It's a long way to go...
Perhaps this isn't Tipperary,
but it's been a long time coming, I'll admit that. There have been
plenty of issues I've needed to deal with along the way, and some
I'll have to deal with after this, but those are all for another
time.
This one last mission before the end is
called the Teardrop Crystal. Part of the reason I kept putting it
off is because I was expecting it to be a real pain in the ass.
The quest begins in Domina at the
Temple of Mana. Our good buddy Inspector Boyd is running around
outside, all worried about Elazul and Pearl. He says there's an old
jewel shop in Geo that we should go check out because maybe there are
clues there. Boyd can't go in, but I can without much trouble.
There was no trouble at all when the place was being run by Alex the
last few times we were there, before all the business with Pandora's
Box in there. The place is empty now, except for the box and the
merch that was there before.
Trying to leave brings in Pearl and
Elazul. They both say they sense a familiar presence coming from the
box. It's up to me to open the thing so we can go talk to Florina
again one more time. This little chat has Florina bring out
Blackpearl, who admits that she and Pearl are the same person, and
they want the same thing as Elazul and Florina: to save the Jumi
race. After a good discussion of the differing opinions on how to do
that and what happened when and how, Blackpearl gives Elazul the
Sword of Mana. In this case, it's a weapon, as opposed to the
artifact of the same name we got at the end of the Dragoon Arc. I'm
not exactly sure how that's going to factor into things. If it's for
the player character to use, I'm going to see what happens when I use
it in the final fight of the game, if I can save it that long. If
I'm wrong about that somehow, it'll be interesting to see how it all
works out.
Florina turns over the Jumi Staff
artifact, which makes the Bejeweled City, which is where we'll be
headed after we make one more fateful choice. We have to choose
between Pearl and Elazul to go to the Bejeweled City with. Once we
make our choice, Elazul turns over the Sword of Mana and says it can
smash anything in one hit, but it can only be used for one strike
before it breaks. That's why I'm kind of hoping I can hold onto it
until the final boss of the game.
Anyway, since I've had Elazul as a
fighting member of the party for so long, I decided to go with Pearl
instead this time. Once we're all set to go. Either Florina or
whichever of Elazul or Pearl is left behind explains that once we go
into the Bejeweled City, we're stuck there until we finish the quest.
Since we were given an option to save the game before proceeding
further, I took the opportunity to do so.
And after a longer break than I had
intended, I put the Staff down on the map to get the Bejeweled City.
The place is built kind of like a wedding cake, with several tiers to
it, all separated by gates that have increasingly complex puzzles
locking them. The first level has four jewels that must be
collected, two of which must be used to unlock the gate to the next
level of the city. It's important to go back and pick up the two
gems you used to open the gate again. They'll factor into opening
the next one.
For level two, you'll need all four
gems from level one plus two more found here. You'll need three of
the six open this second gate. Again, you'll need to go back and get
the three used to open this second gate. The pattern continues on
the third level, where there's one last gem to collect. Four of the
seven gems are required to open the last gate. At least we don't
have to go back and get the ones we used again.
This part of the quest is rather
tedious for a few reasons. One is that the puzzles to open the gates
are a matter of trial and error. At least they give you a set number
of dings you're listening for so you know how many of the gems you've
got right and in the right place as you cycle through them on each
pedestal.
Another frustratingly tedious thing
about this quest is all the mini-bosses. There's a Jewel Beast to
fight before we can even get to the puzzles themselves, and the last
gem, a diamond, has a mini-boss guarding it, too.
As Pear and I are working our way
through the city, we see the spirits of departed Jumi, lead by
Reubins, discussing what they need to do to save their race. There's
concern about Florina, who seems to have vanished. As luck would
have it, she's up on the top tier of the city.
The bad news is that this is turning
into something like a crossover between Ghostbusters II and Final
Fantasy 8 rather quickly here, as Alexandra and the Lord of Jewels
are there, and they explain that they can save the Jumi. The only
catch is that the Lord of Jewels needs to eat the cores of a thousand
Jumi to do it, and he's already got 998. After they explain that the
reason he can do it is because his core is a black hole and he's
going to use that to fuze all Jumi into one, he whips out Elazul's
core and gulps it down, which turns him into a boss monster. Sadly,
it's a relatively easy fight.
Beat the crap out of that boss monster
and Alexandra rips her own core out to feed to the Lord of Jewels,
saying she's intentionally merging with him because it's the only way
to save the Jumi. This gives us the last battle of the Jumi Arc. I
was somehow expecting this fight to be a lot harder, kind of like the
one in the Dragoon Arc. But, no, it was actually kind of easy.
Maybe it's that I'm at level 62 now, I don't know. At least the
writing's good here. Looks like Edhelin
on DeviantArt was right in telling me that this was a good part
of the game. For as frustrating, and ridiculously easy, as various
parts of this arc were to play through, I gotta say, the ending was
pretty good.
After that last boss fight, it looked
like it was going to be the end of the Jumi, but the hero sheds a
single tear for them, which brings them all back. The downside here
is that the legend about any non-Jumi who cries for the Jumi will be
turned into stone proves true, and I get turned to stone as a result.
Of course, it should come as no
surprise that I'm not actually dead from this. I'm the hero, after
all. I can't die that easily. Where would the game be without the
hero. Besides, I'm a capper playing the hero in an anime style game.
Stab me in the heart, chop my head off and light the corpse on fire,
and I'll still come back to save the day.
But my initial reaction was still a lot
like the scene in the first Ghostbusters movie where they first see
the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. “What
did you do, Jesse?”. And the scenes of the Jumi coming
together to bring me back, Bud and Liza being worried during the
storm, and Elazul and Pearl going to tell them what happened were all
really good, too.
And now that that's all said and done,
I'm almost considering trying to do the third arc of the game.
There's a whole nother story here that I really haven't done a damned
thing with since the very beginning of the game, centered around
Daena the Kittygirl Monk from Gato. I'm kind of on the fence about
it right now, because at this point, I'm thinking that maybe I'm not
as burnt out on this game as I've been saying lately. Then again, I
also know that if I start it, I'll realize that yes, I am too that
burnt out on this game.
So, at this point, what I think I'll do
here is try to finish off the “Niccolo's Business Unusual”
subplot. I think I've done three of the four of those. But that's
just a provisional thing. That might change between issues,
depending on if I can find the fat bunny-man and how many of his
missions I've actually done. Like I said a couple times before, I
think I somehow managed to screw myself out of a few things this
runthrough. There's potential that I might go through it again at
some point, but I'll address that more later, in the epiloug.
Anyway, I hope to get back to you soon
on this. It'll be something, I know that much for sure. If that
something's another Niccolo quest or the end of the game remains to
be seen. So until then, keep gaming, have fun, stay safe in this
winter weather, and as always, DFTBA!
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