36. Second Turn - Mega64.net

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Silent Light

Schala's been kidnapped, but at least she left open the way back to Zeal for us.

Also, if you're wondering what happened to Janus, well, there you go.

Looks like that job will fall onto us.

Not much dialogue changes, but let's revisit Kajar real quick.

That Nu with the scratch spot in Zeal Palace lets us scratch this Nu, which will cough up a Magic Tab.

The only new dialogue here are a couple NPCs bragging about the Ocean Palace being complete.

If you say "Yes", the Nu refuses to deal with you. If "No", then it'll sell you stuff.

This includes the three weapons we could have Charmed off enemies in Mt. Woe (Pearl Edge for Frog deals 50% more damage to magic enemies, the other two are standard upgrades) as well as the Lode gear we found earlier.

Zeal Palace

We Enlightened Ones will finally attain immortality.

Schala's already within the Ocean Palace.

And the Mammon Machine is already down there. This is bad...

Two Nus stand at the entranceway now, but they won't talk to you. Still a nice set-up, though.

And in the Throne Room is a rather irate Dalton. But then when isn't he irate?

I let the Prophet go, knowing he'd mess up sooner or later. But I've no use for you anymore.

Boss Battle 1

Dalton is an odd little gimmick battle.

He counters all attacks with Iron Orb, but that's also his only attack.

While other monsters use this message to signal a counter-attack phase, Dalton simply has sky-high evasion during this phase.

The trick is that his dying attack does deal actual damage, so you want to stay healed just enough to survive it. Otherwise, simple fight.

This isn't actually a gate, but the entrance to the Ocean Palace.

And down we go!

Interesting architecture down here. I'll link the music in just a moment.

Zeal Palace

...

Oh...what bright splendor! The incredible power of Lavos!!!

Undersea Palace

First off, here's the music for this place. It sets the mood quite well for this area.

This dungeon starts off with one massive room with plenty of off-shoots to the sides.

Barghest has decent magic defense but low HP.

The Jinn also has low HP, but max defenses as long as the Barghest lives.

The two have Dual Attacks, and sometimes the Jinn will even sacrifice itself to the Barghest to power it up and heal it.

But killing the Barghest and delivering another hit will take out the shield, making it significantly more vulnerable.

Not as great as Mt. Woe, but there's still enough to bring everybody up to speed.

I end up getting a lot of techs here.

There are three varieties of Scout, regular, Blue, and Red. Each one has a low 300HP and very high physical defense, but are weak against specific elements and absorb others, with their colors signalling which ones. The Red Scouts are thus weak to Fire, but they're also the only ones to be weak to a second element, in this case Shadow, which means you don't have to use Lucca since you can use Robo or certain Dual Techs instead.

If you use an element the scout is immune to, it'll counter with a party-wide attack of its element.

The Mage has powerful ball spells, good magic defense, and the ability to inflict Lock on a character. It's a decent threat.

This first floor has a lot of good treasures. The Aeon Helm is your standard helmet upgrade, but still not that bad.

And so we begin the run of Tech GIFs for this update.

Each character has a weapon upgrade here, and this is Frog's. It gives +4 Magic, which isn't too shabby.

(LVL + MAG) * 5.6 to all enemies. Pretty good behind Lucca's solid Magic stat.

Why does the scientist have the best Magic stat anyway...?

These are the regular Scouts. They're weak to and use lightning attacks, so Crono's suited to take these guys out.

A few defense points better than the elemental mails, but the latter are still much better for this dungeon due to all the elemental attacks being thrown around.

Finally, the water variant Scout.

Confuse + Fire 2. It adds the damage of the two together but throws in a small AoE. Situational.

And now we've unlocked a bunch of new techs, including another Triple!

Would be a nice upgrade for Crono if we didn't have the Swallow.

Same formula as Fire 2. Oddly this is Marle's ultimate damage single tech, and one of only two single techs she has that even deal damage.

Same deal with Ice Sword 2 as with Fire Sword 2.

Weapon for Lucca that can inflict Chaos.

Fire 2 + Ice 2. Only affects a certain area, but adds 50% more damage to each element and inflicts Shadow damage. Very solid Dual Tech.

Finally, Lightning 2 + Fire 2 + Ice 2. It deals 25% more of each element in Shadow damage to all enemies. Not too shabby.

Next to catch up is Frog.

Jump Slash + Fire. 25% extra damage for each move.

To my surprise, someone actually dies. Which is great, because I've been waiting forever to someone to die.

For 10MP, Life revives a fallen ally and restores MAG*10 HP to them. Much better than the low HP a Revive item grants.

Weapon upgrade for Marle that can inflict Slow.

This button unlocks the way forward...maybe? I don't really know. This is a decent-sized room to the south of the main room.

Standard upgrade for Robo.

Finally Frog gets his sixth tech, which unlocks another Triple.

Same formula as Lightning/Ice/Fire 2. Frog's lowish Magic kinda hurts it compared to Ice and Fire 2, but it'll do in a pinch.

This is the exact same as Delta Force, except replacing Marle with Frog.

There's a hidden second sword for Frog. It has the exact same strength as the Rune Blade, but instead of adding Magic it'll deal double damage to magic enemies. The Rune Blade is probably the better of the two, but the Demon Hit is much more useful for this dungeon since most of the enemies here are considered magical.

I go down from the main room and come across this Thrasher. Decent magic defense, lowish physical defense, and good HP. Not really a threat alone, but that will change.

Got this last update, but now that the fog is gone I can actually show it off. Rock Throw + Uzzi Punch, adding 25% extra damage to each. Not too shabby! Fails against the same enemies Rock Throw fails against.

And during all this grinding, I end up unlocking Crono's eighth and final tech.

There's an odd room below, so down the stairs we go.

Next is a linear descending staircase with enemy ambushes scattered about.

(LVL + MAG) * 20, Lightning elemental. Very powerful tech, and if Crono's Magic is maxed ends up being the most powerful Single Tech in the game, even strong enough to stand with some Dual/Triple Techs.

At this point, I start swapping characters like crazy to try to unlock whatever Dual and Triple Techs I can.

These guys will move up and down. Each one you hit joins the upcoming battle below, for a max of four, but with careful timing you can evade them.

I have no interest in evading them.

Fire 2 + Robo Tackle. 50% extra damage to both attacks, but single target. Still not too shabby.

Spincut + Laser Spin + Fire 2. It's Max Cyclone (Double Spincut damage with nothing from Robo) + Fire 2 with 25% more damage, but with the same wonky targeting that Max Cyclone has. It's alright, but not too great.

Once Thrashers team up with Lashers (standard defenses, same 666HP as the Thrasher), they can do Dual Tech counters like X-Strike or this Twister variant that can inflict Chaos, so be careful around them. Or just nuke 'em.

At the end is another familiar face.

We embody Melchior's dreams, sealed, within the knife...

Zeal Palace

D...dark...force...wild energy...! Aughhh!

Mother...!

Immortality will be ours! Zeal will have the glory it deserves!

It's not looking good...

Undersea Palace

We get to the bottom of that long staircase, grabbing yet more techs along the way.

This leads to an elevator, guarded by a few enemies.

Rock Throw + Ice 2. 25% extra damage for each in exchange for a smaller AoE. Still not bad with Ayla's muscle behind it.

I picked these up, but then decided to use them while taking the elevator up and fighting the enemy gauntlet there, which kills the GIF sizes, so I'll have to show these off later.

After a battle gauntlet of little note, we arrive here, where we need to go to each side of the room and hit two switches to go forward.

This doesn't take long, of course.

Oddly has the same name as Crono and Lucca's Dual Tech. Fire 2 + Tail Spin, with 50% extra damage to each. Boost Ayla's Magic and this becomes one of the most powerful Dual Techs in the game, and is still solid otherwise, especially since it targets all enemies with Fire.

We're nearing the end...

And look who it is yet again!

But this is the end! THEY will take care of you!

Boss Battle 1

This is one of the more notorious fights in the game, since it's one of the few challenging ones for casual players. The first Golem fight is optional to win, and you only have to deal with one of them. This time, you have to beat both to progress.

Otherwise, this is literally fighting two Golems as before. Which means the same tricks as before work to trivialize the fight.

The first option is to stick one element and guard against it. Fire is recommended since a lot of gear can resist fire, but if you charmed the Lightning/Water helms earlier they'll do too.

The second is to rotate elements so quickly that the Golem has no time to adapt. Of course, this is more difficult when dealing with two of them, but at the same time you should have access to the tier-2 spells.

What I did was do best of both worlds, focusing on fire attacks on the left one while Marle buffed/healed, then alternated Fire/Ice on the right one after the left died, cheaply stunlocking it until it died.