Wait, did I just win...?
I guess I did, seeing as how this is
the Mana Tree area and the titular Legend of Mana quest I'm doing
here. Maybe it's just my memories of older games talking here, but I
was somehow expecting this to be a good deal harder than it actually
was.
Of course, part of the reason this
seemed as easy as it was might be because I had the good sense to go
get a fighting partner before I went in. I went to get Sierra
because she's my favorite NPC of the ones I managed to have available
to me at the end of the game.
I had actually intended to just goof
around a bit in the game when I first sat down, but then decided that
what the hell, I may as well try to finish the game. It took me a
minute or two to actually work up the balls to just put the Sword of
Mana down on the map. Turns out I still had two other artifacts I
could have used. One was the Ancient Tablet, which is the Mindas
Ruins. I played around with that are a bit way back when I first
started this TP and couldn't quite get a handle on it. The other was
something called the Frozen Heart. Not quite sure what that one
might have done. I was a bit tempted to give it a whirl, but by the
time I realized I had it, I'd been talking up just finishing the game
for awhile. I think it was something to do with the Jumi Arc, but
it's a little late to worry about that now.
So anyway, the Sword of Mana. And no,
I don't mean the
LP by CLG's Thera and Amiss. Though the parts I've watched have
been interesting. In this case, I mean the final AF in the game,
that creates the Mana Tree. I put this one a space right of my
house, in an area I'd thought had been blocked off by mountains
before. What we see upon approaching the Mana Tree is the classic
tree covered in vines and leaves that we've seen in most other games
that have something like it. When we reach the base of the tree,
Pohkheil is there waiting. He says that if I'm strong enough and
brave enough I can make it to the top of the tree and have a chat
with the Mana Goddess, who's searching for her identity. Something
to do with having been the light that created the universe keeps the
Goddess from seeing herself clearly.
This is actually a fairly linear
dungeon, and quite a bit easier than I'd expected, too. There
weren't as many monsters as I'd expected, but what few were there
could actually kick my ass for a change. Good thing I brought my
favorite NPC along, because as close as they came to killing me, they
actually got Sierra a time or two. There were a lot of flying and
dragon monsters in this area, which I guess makes sense because this
is a tree and it's the last area of the game.
Save for one time when I got turned
around towards the very beginning, getting through this was just a
matter of following branches until I came to a ruins area at the top
of the tree. After killing off four last batches of monsters, it was
off to fight the Mana Goddess.
The Mana Goddess tells us that she's
developed a serious dark side over the course of the centuries when
nobody was really looking for her, and now she needs somebody to beat
it out of her so that the rest of the world can feel free to come and
bask in her light again, too. I'll gladly deliver said beating,
though with a slightly different motivation.
This was one of those final boss fights
that was simultaneously ridiculously hard yet astoundingly easy.
Like so many boss fights in this game, the trick was hitting the
target. Somehow, though, between what I had equipped as a weapon, my
high levels, and the fact that I had an NPC with me, staying alive
through this fight was easier than some of the normal battles on the
way up. Which isn't to say there weren't difficulties, of course.
Wound up toasting Sierra again, for instance. But that's because
this is one of those final bosses where if you don't have insanely
high levels and/or are not good at avoiding the attacks, you're gonna
get screwed. At least the Mana Goddess's attacks were worthy of a
final boss, even if the rest of the fight was not so much.
Once the Mana Goddess goes down, we're
treated to the game's closing scenes, where all the Sproutlings from
all over the world come to heal the Mana Tree. As the closing
credits roll, we get to see a lot of the other characters going on
with their lives in this brave new world we've created. I kind of
feel cheated that the Hero was not one of them we got to see after
saving the world, but hey, at least the game's over now.
This is one of those games where it's
worth it to sit through the end credits. It's not so much because
there's a cute stinger or anything, but there is a “new game plus”
sort of thing that I can get now that I have a completed game on my
memory card. But I'll get into that a bit more when I do the epilog.
For now, though, the game is over, and
I'm happy I won. It took a lot longer than I expected, but hey, not
so bad for what's been a blind run for 25 issues or so.
Like I said, though, there's more to
say, but I'll get into that in the epilog. Until then, stay safe,
keep gaming, have fun, and of course, DFTBA!
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