Tournament Arc

Our first start of the year, and it's gonna end something else in a blaze of glory.

The team of Ryu, Nina, and Momo enter the Plant. It's not a dungeon, but we need to traverse a path laden with conveyor belts anyway. It's annoying. At the end are Palet and a strange onion looking thing. Palet tells us that the magical energies in the machines they use to grow crops here occasionally create a mutant spud. They have a disposal building for the average trash they make, but these mutant plants get a special cave to the west. Recently, one such creature has made disposal harder, so he asks us to take care of it. Palet and Momo also have some conversation about her dad, but I kinda tuned it out, but I wasn't the only one. Ryu and Nina stood off to the side and played some games, telling me Momo and her dad aren't important.

It's off to the dump we go. It's a cave filled with a few more conveyor belts and large boxes. We can walk on the boxes to reach some treasure, and we'll need to move more out of the way to make a path forward for us. The mobs inside have various elemental affinities, but they seemed to change every turn. One guy absorbed nearly everything I hit him with, but the next battle was weak to it. They're still vulnerable to physical attacks, though. There is an item in here, Artemis Cap, that is a must get for Momo. Her accuracy is hot garbage, and that hat increase accuracy. It's in the second room, and you'll need to move the belt to reach it. Heal up before you enter the chamber beside the pool of lava. Inside is the mutant we've come to dispose of. The team talks about it for a moment before it starts to speak. Its intelligence causes Momo to say that she regrets needing to kill it. It starts to ponder its existence. Out of panic, it attacks.

Mutant heals 250 HP every turn, but it's also weak to fire. I don't know how, but its healing wore off after one round. Maybe it was the fire I used? Momo should equip her fire ammo and have Nina use Simoon. It's the closest to fire she's got, and it's plenty good enough. Ruy's fire magic, though, is pretty worthless. I had him double slashing the whole fight, which is the strat I'll be employing for a while. Mutant poisoned the entire party, but I was more interested in dealing damage than healing it off. Technically, he stopped my playthrough a few months ago, so this is a bit of vengeance in these blows.

After we beat it up for a few turns, it comes to its senses. It apologizes, as does Momo. However, Mutant is now at odds with itself. It shouldn't be alive, but it's afraid of dying. In time, though, it asks us to dispose of it. We cut to the previous room, and Mutant is on the belt, asking Ryu to send it into the lava. Don't press the blue switch or else we'll send it the wrong way, and we'll need to reset the scene. It kinda ruins everything, and I don't know why the devs made this possible? As Mutant drops into the lava, Momo remains upset, thinking we shouldn't have to kill this plant. It's still at ease with its death. A seed then flops from the lava, scaring Ryu, He prepares for battle against it, but Momo runs between them, telling us that this is the child of Mutant. Mutant gave us this as a testament to stop making mutant plants. We return to the Plant, and Palet suggests we spend the night at the inn nearby. The paths out are still blocked, but he has a plan to get us back to Wyndia, but it'll take a night to finish the prep work.

The next day, Palet loads us into a wagon. We're to hide in the hey and sneak past anyone. As we leave the Plant, though, Palet says how happy he is that we're the ones Balio and Sunder are looking for. With us disposed of, no one will ever know about the plants he's making... We reach the checkpoint, and one of the evil unicorns shows up. It's almost like he knew we were coming... We're taken back to the arena, but there's a twist.

Balio and Sunder get the idea to make a lot of money off of us. You see, right now, there's a tournament going on. We've shown several times that we can more than handle ourselves in a fight, so what if we, a bunch of kids, won it all? Think of how much they could make betting on us? They unleash us a bit, but they take one of our group members hostage. Sorry Peco, but you can only say your name and are at level one. I don't know if we can leave the town, but I wish I would have. I finally have enough weapons for that master! But that's for later! We need to win three rounds to have any hope of being free, so let's jump to it.

Round one is against three guys who look like thieves. The gimmick here is we're standing on a pillar that's being held up by a half naked guy in a speedo standing in lava. It just makes sense. It's a gauntlet match, and each team will have to defeat all three members of their opposition. Alternately, you can kill the naked guy holding up the platform to win. Make sure Ryu goes first, and it should be smooth enough. Use protect before spamming double slash. I targeted the thieves because I wanted more EXP. Ryu took out two, but the last guy finished him off. Fortunately, he was just one Iceblast away from victory.

Round two takes place in the Null Magic Hall, a place where we're all silenced by default. Despite that, I kept Nina around. She's fast, so she can be used to spam healing items. Before we fight, our opponent shows up and tells us about his sick daughter. If we weren't fighting for something ourselves, we might have thrown the match to make sure he won. Sadly... We're against two golems and the mage himself. This is much harder than the last fight. The golems hit hard and fast, but the mage can't do anything because he's silenced. You will need to kill all three targets, so don't worry about the guy in the back. You can buy vitamins in the arena, so I suggest you use them with abandon. Ryu can learn Spirit Blast from the golems, which might be worth doing if you can spare a round. Wait for one to die, at least. Once their DPS is halved, it becomes manageable. After the fight, we try to console our fallen opponent. It turns out, though, it was all a ruse. His kid was faking in an attempt to gain sympathy from us. So you shouldn't feel bad!

The third and final round is against the undefeated, multi time champion, Garr! Before the fight, we see the evilcorns trying to convince Garr to throw the fight. They warn him that Ryu is a dragon, and Garr becomes interested. He pays them no mind, though, so we're gonna have an all out brawl. It's mano-e-mano. Garr gets a special light show for his introduction, and he warns us that we'll need to go all out to survive. Otherwise, he'll kill us.

Dragon form sucks! It takes MP to change, and it drains it every turn. We don't even have strong moves in it, so it's terrible! Fortunately, we can't win anyway. I don't know if it's damage based, turn based, or the game just gets bored after a while, but Garr will inform us that he's going to end it next shot. He does 999 damage, and we lose. One of the unicorns entrees the arena to ask Garr what he wants, and he responds, "Ryu and his friends." He wants us. The unicorn is annoyed, but he has no choice but to give in. When Ryu wakes up, Garr talks to him about some stuff, and we run to Peco. Garr holds our bullies at bay while we get him, then we all leave. The unicorns are upset and plot things, but Garr lets us go free. He asks that we head to Angel Tower, far to the east. But first, we need to return to Wyndia. Or, try to, at least.

Along the route, Balio, Sunder, and a whole horde of their minions jump us. We've annoyed them enough, and now they're out for blood! We first have to take out three random thugs, which our mages do quite well with their target all spells. But we're not done yet! The unicorns remind us we're surrounded, and the camera cuts to Garr, taking out the ones at our back. It's happening behind us, so Balio and Sunder are looking at it, but they somehow didn't see it. But whatever. Our savior is here to help us because he's done working for them and their boss. He joins the team, and we get to pick our third to end this part of the story. I choose Nina because she's relevant. But it's not going to be a three-on-two fight, no. Balio and Sunder put their pelvises together and form into one giant horse, Stallion.

This is a tough battle, I can tell ya now. I had Nina be on healing item duty for most of it, while Ryu and Garr did the DPS. Garr can do almost 100 HP with his basic attacks, so have him spam that every turn. Ryu should be doing double slash. Stallion's defense can be weakened if you want Nina to use it a few times, which might be worth doing. Her attack magic is a waste of a turn. Once again, don't bother with Ascension. Stallion has some decent physical attacks, but nothing that can't be healed off. Watch out for his teamwide attack, Utmost Attack. If he uses Resist, just heal up because you can't harm him anyway.

Once it's over, Garr decides to escort us to Wyndia to make sure we head to Angel Tower afterward. Nina tries to tell him we're looking for Teepo and Rei, but Garr reminds us that they're probably dead, making Ryu cry. But we'll figure out if that's true...

...tomorrow!

Garr died in that fight, by the way, so that's a great reintroduction to him. Anyway, it's totally not day one, but I'm glad to be playing Breath of Fire 3 again. I'm having fun and looking forward to seeing what happens when a missing Princess returns home with a giant with wings beside her!