Dark Ages – Last Island
-New stuff is stocked at the Nu vendor. Including a Scythe. WHICH NONE OF MY CURRENT CHARACTERS CAN WIELD EEEEEEEE!!!! New character incoming?
-Swapping my party around. Lucca is already working on her ultimate single tech and Marle has what seems to be an ultimate single tech in Life 2. No more are queued up for her currently. Going to go with Ayla, Robo, and Frog so that they the AP continue to work for me.
-The Guru of Time (Gaspar? I keep getting the Gurus mixed up) gave someone a sapling. We get the choice to tell her whether to burn it or plant it. I go with “plant it.”
I wonder if this’ll impact the future. Probably. Like, we’ll come back to this area in the Middle Ages and see some ginormous tree.
-A “suspicious person” is on the cape to the north. PLEASE NEW PARTY MEMBER NEW PARTY MEMBER
-The suspicious person is someone new. Hm. So not Schala or Janus.
-WAIT
HAHAHAHA
IS THIS MY NEW PARTY MEMBER???? I’m tearing up with delight right now. This is awesome.
-He claims he was a different person when he lived in Zeal. Something happened.
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Magus Flashback
-We’re getting Magus flashback.
To the Ocean Palace, when Schala and the Queen and the courtiers were revving up the Mammon Machine.
-A time portal opening.
-Janus arrives. We see the moment that the Mammon Machine becomes Lavos (or maybe it’s just a representation – not quite sure what that swirly background that always accompanies Lavos is, so I’m just assuming it’s a cool graphic).
-Time gates start opening up beneath each of the Gurus. And one beneath Schala.
-Hold on, this can’t be the Ocean Palace. Can it? I didn’t remember the Gurus being there. Maybe thisis the first Mammon Machine.
-Whew. The sound effects for Lavos are so disturbing.
-The camera then pans to each of the Gurus being dumped off at their new times. Balthasar in 2,300 AD, Melchior in 1,000 AD at the home of those poor imps, and Gaspar
HEY I WAS RIGHT ABOUT A THING! Gaspar got dumped off in the End of Time. He’s the Old Man.
-When Gaspar arrived, it was just a black void.
-Janus got dropped off in 600 AD. Is that ozzie
IS JANUS MAGUS
HAHAHAHA
YES THIS IS GREAT. Janus and his magical power got sent to the Middle Ages, where he built up a power base all with the intent of revenging himself upon Lavos for stranding him away from home. The black wind he foresaw was the time portal that was about to suck him into the future.
-So when he wanted to summon Lavos even in the Middle Ages, it wasn’t to use him to kill the humans, but rather so that he could kill Lavos?
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12,000 BC – North Cape
-Chance threw him back to his original timeline, where he got close to the queen. That had to be so weird for him, being around his younger self.
-But Magus still underestimated Lavos’s power.
-He starts insulting Crono as someone who overestimated his own abilities in the face of Lavos. We get the option to fight Magus now. Erm. Sure, why not.
-Oh boy, I was forgetting about the whole Frog-Magus relationship. This is a one-on-one fight between Frog and Magus.
-Hoping against hope that this fight ends with Frog defeating Magus and recruiting him somehow rather than killing him.
-Chaining Leap Slash. The fight starts out calmly enough, but once Magus starts throwing out magic it gets nasty.
-Victory! And Magus isn’t dead, which is a good sign.
-Magus says that defeating him breaks the curse on Frog. And that to find Crono, we should talk to Gaspar.
-Well… he died. We got an Amulet.
-I’m pretty sad. I honestly thought about going back to my last save and picking “no” for “do you want to fight me” in case that changed the outcome and got Magus as a party member, but that would go against this being an unspoiled playthrough. I’ll live with my choice. Still… boo.
-Still confused about something though: if defeating Magus breaks Frog’s curse, why is Frog still a Frog? Maybe Magus transported himself away or something.
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Overworld
-We hop into the Epoch to head to End of Time.
-…but something goes wrong. We can’t travel through time because of interference.
-Something in the middle of the ocean starts to waver and shimmer and pulse with power.
Lavos? He’s still out there after all, him and the Queen (assuming she didn’t die in his destructive power emission).
-….
-…………
-Is that the Ocean Palace? Flying?
-lol poor Ayla.
-Quick tour of overworld in the good airship Epoch. Nothing too special. The Sun Keep is still the Sun Keep, and the cave where we first arrived in this time period is still around with its Time Gate opened.
-Going to hop over to the Ocean Palace.
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Black Omen
-OH GOOD THAT NAME ISN’T OMINOUS AT ALL
-Killed some mechanical door guards and entered.
-The Queen is inside.
-The music in here is pretty great. Not sure if it’s her music or the Black Omen music.
-She predicts the world’s death. That Lavos will sleep and drain the world’s power, and in 14,000 years rule everything.
(By “rule,” I guess she means “destroy and live mostly alone.”)
-She says that the Black Omen is something that provides limitless energy, a shrine to Lavos.
-She summons a boss, Mega Mutant, and fades away laughing.
-I didn’t heal up before this fight and die horribly.
Mega Mutant lays some status effects on us and we just get wiped out.
-WTF IS WITH THIS GUY. He’s ridiculously tough, and keeps pouring out damage at hyper speed, putting out about 2-3 attacks before I can get off one.
-On top of all that, he keeps the party confused so I can’t use abilities. Robo has the Amulet which prevents statuses, but that’s about it.
-Take 3. Gonna try to focus on healing out of confused states.
-Ok, kind of raging right now.
I can put out pretty much no damage because I spend my whole time healing up and curing status.
-Attempt #5. Noticed something, that he has two parts, and the bottom part is the Chaos Zone one that causes confuse statuses. Gonna try to take that out.
I KILLED THE BOTTOM HALF HOLY LORD I KILLED THE BOTTOM HALF
It makes things waaaay easier. Now I just have to deal with Mega Mutant’s damage output, not his VICTORY!!!!
Holy lord. That was rough. Heading back to the overworld to save before going any further.
-One last note before I sign off: some of the techs I got to try this fight were amazing. Frog likes putting people in bubbles and dropping them on top of the enemy. But by far the best of the new techs, and my all-star in this fight, was Slurp Kiss.
-Ayla puts out one of her kiss/peace signs that sends a heart into the air. Frog slurps the heart up with his tongue, spins around, and sent an AURA OF AYLA KISSES HURTLING OUT TOWARDS THE GROUP.
It’s glorious. Best tech in the game, both in terms of usefulness (huge group heal and cures statuses) and spell graphics.
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Next time: deeper into the Black Omen.
