Phantasy Star: Banallure

  

Me when I'm awakened at 03:00 by a crash in the dining room.

     

When I wrapped up last time, Alis had assembled her team and was trying to act on Noah's recommendation to find Dr. Luveno in the Gothic Forest. He had directed us to a manhole in the Palma spaceport, which took us to a dungeon, which took us to another continent. We found our way to a partly-ruined city which was called, groan, "Gothic"; hence, the Gothic Forest. All right, people, in the comments we have to come up with a term for when an RPG name originally sounds intriguing but turns out to be boringly literal Examples: The Lords of Midnight takes place in a land called "Midnight." Perihelion takes place on a planet called "Perihelion." The Gothic Forest is a forest around the city of Gothic. I propose banallure or banalluring, but I'm open to other suggestions.

    

I started to explore a dungeon that an NPC later told me was called the Tower of Medusa. It's a bit too hard, and since I don't have any reason to be here in the first place (Luveno is supposedly in a prison called Triada), I give it up after a while.

    

Triada is supposedly south of Gothic, so I poke around the mountains until I find another facility. A robotcop takes my Roadpass shortly after I enter. The dungeon has no enemies, just NPCs in individual cells, some of which I have to open with my dungeon key. Some of them want cola to talk to me, just like the citizens of Gothic. What is with the cola shortage around here?

    

• "The tower deep in the Gothic Mountains is known as Medusa's Tower." I guess that's why she disappeared from the cave where I found Odin.

• "Spider monsters are actually very intelligent." I guess maybe I should try chatting with them in combat. More importantly, this clue sets up:

• "Polymeteral will dissolve all materials except for Laconia." This is spoken by a giant spider, no special spell needed or anything.

     

Why do your brethren just attack me?

     

• "I've got a friend in Bortevo. He's probably having a hard time because of the lava. Why not visit him?" Because of the lava, maybe?

• "On the far side of the mountain lies a pool of molten lava created by a volcanic eruption."

• "Do you know the robot Hapsby?" NO. "It's a robot made of Laconia, but it has been abandoned somewhere as being useless."

    

We find Luveno in one of the cells. "If you've come for help, you had best forget it. Leave!" he shouts. I leave, but I accidentally re-enter his chamber immediately because I'm always forgetting that the game doesn't spin the party around to face the other direction when it exits an encounter. In this case, it's fortunate, because he has something else to say on my second visit: "You want me to build a spaceship for you? Not a chance! I can't accept such responsibility." I actually did not know that I wanted him to build a spaceship. I guess it would help.

      

But for a subsequent mistake, my journey may have ended here.

    

On a third visit, he agrees to help: "I will go to Gothic Village nearby to make preparations. Come then. Do not waste worry on me." Isn't he in prison because he blew up Gothic Village? How can he just leave? Is imprisonment voluntary in this universe?

     

Back in the village, Dr. Luveno wants us to fetch his assistant, "likely hiding in the underground passage." We found him last time; he just told us to go away. We visit him and he agrees to help Dr. Luveno without any problems.

   

Now Dr. Luveno wants 1,200 mesetas to build the spaceship that we didn't explicitly ask him for in the first place. Still, it's less money than my last sword cost, so I guess it's worth it. He tells us it's going to "take time" to build, but we're wise to that trick by now. We just return to his house multiple times until he tells us The Luveno (I would think that I get to name it) is ready.

    

Joke's on you. We would have paid triple that figure.

     

"But you cannot fly a spaceship!" he drops on us. "You must find a robot named Hapsby. He can fly a spaceship." In the prison, we learned that Hapsby had been junked. I have no idea where to find him. I check around Gothic again, but there's no sign of him.

    

I start exploring the surrounding area. There's no way to go north. A southern route, ignoring the mountains, leads to the coast, which bends west and then north. We come to a large field of red, which is the pool of lava we heard about in Triada. I wonder how I'm supposed to get through it, and it turns out (unless I missed something) that the answer is: just walk through it. We take some damage, but not as much as we ought to take from lava. I don't even have to heal.

    

Let's just wade right into it.

       

The lava field spits us out near a dilapidated town and a cave. An NPC tells us that we're in Bortevo. The volcanic eruption has clearly had an influence on the place, as the buildings all look burned and crumbling, and the NPCs are all wrapped in shrouds. Many of the buildings have piles of metal in them, and one of the NPCs tells me: "In this pile of junk, somewhere, there is s'pposed to be a usable robot, but you know how rumors be." 

      

You should have built little round metal domes, like we do on Palma.

       

I find nothing else, so I try the cave. It turns out to be a passage to the northern continent. An NPC in the middle of it tells us: "Polymeteral is for sale in Abion." (Are they going for "metal" or "material"?) An NPC in Triada told us that polymeteral dissolves everything except Laconia, and someone else told us that the robot is made of Laconia, so I assume I'm supposed to find polymeteral and use it on one of those piles of junk to reveal the robot. It feels like a good prybar should have gotten us there, too.

    

I should perhaps note that all of these wanderings have been accompanied by copious battles, many of them with nicely-drawn and animated monsters like skeletons, ghouls, sphinxes, vampires, shellfish, octopuses, and giants. I've stopped really even noticing them, partly because none of them have any special attacks. I just pound the primary attack button, which by default selects "attack," and watch episodes of Bosch in another window while the combat executes. (Occasionally, I have to heal a character, more often because a chest is trapped than because the enemies hit very hard.) It's just so repetitive and boring and frequent that I can't imagine any player really takes the time to invest in "tactics." 

   

One of the tougher monsters in this area.

    

I hit a few dead ends trying to find a way out of here. Eventually, I notice a break in a rock wall and sidle through it. The coastline eventually leads us to another city, but it's not Albion; it's some place called Loar. Here:

   

• An armory sells heat guns, an upgrade from Odin's needlegun, and silver fangs, an upgrade from Myau's iron fang.

• "Do you know about Laerma trees?" NO. "They grow on the altiplano plateau on the planet Dezoris." Noted.

    

Let me guess. It's named after a guy named Bob Altiplano.

    

• "There is a village called Abion on the western edge on this island." Yes, that's what I'm looking for.

• "Have you heard of a gem called 'The Amber Eye'? Some say the Casba Dragon has one." Again, noted. I can't wait to find out what the Casba Dragon is. 

• "You are going to try to kill Lassic, I hear. That's great!" Does everyone know about our secret mission?

• "I have heard that a certain crystal will block evil magic." The Amber Eye, maybe? 

      

We're pretty low on health, so we welcome the presence of a hospital, even though we don't usually pay for healing.

   

Northwest of Loar is Abion. There:

   

• The second-hand store sells magic lamps (which I already have) and magic hats, which supposedly let us understand the language of monsters. That's the third thing the game offers to talk to monsters, yet it hasn't worked for me once so far.

• The food store, of all places, sells polymeteral for 1,600 mesetas.

    

We probably don't want to mix it up with cola.

    

• The armory sells laser shields. Alis, Odin, and Noah can equip them. I don't have enough money for all three.

• "Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, they become huge and can fly. It's really very weird." I agree.

    

Some people, when they eat a certain type of nut, think they see giant flying cats.

    

• "A strange man came to this town. He seems to be performing animal experiments. He brought a large pot or something."

• "I'd like to travel in outer space."

   

The town has a cave in it, so we check it out. It takes us to an island in the center of the town. The island has a building. We enter, and a guy in a weird suit immediately says, "Hey, bring that cat over here!" For some reason, I say, "Yes." The game immediately reports the result: "Myau died." The man, apparently not realizing that he's already killed Myau, gloats, "Oohh, ha, ha! The cat will die!"

      

At least it spared us a graphic depiction.

   

We then launch into combat with "Dr. Mad," who kills the rest of us.

    

I probably do not need to do what I do next, which is spend about an hour grinding for both money and experience. I think that with the right combination of spells, I could have defeated him the first time. Plus, I had no particular reason to kill any "Dr. Mad." But this place is so out of the way that I didn't want to have to go through the trouble of returning, either to kill this guy or to buy laser shields. So I fight enemies until I can do the latter.

    

I actually saved up enough for three laser shields and diamond armor.

    

I take this time to experiment with the new spells I've been earning along the way. Each character has a different selection of spells that they learn in a different order (Odin doesn't learn any). Here's my report:

     

• HEAL (A/2): Heals for 20 hit points, both in and out of combat. All healing spells are useful.

• BYE (A/2): Ends combat. Would be useful for no-win situations, but it's too easy to save and reload to worry about escaping individual battles.

• CHAT (A/2): Supposedly talks to monsters. I said above that I had never gotten it to work, but late in this session, I did get it to work on a tarantula. He gave me this hint:

   

Well, we're a spacefaring race.

      

• TRAP (M/3): Disarms traps? You don't really have a chance to cast it after battle, so I'm not sure how it works.

• FIRE (AN/4): Shoots two fireballs; each does about 8 damage. They sometimes hit one enemy, sometimes two different ones. A physical attack usually does more.

    

Alis's FIRE spell nails a tree that is apparently already dead.

    

• EXIT (MN/4): Exits the dungeon. I should have been using this more often instead of finding my way out.

• OPEN (N/4): Unlocks magically-locked doors. I haven't found any yet.  

• ROPE (A/4): Ties an enemy up for at least a round. Enemy has a chance of escaping it each round. I've found it very useful when I'm only facing one enemy. 

• TELE (N/4): Also supposedly lets you talk to monsters. I'm not sure what the difference is between it and CHAT.

• TERR (M/4): Terrifies an enemy and makes it ineffective. Useful, I think it fails a lot.

• CURE (MN/6): Heals for 80 points, both in and out of combat. Invaluable.

• FLY (A/8):  Takes you back to the last church you visited. I wish it always just took you back to Camineet instead. Not useful if you don't remember where you last visited a church.

• HELP (M/10): The only buffing spell, it raises an ally's combat effectiveness.

• PROT (N/10): Protection. I'm not sure how it differs from WALL.

• WALL (M/10): Creates a magic wall.  See above.

• RISE (N/12): Resurrects an ally. I didn't realize I even had this until recently.  

• WIND (N/12): An offensive spell that strikes three times.

• THUN (N/16). Shoots a lightning bolt that does around 30 points of damage to all enemies.

      

I still have some experimenting to do, but when I returned to Dr. Mad with my new shields and a better understanding of spells, I was able to defeat him without much trouble. (I said no to his demand for Myau, but he attacked anyway.) I had Alis freeze him each round with a ROPE, enhanced Odin with a HELP, and deflected his attacks with either PROT or WALL.

      

Wasn't this an Inspector Gadget villain?

   

From him, we looted a Laconian pot. I don't know whether that's the same one I sold earlier in the game. It sure gets around. 

    

We made the long walk back to Bortevo. I started searching buildings and using the polymeteral on each pile of junk. The fourth attempt produced a result: Hapsby emerged from the pile and offered to fly The Luveno. 

     

How do you know the name of the ship?

   

All I had to do now was find it. It turns out there's a western exit from Gothic that leads to a field where the ship is parked, but I go all the way back to the spaceport first before I search the city again and find the exit. They aren't happy with me at the spaceport. They confiscate my passport. I guess I won't be flying commercial anymore.

   

All right, everyone. Who has ideas for a new name?

     

The ship will go from Gothic to either Uzo or Skure. I've experienced neither of these places, so I try Uzo first. Uzo turns out to be on Motavia, the same planet as Paseo, where I still have to buy some diamond armor. An animation shows The Luveno take off, fly through space, and land just to the east of the city, which judging from the manual map is south of Paseo and on the other side of the impassable wall of ant lions. For fun, I take a quick trip to the northeast, to see if there really is one enormous ant lion in the middle of the pack, as the map depicts, but I don't find it.

      

"Gothic Uzo Skure" would make a good band name.

       

All there is, then, is to explore Uzo. Keep in mind that at this point, I have no specific goal except to find Lassic and kill him. There's been no intelligence about where he is or where the capital of the empire is.

    

• "There is a town called Casba to the south of here." And dragons from there must be Casba Dragons. Goddamn it, they got me again.

• "There are dragons living in the Casba Cave. These dragons have gems in their heads!" I was about to say it would have been cooler if they were zombies, but I guess the song wasn't out yet.

• "Have you heard about mantles made of frad fibers? They are light, but provide great protection." I'm beginning to think that the game is just making up words. 

• "Have you heard about the soothing flute?" I have! From a sphinx! "It's a secret, but I buried one on the outskirts of the town of Gothic on Palma. Don't tell anyone." No, I'll just go take it.

• "If you use a vehicle called the land rover, the ant lion will not be able to harm you." Just the price of gas.

The armory sells a light saber! I suppose if you're going to blend science fiction and fantasy, that's the first thing you'd want to include. Only Alis and Odin can use it. I'm not sure if I should buy one for Odin, since he's the only character who can use guns (which hit all enemies). The manual indicates that the best weapon for Odin is an axe, so I guess I can't keep him with guns forever. I buy two light sabers.

      

We head outside and go south, looking for Casba and this cave. We fight scores of crawlers, tarantulas, and other creatures on the way. We're in pretty bad shape when we find the city to the southwest of Uzo, then groan to see it ringed by mountains. Apparently, we'll have to go through the cave to get there.

      

Some kind of hovercraft would sure come in handy.

    

The caves are quite long, with multiple sections of multiple levels, but they're also quite linear, so I don't have to map it. Enemies are quite easy, about the same difficulty as the forest back on Palma—until I run into a blue dragon. I have to defeat him mostly without spells, as I need to save the few spell points I have left for CURE. Even then, he's not that hard. In his treasure chest, we find an Amber Eye.

       

When do consoles become capable of using more than eight characters?

      

The cave emerges in Casba, which thankfully has a hospital, which heals health as well as magic. Elsewhere:

    

• "Have you heard of the vehicle called the hovercraft?" NO. "It's a good thing to have. It moves across water." That would be a good thing to have, but we have to find a land rover first. Later, while checking the same building, I meet the same NPC and say YES. "I bought it in Scion on Palma but it seemed broken so I abandoned it in Bortevo. It probably can still be used, though."

• "There are legends of a mystic shield in a village surrounded by mist. It is the shield Perseus used in days to conquer magic beasts." I don't know if the game is talking about the Greek hero Perseus or a different character in its universe.

      

Yes, but why?

     

• "There is poison gas above the sea to the west. No one can go near there without some protection." I keep thinking maybe the game is coming towards an end, but every NPC I talk to increases its size by another 10%.  

• "Fierce dragons live in the cave near here, and I'm scared of them." I think I explored exhaustively, and I only encountered one dragon. You don't need to be scared of it anymore.

• "Don't believe your own eyes in the depth of the dungeons." I have no idea how to operationalize that.

          

Both churches and healers use crosses. I don't think that would be allowed in an NES game.

     

The land rover is for sale in the second-hand shop! I figured there was going to be some big puzzle associated with it. Somehow it sits in our inventory, but when we use it, the party icon changes to a vehicle. It doesn't stop us from meeting random encounters.

    

We take the land rover across the ant lion mounds to Paseo, where I buy the diamond armor I've been saving for. I discover that Alis and Odin can both equip it, but I only have enough money for one. I'll have to come back. 

   

Eat my treads, ant lions.

      

I also confirm with the land rover that the world wraps, which is ridiculous—it's far too small to represent an entire planet.

    

We take the ship back to Gothic, where I try the "Search" command at an obvious place at the end of a road and find the flute. I guess I'll go on to the third planet next. It would be nice to think the game is coming to an end. I feel like I've basically experienced it at this point. I have all the spells listed in the manual. Many more hours would feel superfluous.

   

Time so far: 13 hours