After a bad dream entailing getting attacked by Harp Note, Geo wakes up presumably sometime later in the day and after getting dressed decides to skip town again before his friends come find him. This being the third time he's tried to employ the exact same trick he isn't as successful, as his friends have cottoned on and Luna had Bud and Zack lie in wait for when he finally left his house. Luna's waiting for them in the park, and there Geo finally spills what's been going on. Luna's conclusion is that Geo's being a huge idiot since Sonia's obviously faking, and she makes a little speech about how Geo has to consider other people's feelings in addition to his own and how he has to trust others. Though she does have a point, the main issue here seems to be that it's Sonia who doesn't trust Geo. And there are narrative problems with that two, but eh, let's press on. Anyway, Geo perks up and declares that he'll bring Sonia back. Off to the Bermuda Maze.
Sonia's still right inside the entrance and she immediately says that she warned him not to come back. And uh, maybe Luna's talk wasn't such a good idea after all because Geo apparently took the message a little too hard and went to the extreme end of the interpretation spectrum as he practically throws himself under the bus. And we have a boss fight, narrative sense be damned.
Harp Note
HP: 1400
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Shock Note – Two speakers appear on the unoccupied panels of Harp Note's row before she shoots music notes out of them that deal 70 damage and paralyze.
- Machine Gun Strings – Harp Note shoots strings from her guitar down one column to ensnare Geo, after which she sends several music notes down in for a total of 60 damage and paralysis.
- Pulse Song – Harp Note fires a heart-shaped sound wave at Geo's row that deals 100 damage and either confuses, paralyzes, or blinds depending on the color.
Meh, for all intents and purposes she's exactly the same as in the last game, just more HP and damage. She's still got all the old problems of being wide open most of the time
Winning gives us the Harp Note card which has her attack with Shock Note or Machine Gun Strings depending on whether she's aligned with the enemy or not.
Things pick up after the battle as if it never happened with Geo saying that you only hurt yourself when you lie and that he's rather they suffer together than what she's doing. With a “...!” Sonia finally comes around and confesses to putting on an act. What happened to her was that after escaping the Un-Dimension she encountered Hollow, who somehow learned the nature of her abilities and obtained her aid in exchange for not going after Geo. Hollow's apparently so strong that of course there would be no way Geo could win against him, once again pointing to an unaddressed lack of faith on Sonia's part. There's something that Vega's after in the Bermuda Maze (that something obviously being Mu), and the two decide to find it before they do. Why? The two go Genre Blind for the remainder of the scenario. Oh well, it's on their heads if things go south, which it certainly will. The two reform their Brotherband before moving out, and it gets the additional thirty Link Power points as well.
So, the Bermuda Maze. This dreary place is divided up into seemingly dozens upon dozens of plus-shaped (or X-shaped given the perspective) pathway intersections. To navigate them we have to follow the ghostly Guide Hertzes that inhabit the place, their means of communication so low that only Sonia can hear them with her Harp Note abilities. The game doesn't make it easy for you to follow though. Not only does the guide move really fast, but sometimes it'll take odd paths to get to the exit, pink clouds will sometimes obscure the player's sight, and of course there are the usual random encounters to deal with. If you happen to go down the wrong path you'll be thrown into a virus-infested dead end and be forced to fight it out before you can retreat.
After a while the guide will stop providing directions and instead you'll have to solve riddles from multicolored Hertzes to find the way through, which requires you to do stuff like look at the color of the stars on the top screen to determine which ones are telling the truth or solve riddles that they provide. Needless to say this is probably the worst area in the game, and it keeps making us come back to it later on. Over and over again.
As an aside, the reason why planes break down when flying through is because of the massive amount of EM interference. Omega expresses his discomfort a few times during the trek.
At the end of the labyrinth is a staircase and the usual skull panels to remind us that there's a boss coming up. At the top of the stairs is a large platform with the Mu crest in the center. Sonia speculates that what Vega's after is probably below this spot, under the sea. It's here that Hollow appears because Geo and Sonia were stupid and led him right to here, where the continent of Mu itself apparently is sealed. And the key to the seal is the OOPArt, of course. Geo's pissed that Hollow used them and managed to drive them apart so it's time for boss number two of the evening.
Hollow
HP: 1600
Element: Elec
Attacks:
- Thunder Bazooka – Hollow fires a blast of electricity down one column that paralyzes and deals 80 Elec damage.
- Magic Thunder – Lightning strikes each panel in the front 3 x 2 area of the field for 120 Elec damage and paralysis.
- Black Thunder Bazooka – Hollow fires a T-shaped blast of black electricity that paralyzes and deals 80 Elec damage.
- Black Magic Thunder – Black Lightning strikes each panel in front 3 x 2 area of the field twice for 120 Elec damage per hit.
- Hollow Barrier – A barrier of electricity will briefly protect Hollow from one hit.
- Dance Fire – A Bubba Dance virus is summoned to shoot a three-panel-long stream of flame for 70 Fire damage.
- Chain Bubble – A Stream Cancero virus is summoned to shoot a series of bubbles down one column for 70 Aqua damage.
- Stealth Laser – A Stealth virus is summoned to shoot a series of paralyzing laser shots down one column for a total of 75 Elec damage.
- Squall – A Storm virus is summoned to launch a twister down one column for 70 Wood damage.
Hollow can be an annoying customer. He's basically a new-age Magicman. Like Yahoot's Navi he can summon viruses to the field but there are a few significant differences that make him new-age. First of all, he can only summon viruses if there are a special kind of summon panel on the field. Remove them and he won't be able to conjure any more, though he'll eventually restore the panels. The second big difference between him and Magicman is that the summoned viruses do not stick around – they'll disappear after throwing out one attack. Much less irritating, with the caveat that they'll be throwing out attacks much more quickly. Thirdly, unlike Magicman Hollow will move all about and has plenty of offensive capabilities of his own, along with that electric barrier of his that appears whenever he moves.
If you want to get through Hollow quickly, you're going to want Wood cards. The Squall 1's dropped by the Storm viruses in the Bermuda Maze work great in conjunction with Wood Ninja, and Green Carpet does nicely in removing large swaths of the summon panels, while Fokx-Fu 2's will inflict a lot of damage. Cutting down on the viruses is also important if you're using a Tribe as between the four they'll be able to break it no matter which one you're using.
Hollow mutters that he's failed and he can't afford to lose anymore power so he warps away. But the happy mood is spoiled by yet another black hole appearing with Solo emerging from it. Again he Wave Changes without a word and it's here where we see that Sonia apparently learnt nothing in regards to trusting Geo because once more she flips out over their adversary being too strong for Geo and she blasts him out of the screen. Maybe Vega's right, the world is full of morons.
Rogue says that the idea of protecting someone makes him sick (though I guess defending Mu's honor is okay because it's a “thing”) and then the scene switches to Geo. This interlude is rather pointless as your HP is automatically restored after the Hollow battle. Heading back up the stairs shows that Rogue's defeated Sonia of course and going on about how her defeat proves that he's right and asks Geo in disgust if something like this makes him sad. Geo's pretty fed up with Mr. Cognitive Dissonance's bullshit by this point and retorts that yes, of course he gets sad seeing his friends get hurt, nothing hurts more than seeing people you care about more than yourself suffer.
He finally asks why he hates him and Link Power, so Rogue finally spills his backstory. He's alone, the last living Murian descendant, and his ability to see EM waves and Wave Change made people fear and hate him. So much so that the people around him took to ganging up on him and beating him up, even though alone they were weak.
Were you expecting more? Nope, that's pretty much all there is to Solo's backstory and just like the character it's not very well realized. Solo's very existence shows that he had a family, what happened to them? It would've been the easiest thing in the world to add a line about him being abandoned either from birth or later. It would've perhaps given some weight to his words, being betrayed by the unit that's supposed to always be there for each other. There are lots of ways this backstory could've been fleshed out with words, but we're just given the bare minimum, so it falls to pieces upon close scrutiny. It's also pretty easy to see people ganging up on him being his own fault since he's shown to be very antagonistic.
Geo's counter-argument begins by saying that he lost his dad, and Rogue actually gets an amusing line: “What does that have to do with anything?” Geo expands by saying that he used to feel similarly insofar as he shouldn't bother getting close to people, but meeting Sonia eventually brought him around to seeing the value of relationships. The rest of the speech is basically “I'm going to prove you wrong about Link Power and friendship making you weak!” so it's rematch time, without Rogue having the game on his side.
Rogue EX
HP: 1200
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Rogue Arts – Rogue attacks Geo with a series of punches and ends with a flipkick that deals 30 damage per hit.
- Rogue Burst – Rogue fires off a two-column-wide shockwave for 60 damage.
- Rogue Knuckle – Rogue randomly fires a volley of energy fists down the field for 80 damage per hit.
- Rogue Sword – Rogue attacks with a combo of sword slashes that affect a 3 x 2 area all together and deal 50 damage per hit.
- Sonic Boom – Rogue throws out a three-panel-wide air slash for 100 damage.
- Rogue Break – Rogue jumps into the air and comes down with a sword strike that hits a 3 x 2 area for 200 damage. The part that hits the two-panel-long range in front of Rogue has the break attribute.
- Mu Rejection – An automatic barrier will block one hit and regenerate.
Now the barrier works as intended: it'll block one attack, no matter the strength, and then eventually regenerate. The problem is, as it only appears at the moment it blocks, it's difficult to gauge if it's regenerated or not, leading to many a wasted attack. The best way to deal with it is to remove it with buster shots before bringing out the heavy artillery.
Rogue's other big thing is that now he'll pull out a sword once half his HP gets depleted, completely changing his behavior. Well, that's not entirely right: he's still very aggressive, and his sword attacks will definitely work the shield through its paces. It's still not very hard to use something like the Mad Vulcan series to counter him when he's using Rogue Break, though.
Rogue's barrier shatters after the battle, his mugshot goes back to normal, and he loses his wave form. Even as he collapses he's still trying to ignore the outcome, insisting that Geo's words mean nothing. Geo collapses too, and a voice says that this is a wonderful story. Hyde appears, of course waiting until everyone's beaten themselves up to swoop in and steal some ill-deserved gains. And he's not in wave form either, he's just chilling there on the wave road in human form, utterly breaking the mechanics of the setting. I can believe Solo doing that since he's a Murian, but Hyde's got no such ability and there's not a peep about Z-waves or some Murian equivalent. After gloating that both Hollow and Solo failed he just sort of...gets the OOPArt out of Geo somehow and vanishes.
Which immediately prompts a cut to him presenting the OOPArt to Vega at their base. After inquiring as to Hollow's well-being she says that the dream she had decided upon when she first found some Murian relics will finally become reality: the birth of the Neo Mu Empire with her as its empress. Then, as a reward for retrieving the OOPArt at last, she lifts the curtain to reveal herself
◊ to Hyde. Having finally shown herself, she declares that now they shall go to revive Mu itself.
Virus Listing
- Stealth
- Stealth viruses resemble miniature stealth bombers and they'll move around the field invisibly until firing off a barrage of paralyzing laser shots.
- Storm
- Storm viruses are projected by tornadoes, but become vulnerable to attack once they shoot them down their column at Geo.
Soundtrack
- Bermuda Maze
- I'll be hearing this dreary track a lot.
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