Last time we left off as Taris was heading to the pirate island, or as it’s listed on the map, a place for people to do stretching and yoga:

We don’t find the statue that our priest was looking for, but the son of the head pirate wants to leave the island to become a “rob artist” which is apparently a thief; I thought it was some kind of art person at first. But for him to go he has to go through the challenge cave.

This is mostly puzzles although there are a few fights with ghosts. I could not figure out this puzzle because I was ignoring the dark green text (usually the dark green is a heading). Eventually we recover the Magic Lockpick; the head pirate won’t let us keep it for now but at least he lets his son (Kashim) leave. Kashim is an archer who is quite fast. He has a “charge” skill (that takes time but increases damage) and an “aim” skill (which takes extra time and I assume increases hit rate). He can attack characters in the back which is useful, but his attack power isn’t especially high.

Just as importantly, we get the ship! Now we can sail to the capital Rostarl. Here the head priest tells us that we need to find 5 holy statues and return here. A fortuneteller says that we’ve collected 4 of the 5 “lights” (companions) that will help us; the fifth is in the abandoned magic school in the capital. The magic school has people who keep teleporting in to mock us, and locked doors. I couldn’t figure out what to do so I went back to the pirate leader who sent us to Fislo Village.

Here we learn more about Talis’ past. 20 years ago, a baby washed up ashore, who was supposed to be a sacrifice for the sea god, but they saved him instead, and since then no fish have been in the area, slowly destroying the town. But there wasn’t anything to do here so I had to check a walkthrough — apparently I just didn’t walk in the right spot in the magic school to activate an event.

The head of the magic school tells us to go to the Wisdom Tower and find Nasha, who will help us (she would be the 4th party member if I were not the magic-using main character). We get the unlock scroll and head in.

Everything is upside down, and there are a number of puzzles to solve to get to the top. The spirit of Kyurientes tells us we need to find the lost “6th Helix”, and Nasha also (once we catch up to her) says the same thing. So that’s all that can be done here for now, and I didn’t really have much of a lead on where to find either the 5 status or the 6th Holix. I went to the palace and met the king and some of the other high-ranking people there. It seems that the king’s behavior has been strange lately, but other than that there was nothing to do.

Fortunately an event happens where Adis lures us to a nearby mine by controlling Gregory (the mage who taught Talis) to write a letter having us come there.

The mine has Homonculus creatures in it. By using levers and other things we can activate elevators that eventually take us down to the bottom, where Adis is.

Adis tries to kill us with the “meat” of the Monster of Destruction, but Lena’s divine power comes in to save us, and we survive — Gregory seems to be messed up and has forgotten who Talis is, but teleports away after giving us a Holix.

This was another place I had to check a walkthrough to figure out — if you go back to a fat “gourmand woman” in the capital, one of the Urikuri from earlier in the game has been trapped there (he’s being fattened up for eventual eating). He tells us to visit the Ulitex Canyon and find the holy dragon Ulitex.

Ulitex recognizes Talis as “Fau”, and tells us once again that we need the 5 statues. The first one is on Begolian Island, but before he can tell us anymore, a masked knight named Bartram comes in and kills him — Olga says that Bertram and she studied under the same teacher. In any case, we need to ask the Urikuri how to get to the island. Before that, I did a long event in the castle that involves helping a dancing girl who the king is obsessed with; this gets us the route to Yothmil, the main city where villains live. At the same time, we learn that the king is under Adis’ control.

The Urikuri tell us where Begolian Island is, unfortunately the people that live their are man-eaters and capture us. The chief allows us to escape if we can recover their treasure from the big ogre below.

Ideally you want to find the treasure (one of the statues!) first, because then you can skip fighting the ogre and get one of the permanent Holix. Unfortunately I found the ogre first, and he’s a very tough fight. In the end we get the statue and the Bregolian chief recognizes us as the hero that will save the world.

Next I went to Yothmil, where Talis can change into a cult uniform we found earlier.

There is a shop where you can blend plants to make potions, and also a guy that will give items in return for the gold and silver coins you can find throughout the game. I got one of the permanent helix here, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do so I left.

It turns out that you need to go back to the fishing village, where Gregory has mysteriously turned up. He is still confused and doesn’t remember us, but does tell us that the “lost son” of Fislo village (the pirate chief) knows where Conrole Island is. He finally tells us and heads back to Fislo himself.

Lizardmen live at Conrole. The priest has become corrupted by Adis and stolen the statue; we recover it and the lizardman chief takes it back to soothe the sea. You have the option to fight him and take the statue instead, but I assumed that we could get it later and let him be for now. That’s apparently 3 out of 5 statues (I didn’t write down where you get the first one, it might be from Ulitex Canyon).

Another important find here is the Search magic; way back in the sewers I had found a tablet that said we could find a legendary sword with the search magic — I did this and got a much better weapon for Olga.

Now we’re without a lead again, but fortunately one of Adis’ followers, a demon called Baryubogil, tells us to come to the Yeogle forest to find the next statue. There, a ninja called Buster Gear challenges us to come to the bottom of the Fire Temple.

There’s a lot of good treasure in here, and we fight Buster Gear at the end. I somehow didn’t get a screenshot, but he’s a tough enemy. He’s really fast and comes with several annoying underlings — I had to try the fight several times to finally win. Now we have 4 out of the 5 statues, and Buster Gear tells us the 5th is back in the capital (why are the enemies so generous with information?) and gives us the candle of truth (why?)

At this point, now that the statue has been restored to the Lizardmen, we can go back to Fislo and fish.

The fish can be sold to the gourmand woman for 50 gold each, so this is a way to make money. There is some equipment in Yothmil to buy, as well as getting 10 holix for a 50 gold donation to the Rostal church. Unfortunately when I try to go back to the church we’re branded as traitors to the king, and Leonard the Knight attacks.

Of course as we heard earlier, the king is in lead with Adis; it turns out it’s that demon from before. The Candle of Truth unmasks him.

And now we have the 5th statue. We still need to get the statue from the lizardmen, but at the same time we hear that Bartram (the knight) is protecting the Time Drops that we will ultimately need. Let’s go to the lizardmen first.

Unfortunately there’s no way to get it without fighting the chief (he’s corrupted by Adis like all the others), so it’s a fight to the death. (Actually later I realized I messed up the order here — you need the Time Drop to successfully remove the statue without messing up the sea again, so I did this later.)

Next up we go back to Yothmil, where Olga realizes it’s time to deal with Bartram once and for all. Before only Talis could enter the town, but now that we have the full party we can explore more places (and fight guys). We find the hilt to the sword that was left with Talis at the beginning of the game. When this is reforged, Talis powers up quite a bit (unfortunately the mage Talis can’t equip the sword).

We’re also able to save Sister Maria that got kidnapped way back at the beginning of the game, and take on Bartram. Now with the Time Drop and the 5 statues, we can open the path to a hidden island.

This island has the 6th Holix on it, but there is a long series of puzzles you have to solve to get it out.

Taking this back in to the magic school gives us the Holy Nova magic. With Talis at full power and having the Holy Nova magic, the rest of the game is not much of a challenge. He can beat most enemies, including the bosses, with just repeated casting of that.

Now it’s time to take on all the big enemies. First up is Adis, who is in a tower hidden behind a waterfall.

She has two forms, but loses to Holy Nova. She was protecting the Sage Sword Shakhall, who gives Talis a good weapon and also gives himself to Olga to use. Now it’s time for the final location — the Oltis Palace.

This is the pope, who is the proper body for Fau’s spirit. Talis has to take him on in a 1-on-1 fight. He’s not too bad but then he goes into the dragon statue behind him and attacks again.

He falls quick to Holy Nova. Finally we meet with the mother, Lena, who has been saving our game up to now. She says that the Pope’s soul was actually that dragon, who wanted to kill Fau when he was born. The only way Lena could protect Fau was to put his soul in a different baby and send him away. (Although the only reason the Dragon wanted to kill me was because of Adis’ meddling, again).

However, we’re not quite done yet. The Beast of Destruction still awaits.

Holy Nova makes quick work of him, and the game is over.

The ending is sort of disappointing, it’s just a bunch of images with no text or speech. But it looks like the world is saved and everyone goes back to their lives.

As I said in the last post, this is a good game; definitely the best PCE game I’ve played and one of the best of this entire blog project. It’s not perfect — there are some interface issues, the battles are sometimes frustrating because of all the missing, and the ending is a bit sparse. But overall it’s really good and I hope some translation group takes it on at some point.

That’s it for 1995! Mid-week (for real this time) I will put a list of the next set of games up, and then it’s on to Galaxy Fraulein Yuna 3 (SRPG).