Saturday, November 1, 2014

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals #5 - Sinistrals of Anarchy

Today on Lufia 2... our heroes climb mountains, as the repetitive litany of tower/cave/tower/cave is broken! Also, we repeatedly beat Idura senseless. The Sinistral MC won't be pleased with their prospect. The Crow Flies Straight!


 We rejoin our heroes post-wedding. Gades may have seemed like a final boss, and that whole wedding shindig may have seemed like an ending... but the game was only about half over. At this point Idura has moved up to be the primary antagonist, which is sorta like HHH taking over leadership of DX when HBK retired after Wrestlemania 14.

So how's married life, Selan?

 ...thanks for that update.

 Unfortunately... Foomy ate both halves. That sexy beast!

Selan has gone from young to not-young in one year. Then again, she's aging in Japanese Game Character Years, where 17 is fully-grown adult and 24 is Grizzled Oldster.

...and a lot of nothing has happened. Yep, things have been quite boring since the fall of Gades. That is, unless you count all the sex they've been having. Maxim and Selan pretty much did it in every room of the house multiple times. She can't even do yoga in the living room without Maxim coming over and having his way with her.

Here's hoping the rest of the game is just a town-building simulator like SimCity.

Wait, they're a year into marriage and she doesn't know? What kind of emotionally detached sociopath is this guy?

 Wow. Okay. She then lets him know that a lady needs to hear that sometimes. Actually, I'd say everybody needs to hear that sometimes from the person they're with. Unless they're a soulless viper like Maxim.

Well, the bad news is that Selan totally settled on her guy, as it turns out. The good news...

 ...is that IT'S A BOY! Maxim sits in the other room eating a sandwich and watching sports while all of this is going on.

 .........................................

Welp, I'll be sure to say this to my future wife after she gives birth. I might even give her a pat on the back as well, but I wouldn't want to betray that much emotion.

They name him Jeros. No relation to the hero of the first game, as that was a century later. I just chose to name him Jeros for lack of any real name for him, I guess. Perhaps my Lufia 1 guy was Jeros the Fourth.

Seconds later, Idura warps in and steals their bundle of joy. Joke's on you, Idura! The baby is still all gooey.

What a jerk this guy is. I'm surprised he managed to stay out of sight for a year, no doubt waiting for this day to hatch his devious plan. Needless to say, Maxim is pissed, finally showing some emotion:

 "HE TOOK MY SON!!"

Speaking of Sons of Anarchy... we need to put the blame for this somewhere, I guess.

Finally, we confront Idura in his tower. ...yep, another tower. It sure seems like all of the towers in this world exist only for Sinistrals and their minions to hang out.

Idura is a badass, but he's considerably easier than Gades. Rather than a huge weapon like Gades, this guy sports a tiny rapier. I can only conclude that if Idura became a Sinistral, he'd be the Sinistral of Effete Fleet-Footed Gentlemen.

"HE TOOK MY SON!!"

No! Stop kicking 'em Maxim! He's done!

 After Idura warps off and the baby is rescued, Iris is here to tell us that the future has changed.

 We're getting into some Lost (or Chrono Cross) territory here. What came from the sea didn't return to the sea, and now everything is all weird and messed-up.

Interesting concept here. It seems the future is potentially visible to someone on the right wavelength...until that future changes, which it is likely to do.

Moving on, Dekar and Guy rejoin our heroes, bickering as usual.

I take a moment to level Foomy to 4. Now he's the burliest of Foomies.

 Next up... our heroes climb a lengthy mountain so that they can murder a tree at the top to build a boat. Really? They couldn't just chop down another tree that wasn't at the top of a mountain?

 Meanwhile, Dekar and Guy check out the party scene, and we hear tales of physically abusive females. Much like ancient 24 year olds, such things go with Japanese media.

Feeling increasingly upstaged by Dekar, Guy begins to voice his concerns. He's like the Tia to Dekar's Selan, and the Maxim of the situation is... recognition?

 At this point I take some time to farm Wood Golems around Parcelyte to get a Secret Fruit and evolve Foomy to his fifth and final form. Little did I know, it would take almost AN HOUR of game time for one to drop. More like 20 minutes with frameskip, but still.

THANK THE POWERS THAT BE

 And now, Foomy can become... the hell? A golden fox-nin of nine tails? Seriously? This grotesque, Lovecraftian horror looks nothing like the Foomy that we know and love. I can change it back, but it'd be a lot of trouble.

It may be time to move onto a new capsule monster, now that Foomy isn't the Foomy I used to know anymore.

 "Now you're just a Foomy that I used to know!"

No! We're not doing this again today, Gotye!

A thinly-veiled shot at Squaresoft! You tell 'em, Taito!

Our heroes encounter a little Hulkamaniac.

In the next dungeon, I find the next Capsule Monster. I've got a majority of 'em now. With Foomy's awful transformation, the field is open for a new capsule monster to move up. Who will it be?

Hard Hat is bizarrely-named, as an air-elemental fly. I don't get it.

In any case... at the top of the latest tower (man, this game sure has an excessive amount of towers), our heroes rescue some ladies. Time for some music...

Guy: "They call me Superman! I'm here to rescue youuuu!"

Guy: "I wanna grow together! Let's let our love unfurl!"

Well, that's the best use of the word "unfurl" in music history.

Stuff happens, and Idura traps our heroes in a big metal cage.

Our heroes finally learn that Gades had accomplices. Not good.

Dekar now arrives to totally steal Guy's heat again.

Dekar: "I'm here to rescue you! Come be in Dekar's world!"

Dekar: "They call me Superman! I'm here to rescue youuu!"

Dekar: "I can be your Supermannnnn!"

Guy suddenly begins to talk like a character from Shakespeare.

Idura II! This fight is just as easy as the previous one. There's a third one coming up, too. This feud just goes on and on, like Brock Vs. Cena.

Sadly for the girlfriend-seeking Dekar... these women all have boyfriends. After we defeat Idura, all of these useless losers run in to take all our heat.

Whatever.

The only one left is the little kid. Yeah, no.

...and wouldn't you know it, SHE has a boyfriend too.

Dekar lays down the law. He doesn't need a girlfriend! He just needs FOIGHTIN! Foightin' round the world!

2 comments:

  1. Of course she knows, but like she says, she likes to hear it sometimes.

    This is a pretty interesting part of the story. While a lot of the focus is on Dual Blade, the Sinistrals seem to be fine not worrying about it as long as there aren't any humans who can wield it. For some reason Maxim is The One, and the Sinistrals can't abide that. Iris implies here that if Maxim had died, particularly before having an offspring, then the Sinistrals would have backed off.

    I love Guy's frustration when Dekar is once again saving the day, then vindication when Dekar too falls into the trap and screws everything up.... or so it seems, as Dekar proves why he's the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived and SMASHES the cage.

    My love is my sword says it all.

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    1. If the existence of a Dual Blade wielder is necessary for Sinistrals to appear, rather than the Dual Blader being the one who defeats the Sinistrals, we have ourselves an interesting and rather dizzying paradox.

      Yep, that's a fox of nine tails. We'd like it better if we'd grown up with this thing, probably. I shouldn't checked into what the M form looks like, sorry!

      I remember the boyfriends all coming in too! Hi-larious. "My love is my sword!" is an all-time RPG classic.

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