Today is inexplicably July 24, Pin a Banana and a Fish Day. Pin a toothpick or fork on a banana and a fish and place it in a cool, dry place. Your late grandpas and grandmas will come to visit today.
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We finally rescued Maya! Mostly! We’re still stuck in the enemy base looking for Siegfried, but at least she is no longer actively kidnapped. Oh! And we beat a dragon, too! What could be next on our quest through this flying castle?
If you answered, “boring hallways,” you have been paying attention!
Continuing the grand tradition of “sorta platforming”, we now have some grappling hook “puzzles”.
Hit a switch to get this thing moving.
Be careful! When dismounting a grapple, Clive moves one square forward. If you are facing perpendicular to this skinny platform, you are probably going to toss yourself into the abyss.
Go with the flow.
The whole party is showing, so something is going to happen.
We found… an orb?
A sticky orb.
Thank you, Dr. Maxwell.
It is suggested that we get explosive on this thing, but someone stops by to object.
Dammit! That’s the one thing we don’t want to have happen.
They are only 74% mature, but “only” is a bit of a weasel word.
Shucks, no.
Welp, no other way to solve this problem. Guess we’ll roll over and die.
Always shoot the messenger.
So we get a boss fight with Leehalt prattling on about his evolution schtick.
… Hey, wait, aren’t those other two already dead?
Virginia, obviously, objects to this whole scene.
“Okay, you, you idiot.”
Oh, finally time for the big “reveal”?
Remember how it has been stated, like, seventy times that there is an overt link between “demons” and the “humans” of today?
“A long time ago…Far, far away…existed the planet, Terra; home of the neosapiens…Technology flourished by leaps and bounds, evolving the planet. The people of Terra were no exceptions to this evolution…Their desire for limitless power and everlasting life caused them to outstep the boundaries of living organisms…by using nanomachines to merge with machines.”
I am not kidding that Shane already told us this, but it looks like nobody was paying attention.
Gee, where have we heard of that fusion before?
“Indeed…Our forefathers rode the immigrant ship to reach Filgaia…These neosapiens are the very demons that appear in folklore!”
Seriously, I know I am playing this game over again (twice), but is there anyone that reached this point and found this to be a surprise? It is all but outright stated repeatedly before this point.
Well, it’s a surprise to Virginia, at least.
Search your feelings, you know this to be a boss battle.
So Leehalt went ahead and cloned his dead buddies for the exclusive purpose of them being fighting puppets. Given the whole “make a clone” thing was Malik’s whole deal, this is not unprecedented.
The clones are not quite as powerful as their original versions. As an obvious example, Malik Clone does not have his traditional super speed, so you do not need to cast Decelerate to hit him.
They still have many of the original’s other abilities, though.
Leehalt basically needed to bring his buddies, because his whole counter ability is super boring when he’s the only opponent.
Is it supposed to be a plot point how easily Leehalt’s cronies are replaced after their noteworthy deaths? Or is it just a gameplay cheat to have one last significant Prophet battle? Both?
This time, Leehalt can counter and use a piddling regular attack, too.
Complete with the clones being weaker, this fight seems to be a deliberate reminder that you have leveled up since the Prophets were first introduced, and now they are just kind of sad. Blast ‘em into next week.
Don’t forget your poison wards, though!
Amusingly enough, the clones are never acknowledged. The party is not surprised to see them, and Leehalt never calls attention to his spare buddies.
Anyway, same strategy as ever. Be careful with being too powerful, and letting Leehalt get a full-counter that wipes somebody out. Since Wild Arms 3 has that gameplay feature where a character dead at the end of a battle means they permanently lose maximum HP (well, permanently until they stay at an inn), you want to keep them on their feet before the real boss battle of this place.
Using Lifedrain seems appropriate today.
Camera doesn’t even care to focus on this guy.
Are you still talking?
Ugh, whatever. Man was the real demon all along. I know! I have a twitter!
Come to think of it, the world of Wild Arms 3 is pretty peaceful. This is a planet with extremely limited resources, but the only “people” we have ever seen rob a neighboring town was the Gobs from Virginia’s opening. And they are literally monsters.
“Could a demon pull off this much purple?”
“Seriously! Malik turned into a bird! That’s friggen weird!”
So that was our last Prophet fight for reasons that should be obvious. As usual, these guys go out like a wet fart.
I guess the clones just dissolved into goo or something.
“How’s that workin’ out for ya?”
Virginia has been consistently speechifying the prophets to death.
Oh! Right! We completely forgot about Leehalt’s creepy fixation on Virginia’s mom.
Gallows desperately trying to remember who Ekatrina was…
“Yeah, you keep my mom’s name out of your blue mouth.”
“Possibly while walking over Leehalt.”
“… I’m into that…”
“Shut-up.”
We have a brief respite where we have control again. Talk to Leehalt to hear him muttering about demons again.
Clive, what are you going on about?
We should probably check out this whole nanomachine situation.
She didn’t think this console had a communications feature, Virginia just likes shouting out to Maya when confused.
Maya apparently cannot stop the nanomachines back at her control room. Her suggestion is… predictable.
“Do we have literally any other solutions to our problems?”
Is anyone here in this Old West setting a computer programmer?
Oh, right! Werner shouted something about that before he fought Asgard for the hundredth time.
Under normal circumstances, if your hand glows green after touching a keyboard, you probably need to grab a disinfectant.
“Uh… green hand? Totally normal thing. Nothing to worry about.”
He doesn’t have any memories, remember? If you don’t know about it, he doesn’t know about it.
“So… can you do it again?”
Even Maya is jumping up Jet’s ass.
What the what?
Uh… sure it does.
It is a plot point that Jet painted his gun black to be cooler, and that bamboozled the bad guys.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Jet, stupid."
“Oh, just a reminder? We were terrible at our jobs. That will be relevant again.”
Like the demon explanation, all of this has been heavily foreshadowed since back at the ol’ Prophet Lab a million updates ago. However, in this case, it was a little more subtle.
Basically, the planet they are living on is a living organism, and it used to be better.
So the idea was to… I don’t know… make a dude out of the planet. I’m sure it made sense at the time.
And one of the not-surviving council members, Elliot Enduro, lost a child (I like to assume Melody accidentally poisoned him), so he made the “Filgaia sample” look like his lost son, because that makes some kind of sense.
“Am I a tree?”
Yggdrasil was exploding, and Werner was like “let’s grab the surly looking kid in the tube”.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
So that is all a longwinded explanation for why Jet can directly interface with some of these environment-based computer devices. He is identified as “the planet” by the systems, so he gets admin access.
And then Jet gets really mad when Leehalt claims that this was all Werner’s plan from Jet’s birth.
I mean, Werner did raise Jet and teach him how to use his unique ARM, so.. uh… Jet’s life really is all Werner’s doing…
Ain’t no planet-person gonna get Leehalt down.
Oh? An RPG villain calling a protagonist with fractured memories a puppet? How novel.
“Welp, that’s it for me. Leehalt out!”
Did Jet do that? Or did Leehalt just self-destruct? Or was it a delayed reaction to our fight? One way or another, we should take responsibility.
Anyway, Jet did his job.
I like to believe Clive just plain dislikes Jet, and is using this opportunity to be a jerk.
“Well, any more bitter than usual.”
“I am basically an infant. You are all monsters for making me fight. I want a binky.”
“Did anybody have ‘secretly the spirit of the planet’ on their Bingo card?”
“In a… fighting way?”
“Whatever. Keeping my options open.”
Let’s go shoot some demons!
And… that’s that. Let’s talk about Jet/Adam/The Filgaia Sample for a minute.
So the big secret all along is that Jet is not a “human” or neosapian, but a wholly unique organism designed “from” Filgaia. All of our heroes and villains can, one way or another, trace their origins back to Terra; but Jet is the only Filgaia-based creature in this entire plot. “The Flower Girl” is unconfirmed (though likely a native Elw) (also: this twist explains why she immediately liked Jet so much), and the Guardians don’t so much have physical bodies. Jet metaphorically represents Filgaia, and possibly literally is Filgaia.
Though this information doesn’t impact the fact that Jet is Jet at all, so it is basically just there for a few plot twists. Despite his tube-y origins, Jet is just the same generally gruff teen he has always been, and we are not going to have a scene in the future where Captain Planet tries to possess his body or something. He has weird, sci-fi origins, and he has a very important part in the overall plot as a result. But that’s about it. He is Jet, and he’s not going to get a little thing like being a clone baby get him down. Further.
And, hey, we even get to avoid the big “memory reveal” scene, because Jet doesn’t have amnesia, he just plain doesn’t have any memories. I like that twist! He doesn’t remember his uncommon birth for the same reason you don’t remember your birth. Your mom was there! You really should remember!
For those curious enough to read ahead, Jet will get a reckoning later for this plot twist, but, once again, it is Jet-based, and not some situation where a main character suddenly has a brand new personality because of his secret origins. Giving you the side eye as I type that, Xenogears.
Speaking of Playstation RPGs, this whole thing deeply reminds me of a certain turnip’s story in Breath of Fire 3. And I think we can all agree that comparing Jet to a barely verbal vegetable is appropriate.
So that’s the secret of Jet, everybody!
Incidentally, the “deep lore” explanation for his ARM is fun, too, and we can finally discuss it with a good conscious. The Airget-Lamh likely derives its name from the Irish myth of Nuada Airgetlám, and the name Airgetlám straight up means “silver hand/arm”, which theoretically draws back to the fact that the Airget-Lamh Jet wields is not supposed to be black. Anywho, you can read about Airgetlám on your own time, but what’s important to Wild Arms is that Argy loses an arm as a pretty significant part of his story, and Rudy of Wild Arms (1) also loses an arm during that tale. And what was Rudy all about? He was an artificial construct who thought he was a human-human! Just like Jet! So theoretically Jet’s weapon is meant to be a clue as to his eventual reveal.
And Arghetlamh is the name of the sacred sword in Wild Arms 2, too. Given that Saint Sword saves Filgaia from demons there, this is perhaps a nod to how Jet is destined for more heroism than his demeanor lets on. But perhaps the same could be said of all RPG protagonists…
Regardless! Fun facts abound!
Okay, back to the dungeon.
We’ve got a collapsing bridge and a moving wall attempting to push us into a pit.
We dealt with one of these a while back. Just use bombs?
No, we should probably freeze it in place first. Attempting to stick to one tool will dunk you into the pit.
Eat it, masonry.
More hallways, more monsters.
We done yet?
Ah, another “can you press buttons” puzzle.
Jet is a toddler, so he can handle this.
Okay! We are at the end.
Maya recounts her failed battle with Siegfried, and how he used the Teardrop to heal himself from all damage. She offers an extremely specific and overt clue for the upcoming battle.
But speaking of that epic finale…
We’re going to take a break before the big bad boss fight of Chapter 3. We had enough info dumps for one week…
Next time on Wild Arms: Mugging for the camera.
[…] “Filgaia’s spawn”? Yep, gonna start calling Jet that. […]