Since Daila has no boats to spare, we’re going to head to the only other town on Indra, Madra, to try our luck there. We have to go in the opposite direction we took to reach Kandorean Temple, southeast this time, until we hit a dead end and see what looks like a stack of ledges nestled up against the mountains. Entering it takes us to the rocky, treacherous mountain path known as the Dehkan Plateau. One of the townspeople in Daila mentioned that it’s been unstable due to the recent natural disasters and we can see evidence of that in cracked sections of ground and pillars that we can jump on only once as they’ll crack and then crumble away under Felix’s weight. There are some spots where you have to do the Zelda thing of navigating across the cracked ground and strategically falling through at certain spots to snag treasure from the caves below, such as the Full Metal Vest (decent Defense boost), a Mint (permanently raises Agility if you recall), and the first artifact weapon of the game, Themis’ Axe (tailor-made for Felix since its unleash, Stone Justice, deals Earth damage - and also may lower Agility if that’s your jam).
The second half of the Dehkan Plateau involves pursuing a Mars Djinni across treacherous ground, and this one will even use a utility Psynergy to block off routes by summoning a Psynergy fist to smash stone posts into the ground. Eventually it’ll take refuge in a cave, and we’re supposed to have Felix fall through the ceiling above and land right on top of it, causing it to flee into the next room but leave behind the Pound Cube in the process so that we can knock stone posts into the ground too. Pound is probably the second-most used utility Psynergy in the game after Move, I’d reckon. The Mars Djinni hiding in the next room will hop across some posts into an inaccessible alcove if we get to close to it, so giving it a taste of its own medicine by Pounding away its escape route will allow us to battle and capture it. Cannon can be a pain in the ass though since it likes to spam Blast, and that can easily KO someone if you’re slow to heal or have already lost some HP. At a point in the game where there’s no way to revive downed party members yet other than hiking to a sanctum and shelling out some cash. Cannon’s effect is the basic “deals damage of the appropriate element to one enemy” one. After we exit the cave where it was hiding the exit back on to the world map is not far away.
As we emerge out onto the southern half of Indra there is an unexpected sight before us: the Lemurian ship run aground on a beach immediately south of the Dehkan Plateau. This beach is actually a location we can visit, and it even triggers a short scene of the party taking note of the ship and lamenting the fact that it’s useless to them as long as its black crystal has been lost. We can even climb up onto its deck, but the door leading inside is sealed by a “powerful force.” There’s nothing else to do but exit back out and start heading west, where we’ll see a cave to the side of Indra’s main “road.” This is a simple one-room cave known as “Indra Cavern” that contains a mysterious stone tablet that we need to use Move and Lash to reach, and examining it causes a bunch of runes to fly onto the screen and then enter Felix, giving us the message that we can now summon “Zagan”. The summoning mechanic gets expanded in this game with the addition of new dual-elemental Summons in addition to the old mono ones carried over from the previous game. Dual-elemental Summons are unlocked by finding tablets like this one that are hidden away across Weyard, mostly in nondescript caverns like this one. They take two types of Djinn and always have an additional effect beyond simply dealing damage. Zagan, the eighth demon of the Ars Goetia, President of Hell, requires one Venus and one Mars Djinni. It only deals Earth damage despite that though, but it (and all other dual-element Summons for that matter) does increase both the summoner’s Earth and Fire affinities. Zagan is supposed to be a griffin/bull creature, but here it looks more like a winged lion, flying in and smashing enemies with an axe, not to mention also lowering Defense.
After getting our new toy we have to continue following the main path west until it curves around back southeast. Replaying this game now, while the Weyard of The Lost Age has more exploration to it than the Angara of the first game had, it’s not reflected too well at this point with all the empty space on the map here. Fortunately future areas are more populated. The town of Madra is on the southeastern border of the continent, and in a patch of woods sitting right next to it lurks the first world map Djinni of the game, the Venus Djinni Iron that can, as the name suggests, buff the whole team’s Defense.
Madra itself is, going by the music and the beams of sunlight that’re filtering down from above, a sleepy little town normally, but when we approach the town gates two villagers standing guard check to make sure that we’re not from Champa before letting us in. You may recall seeing that name brought up in Laliveran NPC dialogue at the very end of the previous game, in the context of telling Isaac to look out for them. Seems that they’re actually a band of pirates and until recently their leader, Briggs, had been locked up inside the town jail (hardy har). “Until recently” because his men snuck back into town and freed him. But no fear, the mayor and elder have left for the continent of Osenia to track him down, and in the meantime the townspeople have thrown an unconscious Champa they found washed up on the strange boat on the beach to the wait a minute…
Madra’s a bit spacious with some stuff to take note of. These include a Sanctum that’s set up like a church complete with people explicitly referencing prayer and giving thanks, like in a Dragon Quest game, a dude who’s keeping a Mars Djinni locked inside an upstairs pen (that’ll take some side questing to solve), a treasure chest that can be reached via the inn’s roof and walking across vendor stall awnings which contains the Nurse’s Cap (girl-only headgear that can be “used” as a regular item to restore some HP to one character), and if we enter the mayor’s abode on the western side of town we can see that they have a familiar-looking black crystal set above the hearth, the elder allegedly keeping it safe for the prisoner. Also in the inn are two familiar-looking character sprite models: two warriors covered head-to-toe in garishly-colored armor. If you talked to absolutely everyone in the previous game and had a very, very good memory you’d recognize these fellows are Morgan and Dekka, from the Colosso tournament. They only show up if you transferred data from Golden Sun, and are just here to say that even though they lost this year’s Colosso to Isaac, they’ll be back next year. There are more relevant data transfer-exclusive scenes in the future.
Located south of the mayor’s residence is the town jail, and if we go inside Felix and Kraden witness two men shouting at the prisoner, a man with a predominantly blue outfit and hair and calm composure…but it’s not Alex. One of the two men is really pissed since his girlfriend apparently got hurt in the Champa raid and is especially ticked at the blue man’s calm demeanor and insistence that he’s not one of the pirates, but at the same time claiming that he can’t reveal where he’s from. Finally the man says “If my words won’t cool your temper, then…” and turns the puddle his verbal abuser is standing on into a pillar of ice, which Kraden immediately recognizes must be a casting of Frost. The two men run out screaming allowing us to speak with the prisoner if we wish. The man wonders when the “kindly elder” will return to end his imprisonment, while mind reading him shows that he’s mentally berating himself for lashing out with Psynergy - then realizes his mind’s being read but can’t believe it’s Felix because he’s not of his people. Having the appropriate context from the first game, it’s very obvious to the player where this guy came from. I think we’ve found our Water Adept…
Once we head back outside there’s a brief scene where the absent mayor’s wife inspects the prison to see what all the commotion the two troublemakers caused was about, and after seeing that “Piers” is still where he’s supposed to be she spots Felix and on the spot gives him permission to continue east to Osenia. Kind of random, but okey-dokey. Before we leave Madra though, there are actually two entrances leading to an underground cavern called the Madra Catacombs that we can briefly check out, one by the inn and one by a small cemetery right outside the gates. The townspeople seem to think that the Champa dug this all by themselves, but there’s clearly more going on here as further in we find what appear to be the ruins of a buried city. But unfortunately there’s a barred door preventing us from fully accessing the ruins that can only be opened, says an inscription, with the “eyes of truth”. Sounds like a job for Reveal, but Hama is not around to teach us it, so nothing doing here. For now it’s something to keep in the back of our minds.
To the east we have to pass through a brief drawbridge area that serves no purpose other than I guess to railroad you into visiting Madra before heading on to Osenia, and past that is a small area called Osenia Cliffs that serves as a bridge between the two continents. This place does have some stuff going for it, mainly in that the main attraction is the broken-apart wreckage of a ship. Some Madrans are observing the wreck, and one of them notes that this must be Briggs’s ship since the red Champa flag is visible. The dude goes on to wonder why the elder needs to find the pirate to clear Piers’s name when there’s proof right here and…yeah, I agree with him. I guess most of the Madrans are in such a lather right now that they won’t listen to anything not from the horse’s mouth and would gladly lynch the man if he were set free otherwise? The game doesn’t do that great a job of justifying things, that’s for sure. Also here if we work our way across the wreckage itself we can find a chest containing the Pirate’s Sword, a light blade that is going right to Jenna since she’s been stuck with the basic Short Sword since Daila. It’s unleash, Dreamtide, deals Water damage to one foe and has a decent chance of putting them to sleep. In Madra I bought a Magic Rod for Sheba that can do the same thing with Murk, so having two party members with the ability to temporarily neutralize enemies is going to be fairly useful.
Osenia is bigger than Indra and more populated but there’s still a lot of empty space on the overworld. It does make sense though since it’s Weyard’s Australia. The encounter pool is fairly small though so everything is not trying to kill you like its real world counterpart, but even then the new Emu and Dino enemies can do a number on you if you’re careless. The bulk of the continent’s interior is taken up by the Yampi Desert, and surprise of surprises we’re going to have to pay it a visit because right now traveling through it is the only way to reach the port town of Alhafra that the Madrans suspect Briggs has fled to, for his pirates have created a literal Broken Bridge to stymie any pursuit. Shortly after entering the desert we encounter the Madran elder, his son the mayor, and their entourage, all tired and hot and frustrated because they can’t find a way through and there’s an oasis just beyond some rocks, taunting them. Unlike the two deserts Isaac had to cross in Angara, the Yampi Desert doesn’t have much of a gimmick. The closest it gets to having one are the wooden Pound posts spread around, and being strategic regarding which ones you bang into the sand can allow you to reach the Jupiter Djinni Blitz (Wind damage and may paralyze). You’ll know you’re on the right track when you spot some kind of creature tunneling around beneath the sand. It appears to go in circles, but if you pay attention you’ll notice that it can’t tunnel under rocks and Pounded posts. Continuing to use Pound strategically we must herd the creature (which turns out to be a giant scorpion) through three different areas, until it gets tired of it and used the Scoop Psynergy spell to drop us into a cavern beneath the sand where it pounces.
King Scorpion
HP
- 1064
- Weak to Fire; Resists Wind
- Paralytail - Deals Earth damage and may paralyze one enemy.
- Poison Tail - Deals Earth damage and may badly poison one enemy.
- Twin Shear - Deals moderate Earth damage to one enemy.
- Sand Breath - Deals splashing Earth damage to two/three enemies.
- Desert Gasp - Deals splashing Earth damage and may lower the Defense of two/three enemies.
That is quite a jump in HP compared to the Chestbeaters. King Scorpion is sturdy, has a resistance that wasn’t what I was expecting, and can dish out some troublesome status ailments. Being badly poisoned is absolutely not good at all given that Antidotes are currently the only way to heal from it in battle and HP is still relatively low. However…it spent most of its turns defending. Which dragged things out certainly, but definitely did not do it any favors in the long run.
Winning earns us 440 EXP, 228 coins, and a Vial.
In addition to the usual end-of-battle goodies, the King Scorpion also leaves behind a green jewel known as the Scoop Gem, so now we too can summon giant magic hands to scoop up sand and soil. We have to break in Scoop by using it to reveal a crack on the cave floor that water’ll gush out of, lifting Felix back aboveground. Scoop’s purpose is basically to uncover stuff, and spots that you can use it on are generally clearly marked out. Like if we double back to the start of the desert where the Madrans are, just a little south of them is a tiny patch of sand surrounded by four stones, and using Scoop on that patch reveals a ladder. One quick underground passage later and we’re on the other side of the rocks where the oasis is, and the sight of us having found a way boosts the morale of the Madrans and they set off again themselves.
There’s one more cave to go through, one that houses streams of sand, then there’s a final outdoor area that’s peppered by sandfalls like the kind we saw back in the Lamakhan and Venus Lighthouse. Maneuvering around them lets us pick up the second class-changing item, the Trainer’s Whip (originally dubbed the “Demon World’s Whip” for some reason). It lets a character enter the Tamer class line which is…unique if nothing else. Like the Pierrot line you get access to offensive spells of all four elements, and the gimmick is that each spell summons a monster to attack enemies. They run off of Attack like the Ragnarok spell which is neat, but the class line has pretty low Agility and PP. Unlike the Mysterious Card, I’ve never once used this thing.
When we get to the end of the Yampi Desert there’s one last sandfall that’s flowing offscreen, and a sign next to it warns that this way leads to a place called Air’s Rock and that it’s a one-way trip. I could head down this way and thus tackle what’s to be found in southwestern/central Osenia before moving on to Alhafra, but that would mean that I’d have to backtrack through the desert again and I’d rather take the more efficient route. So we’ll ignore that for now and head up and out through the desert’s northern exit, which puts us within spitting distance of the harbor town of Alhafra.
Soundtrack
- Little Madra
- A pleasant, low-key track, like a lullaby almost.
- Beneath the Surface
- Compared to Golden Sun's cave theme and the previous one from this game, The Lost Age's second generic cave BGM is much more ominous.
