Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Lennus II, Finale - Immortals

Finally, we arrive at the final post in what may be the internet's sole Lennus 2 series. Astute observers may note that this artwork is actually from Lennus 1, aka Paladin's Quest. Unfortunately, the complete lack of Lennus 2 imagery in existence means I need to borrow from the first game. When the tournament master in The Wizard boomed "A GAME YOU HAVE NEVER PLAYED BEFORE", he was talking about Super Mario Bros 3... but for 99.99% of SNES RPG fans, he might as well have been talking about this game.

If you haven't read the previous seven parts, check them out. And the nine parts of Paladin's Quest while you're at it!

What with the heroes of this game taking on Granada and all, I should have named the main character "Ronald Reagan". Haw! 80's humor! Miami Vice: #1 new show!

Next up is an odd bit where Farus inserts seals into things. I'm not sure what the seals are to begin with (I thought they were books) so this is weird. This unlocks the final area of the game. But first, I'm going to revisit The Mountain of Learning (the optional dungeon).

 I think I'll take out the seven minibosses that I was going to skip before, just for the heck of it. Game is almost over and I wouldn't mind spending more time with it. It was barely a 20 hour game for me.

Since this dungeon is elemental-themed, I was expecting the Guardians to at least be different colors. Nope, they're all puke green and identical to each other. BOOOORING.

 The first one was quite the tedious battle, but now that I'm onto them (Protip: Don't use spells) they're a lot easier.

For some reason, you collect Mini-Guardians as you walk around. They then pop up during battles and ambush you. Weird to see this when nothing like it happened anywhere else in the game, because it's a cool idea that they probably could have done more with.


For the most part, the uber-equipment in this dungeon is useless to me since I lack characters that can use them... with the exception of the couple of armor pieces and Scissor-Hands here. Pretty rad weapon, only problem is that it's two handed. I give it to Farus and he proceeds to whoop up on enemies.

See this screen? This is basically what everything looks like in this dungeon. Longest dungeon in the game, by far the most boring. The top-tier equipment here wasn't even much of an upgrade, for the most part, so I can safely say that this place is imminently skippable.

Here's something interesting, though. It's a bottle that actually damages enemies. Sorta like the Bomb Bottle in the first game. It seems to do a set 3000 damage no matter what, which isn't bad at all considering most of my characters do less than that on any given turn. Problem is that, again, it deprives a character of healing ability. Since I'm already down one due to the Combat Bottle, I pass on this one.

Another uber-weapon of note. This is a particularly potent sword, but it comes with the side-effect of having the wielder take 10-20% of the damage they inflict with every strike. Yeah, I'll pass on this too. In closing, I got some nice Scissor-Hands out of this dungeon and a couple of small armor upgrades, but that's about it. On to the finale!

Uh...okay dude. This is the kind of guy who sends tweets to Barack Obama advising him on policy, thinks Obama is actually reading them, and gets mad when he doesn't get a reply.


The Underground Super Speedway? Wait a minute...

Indeed, it's the ancient subway-missile from the first game, and it whisks our heroes through an underground tunnel to the Throne of the Immortals. Good to see this contraption in 1996-era graphics.

Here's the original game, for comparison's sake. Yeah, slight step up...

At the start of the final dungeon is the last mercenary of the game. This guy is the son of Mouth, the super merc of Paladin's Quest. Which begs the question... how did Enix translate Rich as "Mouth"?

Rich Jr. is pretty well-rounded and can use pretty much the same equipment repertoire as Farus. I thought about replacing Iris (my weak link) with him, since Nikita and Dark are playing their damage-dealing roles extremely well. Ultimately I decided to keep Iris around for utility, but if I could do it over again I'd probably have taken this guy along.

This language-deficient robot (?) has an offer we can't refuse. Except we can refuse, since that's A LOT OF MONEY. In any case, he sells Gomutai equipment, the best Helm/Boots/Shield/Armor in the game. One of each, and one at a time. Since he isn't a regular shopkeeper, you can't sell things to him either. I bought the Gomutai Helm and Boots, but couldn't afford more than that. It's likely that he also sells the Gomutai Sword, the best weapon in the game, once you get the full armor set from him. This will be one of the great mysteries of the game for me. I'd look it up in a guide if it weren't for the fact that thorough guides for this game are nearly nonexistent.

Here's Granada. He runs down the nefarious plans of the villains one more time, and it still doesn't make any sense.

There's only one thing I have to say to all of this...



Midia and Petro show up and also make little sense. With that, it's battle time, as our heroes need to take down Granada's barrier.

Petro and Midia...do not look the way I'd expect them to. Midia is now a blonde, despite having purple hair in the first game. Either way, our new allies proceed to break down Granada's barrier. This is a non-fight, as Petro and Midia do all the work.

After several bolts of lightning and explosions, Granada's barrier is shattered. Much like Zaygos in the first game, he proceeds to bulk up, and the battle begins anew.

No more Petro and Midia helping us, so this is a real battle. That said, it isn't too difficult, despite Granada's fearsome chest-mouth.

Nikita dishes out MASSIVE DAMAGE once her attack power gets buffed. She is hands-down the best character at this point.

Granada eats Iris (hee) which means that she'll take 10% of all of the damage that we inflict on Granada, as well as being taken out of the remainder of the battle. Luckily she's the least crucial character at this point.

The battle is won, but I'm sure he's got more forms in store.

Granada summons his spaceship, which eerily enough has a giant face on it.

Dun dun DUNNNNN! Finally, the big reveal we've been waiting for all game... is dropped in the middle of some dialogue here. If you blink, you miss it. So, Petro is indeed Chezni. What happened to all of his hair? Did he transplant it onto Farus' head? And is that an eye on his forehead? And where is beloved Russian shell toy Chaozu?

Midia steals ideas from Prometheus as our heroes look for a way to stop Granada.

Petro is now Chezni in dialogue. ...and nothing is ever explained in this department. So...yeah. Case closed, and stuff.

They ram their castle into Granada's ship, allowing Farus and company to get on.

Spaceship time. This is the final final area of the game, much like the floating Dal Gren ship above the Throne was the final final area of the first game. Make no mistake, the Throne of Immortals is the last major area of both games.

Here is what may be the hottest enemy in the game. ...at least, from the waist up. I don't know what the hell is going on below. This breaks the previous hotness record held by that one boss who suddenly turned into a giant snake. Because no hot female in this game can simply be a hot female. It's official, Lennus 2's creators hated women.

Stats before the final battle. Level 35 seems a bit low, but it'll have to work.

Final battle time, as Granada is hanging out in the core with a giant machine that reminds me of Sigma's final form from Mega Man X5. Which was a throwback to Gamma in Mega Man 3, and also designed by Dr. Wily, though never definitively proven. You suck, Capcom.

Farus DOES seem to cause destruction everywhere he goes.

They pulled out this whole "Granada is Farus' father/creator" card at the last minute, and I'm not too crazy about it.

The giant machine combines with Granada to form TENSHINHAN FROM HELL.

Final battle time. Granada is a four-part boss... not in the sense of having four forms, but rather in the sense of having four parts to assault. There's the giant revolver on the top left, the space-cannon in the top middle, the spell-casting thing-a-mabob on the top right, and lastly, the face. All four of these things can attack in any given turn, but luckily only two of them have attacks that are at all threatening.

He makes a lot of scary faces, but this is nothing compared to the final battle of the first game. Hell, it's nothing compared to some of the other fights in this game.

Other good news: You can hit all of his parts. This is only good news for hit-all spells like Gubo, though. It's actually not that great for something like Nikita's multi-punch, which lands on random targets rather than the one you specifically want to take out.

Names of the parts. Gotta admit, those are some pretty bad-ass names. Raiga's Wrath is probably the most threatening of the lot, while Grand Eraser is just annoying and strips a lot of your buffs.

Luckily, Farus is there to re-buff everyone with his powered-up buff spells, as I take out the parts one by one. I kept waiting for Granada to pull out some new super-attack, but he never did.

BOOOOOM! Battle (and game) over.

We get a great shot of the planet, as Farus and company presumably fall out of the exploding spaceship.

 "Don't worry, I can see their parachutes! They're okay!"

Petro's voice rings out in the...uh...blackness of space?

Wow, they're really summing up. I guess Farus had to recover from his injuries after fighting Granada.

He finally awakes to a welcoming party at his side. I have no idea who any of these people are, but cool of them to show up!

"BIG AMERICAN PARTY"?

At this point Farus lectures Iris about how there's more to life than dressing up to go to The Club and find dudes, explaining how she should set her sights higher and find someone who actually loves her. This would be sage advice for nearly every early-20's girl I know.

It wasn't already?

Farus also gives Nikita a fatherly pep talk. And with that, Team Threesome is officially dissolved.

...OR IS IT?

"KOOLOOOO....LOOMPAHHHH!

...causing mass destruction and chaos as the oceans returned to their natural state, destroying every coastal city on both planets? DAMN IT FARUS, CAN'T YOU GET ANYTHING RIGHT?

At this point, Petro gathers these three with the intent of journeying to Raiga to solve the problems there, completely setting the table for the third game that would never exist. ...wait, who is Piaz? I must have missed him at some point during the story. Maybe he's the head honcho at the Taiga Sanctuary. But yeah, this is a pretty good party heading into that third game. Oh well.
CREDITS ROLL. It's over.

The credits show a lot of characters that I never acquired during the game, since I'd generally stick to the same few characters throughout. What the heck is that thing on Farus' shoulder?
..and that's it. Did you enjoy this series? .....did anyone even read this series, considering how unknown the game is? Leave a comment below if you liked it, or even if you didn't.


12 comments:

  1. Well, since you mentioned the dearth of Walkthroughs/FAQs for this game, why don't you write one? You also mentioned that this game was rather short, so it shouldn't be too difficult for you to at least come up with a spell/item FAQ if nothing else. What do you think?

    Thanks for the reviews, by the way.

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    1. That's a good idea, but I don't really have time to write a guide for the game. A spell/item FAQ might be manageable, though. I'll definitely consider it.

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  2. I appreciate that, and I look forward to it.

    Thanks.

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  3. I'd say the game contains enough weirdassness to stand as a worthy follow-up to the original.

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    1. Nikita and Iris were really cool--too cool to get lectured that way by Farus--and so were the weirdass monsters, raining cow attack, and snail steeds. It's good that the game was quick, and I liked how big the cities were. But that was the worst story I've seen in a long time. It's too bad this went 2nd because the 3rd had some real potential on that front.
      I hope the guy who designed the monsters has continued to have a long and fruitful career.

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    2. Great work on the mails! The game's own problems aside, this was a fun read.

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  4. Bard Oly :
    I played it without any guides whatsoever, if you look everywhere you probably won't miss anything but yeah sometimes there are hidden stuffs. After reading this it was really awesome but here are a few things you missed :

    At least half the mercenary of the game, (the weird thing on Farus's shoulder is the stupid super secret mercenary that no ones ever get... You have to enter like 500 times into a bar to get him to appears)

    Marriage subquest where you can get items if you marry Nikita to a dude ( you can marry other girls to him but they'll divorce him and he'll be pissed)

    A cave I don't remember where with an annoying mini game.

    A subquest in the last big city of Andel that involves entering into a shop I think ?

    Giving money to a dude in order to construct your own house in said city

    A subquest where you could make your own robot as another party member.

    You missed the city with the new school of magic (Joynus is there)

    As for what I thought of the game : It was better than the first in everything but the music. Yet was it more fun ? I don't think so. The first is very classical and it's extremely fun to play. I find myself wanting to play the 1 when I got to Planet Lennus... It looked too much like Andel or maybe realistic graphics aren't the best for that kind of game ?

    Still a very enjoyable game.

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    1. I read somewhere about the super secret merc, mainly that he's really overpowered. Kinda funny that he hangs out on Farus' shoulder.

      I knew about the marriage subquest, but there's no way I'd give away Nikita permanently.

      The robot is yet another character I'm interested in. A game with this many characters needs to have a five-person party. It's almost like a Suikoden game.

      I agree that the first Paladin's Quest, while a far inferior game to Lennus 2 in graphics and sound, is oddly more compelling. I think it's the color scheme. Lennus 2's color scheme is kind of dull in comparison.

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    2. Arranging marriages for female characters to get items for yourself is one of the most sexist game mechanics I've ever heard of.

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    3. Yeah basically everyone that completed Paladin's Quest fell in love with it. It just has so much charm. Even thought objectively Lennus II is better, subjectively people are just more drawn to Paladin's Quest.

      It had better music, better palette, a better story, better mercenaries, etc. It's hard to explain but it grows up on you

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    4. Thinking about it Paladin's Quest had a better progression too. The story was almost non existent but you got mercenaries in a timely manner, it was really neat. You just got bored with Dan's kick and zuran's boomerang. You get characters who can use magic, some who have strong hit all bow/guns attacks, even some weirdass dudes ( A ghost, a big guy who fights with logs and rocks) a martial artist, a clown who had the ATback spell that made him one of the best mercenaries for the final boss but otherwise shitty)

      Here in Lennus 2 you basically were stuck with the same mercenaries for too long without being able to upgrade not to mention the beginning of the game was not that great. It was funny seeing these long eared scumbags (minus the golden giant) all get genocided into hell.

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    5. *you just get bored with Dan's kick and then you have a new mercenary to play around with) etc

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