Monday, April 9, 2012

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #06: Breaking Into Branches (Branch A)


OK, I think I'm starting to get an idea here. It's a stupid idea, and more complex than it needs to be, but that might just mean it's just dumb enough to work.

So, my idea here is to break this thing into two different branches. Branch A will continue the way we've been going, trying to get through this craziness that is the Mindas Ruins. And since I've got an entire memory card for this game right now, I'm going to do a second, somewhat parallel branch where I do some other artifact at this point in the game instead. Everything that came before will still have happened, I'll just be doing some other dungeon instead.

But anyway, Mindas. Maybe if I give this a little different shot here, I can get someplace. The whole place looks like some ancient Central or South American ruins, kind of like Machu Piccu. I'm sure there's an English version of that song on YouTube someplace, and maybe I'll find it by the time I get through this.

The quest here is that Teapo has gotten out of Domina and gone looking for tea leaves in the Mindas Ruins with the aid of the onion kid. Naturally, the two got separated, and now the onion kid is at the entrance to the dungeon telling me that Teapo is lost in the ruins someplace.

Once I get in there to go after Teapo, there's this weird looking creature called a Flowerling. There are clearly delineated male and female Flowerings, which will be important to know in a bit. The first one we meet is female, and she tells us a little bit about the place. There's a handful of telekenetic dudes here that handle opening some places, as well as sets of other Flowerlings that control various gates that block various paths based on what pattern various trios of Flowerlings are on along the way.

I think I've got some of this figured out. Not nearly enough, of course, but a thing or two. The trios of Flowerlings are either male or female, and are in communication with another of the same gender who opens or closes the corresponding gate depending on what way the trio is standing.

If I go right from the one who tried to tell me about how the place works, I get a dead end. If I go to the left, there's a couple screens with fights, an ancient temple with a save point at the base, and headed on to the left, there's a male flowerling who says he opens the way to the underworld with his telekenesis, but it gets very tiring. Going up leads to a trio of female Flowerlings that open a gate that's the other direction from the telekinetic dude. To the left of the dude is another guy who says he's turned on the telekinetic power once you talk to him.

After that, I get horribly lost and am not really sure of what I'm doing any more. I know there's a way through this somehow, and I'm hoping I can figure it the hell out. But really, I think this is the one part of the game that actually got me to quit on multiple occasions. I could very well be doing this wrong. Only time will tell, I suspect.

So, anyway, chances are, we'll get started on Branch B next time. Wish me luck, folks. I'm going to go nuts doing this one, and I may not even finish.

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