Hi guys! In this instalment, we are going to visit one of the more important dungeons of the game: the Mercury Lighthouse. But first, we should look around the nearby village of Imil.
Lots of people in town are sick. We can't even use the shops. However, we do find some Lucky Pepper. It raises Luck. We give it to Garet.
A bit of inquiry into this illness tells us that there is a healer called Mia in the town. You know in place as cold as this, you may want more than one healer. Just saying.
There's a river in the middle of town. It's frozen over, and we can't control what direction we go in. With a bit of creative sliding, we go into a cave with a new Djinn!
The Mars Djinni Fever joined Isaac.
Fever gives us 8 HP, 3 Attack and 2 Agility. It can be used for an attack at Attack+30 Mars Power and can inflict Delusion (Blind). Djinn inflict statuses at a better rate than Psynergy.
We also get a new Summon, Kirin. For 2 Mars Djinn, it attacks at 60 Mars Power plus 6% of the targets HP, and increases the users Mars Power by 30. It looks like some... thing slamming into the enemy.
We give it to Isaac for now, upping him to the Brute's second tier class, Ruffian.
...Wow, even the Sanctum priest is sick, there's a little kid in charge. They tell us Mia went to the house near the entrance and, lo, there she is.
Mia: How are you felling?
Old Man: Cough... Cough...
Old Lady: He's been coughing for quite a while, now...
Mia: You'll feel better soon.
And she casts some Psynergy on the old man. Looks like we've found another Adept. Then we see a flash of light. The lighthouse? Well, Mia seems to think so, and thinks it was Alex. How does she know Alex? Let's follow her, but first we swipe a bottle from the old couple. They won't need it.
We find Mia at the entrance to the lighthouse. She's trying to get in, but a statue is in the way. We Move it for her. She saw the hand, so we explain to her about Psynergy. She doesn't realise her power, Ply, was a form of Psynergy. She refers to it as a power from the Mercury Clan, which Garet likens to Vale. Mia opens the door to the lighthouse, and we follow her.
...And her path is blocked by a monster. We kill it for her, but not before encountering the most blatant translation error in the game. You see, pretty much any time something should say breath, it says blessing instead. So the Lizard Man here breathes on us with his Water Blessing. -_-
Mia thanks us and runs off again... only to be stuck behind another statue. We Move it, and she realises we should work together.
Mia joined your party.
Mia is our Mercury Adept, and is a healer for the most part. She also comes with Fizz, a Mercury Djinn that gives 9 HP, 4 PP and 3 Defence. It can be used to restore 60% of the targets HP.
We also have access to the Mercury Summon. For 1 Mercury Djinn, it attacks for 30 Mercury Power plus 3% of the targets HP, and increases the users Mercury Power by 10.
Of course, I decide to shuffle the classes around. Garet and Ivan remain the same, but Isaac is given Fizz, making him a Swordsman (Venus) and Mia gets the two Mars Djinn, making her a Wanderer (Mercury). Both are pretty good classes.
There are lots of waterfalls in here, we will need to walk through them at some points.
There are two main types of puzzles here. The first are pipe mazes, where we have to reroute water to open paths. For solving the first one, we get a Psy Crystal, which refills an Adept's PP when used.
A few rooms later and we are on front of a goddess statue.
He who honours the heart of the goddess shall stand at the centre of all, like a swan in the centre of a rippling pond.
By casting Ply on the statue, we unlock the second type of puzzle. When we stand on certain tiles, we can jump on water. We only have three jumps until we sink though. The new path we can take from this leads us to a Mimic! Mimics are harder than normal enemies disguised as chests on the field, and give a rare item when defeated. During the battle, Mia regenerates PP at the end of her turn. That's a special feature of Lighthouses, Adepts of the same element get 4 PP at the end of turn. We get a Water of Life after killing the Mimic.
Hmm, this path was a dead end but we get some Psynergy Armour, which boosts our Max PP, out of it. We give it to Isaac.
Let's go the other way then.
Isaac learns Cutting Edge at level 11. This is our first Psynergy that determines its power by modifying the users Attack stat. These are really useful.
Another pipe puzzle. We have to reroute the water here to fill up a previous room, so the jumping tiles in that room will work.
On the way upstairs, there's a button we need to put a statue on to open a door, but there's no statue. Further upstairs, there's anothe pipe puzzle. We need to manipulate the water into pushing a statue into a hole that'll make it fall on the button.
We encounter a pipeline we have to fix. It creates a jet of water so powerful, it pushes part of a wall away. OK, Camelot? There's creative puzzles, and then there's just plain defilement of logic. Guess which one this falls under.
Behind a waterfall in the next room, we find a Mercury Djinn that wants to fight us. It's weak to fire. Too easy.
Garet hits level 11 and learns Astral Blast, another spell based on the Attack stat, from it.
The Mercury Djinni Sleet joined Isaac.
Sleet gives 12 HP, 3 Attack and 1 Luck. It is used in battle to attack a target at Attack+30 Mercury Power and reduces the targets Attack by 25%
We also get the Nereid Summon. for 2 Mercury Djinn, she attacks for 60 Mercury Power plus 6% of the targets HP and increases the users Mercury Power by 30. Graphically, she just shows up on a turtle and creates a blast of water under the enemy.
We give this to Isaac, making him a Defender (Venus). In particular, he gets Ply from this, so we can have 2 healers and still have Mia on Mars Djinn (They take away Ply from her).
We get Poisoned for the first time. No big, it's Venom that's the dangerous poison status. Hell, neither of them are too dangerous, as we can heal it for 2 PP!
And we're at the end. There's a waterfall with a rainbow on it.
He who honours the goddess of rainbows shall be guided to the heavens upon wings of fluid grace.
We have to cast Ply on the waterfall to make it flow upwards and take us to the Mercury Lighthouse Aerie. Isaac nearly drowns on the way up, but the other 3 are just fine.
However, when we get to the top, the lighthouse has already been lit! Crap. We now have to explain the entire situation to Mia.
Jenna: Isaac! Garet!
Hey, the villain party is here! Except Alex and Saturos. We announce our intentions.
Menardi: Let's take care of them now, before they can do any harm!
Saturos: Menardi... Wait!
He was hiding behind the Lighthouse beacon! Which is floating in mid air! How the hell did he pull that off!?
Menardi: Oh, Saturos! They want to...
Saturos: I heard everything. They were lucky to survive the eruption of Mt. Aleph. You have endured so much, and now you want to throw your lives away? Fine. If that is your wish, prepare to have it granted.
Menardi: Saturos... Are you going to fight them alone?
Saturos: Menardi, I can't expect you to leave our hostages alone and help me, can I?
Menardi: Umm... That's true...
Saturos: Besides, I want to see how much their powers have developed.
Menardi: Are you sure about this, Saturos?
Saturos: Leave me be! Head for the next lighthouse—-now!
So Menardi, Felix, Jenna and Kraden leave.
Kraden: Isaac! Garet! Don't die!
Saturos banters a bit more, and goes to attack us when he starts feeling weak from the lighthouse. But he decides to fight anyway.
So, Saturos is one hard son of a bitch. He hits hard and has some strong Mars attacks, but is really weak to Mercury. Thankfully, he can only act once a turn. Garet lowers his Resistance while the others go all out. 7 rounds finishes him, surprisingly.
This battle is accompanied by one of the best songs in the series
. It is in all three games, despite the fact Saturos is only in this one. It's that good.
Garet: Isaac, we got him!
Yes, yes we did.
Saturos: Who would have thought that Mercury Lighthouse held such great power? If only my Psynergy had been at its full power...
Hey, it's your blunder, man.
Then Alex shows up (also hiding behind the beacon), explains that the Lighthouses weaken their opposing element, and stalls for time so Saturos can recover. Damn, back to square one. But it turns out Alex is from the Mercury Clan, so that explains why Mia knows him.
The two teleport away from us. But we ask for the Elemental Stars...
Saturos: Ha! Too bad. Menardi has them! You'll have to ask her!
Damn. They leave, and so do we. On the plus side, the fountain outside has refilled, so we can get some of it's healing waters in the bottle we took earlier. So we'll be heading back to Tret next time.
Stats:
Isaac: Lv 11 Defender (Venus) HP:168 PP:77 Attack:117 Defence:87 Agility:52 Luck:4
Garet: Lv 11 Illusionist (Mars) HP:170 PP:71 Attack:111 Defence:71 Agility:70 Luck:4
Ivan: Lv 11 Diviner (Jupiter) HP:143 PP:95 Attack:97 Defence:58 Agility:68 Luck:5
Mia: Lv 11 Wanderer (Mercury) HP:138 PP:78 Attack:84 Defence:61 Agility:67 Luck:8
Djinn: 2 Venus, 2 Mars, 2 Jupiter, 2 Mercury
Wait, why wasn't Garet weakened by the beacon?
