Can you feel the beat? Because today is April 10, Heart Day. My heart works hard everyday so I can move and work normally. My liver and kidneys also work hard each day too, but they don’t have days named after them… I’d like to give my personal thanks to these unsung organs.
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Well, technically last week we completed our last optional sidequest for this section of the game, but waaaay back in Part 42…
Clive had a good sit where he got to thinking about his old mentor…
Who was very learned in Filgaia not-magic magic science…
And got squished by a security system gone haywire.
So Clive decided we were going to go see that ruin.
(Back then)
(The Present)
Now remember, taking a shortcut will lead you astray or something, so that event was hours and hours of gameplay ago. Four hours, actually, as I can compare screenshots from the older update. Oh! And the Wild Arms 3 clock is all wonky, too, so it was probably much longer. I have no idea why that timer only counts walkin’ around time.
Then again, I have two different playthroughs going here, so it is all very confusing. Point is that it has been a while since we participated in the mandatory plot!
So now we fly!
… We wouldn’t be able to fly if we didn’t do all those sidequests for hours. See, Clive! It was helpful! It’s not like your professor/father-in-law is going to get any more dead.
Being able to fly makes this quest a little easier…
As the only directions we have are this “old, worn-out map”, and nailing that location is easier from the air.
You can certainly reach these Ruins of Dreams from a nearby Sandcraft beach if you would like, though.
Looks like another vaguely techno dungeon. Not as bad as Yggdrasil, but pretty close to Faraway Lands.
“Fun lore, fake dad.”
“Man, I always forget to bring flowers…”
I always appreciate how Gallows is a pretty consistent buffoon, but an empathetic buffoon. This is in stark contrast to Jet, who is just a jackass.
Everyone is concerned this PS2 game is going to turn into a PS4 Sad Dad game.
“You know? The one that killed my friend and teacher? Oh, fignuts, I’m sad again.”
Little on the nose, dungeon.
First thing we’re going to do here is get some ups.
This treasure area is completely skippable, and if you don’t immediately identify that grating in the first room as something other than window dressing, you might miss this area entirely.
There were two treasure rooms accessible from this fork, and a total of five treasures. Score!
Now moving on to the dungeon proper.
Mushrooms ‘n hands
Mushrooms ‘n hands
Best of friends
It’s mushrooms ‘n hands
Any and all fungi should be immolated on sight.
These guys work just like their buddies in the timer dungeon or Gunner’s Heaven: they are annoying, and will attempt to cancel turns or reduce accuracy. They won’t kill you, but they will slow you down.
Kind of dig the design on the knuckles, though. Eat your heart out, Wall Masters.
Okay, let’s get a move on.
Oh! One of those wheel-based locking mechanisms. I should be keeping track of how many of these there are across the game. I think we’re at three?
Break time.
This is a direct quote from Siegfried, like, hours ago.
(Flashback! Again!)
Though it is closer to Berlitz’s comment from the flashback. Clive has a lousy memory.
“This planet is Unicron. Major plot twist. Got it all figured out.”
So Clive’s theory is that the demons want to screw up the planet. Duh.
“We routinely get hit with a magic spell that turns us into bronze statues. An item sold by a mundane merchant changes us back. It seems possible.”
“We turned this planet into a craphole. Twice. We can do it again.”
So secret truth or something: this was an old Yggdrasil-esque rejuvenation center. The kind you read about in murals.
"Daddy worked at Yggdrasil! Is Daddy here? Or… a smaller Daddy?"
“The impossible dream of maybe getting a decent potato somewhere on this toilet of a planet.”
Moving on to find… I don’t know… more nanites?
Hey! It’s that security system I’m always hearing about.
“Is your dad in that pile of dirt?”
“No. Different pile. Also, not my dad.”
“How about that pile over there?”
Simple puzzle. Throw crate at crystal. No big.
Now we’re up to the laser controls.
Dammit! I was in the middle of something!
Seriously? Bro? There is nothing threatening about “Caterpillar Attack”. That’s like having a move called “Scrunchy Sit Down”.
Eat ice, insect.
Okay, now Clive can get some cathartic, explosive revenge on the security system.
Clive started the game with the bomb tool. Do you suppose this is why he got them in the first place?
That’s a little too high to jump in one go…
But there are some nearby stairs to make our life easier.
This is a little bit of a trick. Despite how it may look, you cannot hit the switch/crystal with anything from this grate.
Have to get up close and personal.
Now we’re good.
That doesn’t look suspicious at all.
Gonna go ahead and ram right into that.
Good. Another tube room.
“Was the machine WALL-E?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you watch my daughter’s DVDs…”
“That’s a tube, Virginia.”
“It’s the small thing. The thing you can’t see. Just… uh… imagine there is something in there.”
“Where have I heard about those before…”
“Oh yeah! That thing that damn near killed me and crippled me for a week.”
“Mostly because my cat keeps knocking over my microscopes…”
“You think nanomachines are cheap, Virginia? Gotta get your materials somewhere.”
Daddy sense tingling!
Jet, please do not reflexively shoot Werner.
“I knew if we started talking about super science, you would show up!”
Daddy conference!
That is the politest way to tell someone they’re a dangerous idiot I have ever seen.
“In other words, nanomachines imbedded within the body are programmed to rewrite the structure of living organisms. Everything would be okay if this is promoting the rejuvenation of the environment, but an unseen enemy is misusing the lost technology. It is believed that this enemy is using the nanomachine to devour and destroy the environment and to change it into something completely different.”
Technology can be good or bad! Gasp!
“So the demons are butt cancer!”
“Gallows… it… It can just be any cancer…”
Where have we seen a living example of this before?
Oh yeah, that dead guy.
So complete with visual aids, Wild Arms really wants you to understand that Siegfried’s plan is to transform the whole planet into a “demon” in the same way that Janus was eventually overtaken.
“Do you think the planet will have, like, wings? Or a tail?”
“… Maybe?”
This is shocking! We get it!
“It probably would be a worse planet than we have now. I… think.”
Well we were going to let the giant, menacing demon do whatever he wanted, but I guess we should actually address the issue.
Anywho, I guess we got the clue we needed here? May as well stop by the ol’ gravesite.
Werner joins the party!
Like every other guest character, he isn’t “really” there. But it is nice to know Virginia gets some daddy-daughter time.
Fun fact: Werner taught Virginia how to use her ARMs, so nearly every character that has ever "joined" our party is a trained combatant that does jack all while they are traveling with us. Janus, his boys, Maya, and her entire family all could have helped, but never did. Shane is the only one that gets a free passivism pass.
Guess a boss is coming up.
This switch needs a little extra heft.
So dropping from this grate should help.
Danger room! This platform quickly rescinds once you step on it.
But there is a switch over there.
Go! Boomerang!…. Maybe steer it better on the return swing.
Okay, not a big deal. Another security apparatus down.
Werner? Got something to say?
“Get a load of this jabroni.”
Is this new information? I feel like it has been emphasized before.
So nanomachines are amazing, but there is no evidence they were ever used on any biological creatures around town. This calls into question what the abundant nanomachines around Filgaia were even doing…
But anywho.
Yes, this was 100% a “lesser” Yggdrasil facility.
But it didn’t have the power-orb of Yggdrasil. You need a lot of power to get one of these plants going. Write that down. It will be a plot point.
“Then we all die. Next question?”
Oh, so the planet is just destroyed. Again.
Duran, Duran, what are we going to do with you? You are notorious.
Revelation!
“It was inside Yggdrasil’s archived data…The Yggdrasil System was secretly pre-programmed to go haywire! None of the council members knew about it…The program was -hidden-! But why…!? For what reason!? … It wasn’t a mistake…Duran was laughing at the time…”
Werner believes that the Yggdrasil “accident” was no accident, but deliberate sabotage instigated by Duran. Note that apparently even the semi-immortal Prophets had no idea this was happening.
Unfortunately, we don’t know why Duran would do such a thing (while laughing!). A moment of silence for the jokerized.
“Searching everywhere but the actual Yggdrasil Plant where everything happened… but good hustle!”
“Oh bother. I’m a bad daddy.”
“Please never say that again, Mr. Maxwell.”
Look out behind you!
Here it comes!
We were getting too many plot dumps at once, so we may as well fight a Beholder.
Oh, my bad. This Beholder has a body. A nice, legally distinct body.
Humbaba? Oh we gettin’ Gilgamesh in here.
I… think we’re supposed to use elemental magic in this fight.
As a design concession to how you can be way overpowered for this dungeon thanks to available sidequests (and, side note, now we are wee gods on both playthroughs), many of the plot bosses are borderline puzzle fights for this section of the game.
Humbaba’s big deal is that he’s got a countdown to a party-wide instant death attack.
Humbaba uses Humbaba’s Curse every three rounds. In fact, his pattern is always headbutt – warning – death curse. Humbaba’s Curse is a 100% accurate instant death spell that will kill everybody… Assuming they don’t have a death-ward ability equipped.
You are guaranteed to have one death-ward available on the Cosmic Cog medium, but any Holy Grails you have picked up along the way will help, too. As you can see with Gallows here, if you do not have a death-ward ability equipped… you dead.
So since this thing is so damned weak to elemental attacks, imbue your boys with elemental attacks, and have Gallows and Virginia toss off the usual spells. … I mean, assuming everyone is alive.
You can really do some damage with those elemental-weapon attacks. Remember to equip the Weakness ability if you have Luceid handy.
And that’s that. On the “real” playthrough, I exploited weaknesses and murdered this sucker before his first death attack.
That Holy Grail would have been good to have before the fight!
“Random boss monster spewing fatal breath. No big deal.”
It’s impossible to screenshot, but there is the sound effect of a little girl laughing here. Wonder what that was about…
Anywho, little dungeon left here.
Like the entryway, the boss room here is kind of a trick, as there is a door that you might think you walked through and/or is decorative, but is technically unexplored.
It’s got some treasure, and a scenic view of that area with the collapsing floor.
And another treasure room!
Which is good…
And bad…
But you do score another amulet. It blocks against status ailments when guarding, if you have forgotten. We have a few at this point. It would be really useful in a fight where a monster counts down to a devasting status attack on a telegraphed turn.
Now we’re at the actual end.
And you thought Humbaba had a “smell of death”…
“Yep, that’s his rotting corpse.”
“It’s totally there. Can totally see it.”
“Man, was that a difficult conversation to have with my fiancée.”
“You were right: Everyone had their memories wiped by some unknown force. And this guy in the hat standing right over there knows exactly why, but he won’t tell me. I should remind him of my ARM…”
“What was that?”
“We all might die here. May as well leave.”
“Maaaake a world that suuuuuucks slightly leeeeeess…”
“You were the shitz, Berlitz.”
Next time on Wild Arms: The pinnacle of all fantasy super science.
[…] Yet again, a reward that would have been useful for the fight. That has been happening a lot since Humbaba… […]