Screencap Adventure: Illusion of Gaia Pt 11
This is it, everyone. The final episode. We're entering the Tower of Babel and wrapping this whole story up.
I hope you're ready, because here we go.
Previous Episodes
I wonder if any fundamentalist Christian groups got up in arms over the use of the Tower of Babel in this game? Probably not, sadly. Gaia never got that kind of publicity.
Alright. Let's rock this joint.
Oh hey, that's-guhWHAT?
...I guess this is evidence to suggest that Freedan is in the employ of Gaia. Sorta. At the very least, he's beholden to do stuff for her when she needs him to.
The last Red Jewel of the game! Finally.
Spa-roing! I rebounded something fierce when I ran into those lasers. But something fell out of me...
...Oh, you are freakin' joking me. Will had the power to avoid this whole adventure inside his Flute the whole time?!
Bloody hell. "The magic was inside him all along."
Will: What are you doing here? HOW are you here? There was only one parachute on the plane!
Kara: I jumped. :B
Will: ...
*not important at all cough cough*
I know it's just one of those things you have to accept about RPGs, but I still don't understand how the light of a flaming ball of rock can have such a profound effect on a planet it passes by every X amount of years. Do comets even EMIT light?
I keep on seeing E.V.O: Search for Eden when I see Illusion of Gaia talk about evolution, and it keeps on being funny.
Oh, for...IT'S A FLAMING BALL OF ROCK!
FLAMING. BALL. OF. ROCK. Are you listening to me?
That's great. I'm gonna go ahead and heal'n'save before I do that.
Hey, wait a second...haven't I killed you before?
30 seconds later:
Yup, you saw correctly: Illusion of Gaia is pulling out the old 'bring back all the old bosses for another round' trick. I'm vaugely disappointed, but since we're so much stronger now (as strong as we can possibly be, actually), Neo Castoth goes down pretty damn fast.
I still can't get over it. Statues of Freedan. There is clearly more to this Dark Knight than meets the eye. Somebody needs to come up with lots of fanon history for Freedan, stat.
In a nice bit of afterthought, the terrain remains the same for each of the encounters. Neo Castoth kept his square field, and Neo Viper here keeps its rectangular one.
You don't get to heal in between all these Neo-Boss fights, either. I made sure to re-heal once I beat Neo Castoth, but from here to after the Neo Mummy Queen, you're on your own. And I only have one Herb left. It's a good thing Neo Viper only took 4HP off me, that's for sure.
The smoke thingies teleport us up about seven floors. Convenient!
Ugh. Neo Jack and Silvana are one giant 'fuck you', since you can't heal afterwards. I hope you guys weren't planning to hang onto that health.
32 bloody HP, they took off me. Out of FORTY.
Luckily, Neo Sand Fanger is a cinch and I avoid all contact.
Oh, for the love of...if she's been kidnapped, I swear to God.
Er...hi?
AAAGH GET OFF I WANNA GET OFF
That Viper-looking thing lifts me up about seven floors and flies off. Uh...thank you?
*shudder* God, I hate this boss. Neo Mummy Queen. Just the same as the Mummy Queen, except I'm much weaker, have only one Herb for backup, and don't have the advantage of extra strength since the last encounter. Thus, I die...
Once...
Twice...
Three times...
Four times...
...Before I say 'screw it' and reload from just before Neo Jack and Silvana.
A great deal of fighting later, I arrive at Neo Mummy Queen's door again with 20 more HP. Hopefully, this time, I can beat her.
(Hint: I do.)
Oh, come on! I've killed you twice!
Another seven-floor lift. I have no idea why all these former bosses are being so nice to me now.
How did you get up here?
hahahahaa so many bad jokes come to mind
Shadow statues too!
...Give me a second. I have to go talk to someone.
I do love that the comet is called 'Dark Gaia'. SUBTLE.
Whoever that is. Did I miss the subquest where you learn about this Light Knight?
I won't let you down, Gaia.
Okay, NOW we can go back.
Hey Gem, guess wha-aaat?
Man, he isn't kidding about the 'strange' part. Who is that, Napoleon and the Scarlet Pimpernel's love child?
The enemies in Gem's Mansion are basically powered-up palette swaps of the ones back in the Diamond Mine. These guys are Red Lizards: same as regular Lizardmen, except they have more HP.
Similarly, Grey Malholders.
Haha. Nice view there, Gem. I love the black abyss motif you've got going on in your garden.
Green Worm things that shoot energy balls that track you and drain all your health and there aren't any bloody Dark Spaces and arrrrrgh
Darnit.
Anyway, this took me a minute to figure out, but you've gotta Psycho Slide under the staircase to move on.
It's actually quite a small dungeon. All there is to it is that one room. There are a buttload of enemies, sure, but it's just ONE room.
Then, eventually, we reach this handsome fellow.
Blazer = hero of the prequel to Illusion of Gaia, Soul Blazer. Solid Arm was the first boss.
...Yeah, I know. Just go with it.
S-so it was you that pushed all those people to slavery? It was because of you that I had to sell that guy out for a Red Jewel? It was because of you - you, Jeweler fucking Gem - that I had to cross the whole world searching for Red Jewels and survive countless hardships, just to release your STUPID FUCKING ASS?
Oh, I am going to beat the shit out of you so hard.
Solid Arm is hard. Like, really hard. His attacks consist of firing three (homing) fireballs at you which can be deflected with telekinesis, and swinging at you with his giant claws. Either way, he kicks my ass several times in short order.
Now, this is very hard to admit, but...I couldn't do it. I tried as hard as I could, but I simply could not defeat Solid Arm. I lost so many goddamn lives to this bastard, but in the end, I just had to give up. This update could very well have taken another month if I had kept trying, and I want to finish this. For you guys. I'm really, really sorry.
I can link you to the video of someone much more talented than me defeating Solid Arm. As you can see, the battle requires split-second timing, and even then, the guy only survives by the skin of his teeth. Go watch that if you like, but I grabbed the final words of Jeweler Gem for you all:
Which brings us back to here. You don't actually GET anything for defeating Solid Arm, aside from satisfaction.
Bones?
It's a flaming ball of ro-oh, forget it.
This is it.
This line, right here. This line is what affected me most, out of this entire game. This is the line that really struck home for me: I realised that Will and Kara's world was gone. Even if they saved the world, time would have passed so quickly in the Tower that it would be a thousand years later before they emerged. Everyone they knew would be dead.
This, more than anything else, is why Illusion of Gaia means so much to me.
Well, that's not so bad! At least they're doing good with i-
...oh.
Spirits?
Seth! :(
:(
Teenage!Neil: You don't OWN me!
Neil's Father: Yes I do. I own everything.
Teenage!Neil: Yeah, but...SHUT UP I HATE YOU
Look at that. We're so high up...
I don't remember who this is. :(
Hamlet! :D
"Okay, Dad. Let's finish this."
Shadow hurtles through space for awhile before landing on the comet. I just took a lot of pictures of it because I think it's pretty. :3
HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT
That's right. We're actually fighting the Comet. It's only attack is to shoot out green energy occasionally, which rains fairly-easy-to-avoid green bolts down on us. The Comet only has 20HP, too - bosses have had the 40HP max since waaaaay back - so it is an easy fight.
There's the Firebird, by the way.
Once the Comet is defeated, our real enemy comes into view.
DARK GAIA
Now, Dark Gaia is actually quite difficult. Blue balls shoot up from either side every so often and bounce around the screen, dual bolts of green energy are fired every five-ish seconds at high velocity straight at you, and Dark Gaia will occasionally fire a giant fuck-off beam of green energy right at you; which is, of course, the only time you can damage her.
The best way to beat Dark Gaia is to stay right in the middle, at the bottom of the screen, and fire Firebirds up continuously. When the dual-shocks come at you, use the Aura and melt away. You can get about 3 or 4 hits in before Dark Gaia fires the huge beam of green at you before you need to hide with Aura. Just keep firing and Aura-ing, and everything goes rather smoothly.
It is a long, hard-fought battle, but we prevail in the end. :D
"Fuck this, you guys play rough. I'm outta here."
Not...really?
The text scrolls by itself, so I missed a few lines. :B
I know Will thinks
Looking familiar yet? :B
The path
Aww. That's kinda sweet. :3
The new world. Our world.
WOOOOOOOOOO
Ajakshd. Thank you, Mariko Ohara, for this wonderful story.
Huh. Apparently Kara had 'hair blowing around' sprites that never got used?
yaaaaaaaaayyyyyy
And Kara sneaks one last snuggle off Will. Heh. :B
...Epilogue!
YAAAAAAAAAYY!!
And we're done! It's been...geez, nearly two months since I started this screencap adventure, and I have to say that it has been great fun. Even when I was really frustrated with all the difficult bits in the game, I pushed though for you guys. I hope you enjoyed this even half as much as I did.
Big thank-yous to Dox, Octal, Miss-Prince, Zekkass, Zarla, Megan, and everyone else who commented or otherwise enjoyed my stupid little comments to a fantastic game. Every time you guys commented, it made my day a little brighter. :3
Also, thanks to Xi, and Atom Edge, without whose walkthroughs I would have been utterly helpless. I'm sure you two will never read this, but...thank you anyway. :D
It's been great, guys. I'll see you around.
~ Aaron
I hope you're ready, because here we go.
Previous Episodes
I wonder if any fundamentalist Christian groups got up in arms over the use of the Tower of Babel in this game? Probably not, sadly. Gaia never got that kind of publicity.
Alright. Let's rock this joint.
Oh hey, that's-guhWHAT?
...I guess this is evidence to suggest that Freedan is in the employ of Gaia. Sorta. At the very least, he's beholden to do stuff for her when she needs him to.
The last Red Jewel of the game! Finally.
Spa-roing! I rebounded something fierce when I ran into those lasers. But something fell out of me...
...Oh, you are freakin' joking me. Will had the power to avoid this whole adventure inside his Flute the whole time?!
Bloody hell. "The magic was inside him all along."
Will: What are you doing here? HOW are you here? There was only one parachute on the plane!
Kara: I jumped. :B
Will: ...
*not important at all cough cough*
I know it's just one of those things you have to accept about RPGs, but I still don't understand how the light of a flaming ball of rock can have such a profound effect on a planet it passes by every X amount of years. Do comets even EMIT light?
I keep on seeing E.V.O: Search for Eden when I see Illusion of Gaia talk about evolution, and it keeps on being funny.
Oh, for...IT'S A FLAMING BALL OF ROCK!
FLAMING. BALL. OF. ROCK. Are you listening to me?
That's great. I'm gonna go ahead and heal'n'save before I do that.
Hey, wait a second...haven't I killed you before?
30 seconds later:
Yup, you saw correctly: Illusion of Gaia is pulling out the old 'bring back all the old bosses for another round' trick. I'm vaugely disappointed, but since we're so much stronger now (as strong as we can possibly be, actually), Neo Castoth goes down pretty damn fast.
I still can't get over it. Statues of Freedan. There is clearly more to this Dark Knight than meets the eye. Somebody needs to come up with lots of fanon history for Freedan, stat.
In a nice bit of afterthought, the terrain remains the same for each of the encounters. Neo Castoth kept his square field, and Neo Viper here keeps its rectangular one.
You don't get to heal in between all these Neo-Boss fights, either. I made sure to re-heal once I beat Neo Castoth, but from here to after the Neo Mummy Queen, you're on your own. And I only have one Herb left. It's a good thing Neo Viper only took 4HP off me, that's for sure.
The smoke thingies teleport us up about seven floors. Convenient!
Ugh. Neo Jack and Silvana are one giant 'fuck you', since you can't heal afterwards. I hope you guys weren't planning to hang onto that health.
32 bloody HP, they took off me. Out of FORTY.
Luckily, Neo Sand Fanger is a cinch and I avoid all contact.
Oh, for the love of...if she's been kidnapped, I swear to God.
Er...hi?
AAAGH GET OFF I WANNA GET OFF
That Viper-looking thing lifts me up about seven floors and flies off. Uh...thank you?
*shudder* God, I hate this boss. Neo Mummy Queen. Just the same as the Mummy Queen, except I'm much weaker, have only one Herb for backup, and don't have the advantage of extra strength since the last encounter. Thus, I die...
Once...
Twice...
Three times...
Four times...
...Before I say 'screw it' and reload from just before Neo Jack and Silvana.
A great deal of fighting later, I arrive at Neo Mummy Queen's door again with 20 more HP. Hopefully, this time, I can beat her.
(Hint: I do.)
Oh, come on! I've killed you twice!
Another seven-floor lift. I have no idea why all these former bosses are being so nice to me now.
How did you get up here?
hahahahaa so many bad jokes come to mind
Shadow statues too!
...Give me a second. I have to go talk to someone.
I do love that the comet is called 'Dark Gaia'. SUBTLE.
Whoever that is. Did I miss the subquest where you learn about this Light Knight?
I won't let you down, Gaia.
Okay, NOW we can go back.
Hey Gem, guess wha-aaat?
Man, he isn't kidding about the 'strange' part. Who is that, Napoleon and the Scarlet Pimpernel's love child?
The enemies in Gem's Mansion are basically powered-up palette swaps of the ones back in the Diamond Mine. These guys are Red Lizards: same as regular Lizardmen, except they have more HP.
Similarly, Grey Malholders.
Haha. Nice view there, Gem. I love the black abyss motif you've got going on in your garden.
Green Worm things that shoot energy balls that track you and drain all your health and there aren't any bloody Dark Spaces and arrrrrgh
Darnit.
Anyway, this took me a minute to figure out, but you've gotta Psycho Slide under the staircase to move on.
It's actually quite a small dungeon. All there is to it is that one room. There are a buttload of enemies, sure, but it's just ONE room.
Then, eventually, we reach this handsome fellow.
Blazer = hero of the prequel to Illusion of Gaia, Soul Blazer. Solid Arm was the first boss.
...Yeah, I know. Just go with it.
S-so it was you that pushed all those people to slavery? It was because of you that I had to sell that guy out for a Red Jewel? It was because of you - you, Jeweler fucking Gem - that I had to cross the whole world searching for Red Jewels and survive countless hardships, just to release your STUPID FUCKING ASS?
Oh, I am going to beat the shit out of you so hard.
Solid Arm is hard. Like, really hard. His attacks consist of firing three (homing) fireballs at you which can be deflected with telekinesis, and swinging at you with his giant claws. Either way, he kicks my ass several times in short order.
Now, this is very hard to admit, but...I couldn't do it. I tried as hard as I could, but I simply could not defeat Solid Arm. I lost so many goddamn lives to this bastard, but in the end, I just had to give up. This update could very well have taken another month if I had kept trying, and I want to finish this. For you guys. I'm really, really sorry.
I can link you to the video of someone much more talented than me defeating Solid Arm. As you can see, the battle requires split-second timing, and even then, the guy only survives by the skin of his teeth. Go watch that if you like, but I grabbed the final words of Jeweler Gem for you all:
Which brings us back to here. You don't actually GET anything for defeating Solid Arm, aside from satisfaction.
Bones?
It's a flaming ball of ro-oh, forget it.
This is it.
This line, right here. This line is what affected me most, out of this entire game. This is the line that really struck home for me: I realised that Will and Kara's world was gone. Even if they saved the world, time would have passed so quickly in the Tower that it would be a thousand years later before they emerged. Everyone they knew would be dead.
This, more than anything else, is why Illusion of Gaia means so much to me.
Well, that's not so bad! At least they're doing good with i-
...oh.
Spirits?
Seth! :(
:(
Teenage!Neil: You don't OWN me!
Neil's Father: Yes I do. I own everything.
Teenage!Neil: Yeah, but...SHUT UP I HATE YOU
Look at that. We're so high up...
I don't remember who this is. :(
Hamlet! :D
"Okay, Dad. Let's finish this."
Shadow hurtles through space for awhile before landing on the comet. I just took a lot of pictures of it because I think it's pretty. :3
HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT
That's right. We're actually fighting the Comet. It's only attack is to shoot out green energy occasionally, which rains fairly-easy-to-avoid green bolts down on us. The Comet only has 20HP, too - bosses have had the 40HP max since waaaaay back - so it is an easy fight.
There's the Firebird, by the way.
Once the Comet is defeated, our real enemy comes into view.
DARK GAIA
Now, Dark Gaia is actually quite difficult. Blue balls shoot up from either side every so often and bounce around the screen, dual bolts of green energy are fired every five-ish seconds at high velocity straight at you, and Dark Gaia will occasionally fire a giant fuck-off beam of green energy right at you; which is, of course, the only time you can damage her.
The best way to beat Dark Gaia is to stay right in the middle, at the bottom of the screen, and fire Firebirds up continuously. When the dual-shocks come at you, use the Aura and melt away. You can get about 3 or 4 hits in before Dark Gaia fires the huge beam of green at you before you need to hide with Aura. Just keep firing and Aura-ing, and everything goes rather smoothly.
It is a long, hard-fought battle, but we prevail in the end. :D
"Fuck this, you guys play rough. I'm outta here."
Not...really?
The text scrolls by itself, so I missed a few lines. :B
I know Will thinks
Looking familiar yet? :B
The path
Aww. That's kinda sweet. :3
The new world. Our world.
WOOOOOOOOOO
Ajakshd. Thank you, Mariko Ohara, for this wonderful story.
Huh. Apparently Kara had 'hair blowing around' sprites that never got used?
yaaaaaaaaayyyyyy
And Kara sneaks one last snuggle off Will. Heh. :B
...Epilogue!
YAAAAAAAAAYY!!
And we're done! It's been...geez, nearly two months since I started this screencap adventure, and I have to say that it has been great fun. Even when I was really frustrated with all the difficult bits in the game, I pushed though for you guys. I hope you enjoyed this even half as much as I did.
Big thank-yous to Dox, Octal, Miss-Prince, Zekkass, Zarla, Megan, and everyone else who commented or otherwise enjoyed my stupid little comments to a fantastic game. Every time you guys commented, it made my day a little brighter. :3
Also, thanks to Xi, and Atom Edge, without whose walkthroughs I would have been utterly helpless. I'm sure you two will never read this, but...thank you anyway. :D
It's been great, guys. I'll see you around.
~ Aaron