Golden Sun with No Swords Part III
May. 29th, 2024 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingThis second play session of 2024 related to proving Isaac is not an anime swordsman was played on May 28, 2024.
The first thing I did was backtrack to the Venus Lighthouse entrance, realizing I had bypassed the Carry Stone. I got it quite quickly and also proceeded to a statue that matched the one in Babi Lighthouse that I didn't know how to proceed from last time; I believe this statue gave me the hint I will eventually need.
I just kept heading backwards in the game from there; it wasn't too far to get back into the edge of the Suhalla Desert where I jumped into the non-Doused pink tornado to get a ride to Crossbone Isle. This isn't really any more or any less important than it would be if I were allowed to use swords, but it's important to me to get the final djinni and the Cleric's Ring, at least.
Crossbone Isle Entrance:
The puzzle outside wasn't in any way challenging, but it did require climbing the vines again and again and again.... so that was fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 1:
Once inside the cave, we fought the Hobgoblin and its buddies. I forgot to do any particular preparation but the battle was quite easy regardless.
Inside there was one of those puzzles with tiny platforms and stump-like thingies that had to be moved using the Move psynergy. Like the entrance area, this wasn't hard, but I did have to leave to reset the room several times.
Crossbone Isle Floor 2:
Here, for the boss, we fought two Grislys and a Succubus. I thought the Succubus was the main boss and the Grislys were the minions, but nobody seemed particularly stronger than anyone else. It was a rather trivial fight.
The puzzle was also trivial - a dry-land log rolling puzzle - but I enjoyed it. For the sake of speed it would be sort of nice if they were all this easy, but I suppose that would make for a rather boring game. This dungeon level included a chest with a Mystery Blade but, since we are never using a sword, it is just going to be sold later.
Crossbone Isle Floor 3:
By this point I was more properly in the rhythm for preparing for the boss fights. By setting several djinn to standby before the battle, I could open with a barrage of powerful summons at the cost of my characters being quite a bit more vulnerable for the first few turns of battle - sort of a glass cannon affair. Open with a big blast and then try to survive. It worked out well.
I figured out the puzzle pretty quickly: use the Catch psynergy to get keys to access the treasures. I actually got the red key that opened the path forward first and then decided to return to get every possible treasure.
Crossbone Isle Floor 4:
The bosses here were two Gryphons who had quite a bit of HP. The starting summon salvo still simplified the scenario soundly.
For the puzzle part I realized I had to use Halt pretty quickly, and eventually realized the shadows were an indication that I had to use Cloak to stealth my way around this floor's statues. Quick and fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 5:
The boss here is a Lizard King who comes with a bunch of enemies that I've already fought as normal encounters. I knew that the additional enemies would go down quickly to my opening summons, and the Lizard King wasn't really much tougher.
The puzzle here was a log rolling puzzle but with one option to change the water level. I was able to visualize my path to the Ninja Garb and then the exit pretty quickly. It was fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 6:
The boss fight was Chimeras. These fights were feeling pretty boring.
The puzzle room, however, was pretty neat, with a mixture of pushing columns manually and with mind bullets!, using ladders on three different levels, and chasing down my final djinni, Bane.
I also got the Demon Axe here but didn't equip it due to its curse. The final chest in the middle was pretty tricky to get to though I wasn't stuck for long, and it felt good to get it.
Crossbone Isle Floor 7:
There were some Earth Lizards at the door this time. They took a lot of damage from Meteor, but otherwise they may have been one of the more interesting fights down here since they have a very powerful (badly translated) Acid Blessing.
This was also perhaps the hardest puzzle, with it taking me a couple of door resets and some experimentation to loot all of the chests. This is the floor where you need to use Carry to pass, and I wasn't super used to how it worked... but I think I am now! The best treasure here was the Wicked Mace which is going to end up being perhaps my best weapon in this run - at least for this game.
Crossbone Isle Floor 8:
There was a Poison Toad here. It wasn't hard but the deadly poison status actually necessitating restoration was still sort of new and different.
The puzzle was stupid. It was using Frost and pushing things but in a very precise order - like some of the earlier puzzles, not the least bit challenging but a bit time consuming. It required me to reset the room a couple of times. The only noteworthy prize was the Cleric's Ring. I gave it to Garet, along with the Wicked Mace from the previous floor. The Wicked Mace is cursed, but it allows Garet to occasionally use a really strong deadly poison unleash effect. It's also really important because the Cleric's Ring, which is the only way to equip cursed items with no major drawbacks, doesn't exist in this game's immediate sequel, and getting it here allows it to be transferred over.
Crossbone Isle Floor 9:
The boss of this floor was a pair of my favourite type of bus: a Cerebus. It is puzzling to me how this weird, context-ignorant translation has persisted over the years, but whatever.
The fight didn't seem very hard, and then we got to do a log rolling puzzle. While I lost track of the solution briefly I think I got it done quite quickly, getting the (useless) Muramasa sword.
Crossbone Isle Floor 10:
And then there was Deadbeard! Actually, there was a mimic first. It legitimately surprised me but it was easy at this point - which is good, because I had already un-set a bunch of djinn.
Although I have played through this part before nearly 20 years ago, I didn't remember it well, so it was very surprising to me when the battle with Deadbeard begins with no dialogue or cutscene. Before I even stepped onto the pirate ship. and before the Mimic, I had put 15 djinn on standby - I decided not to do it with 4 Jupiter djinn because Judgment clearly wields swords that he may or may not actually be using.
I opened with all four characters using their strong summons. I thought this was going to decimate Deadbeard and allow the battle to end quickly, but we legitimately struggled to survive for a long time as our djinn gradually reset.
I used a few buffs, and I was surprised to see that Deadbeard would use Break to remove some of them, and that Deadbeard himself had some buffs. Even though his buffed physical attacks were nasty, it was definitely his whole-party-targetting psynergy attacks that were the bigger concern. When he used two of them in a single turn, it was rare that Ivan and Mia could both survive. I probably used about 5 of my rare Waters of Life.
Eventually I realized that Garet - now a Samurai when his djinn were all set - had a nice resistance buff available, so that may have helped. And once Ivan and Mia both had enough djinn to access their Wish spells, our survivability improved, allowing Isaac and Garet to use their maces with powerful unleashes. Mia also used her Mars djinn so that Garet could summon Meteor again, which had proven to be my strongest attack.
The ultimate prize in this place is the Demon Mail, which isn't actually particularly good.
I got back to Lalivero - annoyed that I still had to Douse the tornados in Suhalla Desert again, etc. - and sold the Mystery Blade, the Muramasa, and the Demon Mail. I think we're completely ready for the final area now.
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The first thing I did was backtrack to the Venus Lighthouse entrance, realizing I had bypassed the Carry Stone. I got it quite quickly and also proceeded to a statue that matched the one in Babi Lighthouse that I didn't know how to proceed from last time; I believe this statue gave me the hint I will eventually need.
I just kept heading backwards in the game from there; it wasn't too far to get back into the edge of the Suhalla Desert where I jumped into the non-Doused pink tornado to get a ride to Crossbone Isle. This isn't really any more or any less important than it would be if I were allowed to use swords, but it's important to me to get the final djinni and the Cleric's Ring, at least.
Crossbone Isle Entrance:
The puzzle outside wasn't in any way challenging, but it did require climbing the vines again and again and again.... so that was fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 1:
Once inside the cave, we fought the Hobgoblin and its buddies. I forgot to do any particular preparation but the battle was quite easy regardless.
Inside there was one of those puzzles with tiny platforms and stump-like thingies that had to be moved using the Move psynergy. Like the entrance area, this wasn't hard, but I did have to leave to reset the room several times.
Crossbone Isle Floor 2:
Here, for the boss, we fought two Grislys and a Succubus. I thought the Succubus was the main boss and the Grislys were the minions, but nobody seemed particularly stronger than anyone else. It was a rather trivial fight.
The puzzle was also trivial - a dry-land log rolling puzzle - but I enjoyed it. For the sake of speed it would be sort of nice if they were all this easy, but I suppose that would make for a rather boring game. This dungeon level included a chest with a Mystery Blade but, since we are never using a sword, it is just going to be sold later.
Crossbone Isle Floor 3:
By this point I was more properly in the rhythm for preparing for the boss fights. By setting several djinn to standby before the battle, I could open with a barrage of powerful summons at the cost of my characters being quite a bit more vulnerable for the first few turns of battle - sort of a glass cannon affair. Open with a big blast and then try to survive. It worked out well.
I figured out the puzzle pretty quickly: use the Catch psynergy to get keys to access the treasures. I actually got the red key that opened the path forward first and then decided to return to get every possible treasure.
Crossbone Isle Floor 4:
The bosses here were two Gryphons who had quite a bit of HP. The starting summon salvo still simplified the scenario soundly.
For the puzzle part I realized I had to use Halt pretty quickly, and eventually realized the shadows were an indication that I had to use Cloak to stealth my way around this floor's statues. Quick and fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 5:
The boss here is a Lizard King who comes with a bunch of enemies that I've already fought as normal encounters. I knew that the additional enemies would go down quickly to my opening summons, and the Lizard King wasn't really much tougher.
The puzzle here was a log rolling puzzle but with one option to change the water level. I was able to visualize my path to the Ninja Garb and then the exit pretty quickly. It was fun.
Crossbone Isle Floor 6:
The boss fight was Chimeras. These fights were feeling pretty boring.
The puzzle room, however, was pretty neat, with a mixture of pushing columns manually and with mind bullets!, using ladders on three different levels, and chasing down my final djinni, Bane.
I also got the Demon Axe here but didn't equip it due to its curse. The final chest in the middle was pretty tricky to get to though I wasn't stuck for long, and it felt good to get it.
Crossbone Isle Floor 7:
There were some Earth Lizards at the door this time. They took a lot of damage from Meteor, but otherwise they may have been one of the more interesting fights down here since they have a very powerful (badly translated) Acid Blessing.
This was also perhaps the hardest puzzle, with it taking me a couple of door resets and some experimentation to loot all of the chests. This is the floor where you need to use Carry to pass, and I wasn't super used to how it worked... but I think I am now! The best treasure here was the Wicked Mace which is going to end up being perhaps my best weapon in this run - at least for this game.
Crossbone Isle Floor 8:
There was a Poison Toad here. It wasn't hard but the deadly poison status actually necessitating restoration was still sort of new and different.
The puzzle was stupid. It was using Frost and pushing things but in a very precise order - like some of the earlier puzzles, not the least bit challenging but a bit time consuming. It required me to reset the room a couple of times. The only noteworthy prize was the Cleric's Ring. I gave it to Garet, along with the Wicked Mace from the previous floor. The Wicked Mace is cursed, but it allows Garet to occasionally use a really strong deadly poison unleash effect. It's also really important because the Cleric's Ring, which is the only way to equip cursed items with no major drawbacks, doesn't exist in this game's immediate sequel, and getting it here allows it to be transferred over.
Crossbone Isle Floor 9:
The boss of this floor was a pair of my favourite type of bus: a Cerebus. It is puzzling to me how this weird, context-ignorant translation has persisted over the years, but whatever.
The fight didn't seem very hard, and then we got to do a log rolling puzzle. While I lost track of the solution briefly I think I got it done quite quickly, getting the (useless) Muramasa sword.
Crossbone Isle Floor 10:
And then there was Deadbeard! Actually, there was a mimic first. It legitimately surprised me but it was easy at this point - which is good, because I had already un-set a bunch of djinn.
Although I have played through this part before nearly 20 years ago, I didn't remember it well, so it was very surprising to me when the battle with Deadbeard begins with no dialogue or cutscene. Before I even stepped onto the pirate ship. and before the Mimic, I had put 15 djinn on standby - I decided not to do it with 4 Jupiter djinn because Judgment clearly wields swords that he may or may not actually be using.
I opened with all four characters using their strong summons. I thought this was going to decimate Deadbeard and allow the battle to end quickly, but we legitimately struggled to survive for a long time as our djinn gradually reset.
I used a few buffs, and I was surprised to see that Deadbeard would use Break to remove some of them, and that Deadbeard himself had some buffs. Even though his buffed physical attacks were nasty, it was definitely his whole-party-targetting psynergy attacks that were the bigger concern. When he used two of them in a single turn, it was rare that Ivan and Mia could both survive. I probably used about 5 of my rare Waters of Life.
Eventually I realized that Garet - now a Samurai when his djinn were all set - had a nice resistance buff available, so that may have helped. And once Ivan and Mia both had enough djinn to access their Wish spells, our survivability improved, allowing Isaac and Garet to use their maces with powerful unleashes. Mia also used her Mars djinn so that Garet could summon Meteor again, which had proven to be my strongest attack.
The ultimate prize in this place is the Demon Mail, which isn't actually particularly good.
I got back to Lalivero - annoyed that I still had to Douse the tornados in Suhalla Desert again, etc. - and sold the Mystery Blade, the Muramasa, and the Demon Mail. I think we're completely ready for the final area now.
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