Final Fantasy Adventure, Finale - Silence, Glaive

This is it, the final episode of one of the best games on the Game Boy.

The Tower of Gemma is a procession of bosses, starting with...Tiamat? Is that Tiamat?

Nope, it's just a standard garden-variety dragon. We're running out of time, so maybe Tiamat isn't in this game. Victory is a matter of throwing charged lances from a distance.

The lack of Tiamat in this game bothers me since we got the other three Fiends.

Here's the fight from the Switch version.

There's a much-needed healing spring near the top of the tower. This is a super-ideal place to level up. Then again, considering that the area after this has the best armor in the game as random drops, that might be a better place to grind out the last few levels.

This game is much more centered around action than puzzles, which separates it from a Zelda game. There are a few puzzles at this point though, mainly revolving around pushing frozen enemies onto switches.

Ninjas attack in the final rooms of the tower. Fight through them to reach...

OH MY GOD.

The two-headed Dragon Zombie is a vicious foe, and has a ton of HP compared to other bosses up to this point. Throwing spears is again the way to go. Naming this guy Kain was a good call now that he's slaying dragons.

Here's the fight from the Switch version.

After that, you warp to Pure Land. That's right, THE Pure Land. Or as it's known in the original Japanese versions, Mana Holy Land.

Girl's Mom is here, and she's succulent. For an 8-bit character, anyway. She transforms the Rusty Sword into Excalibur, or as it's known on the menu screen...

XCalibr 2097! Now that I have the strongest weapon, it's time to farm the strongest armor from Pure Land enemies.

All of these are random drops. The Mana series usually has the best armor set as random drops from the final area.

Best shield, and that'll do it. It helps that you only need to farm three drops in this game, for one character. In Seiken Densetsu 3, you've got a weapon plus three armor drops for each character, so you're farming twelve drops altogether (and once you've only got a couple left, the duplicates begin). Secret of Mana goes even further, with three armor drops for each character (9 total) plus a ton of 9th weapon orbs (so around 18 drops total).

Here's the full set of best equipment. I also got a bunch of ultra-rare Elixirs as drops, which are full heals.

Final stats before the last fight. This'll do pretty well. I neglected Wisdom a bit, but I'm a physical powerhouse.

Oh yeah, while I was running back and forth farming for drops, Julius was holding Girl and the Mana Tree hostage. It's Fallout 4 syndrome. My son is being held hostage, but hold on while I go do sidequests for 50 hours.

He's going to revive the Vandole Empire (with the campy name Neo-Vandole) by annihilating all of his enemies. Apparently this guy is supposed to be the Emperor from Secret of Mana, reincarnated. The canon of this series is very loose, however, thanks in part to mistranslations and all of the omitted dialogue (including entire dropped plotlines) in Secret of Mana.

Julius attacks by splitting into multiple images that throw fireballs. It's a little like Agahnim 2.0.

Luckily I've got the Sword of Mana (well, XCalibr), which can dish out this massive dash-slice at full charge. Charging up doesn't take long anymore, either.

Turns out that wasn't even his final form! I'm just glad we get to fight this guy considering all the hype in Secret of Mana for a guy who disappeared offscreen. Even though this pre-dates Mana, and his being Vandole might well be a ret-con from Sword of Mana. Whatever.

His true form is very similar to Chaos from FF1, which figures. He's also got a Necrosaro-style stomach-face.

All things considered, this is the baddest-ass fight in the game. He attacks with a vicious double-stomp.

Via lots of Heal spell and even a couple Elixirs, I win pretty quickly. Level 50 is more than sufficient for this.

This is like the end of The Terminator when they're sitting in front of the fire. It's over! It's all over!

::Julius climbs up out of the flames, a gleaming visage of death::

His TRUE final form is basically Dark Lich pre-death.

You've got Girl on the team for this fight, which means tons of free heals. To balance this out, this form is WAY stronger than the previous one, and hits for huge damage.

Firing off charged attacks every chance you get and healing constantly is key here, and eventually he's beaten. Looking forward to seeing how this fight looks in the two remakes.

Everything goes black, and...

Dammit! Time for another sad ending.

That's right, Girl must now become a new tree, as her mom passes on.

Kain is like "wait, what"

Kain: "But"

Kain: "I, uh..."

Kain: "Jesus Christ!"

Well, that's it. Girl's Mom disappeared forever, Girl became a tree sprout, and Kain...

...became a Gemma Knight, guardian of all the land. It'd be crazy if this made him Jema from Secret of Mana, but then the "canon" and "continuity" would be even wacker.

Kain: "You guys know any single women who want to date a Gemma Knight?"

Oldster: "Sorry pal can't help ya there"

Even Boco's got a mate now! Kain goes off to the bar to drink himself into a stupor, and that's the end of the story.

A new Mana Tree sprouts from the ashes of Girl, and that's it for this great game.

Lastly, here's the entire fight with Julius, from the Switch version.

Next up is Sword of Mana, which is more of a reimagining than a straight remake of this game. Sword takes most of the Final Fantasy series influence out of the game and makes it more of a "Mana-series" game, adding a lot of the visual and design aspects you find in Seiken Densetsu 3 and Legend of Mana. It's practically a new game that just features the same characters/locations. After that we've got Adventures of Mana which is a straight modern remake of FFA without any real reimagining. It's much closer to this game overall. Both Sword and Adventures have their positives.

DVD BONUS CONTENT

The Black Rabite (secret boss fight) from Seiken Densetsu 3

The Dragon Emperor (toughest final boss) from Seiken Densetsu 3

Other Mana Series Posts