Somebody tell Ace of Base that today is October 23, Sign Day. The first signpost on Filgaia was born somewhere in Little Rock. When the sign reached adolescence, it fell in love with a female board in Baskar and had lots of children.
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We did everything there was to do in the world. Yay! Now we can close it all out with…
The Ark of Destiny!
We do not actually have to go here, but I figured I would stop by and see how these guys ‘n gals were getting along. The last time this place was mandatory was when we were infiltrating the Cradle of the Metal God.
Anywho, everyone is all psyched about the Ark of Destiny getting ready for takeoff.
Just a reminder that good leader Lamium has been receiving visions from a mysterious “Saint” that appears in his dreams.
Yep! Totally gonna happen!
Alright, now we’ve confirmed the status of our Ark of Destiny peeps. Just wanted to make sure everyone was having a good day!
Now we head to Baskar.
Hey! Didn’t you hire us for this job? This your way of delaying payment?
Gallows’s hut activates the next scene. I wonder how much of this location was designed with multiple exposition cutscenes in mind…
Yes yes, we all remember the beginning of this chapter.
It was going to blow up the planet with Shane as the conduit, so that tracks.
This supposed to be revelatory?
Yeah, Granny and I are on the same page.
Poor old lady…
Glad to see this family is going to put the fun in dysfunctional to the bitter end.
“This was in the homework, Gallows.”
Gallows is the rare RPG hero that thinks to blame the plot macguffin for any and all personal problems.
Granny “training” is why Gallows has such great HP and defense for a mage.
Possible Wild Arms (1) reference…
The Elws had a teleporter system going in Wild Arms. In a weird way, this may be an attempt to tie those devices to the Sacrificial Altar.
Gallows, man, have you not learned that Shane is always right? (When he’s not attempting to destroy the planet.)
“We also haven’t had any Elws handy for centuries…”
“What’s the worst that could happen? We teleport to some moon prison or something?”
We just covered this!
“And then we won’t even remember that we failed, so it’s win-win.”
“Bring your brother! He hasn’t been out of the yurt since the incident.”
Everybody wins! Woo!
“Three-person parties suck. Let’s never do that again.”
This ain’t Final Fantasy 10, Granny.
Okay, so that’s about the last plot thing to do before entering the final dungeon. If you are the type that doesn’t like leaving a dungeon after you’ve started it, take care of everything else on Filgaia now.
But we already did everything we’d like to do, so to the Sacrificial Altar!
This is the same dungeon/location as before when we were rescuing Shane. It is still just a brisk jog from Baskar.
This time we are deliberately ignoring the “usual” entrance…
And heading straight up to the “secret” entrance.
There are likely players that re-explored the whole stupid old dungeon trying to find the proper path forward. I pity them.
Now we know what this room is for!
Kind of how the plot works, Granny.
…. When you put it that way….
“A talking box said we found all the treasure chests in the world, so this has to be the last place left.”
“Protagonists an’ all that…”
We are the four people on this planet with Ark Scepters, and they let us fight intangible gods once before.
I think Virginia and Granny could become (weird) friends after WA3 is over. Similar energies.
Remember when Beatrice gave us a literal key back at Mimir’s Well? Well, here it is.
And everything else we have done has been so carefully considered?
“Man, we have been close to the jaws of death so often, we know their name.”
“Yeah! It’s Steve!”
Virginia read that in a book somewhere, and has been waiting all game to say it.
Let’s get this party rolling!
Cash?
Not cash.
The Exodus Orb is an infinite-use key item. It is the “exit spell”, and will take you back to the entrance of any dungeon. Some people like to activate the final dungeon to obtain the Exodus Orb before attempting to find every treasure chest on the planet, as it really saves time in exiting dungeons you know have been completely looted.
Quick aside: There have been a number of dungeons in the past where the act of “walking out” of the area is what trigged the dungeon boss or a cutscene. It is pretty clear that the designers gave you this “exit spell” at the absolute end because it would break events earlier in the game, and there are no such events left.
Also: this will be a secret tool we will need to use later…
So do not break the orb.
Away we go!
Huh. Guess this is what happens when you can never see the ceiling.
“They say a fool may go to any extremes, but…that may just mean it takes a fool to do the extreme…”
Granny, are you writing a song?
Meanwhile!
Sweet! This is gonna be a classy affair.
You’re new.
Beatrice really hasn’t had any “generals” up to this point…
Meet the Disasters! Bashful, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, and Plok.
For being the gods of this planet, the Guardians are probably best described as merely “useful” over the course of this plot.
But we are getting a clear statement on what to expect with the Disasters here…
I called Macarena!
Who could she be talking about!? And, on a completely unrelated note, scroll back up to the start of this post for absolutely no reason.
Welcome to wherever we are! There is this mirror-static thing going on…
Getting’ lucid up in here.
Virginia is ready to dance!
Beatrice has her own castle. Of course she does.
Oh, that’s Na$ty.
Are we surprised here? Or angry?
Keep that metaphor rolling.
But that’s how the internet works, Virginia.
“I have the damndest time dusting the place, so I’ve been calling it my nightmare for the last few centuries.”
Final dungeon! Get hyped!
So, even after all that nonsense about the Exodus Orb, leaving the Nightmare Castle is just a matter of pressing X on this door.
And considering we will learn that this castle is basically set up like Mario 64, exiting is fairly easy.
But we’re not leaving now!
Here is the main hall.
There are a lot of branches from the main hall, but we are going to ignore all of them during this update, and head straight forward.
Hell yeah! Ooze!
Never had any problems with horrors before…
So we agree to move forward, and find that Disaster fellow.
Hiya!
The Disasters are basically “mirror” Guardians. There are seven, and they correspond to the seven “lesser” Guardians that we collected earlier in the game. There is not a matching Disaster for Time, or the four High Guardians (Hope, Love, Courage, Desire).
This is Disaster Luck, so they can…
Perform Lucky Shot, the summon attack of Chapapanga, the Guardian of Luck. The “joke” here is that that attack is meant to be difficult to use/weak because it works like a pokéball: use it as a final hit when the enemy is exhausted to obtain a rare item. Disaster Luck is never going to get a rare item off the party, so it barely does any damage. Sorry, Disaster Luck! You suck!
And we certainly do our share of damage to Disaster Luck.
Now is when things get dicey…
Disaster Luck transforms into Tiamat… Who, if we are being honest, is probably a rejected “dragon” design.
And Tiamat claims to have absorbed the powers of all the disasters.
She still takes her lumps, though.
This battle starts immediately after Disaster Luck is defeated, so no time to rest between fights.
And here is our fun time.
Final Disaster is an attack comprising all the summons of the first seven Guardians.
It includes five elements, and damage is calculated “per phase”, so a Fire Ward will guard against the fire section, but no other damage.
The Moon Guardian portion does not have an assigned element, so there is no guarding against that section of the attack.
Also: as it involves seven separate summons, this attack takes forever. It is like three minutes!
Let’s see… We have elements fire, water, wind, earth, and light. You technically do not need to guard against ice, lightning, or dark.
You see the same order of attacks every time. Not that you can pause or account for what is next, of course…
It ends with the same meager Lucky Hit as before.
This is my “underleveled” party, but it is still a party that has defeated every super boss in the game. And you see those HP counts? After “one” attack, Wirginia and Clive are nearly dead. Jet and Gallows have more elemental wards equipped, but there are literally not enough wards to cover my whole party.
No elemental weaknesses to be found here, so…
Clive has to hit back…
And heal everyone as much as possible at the top of every round. We will be nearly dead after every Final Disaster, and the only answer is continual full-party healing.
Tiamat will use Final Disaster every single round. You will never have a reprieve from the disasters.
We can either use every Mega Berry in stock and see how long this war of attrition lasts, or tell Clive to kick in the Finest Arts. At least losing all that health is great for hitting 100 FP.
And we win!
Thanks?
And that’s Tiamat down! That battle was scary, but we survived by using our most powerful attacks and healing. We need only walk forward to fight the final boss!
Next time on Wild Arms: … Or we could actually complete this dungeon the real way, and see a very different world where Tiamat is weak as a kitten.