project upon us.

The crew heads back to town, heals up, buys more burgers, pops into the church for a free warp back point and is now ready for the final exploration of the Baya Malay Tower.

A perilous endeavor filled with door after door, turn after turn and enemy after enemy. The golden sheen of the dungeon is almost blinding. No matter how exhausting the journey has become, there is no turning back now. Bruised and beaten, our warriors reach the very end of the tower. Sooooo… what now? There’s just an empty sky and nothing else. Welp, time to look into that item bag! OH YEAH! That Aero Prism. That thing I had no idea what we were using it for? Let’s try that. Low and behold it summons a sky palace which our heroes have heard of in townsfolk lore. Only problem? It’s in the friggen’ sky and we don’t have a ship here!

Some quick thinking leads us back to the Laerma Nut that Myau wasn’t hungry for earlier. Maybe NOW is the time to feast? Oh yes. Yes indeed. Myau devours the Laerma Nut and unleashes his true form! A winged kitty, honestly the creature of my dreams! Let’s set flight to the tower!

Not so fast. Our warriors are intercepted by a Gold Dragon who proves to be quite the foe. Punishing attacks coupled with a healing spell drain not only our will and patience, but also our MP. Banishing the Gold Dragon to the NetherRealm came with a price… we have no healing items, next to no MP, and the sky palace has no stores or healing houses in sight. Are you FRIGGEN kidding me?! Yep. I have to retreat and do Baya Malay… all… over… again. !hangin

Long story short, we do it again and re-approach the doors of Lassic’s hideout. The final confrontation is upon us. Go big like Myau did, or go home. Find out what happens in our showdown in my next journal entry!

Before embarking to the ice planet of Dezoris, the gang decided that it was time to slay Medusa once and for all. After previously turning our boy Odin into stone, now armed with the Mirror Shield, Medusa won’t be turning anyone into stone anymore!

The trek to Medusa wasn’t as perilous as you would expect, however the path to the foe was filled with glorious music and excellent looking enemies (which you will see off to the sides of this post). Medusa, with the Mirror Shield, proves to be a bit of a pushover. I have to imagine without it, you either get instakilled or she just wrecks your party with magic. Upon landing the killing blow, Medusa relinquishes the Laconian Axe (the final upgraded weapon for Odin). With Axe in hand, it’s time to head back to the private spaceport to set course to the ice world of Dezoris.

An aesthetically pleasing planet, Dezoris is home to lots of ice, snow, caves and apparently liars! We learned earlier in the game that some Dezorians (who are definitely of an alien origin) tend to obscure the truth. We encounter this in both dungeons & towns alike. Nevertheless, there’s LOTS to explore!

Aside from resting & loading up at the towns, our party ventures forth through a myriad of short dungeons/caves. Side note: One thing that I’m noticing is that the dungeons appear to be getting easier and easier to navigate. By FAR the most difficult dungeons of the game existed on Motavia and parts of Palma. Many more twists, turns, and holes/warps to contend with. In comparison, Dezoris is way more straight forward with only a few meaningless sidetracks and traps to contend with.

Our first stop is the Guaron Fort to the west side of Dezoris. As mentioned, the fort isn’t as perilous as you would expect. A relatively straight forward shot to the Laconian Armor for Odin, with only 1 disarmed trap from Myau to speak of! Setting back towards the East side of Dezoris, we see another dungeon which connects us to another town that’s not connected to the Spaceport. The main thing to note here is that the second-hand shop features the famed Ice Digger which allows us to traverse faster and dig through some icy areas revealing hidden paths. The downside? Holy crap, it’s expensive! I saddled up my grind horse and chipped away for about an hour to meet the hefty 12,000 Mesetas price tag. Thankfully, it wasn’t too painful and now we can start drilling!

As we bump and grind into the ice walls, eventually towards the Southwest we are able to start utilizing the Ice Digger! We stumble upon a dungeon previously shrouded by ice shards. Keeping with the theme, the dungeon itself is very straight forward, short and features many cool enemies. At the end of we encounter a Titan, who looks like the poster child for late 90s WWF steroids! Proving to not be too much of an obstacle, he is slain and we now have the Aero Prism! Awesome! … I have no friggen idea what this is. Anywho!

Only 2 more areas left to explore! A tower to the west (named appropriately for the times, the Corona Tower) and the Laerma Tree which we learn is to the South. Good thing I went to the tower first! This tower/dungeon proves to be the most confusing of the bunch on Dezoris. Armed with lots of pitfalls/warps on the main floor & a lying Dezorian at the start, lots of flute playing, escaping and restarting is in order. Luckily, after the second floor, the warps cease to exist! At the end of our trek we find someone who wants the Amber Eye which we retrieved a bit earlier from a dragon. Ugh, hopefully this person is trustworthy we hand it over. In exchange for the Amber Eye we receive a Torch. Now what? You guessed it! Play dat flute and look for dat Laerma Tree.

After some brief searching towards the East side of Dezoris we encounter a peculiar looking spot that seems ripe for the Ice Digger! We drill Southward and eventually find ourselves shrouded by forest with a semi-straight path towards an isolated tree. Looks like Laerma is back on the menu boys! As mentioned earlier, it’s a great thing we grabbed that torch because the tree was frozen solid. After applying the torch to the tree as if I was in Shadowgate, the tree melts, a Laerma nut drops and fits securely into my Laconian Pot that I received from Dr. Mad a ways back. I have prior knowledge that this nut has something to do with ascending Myau to the next level, so to speak, but nothing seems to be working yet. In fact, the game flat out tells me that Myau isn’t hungry. Picky ass cat.

That wraps up the ENTIRE Ice Planet of Dezoris. Tons of dungeons, not necessarily the hardest in the game, lots of cool enemies, ice digging, backtracking to towns/dungeons to heal and we are seemingly now on a crash course for King Lassic. The squad gathers up and flies back to Alis’ home planet of Palma, rests, reevaluates and is now ready to head forth to just about the only area where we have not gone… the Northeast sector of Palma which likely beholds the “end game” for our brave heroes.