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.

Ys: Book II: Part One: The Game: The Blog Post

Three bosses and countless lesser goons have fallen by my sword since my last update, so there's a bit of catching up to do during today's post. Let's begin!

As I had assumed last time based on its crisper graphics alone, Book II has proven to be a much cleaner and, overall, smoother game than it's predecessor, thanks to various changes in gameplay and additions which help in the "What the hell should I be doing?" department.

The first area of the game is a demon infested mine within which the player must return the six Books of Ys collected in Book I to the statues of their corresponding priests. It's a surprisingly long introductory zone and there's a lot to be done before you even reach the first boss, including saving a villager's lost brother, helping said brother gather materials to save another villager dying of a disease she isn't even aware of, and discovering ancient fire magic. 

It was sort of annoying seeing this so many times, especially considering the text speed is so low.

Though conveyance is much better in Book 2 than it was in the first installation, it's far from perfect. As I mentioned before, I found the MAGIC OF FIRE within the abandoned mine, but was disappointed to find that I couldn't use it right away as I had no mana! Now, there was a man in the Ruins (an overworld area of sorts outside of the village and where the entrance the the mine is) named Regs who, according to some other villagers, was proficient in magic. When spoken too, Regs asked for an item from a nearby chest guarded by two demons (or "goons" as they are often called in game). The thing was, when walked into, the two goons would take minimal damage while they took away a hefty amount of my life and also pushed me away. I figured that my only way through the guards was to poke them down from afar with fire and that the treasure they protected led me to some sort of magic-related upgrade.

Unfortunately, I had it backwards. The two demons did protect some sort of treasure for Regs, but it was what I needed in order to get mana in the first place. Not knowing this at the time, I grew frustrated with the game for a bit as I reached to first boss only to find that he could only be damaged by the fire magic I was unable to use (or, so I had correctly assumed). After scouring the Mine, Ruin, and village for some clue to the secret of mana (teehee) I returned to the indomitable duo only to find out they weren't as invincible as they were annoying to defeat. I had to kill them one at a time by repeatedly running into one, getting bounced back, waiting for my health to regen (it does that in the Ruins and villages), and then repeating the process until, after a few grueling minutes, they finally fell.

Again, my confusion and time wasted backtracking may be my own fault, but I'd like to think that there's still no excuse for the duo to be so bothersome to get around. Nevertheless, this was really my only issue and progression has been pretty smooth since then thanks to the help of a Scroll of Guidance item and and the Magic of Transformation (a form of magic which allows you to transform into a goon, though you look more like some sort of demented kangaroo) and speak to other demons who will often unknowingly help you achieve their downfall. Both these items provide the player with enough information to stay on track without simplifying things to the point that one doesn't need to think at all.

As for the first boss himself, he isn't too interesting once you have the firepower (haha!) to beat him. Looking like an enemy who lost his way from a shoot 'em up (SHMUP) game from the same era, he fires a line of easily avoidable energy balls whenever he opens his eye which, unfortunately for him, leaves him vulnerable to some nice fire magic to the face. Behind him lies some more mine where Adol finds an EVIL BELL which opens the way to the sixth and final priest statue that's hidden in some guys basement. Go figure.

Before becoming a Yugi-Oh card, Thousand-Eyes Restrict worked part-time as a video game boss.

Forgive me for tantalizing you in the beginning of the post, but I think I'm going to stop here for now. These blog posts have been encroaching into "too long" territory. I'm going to try and remedy this by updating more frequently, which shouldn't be an issue as Book II has gripped me more than its precursor had and I already have material to write about.

I'd just like to end this post with an update on Stealth Bastard. I finished the game, though I don't plan on extensively talking about it at the moment. Like I said in my last post, it's definitely a game I can see myself attempting to 100% and I've already 100%'d a few of the early sectors. It's a fun platformer with some twists as gadgets are added into the mix in the DLC levels and unlocked in the standard levels as you beat them in order to lower your run times.