Laruba Ruins
-This place is a smoking waste.
-Reptites took Kino.
-Everyone blames Ayla, since they think the Reptites followed her. She feels guilty. Will she lay down and give up?
-HELL NO!! AYLA = QUEEN OF MY HEART FOREVER AND EVER AMEN
-The old man who seems to be a Laruba elder has Dactyl (prehistoric airship?). Ayla wants to ride Dactyl to the Reptite lair. She heads off.
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Dactyl Nest
-Cleared through the same rock monsters and cave apes we saw last time.
-Top of the mountain. Ayla facing off against the Dactyl, the red star blinking in the sky.
-Party reunion! We join Ayla, heading to the Tyrano Lair to help her. Screw the apocalypse, screw Lavos, screw the end of the world. Ayla’s in trouble. We’ll help. FRIENDSHIP!
-Ayla, Crono, and one more. I want to keep Lucca, but I’d prefer a heal instead. Robo it is.
-Time to fly on our three Dactyls.
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Overworld
-Time to explore a bit.
-Hm. Turns out there’s really not a whole lot to explore out here.
-The fire area directly east of us has a spiky (and fairly modern-looking, on the outside) castle. Tyrano Lair.
-Flew farther east, and there’s an island with a cave. Sun Keep. Not much inside the cave though beyond some stairs and a beam of light.
-Tried landing a few other places. No luck. Just dead space for the moment, closed off mountains and forests.
-Saved before heading into the keep, and this chapter has an interesting save file name: “Unnatural Selection?” Question mark included. Makes me think that this is something futuristic happening in the past, something futuristic that isn’t us.
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Tyrano Lair
-HOLY SHIT THIS MUSIC! It starts off like a spooky dungeon. Good enough, nice organs and all. Then about 20 seconds in or so, this drum beat jumps in and brings it to a whole new tier of awesome.
-Cavemen are held captive in here by Reptites.
-Found Kino in a cell. Trouble getting through the door, but Ayla gives zero fucks. She climbs over and through the door after slaying the Reptite jailers about to eat him.
-She wants him to escape and wait as her back-up.
-Kino accepts this. He opens the path to a deeper layer of the castle then leaves to cross his fingers that we succeed.
Quick side note: how many billions of times have I seen this scenario played out with the genders swapped? Where the dude busts in, rescues the princess, and she heads for safety wishing her hero luck against the big bad? The answer: many, many billions of times.
I love that this time, Ayla’s the hero who busts in here to save Kino and protect him and her village before heading deeper down to fight the boss.
-hahaha – there were some enemies, but we opened a trap door below them and avoided the fight. XD
-aaaand that decision came back to bite me IMMEDIATELY. We eventually fell into a pit, and landed with BOTH parties of monsters right next to us. Ruh roh.
-Found a room that randomly warps me all over. There are certain tiles that are warp tiles that I guess I have to find my way around. I don’t understand the pattern and it’s pretty annoying tbh.
-There’s one treasure in particular in the top right that I can’t reach because each path to get there is blocked off by a warp tile. Maybe I have to find a warp tile elsewhere in the room to port me nearby.
-Success. A bunch of trial and error proves that theory correct.
-Got a whole mess of new techs! Heal Beam (Robo group heal), Falcon Hit (a MASSIVE linear damaging dual teach where Ayla picks up Crono and flings him across the screen, sword first), and Rock Throw (where Ayla picks an enemy up and chucks them at other enemies LOLOL).
-Approaching the boss. Nizbel (that triceratops from before) is guarding the save point. Expected a mini boss fight, but he just waves us past to go to Azala. I guess Nizbel learned his lesson. XD XD
-Never mind. It’s “Nizbel II.” After we save, he fights us. Same basic tactics, where we keep using Volt Bite and obliterate him. Robo uses Heal Beam a couple of times to top us off.
-Another level up, and it’s Azala time.
-Dangit, Azala, stay put! There’s a massive roar, and Azala flees to another level to acquaint us with our new friend. She’s got Ozzie syndrome.
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Tyrano Lair – Top
-Ok. That’s a MASSIVE FUCKING T-REX.
-Azala looks to the red star and beckons it to fall.
-Dual boss time. Azala and Black Tyrano.
-Strategy. Do I go for Azala first or Black Tyrano? Let’s try Azala.
-She was really strong against physical attacks, and took decent damage from Lightning and Shadow. Whittled her down and got her.
-Black Tyrano remains. Hm. Taking almost no damage from anything.
-OH SHIT COUNTDOWN TIME! Black Tyrano started counting down from 5 to a massive attack, reducing her defense and storing power. Blasting away with Falcon Hit and Robo Tackle for heavy damage, but is it heavy enough?
-Not quite. She gets her attack off, a huge fire-breathing blast on all of us. But we survive, heal up, rinse and repeat. Victory soon after.
-Azala is left behind after Black Tyrano dissipates.
-She starts crawling away. She’s… sad? Not just that she feels sad, but I feel sad watching her.
She’s not just a random NPC monster – she feels she’s fighting for the survival of her species against the apes. And she just lost.
Why the hell am I feeling pity for this random evil lizard queen?
-This is a lot like watching Marle in 2,300 BC when she sees the Day of Lavos at the info center. The day her species lost. Except Azala is Marle, and we’re Lavos.
-It’s not just me feeling this. Ayla offers empathy to the fallen Azala.
-No time for that now though. The star she called fell, and Azala says it’ll soon rain fire. Sticking with my prediction from earlier, that Lavos is a Jenova-esque alien, a calamity from the sky that embedded itself now and wakes up in 65,001,999 years.
-That’s it! We now see Lavos hurtling through the stars, a fiery hedgehog on a mission of doom.
-Kino arrives with some Dactyls to help us escape this bridge. We hop on and…
God, I’m literally tearing up at this. At a monster race that’s basically the Koopas dying out.
No. Wait. That’s not it. Some monsters dying isn’t enough. What is hitting me so hard right now are two things:
1)Ayla. Seeing her falling foe, knowing she just tried to kill us, but respecting her strength and her will to fight for survival, and TRYING TO SAVE HER!!
2)Azala. Seeing this respect and appreciating it, but so caught in the depths of her species’ despair at the victory of the apes’ and Lavos’ arrival that she chooses to die here.
Yeah. One of the games in this series is making me tear up, weep, again. GAH.
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Prehistorical Overworld
-Lavos crashes to earth, landing right atop Tyrano Lair. Blast wave.
Fade to black.
-THAT SOUND EFFECT OF LAVOS ROARING THOUGH, THE CHILLS ARE REAL!!!
-So this is how Lavos came to Earth. How Lavos was born.
-The camera is very far away from the party, but we hear them talking.
-OH GOD REALLY?? Someone (I didn’t catch who) suggests that we attack Lavos now, while he’s weaker. Is it time? I don’t believe this is the final boss fight, but maybe it’s a midway fight where we first see Lavos in the flesh, up close, and take our first crack at it.
-We’re on the overworld map now. Outside a smoking crater that used to be Tyrano Lair and now houses Lavos. Saving. Nervous as all hell right now.
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Next time: Face to face with Lavos.
