Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Text Play: Breath of Fire (SNES): Issue #16: o/~ Swords, Morphing, Dragons, Plus Some Fishing, Too! o/~

It's meant as a parody of the theme song to Linkara's Atop the Fourth Wall, for those who may not recognize it.

Damn, I'm glad there are two characters that have this game's teleport spell in my party at this point. There's a plot point we could complete now that we're done with Prima for the moment, but there are some side quests that I'd do well to take care of right now instead. But since I wasn't quite sure what they were or exactly how to go about them even when I was a more serious player, I had to look up about two thirds of what I'm writing about here. Kinda what I thought I'd be doing at the end of the last issue.

To start off with, there's getting the first of Karn's four morphing spells. These spells allow Karn to combine with other party members to get new powers. This first one is called Shin and lets Karn fuse with Bo and Gobi, I believe. Shin is the easiest to get, and according to the strategy guide I'm using, most readily useful of the morphs. Not that I ever really used the things in the first place, when I played the game more.

But anyway, this one's easy enough to get, since the guy you need to talk to get it is in Gant, and that's where I saved the game last time. Put Ox at the front of the party and go to the chief's house on top of the hill. Upstairs, there's a dresser that Ox will have to push out of the way to get to a secret passage that will lead to a path that's blocked by boulders. Have Ox smash those and put Karn in front before talking to the guy hiding behind the rocks. The spell must be transferred by blowjob or something, because the dude who teaches the spell just jumps on Karn for a minute and then says he's a member of the family and has therefore gained the spell. I know it's kind of weird, but the only other explanation that might fit is the teacher fuzed with Karn to teach the spell, but I'm not sure how “Underwater Hunter” came out of that combination. There's no big monster to fight or fetch quest to go on, which is actually kind of depressing, now that I stop to think about it.

From there, it's off to get the next set of dragon morphs for the hero. The good news is that it requires both a fetch quest and a boss fight to finish off, which makes up for the lack of any such thing with Karn's morph spell. The bad news is that, well, it requires both a fetch quest and a boss fight to complete. So let's get on with this.

The first part of this is getting something called the Dragon Sword for the hero. Weather this is his best weapon or not remains to be seen. The sword is at the bottom of a well in the Romero area, and you'll need something to fish it out with. That something is an accessory called the Rod5. The Rod5 is in a place called Tunlan. I know it's a familiar name, but it's not what you think This Tunlan place is full of people who only speak in musical notes, as opposed to Tuntar, which was where the Forrest Clan lives.

Continuing on, though, to get to Tunlan from Gant, you'll need to go into the ocean again and use Gobi's fish form to swim over a big fault in the sea floor to and island in the northwest. Fortunately, there are no random encounters when you're the fish, which means the only monsters to deal with are the wimpy ones around Gant and Tunlan. Getting to the Rod5 requires making kind of a loop in the castle at Tunlan. Don't bother talking to anyone at this point, because all they say is things like “Do Re Fa La Do,” which is essentially useless. You'll know you're in the right place when you see some treasure chests guarded by some statues. When you try to go after the chests not locked in the cell, you'll get thrown in a pit by one of the statues, which are apparently Autons from Doctor Who, because they come to life and throw you down a pit. The good news is that if you go after the one on the far left, that pit will lead you right to the area where the Rod5 is hidden. Get it and get out of town for now.

Of course, where there's good new, there's also bad. As all good fishermen like myself know, in order to catch anything, there's two things you need besides the pole: bait and a place to use it all. The bait is for sale at, amongst other places, the fish shop in Auria or at least one of the item shops in Prima. Exactly how one was just supposed to guess about buying bait, or any fishing equipment, for that matter, without having played the game previously, using a strategy guide, or investing massive amounts of time into goofing around, I'm not sure. Maybe somebody tells you at some point.

This is where the Warp spell comes in real handy, because it makes getting from place to place in decent time a whole lot easier. Plus, I don't have to deal with quite so many of the random battles that I actually kind of like when I'm just playing for fun. So use the Warp spell in either Nina or Bleu's inventory to go from Tunlan to Auria to get the bait and then from Auria to Romero once you've got everything else collected. Put Bo in front and go through the forests to the west and north of the village. Once past the towers and such, go around the mountains and head south to find the well. I never thought I'd be saying this, but the undead monsters and the WarHogs are a nice change of pace from the other enemies I've been fighting lately.

By this point, you should have the Rod5 and the bait equipped to the hero. Put him in front and have him drop the line in the well. This may take some time to finish off. I don't remember previous playthroughs, so I can't say. This time, however, I got the Dragon Sword on the first try.

Once you've got the sword, it's time to actually go after the second set of dragon morphs. The best starting place for that is Gant, so warp back there. From here on, it's just a slog through territory that's already been covered until the Dragon Shrine is reached. The route is through the Dark Dragon mountain base from before, and then to the west and around some more mountains before heading back east a ways. Provided you've managed to get the Dragon Sword and have stocked up on the item Cure, this is a relatively easier fight than the one for the first set was. Just use the Thunder Dragon morph and use a Cure when your HP starts getting around 50 or 60. Beat the Electric Bird, officially called Bain, I believe, and you'll be rewarded with stronger versions of the first three spells, plus one called Gold Dragon, which the walkthrough I'm using says only works on undead monsters.

So, with all that joy out of the way, it's off to Gust. I guess Gant's as good a starting place as any, so that's where I saved and will be picking up from in issue #17: Blowing Off.

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