It's a new dawn as our heroes patrol the desert in their new mega-tank. I like how the "oceans" of this game's world are actually all just desert. It's emblematic of the very real problems faced by Filgaia in this era.
To catch us up on our new Sand Craft: The tank may have a ton of HP, but it isn't what it looks like when enemies do 10k damage with one hit. Basically shakes out to one character with 1770 HP taking on the normal enemies we've been fighting, just one at a time. After a while it's crucial to bring the tank back to the base for repairs, which is very inexpensive. Here's the thing, though. See those parts? All of them can be upgraded numerous times...
...and said upgrades are available entirely from the start, meaning you could buy the best parts in the game for the tank right now. The Ark Smasher (the best weapon) is a must, and pretty much turns all overworld enemies into paste. The only problem is, you can only pay for these parts with Dragon Fossils (oddly enough). The good news about that is...basically everything in the game now suddenly drops Dragon Fossils, including lowbie enemies.
And it just so happens...I'm back at the beginning of the game here, which means the lowbiest of lowbie enemies. From here, there's only one thing to do. Fights drop a max of one Dragon Fossil, and I need about 200 of them. It's the relaxing grind I didn't realize I wanted.
LIVE TO WIN! TILL YOU DIE!
TILL THE LIGHT DIES IN YOUR EYES!
LIVE TO WIN!
TAKE IT ALL!
JUST KEEP FIGHTING TILL YOU FALL!
LIIIIVE!
WINNNN!
LIIIIIIIIVE!!!
WINNNNNN!!!
I blow right over the WW2-era Bunker Cannon and Saddam Hussein's 80's-era Scud Cannons and get the hot weapon of the new millennium: The Ark Smasher.
At this point all you need to do is have Virginia in the gunner position so the cannon command is first, then unleash this force ability at the beginning of every fight. It hits the enemies around 6 times, and it refreshes after every fight.
This means...you guessed it, you can now one-shot everything on the overworld. This makes the sand ocean suddenly the best place in the game to level up, especially considering these over-in-one-hit fights give more exp than any other regular fights up to this point. Traditionally the best way to level in this game is to Lucky Card bosses, so this is the first part where grinding regular foes doesn't feel like a waste of time.
The sand ocean is huge and expansive, but I'm free to go anywhere since I can one-shot everything. Spending a half hour grinding 50 Dragon Fossils from goblins was well worth it, and now I can grind exp.
There's also a boss fight that keeps you out of the northern hemisphere of the map...it's the strongest foe out here, and even it can be one-shotted if you're lucky. If it does survive the one shot, it's so low-HP at that point that finishing the fight is easy.
Not really, it was pretty anticlimactic. Either way, that unlocks the rest of the map so I can continue my level-fest. I went up ten levels (from average 26 to average 36) in an hour and a half of one-shotting random foes on the sand ocean, which puts me ahead of the curve for a while.
The next stop is what looks like a beached spaceship. This is the home to The Ethos the church of Filgaia, who believe that people descended from the skies.
Our heroes waltz into this very high-tech ship and immediately begin disparaging how it looks.
What? This is hands-down the most high-tech and LEAST ruins-like place we've been to so far.
We're here because that random priest we gave the nuke to is now going to deliver it to their benevolent leader.
Two bux says the leader turns out to be evil. Actually, probably not. They need the nuke to power their ship and potentially get it air-worthy again in the future.
"Hashtag SolarisWillRise" he bellows, waiting for applause from an assembled army that only he can see. Guys, I think we made the right call turning over the nuke. Another day's work!
Turns out these people are well-connected, and know what's going on all over Filgaia. Luckily, we've got a team of Drifters here ready to swing into action.
A group of three...plus one pet? My God. Maya has struck again!
The guy with the afro is vicious-looking? Okay, Willie Horton. And how dare they call Shady a stuffed animal! You'd never see "a boy with explosives" in a game in 2018, because nothing is fun anymore.
Yeah, that sounds like Maya. How can they tell all of that from Solaris' aerial spy-drones though?
Our heroes head for the survey point. It turns out that the two gems stored here, which Maya is after, actually DO set off a nuclear explosion if they come into contact with one another. Maya might not know this, so we're in a race against time.
You don't understand, Maya! YOU'LL DOOM US ALL! ...huh, Shady kinda does look like a stuffed animal.
Virginia points and screams like Donald Sutherland.
But wait! Before we can do battle for the 58th time, everyone is interrupted by the arrival of Malik.
Oh yeah, remember these guys? They're back, and they want the gems for themselves so they can blow things up.
What follows is an odd boss fight against a bunch of what look like random enemies.
The two crews team up to give Malik and his minions the boot, and everyone finally realizes that they can get along. It's like the end of Rocky IV.
From this point on, we're actually working together to get through the dungeon and find the gems. It's a good thing this team-up occurred, because this is the one dungeon in the game that requires two separate groups to get through.
This just in: Maya is a top.
They stop in EVERY ROOM for Maya to talk about how they're staunch allies now.
Virginia is a little bit hurt by Maya's attitude. Her love is REAL, dammit! Don't go playing games with her heart!
Maya advises the inexperienced Virginia to use her head and hands.
Malik interrupts whatever it is that's going on to make his presence known again, and what follows is ANOTHER boss fight.
These two are called Humpty and Dumpty (no, really). They showed up in the first two games in the series as well. This is a fight that should be really difficult for this point in the game because Humpty uses powerful spells. With my ten new levels, however, I roll through it quickly.
Our ironclad alliance quickly falls apart when our heroes get to the gems. Maya has one, Virginia has the other. Isn't it good that neither has both, since they explode?
Maya with more backhanded compliments to Virginia while Virginia runs in circles like a cat chasing its tail.
She equips the Monk Dressphere, which while not as hot as the Mage Dressphere, has much cooler hair.
Is it too early to say that Maya is my favorite character? The fact that she has all of these dresspheres makes her an infinitely more interesting playable character than any of my actual playable characters.
It's another four-on-four schmozz that goes on for about 30 seconds until Sting rappels from the rafters and WE'RE OUT OF TIME FANS
Maya lays spread-eagle and admits defeat.
They talk about germs and pant for breath a lot. I don't know what's going on.
...Virginia? It's Virginia, isn't it? It isn't going to happen, Maya.
This is turning into a real rivalry, with Maya playing the Jerry Lynn "always loses, but it's close" role to Virginia's Rob Van Dam.
Missed during all of this conversation is the fact that Virginia absentmindedly picked up both crystals.
YEAH KILL THOSE BOARS
ReplyDeleteHuh, with this trick the sand ocean is kind of awesome.
Hey, you saved me the trouble of looking up vagarious.
I nearly spewed out my drink when I saw the "top bunk" line!
Hell, just from a distance Maya is easily my favorite character, her getting more interesting battle mechanics than your actual team really puts her over the top.
What the hell the crystals are even touching! ...are the crystals supposed to represent Virginia and Maya?