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SaGa 3 - Finished the Underwater Fortress and defeated Chaos, the first of the four minions of the big bad. The fortress was actually pretty swanky for a GB game and it had some neat tricks like one way floor panels, holes you need to use to reach hidden treasure and hidden pathways. I only got stuck once because I didn't realize that the door I needed to reach the next section was actually a door. Hard to tell since I'm playing this on a first gen GBA with no back light. What is really cool was how the top three floors are all futuristic and high tech, but once I used the Chaos Key to reach the lower floors, it turns into an actual old style temple. I'm really digging the Lovecraftian imagery of this game. Chaos himself was not what I was expecting. In true FF tradition, he's an earth elemental who looks like the love child between Titan and Golem. Basically Titan's design, but with stone for skin. He hit hard and has Quake, but after being stuck wandering in his dungeon for awhile and getting all the better spells and gear at Mu, I trounced him pretty easily. I now have the Talon pieces that allow me go Back to the Future! which Arthur even said to Chaos when asked why he wants the component. I'm going to check to see if the seeds I planted have formed a cure yet for some of the townsfolk turning into fish people first before I dive into the next section.

Unlimited SaGa - Tackled the Hanging Gardens, which ended up being a bit simpler than I thought. Turns out the only season that matters is winter since it forms ice bridges. I also put Armic the Beaver/squirrel boy on my team and completely forgot he was the character I had placed all of the mobility panels on, so I could sneak past some of the places with obstacles to get their treasure. The dungeon is more annoying than anything as there are spots where plants attack you and you have to roll to see if you evade them, if you don't, then these statue monsters appear and change the season on you. There are also special points where one of them will appear and ask you which wing it should use to fix the broken pieces of themselves. You get four choices and they are each based on one of the seasons. This puzzle turns out to be really simple because the answer is always the following season it currently is, so if it's Spring, you choose the wing for Summer and it makes it happy and they'll change the season to that one. This is the other way to change seasons. I did encounter some seriously powerful monsters by the end, but I didn't exactly spark as many good arts as I would like. Anzan did manage to spark a really cool Kick art that seems to be loosely based off of Tifa's Dolphin Blow though. The boss of this dungeon was a real pain in the ass. It was a giant humanoid wasp creature that got something like eight turns per round and loves to both poison your team mates with it's group hitting attack, but also had a lot of pierce style moves which means it did direct LP damage a lot. Took out Judy and nearly wiped out Henri, Anzan, and Laura since it occasionally did 3 LP with some of its combos.

I didn't get very many good panels from this victory, not sparked a lot of good arts, but I have managed to learn a few more spells and I'm trying to stop myself from redoing missions so I can get on with things. I am a bit disappointed I gave Judy the other high end Magic Tablet because it turned out it also had Thunderbringer and Purify on it which Plant Girl could have used instead. Course it had Holy Seal on it which is a powerful group hitting fire spell. Laura's panel also has a lot of water and earth spells on it. I was mostly happy to get Missile Guard since that spell reduces the chance of taking direct LP damage and is super useful for her since her death means an automatic game over. Plant Girl is mostly finished with her Earth Tablet, but I think the next few tablets I acquire are going to her since I feel she would make a better mage and Judy needs some backup. I did manage to find some more Mullock from the shops, so I'll be making more Damascus gear. I really wish Henri had managed to unlock some Weapon Arts off the spear he has equipped, but I'm grateful my Dog Boy managed to do one for the Black Dagger which will likely be Henri's replacement for the Blade of Escata when I go do the final boss fights. I'm also happy I keep finding Stone Helmets, because they seem to be the type of gear that has Null Darkness as a common skill to them, and apparently Laura's final boss likes to inflict that status a lot.