Sunday, November 25, 2012

Lennus II, Part 3 - The Hoodwinking of Farus


Lennus 2: Apostles of the Seals (brought to you by Magic Destiny!) rolls on, as the Great Union is upon our heroes. Is it going to be as bad as the signs are indicating? Only one thing is for sure: That nothing is for sure. It's show time, folks.


To see previous episodes of this series (as well as its predecessor, Paladin's Quest), click here.


Got a little treat for you in this installment. Here's the original box art for the Super Famicom release of this game in 1996. I've gotta say, Japanese RPGs of that era really did have superior box art to their U.S. counterparts. I imagine if this game had actually made it stateside, the box art would have ended up being something goofy.

The back of the box. As of yet I only recognize one of the four screenshots. I wonder what this says?

Now, this is embarassing. After returning to the first area of the game, I found a side-room full of free equipment. This would have made the outset of the game much easier. Not sure how I missed it the first time around, or why the game didn't just start you with said equipment on. I guess this is part of the hardcore nature of the Lennus series: it throws you to the wolves, unless you really search every nook and cranny of the starting area for loot. Even now, this room helps me substantially, as it contains the fourth Mini-Bottle that I've found. Now all four party members can heal.

 Creepy monks usher Farus along, and he compliantly follows their orders.

Farus loads the four crystals into the ancient machine, and things begin to rumble. Uh oh.

We cut to shots of worried townspeople. This is starting to remind me of the halfway point of Final Fantasy VI. Did Farus just destroy the world?

...not exactly. The various floating islands that I've been running around on simply drift towards each other and lock together, sorta like the dissolution of Pangaea in reverse.

The people are in an uproar, however, as Farus gets teleported away by a mysterious force. Didn't you folks WANT Farus to invoke the Great Union to begin with? What is going on here? And is Lennus 2 starting to devolve into silliness?

The band finds itself blasted out onto an overworld. ...it would appear that the first "world" of the game was actually the underworld of another place. Are we on Raiga's surface now?

Next thing we know, a hot chick appears. I have reason to believe that she's one of the big bads of the game. I'm confused as to where we are at this point. The previous world was called Andel, while this one is called Eltz. Are both parts of Raiga, one an underworld and one an overworld? Was Andel Raiga, and Eltz is another moon of Lennus entirely?

Efrem has a lot of personality. She explains (while our heroes lay around bleeding to death) that what we did wasn't the Real Great Union. Or something. It looked like a pretty big event to me. This plot is losing me a bit. Farus' motivations are shrouded in mystery, since he doesn't speak and seems to just follow the orders of whoever talks to him. It seems like he got manipulated into causing great damage to Andel, in any case.

Sir Granada? The first rumblings are heard of the infamous main villain of Lennus 2. Who is Granada, and what are they trying to accomplish? We will see.

A new overworld? It's good to see water. If I keep operating under the assumption that these are different parts of Raiga, then this is what Raiga's surface really looks like. As I discerned earlier, the previous "overworld" was actually a weird abyssal netherworld on the inside of Raiga. That's what I'm operating under from here on out. At some point, we're bound to end up on Lennus, too. This game is starting to get interesting.

Farus is on his own at this point, at least until I can find a town. Efrem was nice enough to leave my other three characters petrified before she spirited away. Why didn't she just finish all of them off?

Farus now stumbles around solo, getting mauled by ferocious rodents. This part suuuuuucks.

I quickly find a town, and it looks like things will work out for our hero. But wait! It seems that every time Farus even looks at anyone, they turn to stone. Now Efrem sparing him makes sense: she wanted to torture him for a while with a petrification curse. So much for curing the rest of the party, now I have to cure an entire town.

A rare moment of Farus speaking, as he finally questions what the hell is going on in this story. Moments after this picture was taken, the game world imploded.

After traversing a dungeon (by himself...argh), Farus runs into Efrem. She promptly calls him a 'Ho, and the battle begins!

Efrem would be one of the sexiest bosses of the 90's if it weren't for her weird hair and...

...JESUS CHRIST SHE TURNS INTO A SERPENT

Aw yeah, shake it you bad, bad girl

OH MY GOD BALLS OF LIGHTNING EVERYBODY GET DOWN

Farus...wins. Eventually. That was one of the longest boss fights I've ever had. Farus whittled her down with his meager attacks. I was sure that it was a fight I was supposed to lose, but then it just kept going...and going, until Efrem expired. Surprising. Seemed like she was going to be a major player in this game, and yet she's already slain.

With Efrem dead, there's nothing stopping Farus from stepping into the nearby Purification Shrine, curing the party of their petrification. It also cures Farus of his curse, and, apparently, lifts the curse from everyone he stoned in the town. Glad that nightmarish scenario is over. It kinda reminds me of when Dana and The Little Guy get petrified in dog form at the end of Ghostbusters.

I really admire the New York skyline back there.

Zock loses cool points by saying "Gosh" as he emerges from his suspended state.

Continuing on, our heroes find themselves in the mega-metropolis (for this game) of Gloucester. Interesting name, given that most of the names in the Lennus-verse are decidedly alien. Big city or not, this place is overgrown with large root structures. It reminds me vaguely of the Earthbound Village in Chrono Trigger.

Our hero soon gets an armed guard escort to the palace, where he encounters...

...the guy who has been trying to make contact with him all this time. "Damn Sprint mobile!" says Petro while throwing his phone on the ground.

Petro lays it all down. Basically, Farus done fucked up.

The villain of the game makes an appearance, floating in a small room in the middle of a void somewhere. So far, he's no Zaygos. If he wants to be the new super-villain terrorizing the populace of Lennus, he'll need to be able to form sentences more reliably.

Petro lays down the big quest of the game. It seems finding the four crystals was just the first stage of the game. The seven seals will take a bit longer. The crystals were at the end of their own dungeons, out in the open. The seals, on the other hand, are all over the place. If one is in a dungeon, it isn't the "goal-point" of the dungeon, but rather hidden in some out-of-the-way spot. If I'm right, this means seals are missable as you progress in the game, so one must keep a sharp eye out for them.

Gloucester is full of ruffians and scoundrels. This guy tries to charge our heroes 50,000 gold for a Green Card. When he's declined, he lowers his price until he's practically begging them to take it for 5,000. Naturally, it's a scam. A nearby NPC laments about spending his life savings on a fake Green Card, confirming any suspicions the player may have had.

Golt Gabana? And the game continues the tradition of telling you how scary the next location is.

The mines contain a relatively short maze of mine cart tracks. The point here is to recover the glasses of the one guy who can make real Green Cards, so that Farus can travel to other parts of Gloucester. Yep, it's pretty weird. Gloucester is a pretty huge part of the game, and this is just the beginning of it.

In a side room of the mines, our hero unceremoniously finds the first of the Seals. Yep, that seemed pretty missable. At least they're numbered, so if I suddenly find the Fourth Seal after this I'll know I missed two. Probably. I wonder if this Seal hunt is all a trick, like the crystal hunt was? Come to think of it, in Paladin's Quest, Chezni was similarly tricked into unleashing a cataclysm. If these were Persona games, the main characters would totally be the Fool Arcana.

Something else that seems important is found here. Not sure what this is for, but I get the feeling it's part of a collection. Is there a sidequest to start a band, or something? Because if so, Farus doesn't need a band to get Poon.

But first, here's the first High Bottle (or as PQ calls them, "HighBl") of the game. Least that I've found. This is a huge upgrade, to say the least, and makes whoever equips it into the group's emergency healer for now.

Here's Darul, the boss here. An ancient evil dwelling in a mine reminds me of some of the uber-bosses in Wild Arms 2, all of which seemed to be in mines.

What the hell is this guy? He looks like some sort of goggle-sporting mega-rat in a purple Pope outfit. In any case, one forgettable boss fight later and we get the stolen glasses. Back to the metropolis!

Gond Braf (no relation to Zach Braff, of Scrubs fame) is one of the new mercs available here. As much as I'd like to start replacing the weird-ass early game mercs... well, this guy is even more weird-ass, with his half-reptile body. I'll have to pass. Also, never lead with your weakness, man. That's no way to sell yourself to a prospective employer. It's like going to a job interview at a strip club and telling them that taking clothes off isn't your strong point.

Returning the glasses to the Green Card guy nets our heroes a Green Card. Now they can travel around Gloucester with impunity. He also wants Farus to take his daughter, and gives up a bromide of her.

Hubba hubba

Continuing on, Farus must show his penis in order to gain passage to the western upscale parts of the city.

The main reason I'm here? To recruit some new characters. Not only are they huge upgrades, they're also babes. Nikita is possibly the best fighter in the game, and she's found in... Gloucester's strip club.

Here's Aerith, of FF7 fame. Hanging out in the slums, as usual. STOP SELLING YOURSELF SHORT, AERITH!

At this point, I've got to make room for the hot newcomer. So I give Joad the boot (FINALLY). Sad music cues up as Joad is in shock at the break-up.

...luckily, I'm quick to replace Joad with the new party member in my life. Here she is. If this were Suikoden 2, the Theme of Perversion would play right about now.

Nikita strips for onlookers. Annnnd this is probably why we never got Lennus 2 in the United States.

Or maybe this is!

In the powder room, Farus takes a moment to make himself into a pretty princess.

Nikita is bursting all over the place, so our heroes have little choice but to recruit her.

Giving flowers to Nikita is the way to recruit her. She kicks enemies rather than hits them with regular weapons; once you figure that out, she wreaks havoc. She'll be one of my final party members if all goes well... so with that, my final party is 50% completed.

I wish there were a bit more character development in this game. I'd like to know Nikita's deal. As it is, these characters get about as much development as the ones in Chrono Cross.

At this point, someone else needs to go. Farus pulls Jock into his office and fires him, Mitt Romney style. The sad music cues up again and everything. Moments after this picture was taken, Zock ran away crying.

There's a nude man hanging out in the back of one of the local bars. I...I don't know what the deal is here, and maybe it's better that I don't.

Our heroes go in for a few drinks. I'll say this about Gloucester: The place is MASSIVE, definitely one of the bigger towns I've seen in a game. There are so many shops and locations to investigate.

I have Farus keep doing shots just to see what'll happen, and he blacks out.

He then wakes up behind the bar next to the naked guy. Fool Card, indeed. At least they didn't take our stuff.

In any case, I dropped Zock to recruit this high-maintenance magician. She's quite powerful, and might well be one of my final four. We'll see. If so, that means my final party is now 75% done. The problem is that she's VERY expensive to get. The equipment she asks for adds up to far more money than I have right now, and our heroes have to sell a lot of their stuff to foot the bill.

Moments after I recruited Iris, I took all of that expensive equipment and THREW IT ON THE GROUND. ...then I divided it among my destitute, half-nude other party members.

What appears to be a side-quest seems to have the reward of the next Seal. Off we go.

Farus finds the woman's missing husband quickly enough, but it seems he's got a curse that turns him into a woman sporadically. His wife is 0% lesbian, so he can't go back there until this is fixed.

Wouldn't you know it, curing him requires climbing a nearby tower and defeating a boss.

This boss is a bit difficult, but nothing my new and improved party can't handle. Nikita and Iris are both supremely useful at this point. Melina, on the other hand... ehh. By far the weak link, and she's more or less just taking up a space.

She's also a creepy stalker. For that reason... step into my office, Melina.

...MITT ROMNEY STYLE~!

At this point I head back into the previous dungeon. The first room of the dungeon has spotlights that trigger enemy encounters if they touch Farus. ...this means that you can leave the game on autopilot in this room and the party will repeatedly demolish enemies. Every couple of minutes you need to stop and heal everyone, and every ten or so times you do that you need to go back to the inn to refill bottles. But other than that, it's the best level-building spot yet BY FAR. Since my levels are a bit lacking (or at least, Farus' are), I grinded it out here for a bit.

Nikita and Iris are quite fetching. This party looks waaaaay better than my earlier party.

Grinding here doesn't just fix my level and gold woes. It also has the benefit of getting our heroes lots of stat-boosting cards of the Gold and Air varieties, as well as Middle Armors that are a significant defense upgrade for Farus (and extras can be sold for mega-bank).

Once I'd had enough of that, I went and finished up the husband-finding mission to get the Second Seal. I also recruited Myra to fill the spot left by Melina. While an upgrade to what I had, Myra is still the weak link of my current party. Need to get a rockin' fourth member ASAP. I've got a few ideas in mind from reading up on this, but none are available yet...

With Gloucester neatly wrapped up, the next mission of the game is made clear at this point. To the south is the town of Cameron, and they've been conquered by a bastardly fiend. Time to swing into action.

The Complete Lennus 2 Archive:

Part 1 - The Legend of the Nude Hero

Part 2 - Ric Flair

Part 3 - The Hoodwinking of Farus

Part 4 - Dragon, Dragon, Rock the Dragon

Part 5 - Smoky Hellscape

Part 6 - Meridian

Part 7 - E. Honda's Commie Paradise

Finale - Immortals

7 comments:

  1. I must say, now that you have non weird-ass looking party members, this game is really looking up.

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    1. Yeah, the game really picked up for me once I replaced those starter mercs with hot wimmin.

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    2. Excellent box art. Also, the Super Famicom logo is underrated. We should've used it in the States, too.
      "The Spirits' Symphony" is the headline for the back of the Lennus 2 box.
      "Since I'm a mean b-" hahahaha too bad she didn't live longer.
      "Gloucester" is a place in England. And this place is more like a normal fantasy game. Which makes it look really weird to me.
      More fetch-questing! "The last time you collected things you got the apocalypse train rolling; now collect more things."
      "He looks like some sort of goggle-sporting mega-rat in a purple Pope outfit." <--all-time great sentences
      He offered you his daughter?! I HATE those kinds of dads...
      They give you sad music when you kick out a merc? Man.
      "My body is not for sale; it's for battle!" Nikita is already infinity times better than the other characters in this game.
      "There's a nude man hanging out in the back of one of the local bars. I...I don't know what the deal is here, and maybe it's better that I don't." Once again I'm thinking of San Diego.
      It IS really cool that Gloucester is so big. An actual city.
      "Iris has lots of spirits!" So she's a bartender?
      The only merc you have left from the beginning must be looking around nervously right now.
      Turning into a woman sporadically is called a curse?! ...well, ok.
      I'm gonna have to say your party with Nikita and Iris is one of the best-looking parties I've ever seen. Must have made the game more fun.

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  2. Yo it's me, the same Anonymous as in the others comments... Heh. Hey you missed like 3 mercenaries or something... Weird Centaur Guy and another weird looking guy, glad you got back to Myra although, she's the only one that gets character development and if you beats a certain boss with her she'll leave the party but comes back better.

    anyways the optimal party IMO are the three others mercenaries you can recruit in town ( except for Nikita she's good keep her) if memory serves right there was a fat girl, a normal guy and a fat guy. They all hang around at different places but you can recruit them and they're awesome... Don't recruit the centaur and the other random guy that was in Myra's village.

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    1. Oh yeah, I almost recruited Weird Centaur Guy. He kinda freaked me out, though. For the most part I didn't do much recruiting in this game, and I wish I had. I got characters I liked and never really changed things up.

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  3. I think the character building was still better than in Chrono Cross. Fuck even in Romancing Saga 3 it was better, in Romancing Saga all the characters looked cool and you could find out more about them in their city, PLUS YOU COULD HAVE PARTIES OF 6 AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME VS CHRONO CROSS 3... NO 2... WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING? WHAT'S THE POINT OF HAVING 10000 character if you can't use any of them... Here at least in Lennus II all the character are different, have different sprites, equipments and magic.

    Hidden sex with fake green card : You can buy the 5000 one and give it to one female in the town. She'll have sex with Farus.

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    Replies
    1. Another series with tons of characters that actually gives you ROOM TO USE THEM is the Suikoden series, with groups of six (5 if the hero was mandatory) to fill up and probably 60-70 playable battle characters to choose from.

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