RGR007 - I'm a Real Boy!

After much wandering and swearing (okay, not really), I managed to stumble across something other than the looping rooms I was growing accustomed to in the Phantom Tower. I found a dead-end room with a treasure box, and in that box... the HyperSpeed3! Now I walk at least as fast as everything else in the game. Since I went south to get there, I decided to continue north, and found myself in a one-way corridor leading to the boss!

In a repeat of the boss battle in the cave northeast of Somusa, the goofy flying gremlin guy was there to greet me again. His pattern hadn't changed much, although he seemed to fly more directly at me. He also added a single new attack to his repertoire, a 4-way splitting star thing that didn't amount to much. It was a little harder to hit him while trying to avoid him this time, but I eventually brought him down.

In the next room, I found the princess. The REAL princess. I could tell she was the real princess because she was all pink. We exchanged pleasantries, and then exited the tower (which immediately collapsed, as expected) to head back to the castle.

What could it be?

You again? Need more arrows?

You'd better not be another fake.

Well, pink is a more princess-like color.

I'm bad news for towers.

Not very attentive, are we?

Once we got past the first set of guards inside the castle, we confronted the fake princess, who was finally, though obviously, identified as the Wizard in disguise. Given no other choice, the Wizard decided to throw down right there in the throne room. This fight was ridiculously easy, as he moves very slowly when he's not teleporting. The only complication to the entire battle is the fact that the Wizard is invisible, but the Magic Glasses make that a non-issue. After 6 or so direct hits, the Wizard was dead.

Well, technically dead, I suppose. His spirit remained, and announced that he'd be transferring himself into the body of a dragon (meaning he eventually did get his hands on the scrolls). The destruction of the Wizard broke the spell that had turned the king to stone, returning him to life. It also had a somewhat unexpected effect...

It broke a spell that had been cast on me before the game even began, turning me back into a man!

Wow, this is confusing.

He just looks silly.

Creepy disembodied voice, check.

PLOT TWIST!

You've known me for,
what, 10 minutes?

Oh yeah, there's still a bad guy.

Once more with enthusiasm!

Well, at least you didn't change gender.

Huh? That's a dude?

WHAT?!

Apparently, the Wizard had heard the prophecy made by the sorcerers who created the dragon that originally defeated him. The prophecy said that if the Wizard were to escape the Legendary Sword's bindings, only a man from a foreign land would be able to defeat him. He tried to win on a technicality by turning all the men in said foreign land into women, and this included me. But it looks like it didn't work.

With the Wizard preparing to become a dragon, it was up to me to hunt him down and reseal his spirit inside the Legendary Sword. So I headed out to the only place I could think of, a small town on a plateau called Baig, where only men are allowed to enter. I'm a man now, so I suppose I can get in. How convenient!

My first town as a man!

You seem surprised.

That's just great.

And that's where I'm headed.

Thanks, Strategy Guide Man!

Has that ever worked?

Beyond Baig was an icy wasteland with an especially confusing series of caves and tunnels, designed like a maze to prevent intruders from reaching the Final Tower. But I persevered, and eventually found the right path (which it turns out is fairly short) to the tower.

Ooh, it's all snowy and blue!

Even the enemies are blue!

Okay, this is getting old.

You just know they're poisonous.

Poison, or frostbite?

I wonder if the tower is made of ice...

Watch out, Wizard! The man from a foreign land is coming for you!

...yeah, that was lame. Sorry.

RGR007 - Partly Cloudy, 100% Chance of Brain Monsters

I know, I know, the ring only regenerates HP; it was the Golden Arrow that started the whole automatic arrow recovery trend. My mistake. Anyway, I finished up my map of the North Tower and took on the boss, a goofy frog thing. He'd have been a complete joke if his attacks hadn't included those debilitating fireballs I hate so much, along with a temporary scythe-wielding demon transformation. And before you start saying "Oh, that's the Parapo Beam; you need to use the Parapo medicine for that", there are two things to note:

1. The fireball's effects prevent you from bringing up the item menu, so you can't use it.
2. There is no Parapo Beam, so the Parapo medicine is useless.

Because I KNOW you were about to give me crap about the Parapo Beam.

I can't take this guy seriously.

Wait, yes I can.

Aww, the peninsula looks sad.

No thanks, I'll fold my own.

Hey, that sounds like a clue...

That too!

The frog guy was guarding the coveted Sky Shoes, which allow their wearer to walk on clouds. I had heard that if I had them, an old lady shopkeeper (that's not very PC, but whatever) in the mountains would escort me to the sky world. Of course, no one ever said WHICH mountains. It turns out there's a small volcanoesque mountain in the middle of the forest east of Ehdo, where the game's controls get all wonky. I think you're supposed to be wandering confusedly.

So THAT'S the mountain!

Oh, I thought you used a ladder.

As advertised, the Sky Shoes let me walk around on clouds of varying shades of gray. There are new enemies up here, including some slow-moving things that look an awful lot like Beholders from the D&D universe, as well as the disgusting multi-eyed floating brain monsters you see below. I found a single building up there, where an old man told me to find a narrow hole and jump in it, which sounds kind of similar to taking a long walk off a short pier, so I might be offended.

But I decided to listen to him and start looking for little holes, and sure enough, I found one and jumped in it. I came up empty-handed, though, and had to swim back to shore and start over. My second attempt was much more successful, as I found a rope. Not a magic rope or anything, just a regular old rope just sitting around.

With rope in hand, I started looking for high platforms to climb, and found one just west of Riria, where I found a tiny little town called Zellia. The people there (all three of them) act as guardians, watching over the people of Faria and waiting, apparently for me. One of them (an old man whose speech kept running one line too long for screenshots) gave me the Crystal of Truth, a magical artifact with an obvious power. For me, though, its only purpose is to show me which of the Phantom Towers is the real one.

The Phantom Tower is different from previous towers. Its rooms loop and link together in confusing ways, so that you could head in one direction indefinitely, and most of them look the same.

Which one's Cloud 9?

Eew, not this one!

He's just trying to get rid of me.

Hmm, this hole looks narrow...

But at least the view is nice.

Let's try this again...

That's more like it!

Who builds a town on a rocky plateau?

That's creepy.

So it's like a newspaper?

This one went by kind of fast.

Now you see them...

Now you don't!

This will be interesting.

Maps aren't going to be of much use to me this time.

RGR007 - The Newer World

Leaving the stone king behind, I made my way over to the cave northeast of Somusa (known so poetically in the manual as the Second Cave) to hunt down that weird floating guy who killed me last time. The cave is designed so the correct route is easily overlooked with the limited visibility the flashlight gives you, but I had surprisingly little trouble making my way to the boss.

He flies in rough circles, trying to hit you, but when you hit him with an arrow (a Golden Arrow at that), it pushes him back without disturbing his momentum. This gives you room to walk out of his flight path to line up the next shot. So you end up essentially following him around and shooting him every time he lines up with you. No problem.

Here we go again...

Round Two... FIGHT!

After finding the staircase beyond the boss' hallway, I exited the cave on the other side and began to search for the next town. A sizable portion of the land here is desert, and the selection of enemies has improved. Unfortunately, the enemies have now taken up the nasty habit of spitting fireballs that cause me to go out of control and start running around wasting all my special weapons.

I found a port east of the cave, but the captain of the ship waiting there was a filthy racist, and wouldn't let me on board. So I kept searching, and found the towns of Tegza and Teodoor. Tegza was scant, though an old man gave me a letter that he promised would convince the ship's captain to let me board his ship.

Teodoor, as you might expect, was in the midst of a problem that only I could solve. A man-eating elephant had taken up residence among their favorite fruit trees on a nearby island, so it was up to me to sail over to the island and take care of the elephant. It went down in three hits, which was kind of disappointing.

The people thanked me by giving me a translation machine, which lets me communicate with lizard men. It turns out the lizard man outside Highria was originally from Teodoor, and his name is Zelos. I befriended him, and he gave me the Super Armor, which is apparently the most powerful armor in the game. Realizing I had used up my last pair of wings, I headed back to Karuza to buy a few more pairs, and figured I'd go back and check up on the king.

As soon as I entered the castle, my way was blocked by soldiers who told me the princess had forbidden my entry. I had a feeling something like this would happen. From what people have been telling me, this isn't really the princess, but most likely the Wizard in disguise, trying to get his hands on the secret scrolls that contain instructions to create a dragon, and to send me off somewhere where I might get killed. That's just mean.

Ooh, the other side.

Yay, a change in battle landscape!

I'm calling the FCLU*!

I hope they have water. I'm parched.

I HATE THESE FIREBALLS!!!

Is that really how it's spelled?

So plant trees somewhere else.

Are you home, Mr. Man-Eating Elephant?

This is your horrible monster? Lame.

Just what I've always wanted!

Yeah, I can take a hint.

But he had no hands. Poor guy.

Gao?

But I thought she liked me...

Why not just build a bridge?

Crap, wrong turn!

With nothing more to do there, I headed back to Tegza via the wings, and then hiked to the port. As promised, the captain took me aboard, and we sailed about 35 feet to the east. The eastern island was a maze of straits and peninsulas, but I eventually found my way to the town of Shilf, which was AWESOME.

Every single in-battle item I was missing was available there: jumping shoes, bombs, magic saba, and the Magic Glasses, which finally allow me to see those darned invisible enemies! I also picked up Hyperspeed2, which makes me walk faster than just about every enemy I've encountered so far. The people seem to want me to head to the North Tower, and that's where I am now.

ANOTHER tower?

Ooh, a statue!

Ooh, another statue!

So I guess it's time to break out the pencil and paper for some more mapmaking fun. Oh joy.

*FCLU: Faria Civil Liberties Union