Light

Slightly less backtracking! 

The first thing we need to learn today is that the Arks can be used to power certain aspects of the church. The Ark of Power, the macguffin of last night, can power a steel door in the kitchen. Behind the door is the storage room, and there’s a stone squash inside. Licking it does nothing, so get close. Even though you have to get close to lick it…

We’re teleported to a pink village. The people inside tell us we’re in a hallowed out, giant watermelon. How was it hollowed out, you ask? They ate their way in. Cool! But there isn’t much here, so head to the world map.

Another thing the Ark of Power does is it temporarily returns the statues, which are more like figurines, to life. Before licking the squash, you were asked to take the six figurines with you. With them in your inventory, you can use the Ark on them to get a second party member. It only works once, but you can swap out characters anytime outside of battle. So if your current ally gets weak, make a swap. One of them is a dedicated white mage, so she can always be in reserve. You can even change gear while they’re in wood form, so it’s sorta streamlined for 1995. 

Take whoever and travel east to Gourd Bridge. It’s a food themed adventure, folks. Everyone here is really weird. Shops refuse to sell to you, and others are just rude. We can’t even leave the north exit. Do some sleuthing to find a secret room in the northwest under two leaves. We’ll find the real villagers down there. They tell us they’ve been taken over by a horde of foxes. They like fried tofu, so someone gives us a piece to fry on the heater upstairs. Doing so causes them to break their transformation spell, and then we jump out. We chase them to a cave system under town. 

We have to battle our way through several foxes, all of whom are pretty strong. They could easily kill us if they ganged up on us. We can return to the surface, warp to Watermelon Town, heal, and come back when you get low on HP. There were five, I think, but there’s a boss fox waiting in back. He’s just tankier. For some reason, Felys watches him walk away after the battle. 

Returning to Gorde Bridge lets us see it’s business as usual again. The shops have better gear, and there’s an optional sliding block puzzle. More importantly, we can travel north. Don’t yet, because the backtracking begins here. 

Talk to Watermelontown’s elder. The town is rotting, and the water supply is in bad shape. He gives us the hearts of a pineapple and a grape. Return to the church and dig through the crates to your immediate left. Place the hearts in the figures of the fruit. Go back to the fruit world again. Along the dried river bed, north of Watermelon and Gorde, are two fertile grounds. Plant the seeds. 

Return to the elder. He tells us about the beetles causing trouble. They live west. We’re in a giant tree and must go up. There’s a super beetle in the back, but it’s just like all the other bosses thus far. This is a problem with Mystic Ark: the boring boss battles. Say what you will about 7th Saga, but at least the difficulty was memorable. As with the boss fox, we let the boss beetle pick up three chests, one of which the elder suspects is the Ark, and walk away. We see him being accosted by a bird, who steals one of the chests before flying north.

Return to the elder. Most of the villagers are gone. They believe one of the fruits we planted has sprouted. They’re correct! Although it is hilariously cramped at the moment. 

The bird went to the northwest forest. Hidden paths are hidden beneath the heavy foliage, so expect to run into a lot of walls. The bird will be at the end, mourning. The tree it lives on is alive and tells us its hatchling vanished. The tree gives us the hatchling heart. As you’d expect, it’s back at the church. The figureine we need is behind the church if you take the right hand path. Walk back through the forest, because more backtracking, to see both birds happy. They fly away, but the boss beetle gets his treasure back before we get it. We do get the grape seed back when you climb the tree. 

Return to the elder. He wants to investigate the source of the river. Something upstream may be causing the drought. The dungeon here is different. There are no mobs, but there are Indiana Jones boulders. Dodge the rocks to find a hole in the river bed, eating all the water. There’s a boulder nearby that can be used to block the hole, but we’re all weak. We get a pot for our troubles, so fill it up with water while we’re here. 

Return to the elder. He tells us the lazy guy in Watermelontown is super strong. He hasn’t left yet, so go back there, give him the water, and he’ll tag along. Go back through the dungeon, and he’ll push the boulder, thus restoring the river flow. Grapetown begins to sprout, and Pineappletown grows large. 

Return to the elder. Grapetown is attacked by the boss beetle. 

Return to the elder, he’ll hand us the beetle key, which unlocks this chapter’s final dungeon, due north. We’re climbing a tree again, oftentimes using vines. At the top is the super boss beetle and the other boss beetle we’ve been chasing. Super boss fights us first, and he’s a doozy. It was around this time that I realized healing springs are far less common here. In fact, there are none. This is a game of attrition now, and I’m concerned. He’s weak to ice, and I need to get used to learning weaknesses. And there’s another trick here, because we’re in back to back wars. We kill super boss beatle, and we’re weakened, so boss beetle tries his luck again. But… it turns out he was in disguise the whole time. He was actually boss fox! Good luck in fight two; I save scummed so hard! As he dies, he gets upset that he broke a promise. Boss fox promised to hold the Ark for someone… The Ark of Light is in the chest. It doesn’t grant us a second ally, but you can imbue your sword with lightning, which is hella rad! Mobs still roam after the battles, by the way. 

Return to the elder… who isn’t there! Was he boss fox? That doesn’t make sense, though. Anyway, Pineapplettown is in its final form, and Grapetown is almost large enough to start a city. But the chapter comes to a close, and we can return to the church. 

The Ark of Light opens up two new mini game rooms. There’s a memory game at a tree near the hatchlings. Do it once, and you’ll never have to do it again. And we can now reach the stone sword on the beach behind the church. Enter the cave beneath the church and Ark of Light the fountain. The sword dimension is a monster battling game. You can use the monsters that you’ve turned into figurines in a totally AI brawl to earn platinum. You can also bet that platinum in other battles to get even more. Finally, you can exchange your monster statues and platinum for new items. I turned my gremlin into some strong armor for the monk. So I’ll be looking into world three…

…tomorrow! 

Please have less repetitive backtracking before I start hating this game.