Wednesday, August 8, 2018

TEXT PLAY: Secret of Mana (Squaresoft; SNES, 1993): Issue #010: Fire Grinding


There are so many ways this could have gone better. For example, not letting it sit for four months between issues.

As far as that goes, though, I had some IRL stuff going on that is pretty much resolved now, or at least that's the hope.

As for the rest, well, it's not so much for lack of trying that saw things go wrong. It's partly because of the way the game's hit detection and recovery mechanic works. I'm sure by now I've mentioned how the game can pretty much corner your party members and pound them to death without letting them get up to attack. I've also been having trouble toggling between characters, but I'm tempted to think that's got as much to do with the age of the hardware as anything.

When it comes to the attempts to get through the Fire Palace itself, it's really not as hard as I keep thinking it might be. I actually did make it through to the boss of the place, the Fire Gigas, once. Wound up getting my ass kicked in the process because my levels might be a little low. Remedying that won't be so hard, but it will be tedious because it's grinding, and grinding's grinding regardless of it being this game or the 8-bit Final Fantasy II.

The thing about the Fire Gigas is that he's one of those monsters that attacks a few times before taking a form that can't be hurt for a little while before going back to the form that can. I'm actually not sure how close I came to beating the thing the first time.

What we get for beating it is another Mana Seed linked to the hero's sword and magic from the Gnome sprite. From the looks of things, Mikey the Sprite and the Gnome don't get along too good at first, because they have at one another before the Gigas shows up. Maybe I'll catch why next time, but that may be awhile because I'm going to try getting my levels up a bit first. That might change with my luck, though. That's always part of it.

Either way, until then, stay safe, keep gaming, have fun, and DFTBA!

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