Monday, July 30, 2012

TEXT PLAY: Legend of Mana (PlayStation; 2000): Issue #23: Aw Hell...


Kinda knew I'd wind up going there eventually...

There's still at least one joke I'd like to use for this that I'd considered just doing now to get it out of the way, but considering how I've managed to do more with this playthrough than I ever thought I would, I'm going to save it for when I'm ready to wrap up the story arc I'm starting here. Gotta love Mister Spock, man.

But anyway, let's get this whole Dragoon Arc thing started, shall we? As this thing gets going, we come across a place called the Macabre Tombstone, where there's this bright flash of light that zaps us off to the Underworld. For a place that's supposed to pretty much be Hell, I think they got the look pretty much dead on, pun sorta intended there. Not as many monsters around as one might think, though.

There's a dude there waiting for us. He kinda looks like a wolf or something, and everything I've read says he's a Beast Man. He says his name is Larc, though. Still, I kinda gotta wonder if he works for Skeletor. Larc says he wants to take you to his master, some guy named Drakonis. We'll get to him in a bit. First, though, we've gotta get a baptism of fire from some little creatures called Shadoles. Unfortunately, the little bastards in the baptism chamber won't do it until we talk to some other guy called Olbhon to get permission for the thing to happen.

After a bit of running around in Hell, we eventually come upon this Olbhon guy, who says he's the Wisdom of the Undead. Kind of like Hades from Greek mythology, I guess. Apparently, there's a bit of tension between Larc and Olbhon, because they have a nasty exchange, and Olbhon gives permission for the baptism after Larc threatens him with death.

With that, a Shadole beams us back to the baptism altar where one of his buddies hoses the hero down with fire. Once that's taken care of, we can go deeper into Hell to look for Drakonis. Not exactly the most fun prospect ever, but it's gotta be done.

After a couple more floors of spelunking, we get to a boss fight with a demon that possesses some faces carved into the walls of the room it's in. He's hard to hit, but once Larc and I finally get a lock on him, he goes down quick. When he does, it's time to finally meed Drakonis. The dude kind of looks like people should be calling him sultan, what with his strong resemblance to Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a rather large chunk of the 16th century.

Drakonis gives you a spiel about how he was the king of the dragons until three others came along and screwed him out of his power and confined him to the Underworld because they were jealous. Yeah, he's giving us a line of shit there, even if he does seem fairly legit. The dude's pretty much Lucifer, after all, so it's not like it's going to be much of a shock when it turns out he's lying. Worst of all, he had the hero pretty much over a damn barrel right from the start of the quest, so now we gotta do what he says or it's game over. It's one of those Prince of Evil sort of things, after all. So, we may as well agree with his demands and get going on it, even though there's a strong temptation for me to do a Nostalgia Critic impression here.

Once Drakonis lets us out of Hell, Larc turns over an artifact. I can't recall the exact name as I write this, and I'm going to be too lazy to look it up. But it's going to take us to the next couple quests we gotta do. We'll be off to murder the first of a few dragons next issue here. And yeah, I'm going to be breaking this up, at least a little bit. It's kinda hard to know how much time I'll have and when I'll have it to work on this.

From here, things are going to get a little long and difficult, which is why I said I'd be breaking parts of this up like this. The way I look at this, it's all one big quest, though the game does break it up into chapters, which will make it a little easier to take it in chunks. So, from here, part one of the Dragoon Arc. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to finish it this time. Wish me luck.

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