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[R^2]

While the Lord of Pandaemonium knows Starfall 10, the Lord of Arubboth knows Starfall 16.


But he still takes several turns to cast it (seriously it takes forever), so I had a couple of turns to get Shell spread over my party. I mean, it's easy to predict the final boss of the bonus dungeon is going to hit you with powerful magic. I'm pretty sure Shell was the first thing I cast.


Problem is, see, that the Lord of Arubboth's Defense stat is above and beyond that of the other bosses in the bonus dungeon. All that melee output I showed earlier is reduced to double-digits. Ricard does dick all with his Wyvern Lance and maybe 50 damage with the Holy Lance, for instance.

Which is why I said it would have been nice to know the Wild Rose can cast Berserk 16 on the party.

Gordon, with 99 Intelligence and Flare at level 6, can't break through the Emperor's magic defense any better than he could damage the guy with his sword. So in the Ultima-te contrivance, Minwu becomes my damage-dealer.






Just imagine how long this would have taken if I hadn't hacked Ultima up to a useable level. At least it got cast this time. It wasn't even worth Guy's time to read the tome.

[R^2]

Emperor: Your bloody legacy... of war and violence will not... end here!

Well, no. But yours will.





Meanwhile, a few miles away...

[R^2]

Hilda: It was a long struggle.. But with the emperor gone, we've nothing left to fear. Thank you. With all my heart, I thank you.




Gordon: Together, Princess, we will create a kingdom even fairer than the old. Though once a coward, I now stand here a new man. I have all of you to thank for that. You have my deepest gratitude. I'm sure Scott is smiling down on me from above.




Paul and Leila say the same things about how he's out of a job and how Firion would make a fine Dread Pirate Roberts, so I'm skipping that part.


Nelly: I'm going to be working here, serving the princess. I just wanna do whatever I can to help out!




Elina: Kain will never grow up to be a good dragoon if we're always running from our past.
Kain: I"m not running from nothin'! I've got my own wyvern, and I'm gonna be the best dragoon ever!




Hilda: Farewell. Words cannot express my gratitude to you all.






The ghosts of the bonus-dungeon party don't interject in the next part, where Leon goes off to atone for all his war crimes.


Oh, I stand corrected. Once Leon says "For us, there can be no going back", Minwu lets one rip. Way to ruin a dramatic moment, Minwu. Do ghosts even eat? Are you passing ectoplasm?




Josef: This is their time, now.
Scott: Do you think they're up to it, Minwu?
Minwu: I believe they are. If anyone can change our legacy of violence, they can.


And the ghostly party fades from view, to their eternal reward.

[R^2]

The other Emperor... Arubboth...














...and that another band of slightly older heroes died to help them do it, then said older band also saved the afterlife.




For real this time!

[R^2]

Postgame:




The Lord of Arubboth's Bestiary entry. One 80% chance to avoid a hit isn't anything special, but a base defense of 220? That's just nuts.

With his elemental absorbs, if you try to Toad or Teleport him, he'd get HP back. I wonder if it's possible to get Dispel up to a high enough level that it'd work to remove that immunity...

I mean it's always going to be implausible. I'm just wondering if it's possible.

[Classic]

Wow. Just reading your summary made the bonus dungeon feel like an interminable, cruel slog. Good job.

[Thad]

They all seem to be.

I never finished the Dragon Cave in FF6 because (1) it provided absolutely no fucking magic growth and (2) it had no save points.

In CT I got through the Reptite bonus area but considering it was a fucking awful repetetive mess of climbing up and down the same fucking mountain over and over again and fighting the same fucking unavoidable monsters every time, I never got around to the other one.

The FF6 one really kinda almost worked; if not for the two defects I mentioned it would have been a perfectly reasonable challenge map.  (Maybe on this playthrough, with savestates.  But that still doesn't solve the problem of no magic growth.)  The CT one, on the other hand, was made by people who had no functional fucking understanding of how and why CT works as a video game.  Let's take all the strengths of the repeated environments and nonrandom encounter system and strip them right the fuck out so that you're just doing the same tedious shit over and over again.

I remember the FF4A Ultimate Weapon dungeons actually being pretty freakin' sweet and making sensible use of the respective characters' battle mechanics.  Never played the postgame on that one, though.