I did a tiny spot of grinding before moving on to get everyone up another level to Lv. 22, where Ivan learns Resist (raises everyone’s resistance) and Mia learns Wish Well (base 160 HP restoration to the whole party), both useful spells. Now, despite what the name might suggest, Gondowan Passage is not another cave or dungeon, but simply another drawbridge located south of Tolbi. As promised, Iodem is there waiting for us, and he walks into Isaac like any other party member for the next leg of our journey, and now we can finally leave Angara behind and step foot onto Gondowan.
Following the rough path that’s laid out takes us to the southeast where we come across the Sahara, er, Suhalla Desert and the little village just outside of it. The town of Suhalla is little more than a tiny hamlet, but like a number of other locations we’ve been visiting over the course of our journey it’s currently the subject of some unnatural weirdness. This time around we learn from the locals that the whole desert is covered in a massive sandstorm, and anyone who tries to press through just ends up getting blown back to the town. What’s more, we can find two bedridden Tolbi soldiers in one of the houses. Iodem recognizes them as the guards that were supposed to be escorting Sheba back to Lalivero and asks what happened. The two ashamed guards admit that they were caught in one of the sandstorms while trying to press on through the desert and lost their ward. What’s more, before they were blown away they were able to discover that the storms were in fact caused by monsters, but they were in no shape to fend them off. There was another group of people that was able to make it through though, they say, by dispersing the storms with giant blasts of water and slaying the beasts. Iodem says to Isaac that that sounds a lot like the group we’ve been pursuing, and worried about Sheba’s whereabouts and what her disappearance could mean for the construction of Babi Lighthouse says that we need to press onward with all haste.
Suhalla Desert is a little more rocky and linear than the Lamakhan Desert and of course doesn’t have a temperature gimmick which is nice. What it has instead are numerous narrow chokepoints, and whenever Isaac steps into one of them a whirlwind will spontaneously pop up around him. If you’re caught by one of these, you will indeed be whisked back to the world map right outside of Suhalla. The soldiers’ hints as to how to get past the sandstorms were a wee bit obtuse, but in the few seconds before we’re blasted off we have to cast Douse. Despite the trickle that Douse provides looking very wimpy compared to the geysers of water Alex apparently conjured up, the shower is enough to disperse the sand, and we’re immediately thrust into battle with a Tornado Lizard, an overgrown, bipedal frill lizard, before we can proceed. Tornado Lizards are essentially the Suhalla’s version of the Antlions and Living Statues in that they’re hardier than normal monsters but will still fall within two turns or so to a concentrated assault. Tornado Lizards attack twice per turn and prefer the second-tier Wind Psynergy spells plus Impact and Ward. They have just over five-hundred HP and yield just over six-hundred EXP, so the Suhalla’s a decent grinding spot if the fancy strikes as the whirlwinds will respawn once you transition between screens.
The random encounter rate seems a little low otherwise (or maybe that’s because it resets with each Tornado Lizard battle, I dunno) but there are a few new monsters introduced here, of which I’m going to mention two. The first is the Harridan, the strongest in the Harpy family, and it’s noteworthy only because of its Crazy Voice attack, which is special because it has a Mana Burn effect which is incredibly rare in these games. The other’s a completely new enemy known as Stone Soldier, with two gimmicks. The first is that it only has 6 PP (yes, that’s a gimmick) so it can’t even cast more than one spell, the second is that it has a unique move called Dynamite where it blows itself up (it looks like a little naval mine with legs after all) but unlike the Warrior Bee’s Mortal Blow it’s much more powerful and AOE.
The final main area of the desert is an open one, but before we dive too far in if we use Reveal little footprints in the sand are, well, revealed, and hopping across a secret stone post brings us to a very, very important Mars Djinni. This one’s called Flash and it works the same as Granite in that it sets up a barrier that lessens damage except that it’s much better. While Granite reduces damage by half, Flash reduces it by 90%! Yeah, I don’t even need to elaborate on how useful this particular bugger is.
Anyway if we continue south in this area we’ll soon come across a large whirlwind, freeroaming around the place like the Tasmanian Devil. Use Douse on this one and…
Storm Lizard
HP
- 2900
- Weak to Earth; Resists Wind
- Storm Ray - Deals moderate Wind damage to 2/3 enemies.
- Sonic Slash - Deals heavy Wind damage to all enemies.
- Tempest - Deals heavy Wind damage to all enemies.
- Wing Stroke - Deals heavy Wind damage to 2/3 enemies.
- Impact - Raises Attack.
- Ward - Raises Resistance.
The Storm Lizard is basically just the Tornado Lizard with much more HP and some stronger attacks. Outside of that? Nothing really too special. Just keep your defenses up with Resist, Granite, and our new toy Flash, HP in the green, and you’re good to go.
Winning earns us 1300 EXP, 6100 coins, and a Psy Crystal.
There’s a Reveal-hidden Psynergy Stone not too far away to top off on, and the exit is just beyond that. Before we leave the desert Iodem pops out to note that despite our crossing of the Suhalla Sheba is still nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, he says, there’s a guard station at the nearby Suhalla Gate that we can put on the case.
Suhalla Gate is a short valley pathway that we are directed straight into via Chokepoint Geography. While there is indeed a gate and a little guard station (complete with a healer if you need ailment removal/revival but they’re pretty irrelevant by now) the soldiers there are found lying on the ground, in no shape to do anything. Iodem asks what happened and they’re able to tell us that a “strange group” with strange powers without any travel papers blasted their way through not too long ago, so it sounds like we’ve finally caught up to the heels of Saturos and Menardi’s group. The rest of Suhalla Gate is very short, but jumping down some slopes so get to the bottom of the cliffs leads us to the final Mercury Djinni of the game, Dew (revives a character at 80% max HP and has a much better success rate than Quartz; still no reason to use it if Revive is available), and a short Psynergy Stone-containing cave that leads to a tiny peninsula on the world map where we can spy an odd, dragon-headed ship sunk in a cove. Iodem spots out to express his shock at seeing what is apparently Babi’s Lemurian ship, but as it shows no response to some kind of black crystal doodad he takes out he decides that the time is not yet right and that we must carry on. Weird.
After exiting Suhalla Gate properly we soon come upon the second of the four Elemental Lighthouses at last, Venus Lighthouse. Upon entering the area we find more Tolbi soldiers and scholars strewn about its cliffside entrance, as Saturos and Menardi apparently just tore a path right through them despite Kraden’s pleas to leave them unharmed. The seal on the lighthouse’s door has been lifted (presumably thanks to Felix being an Earth Adept) so we can stroll right on in. The interior of the Venus Lighthouse is kind of claustrophobic as it’s made up of a bunch of short, narrow corridors. The bestiary here mostly caps off a couple monster families who’ve been around since the start of the game like the Zombie, Ghost, and Gnome lines. The sturdiest enemies here, Goblins and Earth Golems, as well as the Horned Ghosts, are weak to Wind so having Ivan spam his spells will make things go a bit faster. Earth Golems have an HP to 1 attack called Truncheon Fist, and they can drop Giant Axes, one of the game’s better weapons for Garet since its unleash is Fire-elemental (Meltdown: Fire damage to one and can lower Defense). Within a chest is a decent piece of headgear called the Lucky Cap (actually it’s a ninja headband) that boosts the wear’s crit rate as well as grants PP regen. Speaking of regen, just as Mia recovered PP each turn when we were climbing Mercury Lighthouse, Isaac recovers 4 PP a turn within this one.
We actually can’t get very far into the lighthouse since the assent soon comes to an end when we encounter a set of stairs that’s blocked by a silver block of some kind that we can’t remove. But according to one of the few scholars in the lighthouse who’s still on his feet Saturos’s group didn’t remain in here for very long, and Kraden was even saying that this wasn’t actually the lighthouse’s true entrance. What we have to do in the meantime then is head back to the entrance “lobby” of the lighthouse if you will, where there’s a relief that apparently reads “If ye seek to climb Venus Lighthouse, first seek the power within. To obtain this power, see with the eyes of truth. Then the way shall open. But the path I reveal is not the beginning. The true beginning lies down ancient pathways on distant soils.” That’s our cue to use Reveal, and doing so opens up a hidden staircase in the relief that leads to a treasure chest containing the Carry Stone. Carry is the final utility Psynergy in the game, and we can immediately see it in action by heading back to that weird block and casting it to lift and move it once in any direction. Moving it over some boundary lines and dropping it onto some inaccessible floorspace below and we can proceed…
…only to immediately be stopped by an even more impassable obstacle: an electrified hallway. Though the game doesn’t give you any hints this time, once again we have to use Reveal to find a hidden stairway. This one takes us to a more open room that’s notable for having one of those giant Buddha-esque statues from Mercury Lighthouse, the ones we had to use Ply on. None of that here though. Before the statue are a bunch of colored nodes on the floor and a miniature facsimile of Venus Lighthouse, and stepping up onto the statue’s palm will result in several of the nodes lighting up and a voice telling Isaac that we must go to the ruins if we are to truly climb the tower. It’s time to move on again with all haste.
