Fire Fighters

So, let's pick up right where we left off.

Defeating Maximillion Pegasus' favorite plaything opens the way to even more mine where you find the EVIL BELL. Now, since the beginning of the game, there's been a guy who has been hearing strange noises coming from his basement. Being the brave and noble swordsman that I am, I always agreed to check it out for him, but it just ended with me wasting my time.

With the Evil Bell in my possession, this was longer the case! The cacophonous call of the instrument riles up demons which have been seemingly twiddling their thumbs behind his basement walls this whole time and they come crashing through in an endless wave. Since enemies continue to spawn in the Ys series as long as their spawn-point is offscreen, the basement makes for a nice place to grind until you finally decide to muscle your way through the hole the goons have made and place the sixth and final book at its statue.

Aah!
AAAAAAAAH!

All sixth books finally being in place opens the way to Solomon Shrine, some sort of holy ground where the goons have set up shop. But, there's still quite a trek before we reach it.

The next area of our quest is a frost-covered mountain, and who doesn't love a good snow level? Slippery slopes litter the zone and are impassable until a special pair of boots are found and another puzzle involves forming a bridge out of crystallized water vapor in order to proceed. The whole "Find item X in zone Y in order to overcome obstacle Z" formula gives Book II the sort of action/adventure/RPG that I'm sure most of us are used to and makes playing through it more interesting than Book I was, especially early on.

After finding a mirror which lets you see the REAL boss door, the ice world ends with a fight against a strange, jumping braindemonguy. The boss continuously hops around the room shooting out brain-looking fireballs radially whenever he lands. He can only be damaged for the short period he stays grounded, so timing is key. Though he can be damaged by both sword and fire, fire magic is the way to go as it allows you to easily dodge the projectiles and attack him from a distance. 

Okay, maybe that's just some sort of shell and not his brain. Nevertheless, he's a weirdo.

I've started to get the feeling that fire magic dominates combat in the same way that the whip does in Super Castlevania IV does (something Egoraptor extensively talks about here). Ys's combat wasn't very deep to begin with, but I was hoping that things would get a little more interesting with the addition of magic. Unfortunately, this isn't the case as fire magic is always better against both trash and bosses alike since it's always safer, more accurate, and does just as much damage. On top of this, your mana pool may as well be limitless. I've never had mana issues or have had to use Rhoda Tree Nuts (the games equivalent to mana potions), not that you can use them while fighting a boss anyway.

One would think this changes in the next zone, the previous' exact opposite: a lava area, but this isn't the case and even fire elementals fall in seconds to the very thing they are made up of! Things even worsen when you get an item which makes your fireballs push and continuously damage enemies. Combat issues aside, this volcanic zone is similar to the ice one as you're once again faced with "find X to pass obstacle Y," yet varies from it due to the fact that there's a village to be found in this fiery wasteland. 

The boss of this area may just be the strangest of them all (so far). It's a gigantic, mobile head that can only be damaged as it vomits or swallows some sort of worm thing which chases you as well. It's a nifty boss which involves some fancy footwork as you dodge both head and worm while also positioning yourself for attacks, but fire proves, once again, to be too hot to handle and players will find that mashing the magic button as the worm retreats into his mouth proves to be the best tactic for getting him down. That being said, he does have quite a large pool of hp and the fight can become a battle of endurance, though, as mentioned before, conserving your mana is of no concern.

*insert violent vomiting noise here*

Behind the head and his parasitic pet lies another village up in the mountains just before the Shrine itself, where I currently am located. I think I'll stop here for now until next time, when I'll discuss some plot points I neglected in this post as well as my time in Solomon Shrine.