Stepping into the teleporter takes us out of the Bermuda Maze and to a giant wave road staircase in the sky, where we immediately encounter a Sky Hertz that's freaking out Mu as that's where the legendary EM god supposedly lies. Past him is a Guide Hertz that gives another warning that pulsing out here will take us back to Echo Ridge, and near the top of the stairs we encounter Dark Phantom again. No Un-Dimension shenanigans this time, he intends to just beat us down with the new power he's received from Vega, which manifests as an aura of darkness, so that she'll form a Brotherband with him. Omega says to just shove his own script down his throat, so that's what we're gonna do.
Dark Phantom EX
HP: 1500
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Stick Sword – Dark Phantom swipes the panel in front of him with his staff for 90 damage.
- Phantom Claw – Dark Phantom shoots a clawed arm down one column for 120 damage.
- Phantom Slash – Dark Phantom twirls around, striking Geo's row with his cape for a total of 125 damage.
Well he just beat out Blizzardman and Battle Network 5 Colonel for largest second form buff. His base form was a pushover, but his stronger ones can be legitimately challenging as his speed starts to really ramp up, making it harder to counter him than before. Though he's not quite up to that level yet here.
Despite being thoroughly trounced Dark Phantom's still bent on defeating Geo. Vega's disembodied voice rings out to express her disappointment, but he begs for another chance. She grants him that chance, zapping him with another Mu laser to power him up again. He brags about his new power for a while until Rogue shows up, here to get back at Vega himself. Dark Phantom decides that he'll take out him as well, and the two get into a little argument while Geo I guess just stands there and watches. Rogue says that all of Hyde's power comes from Vega (look who doesn't have a leg to stand on) and that he's just a parasite. Dark Phantom admits that that's true, but says that once he defeats both Rogue and Megaman his Brotherband with Vega will make him the strongest parasite in the world. They clash in a fade to white, and naturally Rogue is the victor. Dark Phantom begs for another last chance, but this time Hollow shows up to finish him off, saying that Vega has no more need for him.
With him finally out of the picture Hollow retreats and Rogue tells Geo that he's going to put off fighting him again until he's settled things with Vega. He doesn't want her to do what she wants with his ancestral homeland, and of course rebuffs Geo's offer to work together before going ahead on his own. Control's given back to us, and Dark Phantom's still lying uselessly on the wave road, where he will remain for the remainder of the game. Up another set of stairs and we finally set foot inside Mu itself.
As a dungeon, Mu consists of several large chambers (with the first one simply called “Mu”) filled with walls of glyphs and crumbled statues. Omega remarks that Mu must not have been a very cheery place to live in, as many of the wrecked statues appear to be of the Murian Warriors that Dark Phantom and Hollow used. We can't move on to the next area as there's an energy door barring the way that upon examination reads “The road shall be opened unto the one who reads and understands the tale of Mu inscribed in the four stone tablets. Chronology is paramount.” This means that the puzzle for Mu involves collecting four glyphs spread throughout the chamber that each reveal a piece of Murian history, and we have to present them to the door in the correct order in order to unlock it.
Naturally we can't just walk up to the tablets to collect them. Upon stepping onto the wave roads that branch out from the main path and alarm will sound and Murian Warriors will be summoned to patrol them. If one catches you you have to play a brief minigame where you're shown a mark on the Warrior's chest and have a few seconds to trace it with the stylus. If you succeed the Warrior self-destructs harmlessly, but if you fail you have to fight G Murian Warriors. The mark's completely random, so you could luck out and get a really easy one to trace, or get the short end of the stick and get a complex one. Sometimes the Warriors move in such a way that it's impossible to dodge them on the overworld, which sucks. They can be a pain to battle and they don't drop anything.
The four tablets in this area are the Kath, Mir, Wol, and Fon tablets. Examining them in the key item menu gives their little history blurbs and their unique glyphs. Back at the door (never mind how Geo is supposed to be able to understand them as they're presumably written in the Murian alphabet) and input field is raised and we have to draw the four glyphs in correct chronological order. You have to memorize or write down the order too, because the game doesn't let you check your items from the input screen. Read in the correct order, the glyphs reveal that the ancient Murian people were always able to see EM waves, but weren't able to manipulate them until they discovered “the Great Being”, obviously Le Mu, at the ends of the world after fleeing their persecutors.
With that the door opens, but before we can advance the EM being Yeti appears to bar the way. He explains that he is just one of many Yetis born from Le Mu before summoning a Murian Warrior and Wave Changing with it to form Yeti Blizzard to destroy the trespassers, because they can do that now. Gotta fit in the boss rematches some way, I suppose.
Yeti Blizzard EX
HP: 1200
Element: Aqua
Attacks:
- Snowball Fall – Whenever Yeti Blizzard moves snowballs fall on random panels for 60 Aqua damage.
- Snowball Rush – Yeti Blizzard smashes the ground causing a volley of snowballs to fall on the field, targeting Geo's position for 60 Aqua damage per hit.
- Big Stamp – Yeti Blizzard tries to stomp Geo for 90 damage.
- Avalanche – Yeti Blizzard starts beating his chest, causing a wave of snow to move down the entire field, dealing 60 Aqua damage.
This is kind of a hectic fight. Yeti Blizzard's pattern remains unchanged, but he's much faster now, so my recurring weakness to fast, randomly-hitting attacks rears its ugly head. Least he has a weakness to exploit and less HP than most of the bosses we recently fought.
After the battle the scene changes to Vega and Hollow before Le Mu. Now that it's almost time for the final confrontation the game finally gets around to trying to bring their characters into the third dimension. Hollow comments that Megaman is approaching, and Vega expresses concern over the injuries he sustained in his battle within the Bermuda Maze. Hollow says that they are of no concern, and Vega asks if he remembers anything. Hollow says that she knows quite well that he doesn't, calling himself “an empty husk of a man” (his Japanese name was Empty, as a matter of fact). He apologizes and then leaves to go head us off.
Back to Geo, and before we move on we can not access an ES that's coming out of a statue that's set into the wall for a Dyna Energy. The next room is called the Room of Heroes, and the four glyphs here reveal that with the ability to control EM waves the Murians founded and prosperous civilization...until the day that invaders stepped foot into their land. Past that door is a pedestal upon which is set an Ancient Star Carrier and Geo comments that seeing something like this makes him feel that the people of Mu were just like them in that they too used an EM interface in everyday life. The EM being inside aid Ancient Star Carrier, Plesio, appears and asks Geo if he knows why they are fearless. The answer? Because they are forever being born. Like Yeti, he Wave Changes with another Warrior.
Plesio Surf EX
HP: 1600
Element: Aqua
Attacks:
- Thunder Breath – Plesio Surf breathes electricity down one row, dealing 75 Elec damage and paralyzing Geo.
- Aqua Fang – Plesio Surf dives beneath the stage and tries to repeatedly bite Geo from below, dealing 75 Aqua damage per hit.
- Torrent Wave – Plesio Surf sends a tsunami down the field that deals 100 Aqua damage. It will pick up any obstacle on the field and those parts of the wave will gain the break attribute.
The difficulty here lies in Aqua Fang's speed starting to ramp up, plus the old annoyance of the moving rock getting in the way.
Like before there's a new ES that opens up in the area upon defeating the boss, and this one's got an HP Memory 10 and another Blank Card to snag. The next chamber is called the Room of Genesis, and below their feet Geo and Omega see hundreds of Murian EM beings being stored in a giant tank of sorts, all asleep. Geo compares it to cyro sleep, and Omega figures that the people of Mu must have mass produced them to use as weapons. Come to think of it, Solo's ability to Wave Change on his own is supposedly something that all Murians could do, yet that's never brought up in any of these glyphs we have to read. I certainly understand the use of mass producing EM beings and dummies that they can Wave Change with, but its odd that that aspect is never addressed. Hm. Speaking of weapons, the Kaiser Knuckle Mega Weapon is found in one of this room's BMWs.
Anyway, the story for this room's set of glyphs is that in the face of invasion, the people of Mu split into two factions: those who rejected war, forsaking their homeland and scattering across the earth, while those who remained behind raised Mu into the sky and used their EM weapons to wipe out the invaders and rule over all the earth. And presumably wiped themselves out eventually, given the state the place is in. So...Solo's presumably descended from the earthbound Mu, yet he looks up to and acts like the warmongering sky Mu... This also raises the possibility that he's not the last living descendant of Mu at all.
There's another Ancient Star Carrier pedestal before the chamber's exit, and Condor's the one to spawn from it. He's a little more talkative than the others. He recognizes that Geo is not an inhabitant of Mu and our hero tries to talk him down, saying that Mu was destroyed long ago and no one lives here anymore. Condor angrily replies that that is not true, that the people of Mu still exist and will one day repopulate their land. So either he's referring to Vega's plans for the Neo Mu Empire or, more likely, Solo isn't the last living descendant at all and that there are others spread out across the world. Eh, not like the game brings it up again, so on to the battle.
Terra Condor EX
HP: 1600
Element: Wood
Attacks:
- Bird Missile – Three missiles are launched down the field for 80 Wood damage. Green ones can be destroyed or blocked, while black ones cannot.
- Wing Laser – Terra Condor faces Geo head on and fires lasers down each row from his mouth and wings for 90 Wood damage.
- Flying Impact – Terra Condor dives at Geo, clipping a two-column-wide section of the field twice for 130 Wood damage per hit.
- Missile Bird Barrage – After performing Flying Impact Terra Condor will sometimes randomly fire a whole barrage of missiles down the field for 80 Wood damage per hit.
He's not all that faster in his EX form than the other three bosses, so I found him the easiest to manage. You can get Dance Fire 2's from the Hoppa Dance viruses in the Room of Genesis, so those help in damaging Terra Condor and destroying his wings as it has a spread effect.
The Room of Genesis's post-boss ES can't be accessed until the final boss has been beaten, but there is an HP Memory 10 to snag by examining the Ancient Star Carrier pedestal. Going through the door brings us out into the fresh air, at the base of a giant staircase. Hollow appears but we won't be fighting him again as this is just the pre-point-of-no-return cutscene. The impending throw-down is halted when Rogue appears, declaring that Hollow is his, and says that his ancestors would never have allowed for something like the Neo Mu Empire. Hollow seems a little puzzled as to why he would be upset with them for reviving Mu (how about the fact that you tried to kill him?), and Rogue retorts that he was never interested in reviving Mu, he just wanted to learn how a civilization that was so much more advanced than today fell. You know, for someone who's all up on defending the sanctity of Mu, he seems to be pretty ignorant of his heritage. I guess he didn't bother reading the glyphs on his way here.
Anyway, Hollow says that he'll never have the chance to get revenge on whomever destroyed them because...suspense...the Murians wiped themselves out! Yeah uh, that was really obvious. Rogue plugs his ears again and insists that Mu his not destroyed and Hollow's stupid for suggesting it because he's still here. Hollow responds to this by summoning yet another Kamikakushi and attempting to swallow everyone present. He sinks in, but before the other two can follow Rogue uppercuts Geo out of the black hole because he wants to have Hollow all to himself. That's not contrived at all, but here we are. It's time to save (and unlike the other past games which merely strongly suggested you do so, here Omega forces you to if you try going up the stairs) and heal up, for Le Mu awaits.
Virus Listing
- Raid
- These spidery robots crawl up to the front of the field and smash a hammer down on a 3 x 2 area. The shockwave can be blocked, but not the hammer itself as it's break attribute.
- Shock Mummy
- These electrified mummies attack by shoving a hand up through one of Geo's panels, dealing heavy damage and paralyzing him. They'll slowly regenerate HP when damaged.
- Grabity
- The old Shadow viruses return in the form of one-eyed black holes. These viruses can only be damaged by blade-based attacks and have two attacks of their own: either they'll fire a planet down their column or they'll suck away some of Geo's HP. The HP suction is unavoidable, so you want to delete them quickly.
Soundtrack
- Continent of Mu
- That midi-choir reminds me of something from the Golden Sun games.
Comments
