Romancing SaGa III #6 - Sandstorm

After a significant break from the game, I fire it back up... I need to figure where I am and what's going on, as our hero roams the desert and talks to trees. No idea how he got from Lance to here; it's been a little while. I think our hero dropped some Ex. Hopefully Princess Jasmine was around to reap the benefits. El Nool is a WHIRLWIND.

This tower is supposedly a million feet tall, but that's just a myth. I could go for the easy joke here about it being a miniature replica of Harid's penis, but everyone already knows that.

I seem to be missing a small chunk of the game from my screenshot archive. A few things happened between the last post and this one. Maybe I'm the one who was dropping acid. The town of Lance got me on the right track, I finally got rid of Candy, and Harid continued to cavort with his harem.

Yes, I got rid of Candy. How did I manage that? Probably put her up front in battles and painstakingly let her LP deplete until she was no more. I resent that this game gives you such an awful character who refuses to leave. Regardless of Candy's awfulness, the game forces you to MURDER A KID. Did they make this game for George Zimmerman? Not cool, Squaresoft.

It turns out that the SUDFRDM became self-aware, and in a microsecond, it decided WE were the enemy. Judgement Day soon followed, and that's how Harid ended up in the desert.

This desert river seems to be the next place to go. Picking up where you left off in an ultra-nonlinear game is pretty difficult. I'm starting to long for a nice, linear, "DO THIS NEXT!" game.

Harid leaps down a sand-fall! He's a WILD MAN!

Here's a harsher desert, with distinctly Evermore-like music.

It soon gives way to marshes and wasteland.

Harid: "Who did this?"

Dog: "Skynet, man."

Our heroes stumble upon a gypsy camp where they can get some much-needed rest after all of that journeying.

This really does remind me of Chrono Trigger. This game is like a weird missing link between FFVI and Chrono.

The next area is distinctively Asian. At this point I get a new character, Zhi Lin, who uses bows. First bow-user I've gotten, so this rounds out the team well.

Our heroes now battle fish-riding marauders in a cave. The hell?

Our heroes find this dude in the cave, and that's another quest solved. This game sure does have a lot of quests with people trapped in caves. You'd think word would get around about the dangers of caves and people would stop going into them.

I don't even get a reward for the quest, as returning to town gets me arrested. You gotta be kidding me!

Jail Bird Harid chews wheat and hums a pretty little ditty as he sits in a posh Japanese county jail. This certainly ain't D-Block, where I once spent two years for illegally riding a manatee.

After a short time, our heroes are free. Moving on quickly. This town sells the ultimate Sun and Moon spells. This game has six fields of magic: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Sun, Moon. Each one has an ultimate spell. The four "normal" elements have their ultimate spells locked behind later-game bosses, while Sun and Moon ultimates are purchasable in this very town.

Unfortunately, they cost 9999 each, and the nonsensical 10000 G limit in this game means I'll only be buying one of them. The Sun spell is some sort of defensive spell, while the Moon ultimate is basically BiKill from Dragon Quest. Temporary buff that doubles a character's attack power. I'll go for that one.

Yet another cave dungeon follows. Yawwwwwn. At least you can see the enemies in these places.

There's the BiKill spell in action, as I tackle the boss of the dungeon. I'd make short work of him, except that....

...he endlessly summons goons that block you from targeting him, meaning only range attacks and hit-all spells can really affect him. No Harid mashing for this one.

Takes ages to whittle him down, but I finally get the win.

NOW the Asians officially accept our heroes. They realize we're all on the same team against the four Abyss Gates.

Talking to this guy unlocks a city to the west. Sounds like a majestic place, assuming the guy isn't just high out of his mind.

....huh, it's real. Figures that west of the Japanese place is an Indian town. The people here are bipedal elephants, and the music is possibly my favorite tune in the game. Unfortunately, no link for it exists. Since these pink elephant-people don't appear anywhere else in the game, it's entirely possible that Harid is just having another drug hallucination. Ride the pink elephant. Coo coo cachoooo.

Nothing to do here yet, so...time for more roaming.

At this point I head back to the desert to do the Crystal Palace. Passed this earlier and skipped it. It's optional, like 75% of the game. It also has insane BGM, like the town I just left.

BOSS FIGHT. It isn't as bad as it looks, and falls quickly. Does that count as my first dragon kill?

Winning gets me into the palace treasure room. The G alone was worth the trip down here, because G is so ridiculously scarce in this game. Also got some armor that no one I have now can equip. Guess I'll sell that for more bank.

Made a ton of progress in this installment. I'm about 50% of the way through the game now. Problem is, I've hit a snag again. It's telling me to seek out the four Abyss Gates and fight the demon lords. The easier ones are Water and Earth, but I can't seem to make them appear on the world map. Water requires quests to be done in a town, but that town isn't on the world map for me yet either. I must need to talk to some random person somewhere. I hate stuff like this.

As for Earth, I need the Ring of the Holy King to get to that one, don't have it, and the person who gives it to you won't give it to me. I clearly haven't met some requirement there either. I'm stumped. Instead of worrying about these gates, I'll go back and fight some of those bosses that defeated me previously. If I clear more of the game, maybe the way forward will show itself.

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