I did a bunch of grinding to start tonight. It turns out I already got the Mana Egg, but I waded around in the poison river to level up my Water Magic. Eventually, though, I did do something!
As we enter Gumbo Village, Godwin tells us something is off. Even the people not from this region feel something is amiss. There so sign of festivities, it's cold, and Feena has a bad feeling. People around town seem to be afraid of members of the opposite sex. A woman runs away from Justin, and a man thinks Feena is a boy. How strange. What seems normal compared to them are the people who speak frog. It has something to do with a god, so I won't judge. Make your way to the Chief's Hut. When we arrive, he's excited as can be. He asks if Justin and Feena are a couple. You can give him the runaround, but you'll have to admit you are to get anywhere in the story. Feena isn't "not" happy, and Justin says he's just playing along. The Chief invites everyone to the feast that night, and the whole town comes.
So you can be a couple in here? Everyone has a date, so I'm getting confused. The Chief plays a song of questionable musical quality, but pay attention to the lyrics. He tells us that the Volcano stopped working five years ago, and the village has been cursed ever since. They've been looking for a Brave Couple, which I assume Justin and Feena are. After the song, we can walk around the town again. It's filled with more couples, happy that they can be together again. A few haven't seen each other in years. Speak to the Chief again, and he'll escort you to your room, but he asks us to talk to him again in the morning. When we do, he tells Justin and Feena to sit on the stage. He goes into more detail now. He brings up that a Dragon has taken root in the nearby Volcano. The only way to appease the Dragon, and resort Gumbo to its old ways, is to sacrifice a happy couple to the new god. He thought we knew that, but rather than apologize, the walls of the tent collapse. We can now see we're on a glorious trebuchet! It fires, and Justin and Feena go flying across the continent. Sue and Godwin try their best to catch up to us, but we won't see them for a while. The Brave Couple has a conversation in flight at Justin's expense. When they land, we're right smack in the middle of the Volcano!
What's with the music? It's just random, bit crunched screams. There are only three monsters up here: Fire Dogs, Magma Men, and Lost Souls. They're all weak to water, and the souls die in one hit to, seemingly, everything. The most common item drop here is a Rain Staff, which nearly one shots even the Magma Men. I used this time to grind some weapon skills. Feena mastered all of her moves, so now I need to figure out how I want her stats to go. Weapon levels give a stat bonus to two stats, which encourages switching. I can dig it. There is a Mana Egg near to where you land. Explore around, and don't enter any loading screens, or else you might miss it. You can't return to the Volcano after you defeat the boss.
Once you get the Egg, find the rock on the second screen. Push it, get the treasures behind it, and follow it down. It formed a bridge that we can cross. When we reach a junction just past it, Sue and Godwin finally get to us. If you want everything, head to where they came from. This is another section we can't return to. You'll see a bridge with a red item on the otherside of it. You can't reach hit yet, so don't worry about it. At this point, do what you want with exploring as you climb the Volcano. If you need to, find a secret wall for a Fire Charm accessory. That reduces Fire damage taken. In time, we'll reach the summit. We'll see the Dragon the Chief told us about hanging out in the lava. Godwin tells everyone to ready up unless they want to be a sacrifice. Justin tells him he's not one to die so easily.
The Madragon is another easy boss. Please ignore that Sue and Feena almost died, though. It has two targets, but they share an HP gauge again. It's resistant to all magic except Ice, but its physical defense isn't anything worth fearing. Keep everyone out of the center of the battlefield. The only move the head has (or used) is a Fire Breath that attacks in a straight line in front of it. It didn't suck my characters in like the Squid King, so don't worry about it. The body can physically attack, which is AoE, but it only got one chance against my up close fighters. I could have made this even easier if I equipped the Dragon Sword I was hoping to use specifically for this fight. I guess the water stick did pretty good, though.
When Madragon dies, someone will point out that we're surrounded by red light orbs. It's similar to what happened at Typhoon Tower. That's good, but what's bad is the Volcano starts to shake. It's been dormant for five years because the Madragon blocked its...volcanoness. We killed that, so we now need to run. After Sue makes a pun and gets yelled at by Feena, the party leaves the lava pools. Fire and rocks start to rain from the sky as we exit the summit. The game takes us to the base of the Volcano, where we see a proper eruption with some pretty cool visuals. Out of the frying pan, we all return to Gumbo Village. The guy at the inn says he's being attacked by monsters, but we can't see anything. So I guess we'll look into that...
...tomorrow!
I like the stat growth in this game. It kinda gives every character a certain playstyle, but there's enough wiggle room to give players a nonlinear path. Feena can be super fast or an evasion tank. Sue can be a physical tank or a ranged attacker. You can also just make everyone a mage, which is fun. As a Red Mage, I can get behind a mix-and-match approach with this. Not every character learns every spell, so that might even be a guide. It's taking a long time to learn more than a few spells, so maybe it could do with some early game magic boosts, though. This is, of course, a theory, and I may end up having everyone be the same. Who knows? It's better than Final Fantasy II.
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