Back to the SFC version. That's right, I'm going back and forth. This is as confusing as the two worlds in the game. After this I might end up just sticking with one until the end and then switching tracks to the other, but I at least want to cover up through the Mudo fight here. Again, skimming this version, with a lot more detail to come with the remake.
RIP BRAY WYATT 1987-2023
Next up is the tower of Ra's Mirror, home of Ashlynn the fiery redhead mage. That's one thing DQV didn't have: A red-headed chick.
She's a ghost here (and named Barbara), but our heroes can see her.
These guys are kind of awful and seem to weather pretty much all forms of damage, not just physical. They single-handedly turned this dungeon into a slog.
Check out the mirror reflections. Probably the most memorable early dungeon in this game.
Here we see what happens when the Onion Kids grow up and become Onion MEN. It isn't pretty.
The goal of this tower is to move four orbs on the top level to cause this room to fall down. It isn't particularly intuitive so I wandered around here lost for a bit the first time I played this.
Finally, the mirror! This shows people's true selves. For example, hold it up to your average politician and they turn into a gecko.
Barbara gets un-ghosted. I've been un-ghosted before, long ago. Get a text response a month later like "sorry, I'm just seeing this now" And you're just like "lol"
Like at that point why are they even messaging you
Wild prediction: His true form will be VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON.
But first, we find out the king is actually the queen. Then wait, who was the queen?
........
Our next big goal is Mudo's Castle, Take 2. They really got a lot of mileage out of this Mudo guy. It's like if you had to go through Magus' Castle twice, plus an abbreviated version in the intro.
I make a stopover in the very first town to finally purchase the armor that's on display. Even now this is pricey. Worth it though, because...
...it is a substantial upgrade for the hero. OR...
...an even more substantial upgrade for Ashlynn/Barbara. I ended up going with her since the hero has a lot more armor options than she does. Makes logical sense to do this.
Mudo Island is a big cavernous maze where the main danger is running out of supplies. Muriel being the only one with Outside is a clear and present danger. If she falls, you're fooked.
This floor with nearly-invisible pits is the single most annoying room in the entire game. Took like ten tries to get through it and it's hard to tell the difference between walls and pits.
Here's Mudo! Or is it?
Sap...doesn't work. There goes half my strategy!
Hassan debuts his new attack, Berserk. This does a lot of damage, but also drops his defense for that turn. Defense against ALL forms of attack, interestingly enough, so even spells and AOEs chunk him.
Of course this Mudo is really the King. ...what? No wonder he was weirdly easy to beat. He doesn't remember anything about wanting to take over the world.
So if the queen was taking the form of the king and the king was taking the form of Mudo, who was taking the form of the queen? Was there ever really a Mudo in this world? NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE.
Seriously, this game is just weird. In any case, now we have to defeat Mudo in the other world, AKA the real world. This... is gonna be the real Mudo and probably much stronger.
Got a new weapon in this next town. Holy Sword is an unusual name for a store-bought weapon. Weirdest part is Muriel can also use it, kinda like how Barbara could use the Spirit Armor. Also worth noting is that the Holy Sword casts Firebane when used as an item, which is REALLY good...and usually a late game spell. Isn't this kind of early? Yeah, and it's an indicator that this game goes to new upper levels of deadly spells and special attacks. Thanks to the class system, Explodet is no longer the be-all and end-all.
Next I get Chamoro (Nevan in the remake), who is pretty much a pure caster. The most significant thing about him is that he starts equipped with the Gent Cane, which is good for staking your pimp-claim and looking fly. Also it casts Healmore for no MP, which is massively overpowered at this point in the game. Luckily anyone can use it so you don't have to bring Nevan.
We arrive at Isla Del Mudo. Barbara decides to stay behind for no apparent reason, which works because we have five characters now.
"...it's just that the random guy piloting the boat is SUPER hot. Okay bye! Good luck storming the castle!"
Our heroes set foot on the deadly Isla del Mudo. For some reason there are two boats here, one must be from the other us from the beginning. Luckily I can't get confused because the actual boat is shaking violently.
Well, Mudo's Castle isn't the only one getting stormed.
The next area is sort of a Cave to Rhone Jr. Very dangerous, kind of a maze, full of lava. Again, the attrition of running out of supplies is the main issue, and Muriel is still the only one with Outside despite that we have multiple other people with Return.
This would have been a full wipeout and reset, except that I had one MP restore item pocketed and was able to use that to get Muriel enough MP to cast Outside. Had to use a Wing of Wyvern because you can't seem to leave the island* without casting Return, so it's a good thing I had a few of those.
* - Yeah, you can't take the boat back. Ashlynn and the boat guy must be sitting there smoking or whatever because they don't even give you the option to sail back. It's super weird.
After getting back to where I was (now Zenkai boosted and not worried about getting all the loot) I reach the midpoint of the dungeon. Between the not-Rhone cave and Mudo's Castle we have this campfire scene where everyone gets restored up. I was like two rooms short of this before, too.
This is the scene from the beginning, except now I've got four characters. The game never really explained that or reconciled it. In any case, time to RIDE THE DACTYL.
As huge and fearsome as this place is, it's actually one of the shortest dungeons in the series. The path to the boss is only like, two rooms.
Go off the beaten path, however, and you find a huge upgrade for Hassan. Along with a bunch of useless empty boxes and pots. This one thing is actually worth getting though.
Hassan also encounters his petrified other-world self here and fuses with it, Piccolo-style, to become Super Hassan. Now he can administer this deadly new move, that does a lot of damage...if it hits, because it misses like half the time. Kind of underwhelming and he's probably better off sticking to Berserk.
After the Fire Claw detour, I head straight for the boss. Weird how this dungeon has a number of side-rooms with challenging required fights, only to find...nothing.
It's...the same as the one earlier in terms of how the scene plays out. This Mudo is much stronger, though. Probably because it's actually Mudo and not some guy disguised as him for some reason.
Not only is he much stronger than the other Mudo, he also has goons who dish out a lot of punishment. Defeating them serves zero purpose because he'll just summon more of them, usually almost as soon as they fall.
The solution is to focus all fire on Mudo (after buffing everyone with Increase to nullify the adds and their attacks). Once he's out of the way, I whip out the Gent Cane to get free Healmores on everyone before I finish the adds. That part is important, because...
There is ANOTHER Mudo fight right after this, and now he's taking things seriously. Mudo 3.0 here is probably the hardest fight in this entire game, and I could see him utterly demolishing parties that finished the previous fight in rough shape. The previous fight was bad enough that it was believably the big Mudo fight, then this next fight comes in all "lol that was the warm-up". It's like when someone in DBZ battles at 50% power but doesn't tell anyone.
Now he can do two turns in a row, in DQ big boss tradition, and dishes out a lot of highly-damaging AOEs. At one point (right after this) he had three characters in critical condition.
My main strategy includes having Muriel spam heals, then spam Increase when she isn't spamming heals. At least getting defense way up means his physical attack turns are a waste.
It's funny because 10 minutes ago this infinite Healmore cane was overpowered. Now it's a total necessity to have any chance of winning this complete mauling of a boss fight.
So is Mudo defeated NOW?
I'm just kidding. Yeah, he's gone.
After winning that fight and getting out of there, I discover that Return actually goes to Mudo's Castle and lets you skip the cavern. Something that would have been great to know YESTERDAY because I had no idea I could leave without losing a ton of progress.
Everyone's pretty thrilled at the defeat of Mudo, and that concludes the first real arc of the game. I think that's about a third of the way, maybe?
And this point unlocks class changes, which are HUGE. Time for me to switch back to the remake for a while though.
Hassan: "She's all sweaty and exhausted."
Good to hear she was making the real sacrifices while we were off fighting Maou Mudo.
To be continued.
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