Normally I try to come up with update titles that have at least a small modicum of creativity put into them. Not today (not deliberately). This dungeon has earned its name.
So, Air’s Rock is the first of the four Elemental Rock dungeons scattered throughout Weyard. Very rarely does the game give you a reason to go there, but they are all mandatory for what lies within them. Air’s Rock is the most notorious of them, and to get there we have to return to the Yampi Desert and let ourselves be whisked away by that one-way sandfall I pointed out when we came through the desert proper. A short cave trek later and we’re back out on the world map in the central chunk of Osenia. Head south a little bit and there’s a little bridge that leads west to that vast expanse of sand we spied from Alhafra in the previous update, and sure enough the pink mountain of Air’s Rock is in the center.
Now what makes Air’s Rock so notorious is that it is long, the definition of a Marathon Level. I’m not quite convinced that it is the longest dungeon in the game, but it is easily in the top three if it isn’t. It easily eclipses all the other dungeons we traveled through in the first game, even if you counted Babi Lighthouse, the Venus Ruins, and Venus Lighthouse as one thing. It’s gigantic.
The reason for this? There are multiple, distinct sections to it, three in fact. The first, and the shortest, is the base of the mountain. The Rock’s base consists of narrow pathways cut in the ground, with some being filled in by sand. A signpost at the entrance warns us of heavy gusts caused by Wind Stones, but Wind Stones themselves are very passive, being brown, pointed chunks of rock that are stuck in the ground. They don’t do anything themselves, but you use Whirlwind on them they’ll shoot out a small whirlwind in the direction Felix is facing, and if they happen to run into one of those sandy blockages they’ll grind through it like a drill, allowing passage. Due to the maze-like path structure and strategically placed rocks we have to often take long detours in order to reach these stones, and oftentimes we’ll have to approach them from multiple angles as well. It’s not too hard to lose your bearings either, given the small real estate of the GBA’s screen. There is a Mimic in what amounts to a central area (contains a Lucky Medal), so I might recommend keeping it unopened for a bit to provide a marker if needed.
Eventually though we’re able to reach the back of the area, by the sheer wall of the mountain itself. Here there’s an oversized, crystalline Wind Stone that’s shaped like a tornado, and using Whirlwind on that one sparks a large twister that blows away a bunch of sand clinging to the cliff face revealing some rock-climbing paths. This leads us to the second section of Air’s Rock, the ascent to the top. This is two screens’ worth and it adds the gimmick of placing small moai-like statues whose only purpose is to spit small whirlwinds at periodic intervals. Getting caught by one will have it carry Felix along until it hits something, and as you can imagine hopping into and avoid the whirlwinds strategically is the key to making progress. As well as backtracking to both unlock new routes and get some treasure for Felix: the Storm Brand long sword (unleashes Hurricane which deals Water damage and may lower Attack) and the Fujin Shield (buffs Defense and Wind resistance). Most of the backtracking involves rock climbing, and I think it’s that more than anything else that adds minutes to the time spent here at the moment since Isaac and Felix’s climbing animations are slow. After using another massive Wind Stone crystal to clear out some fog that prevents us from making progress we reach the mountain summit where there’s nothing but a third crystal. Using Whirlwind on that one generates not a whirlwind but a series of lightning strikes that blast a pit into the ground, revealing an entrance into the interior of Air’s Rock itself.
I think by this point I had spent about twenty minutes on this dungeon FYI.
Now, on to the interior of Air’s Rock. The corridors of this place are relatively windy and roundabout just like the mountain’s base, and as you may expect the puzzles here continue to make use of the wind theme. More whirlwind-spewing moai statue heads are present, including a giant one not too far from the entrance along with yet another giant crystal Wind Stone. They’re both out of reach at the moment, so we proceed to a set of stairs leading down to the second basement floor. This takes us to an open corridor that rings a gigantic (as gigantic as you can get on a GBA screen) abyss and here there are two doors we can take, one marked with red dots, the other blue.
The red one to the east is the one we have to take first. The bulk of this section of Air’s Rock involves hitting a narrow platform with whirlwinds to rotate it ninety degrees so that we can reach new parts of the floor, and this requires a lot of circular backtracking, enough to make your head spin more than the platform. The point though is that it eventually allows us to reach the bottom of that giant abyss, where there’s a large Psynergy Stone crystal that can be used indefinitely and another giant statue head/Wind Stone crystal set. Using Whirlwind on this one causes a bolt of lightning to strike the head, activating several smaller wind-spitting statue heads passed by earlier that had until this point been grayed-out and silent. Now we can continue further into the rock by taking the blue path.
But first, we have to backtrack to the start of the red section again because in one of its rooms we can now reach a little alcove via a Moon Logic Puzzle that involves pushing a post into the path of a whirlwind shot from a newly-activated statue head so that it’ll be deposited in just the right spot to form a stepping stone. Because everything in the games so far have indicated that something like that was possible, just the opposite in fact. Anyway the reward is a Summon tablet, our second, containing the ability to summon the Roman goddess of spring, Flora. Flora kind of looks like an exotic dancer drawn in a typical late-90s, early-00s anime style and basically hits enemies with a blast of flower petals, dealing Wind damage and possibly putting them to sleep too. She requires two Jupiter Djinn and a single Venus Djinni.
That took me exactly a half hour.
The blue path, fortunately is much more straightforward, involving the comparatively simpler puzzles of just stopping and unstopping air spouts and whirlwind riding. Took only about ten minutes. There’s a chest here containing the Clarity Circlet, a nice piece of headgear for Sheba or whoever your designated Wind Psynergy user is for it gives a boost in that department. This section of the dungeon eventually leads us back out into the central abyss where we can traverse a series of floating platforms to reach a door that’s embedded in a large purple hunk of rock. Inside is a mysterious chamber of more floating platforms leading up to an altar with a mysterious tablet on it. On it is inscribed, “Wielder of Wind’s might… Lay your hands upon this stone. We bestow upon thee the power to see the truth unclouded…” Sheba comes out to do so, and after a brief light show she can now use Reveal.
… So let me get this straight. After spending an hour in this place (and this is after knowing exactly what to do and where to go thanks to years’ worth of repetition), the payoff is that we’re taught a spell that we already saw in the first game, where we were taught it for free. That’s like adding insult to injury! Reveal’s an important and useful spell and all, but that being it is a bit underwhelming. I wouldn’t’ve minded some exposition breaks or maybe even some kind of guardian boss battle be placed in here just to jazz things up a bit. Regardless, we can use Reveal to snag a Psy Crystal in here and then exit the chamber and then mercifully just mash Retreat until we’re free to depart this place.
But we’re not quite done with Air’s Rock yet, for there is some more world building out there regarding it. Back on the world map if we head south then hook a left west we can see a village nestled up in the mountains. This is the village of Garoh, and outside it we can see some pictographs carved into the cliff side that depict humans, wolves, and the moon. In fact as we climb the cliffs the surroundings darken to indicate night is falling, and there’s a small pond of water on the next screen that serves no purpose other than to reflect the full moon. At this point the party is stopped by the sound of a wolf howling and a small, bipedal canine wanders into the screen, only to be scared away by Sheba’s scream. Kraden is far from frightened though; he practically lights up in his excitement at witnessing a real, live lycanthrope - people similar to Adepts only they derive their power from nature instead of the four elements. The rest of the gang show themselves to be kind of racist (specieist?) by immediately referring to them as “werewolves” instead. Kraden is so eager to learn more about them that he immediately insists that they chase after the specimen, and since Felix is a silent protagonist and thus has little-to-no backbone we must tag along heedless of the possible gruesome fates that can ensue.
Garoh itself is the very next screen north. Despite it presumably being the middle of the night everyone is wide awake, and everyone outside is wrapped up tight in a cloak, tend to refer to their spouses as “mates”, children as “pups”, offer Suspiciously Specific Denials if the topic of werewolves come up, and finally mind reading them reveals that they really wish nothing more than for Felix and friends to leave the village so that they can run free and howl beneath the moon. The weapon and armor vendors outright refuse to sell to us, though the consumable item shop is open (it’s also underground, in a small cavern network that connects a few of the houses, and allows us to grab the Hypnos’ Sword from a chest on a cliff outside (light blade, unleash is Moon Air which deals Wind damage and may put the foe to sleep; it’s basically a Wind version of the Pirate’s Sword but stronger).
As an aside, the name the localization team chose for this place is kind of clever. Garoh is a homophone for both garo, which is Japanese for “hungry wolf”, and garou which is part of the French word for “werewolf”, that being lupe-garou. The Japanese name for this village, on the other hand, is “Popichi” which seems to be made-up as far as I know.
Anyway, in the northeastern corner of the village is a mound of stone and if we approach it Reveal will automatically be cast as another werewolf, a full-fledged one, will emerge from a secret entrance, exclaim surprise at seeing outsiders, and then retreat. This guy’s name is Master Maha according to several villagers’ minds, and we use Reveal in turn to continue our werewolf pursuit. Back down in the caves we encounter the werewolf pup again and eventually end up at a dead end before a drum-shaped rock. Still intent on seeking out carnivorous monsters, Kraden suggests the party search the area more thoroughly, but Maha says that there’s no need for that as he and the pup emerge from a hidden entrance in the stone.
Fortunately for the rest of the party Kraden has not led everyone into a bad end for Maha is more curious about Felix’s group than anything else, especially when the pup suggests (via snarls and barks that only he can understand, naturally) that we must’ve passed the test of Air’s Rock. Jenna assumes at this point that it’s probably safe for them to tell Maha that they’re Adepts, with Kraden giving the cliff notes version of the Psynergy rundown to the werewolf. Maha convinces the pup to return home since there’s nothing to fear from us and tells the party to spend the rest of the night at the inn and they can resume this conversation in the morning. As for him, he says he’ll remain in the cave because when he learned Reveal he got hit with Shape Shifter Mode Lock and lost his human form. Hm, that basically means that Maha was able to conquer Air’s Rock all on his own, and that’s actually pretty damn hardcore if you ask me.
At this point there’s an automatic cut forward in time to the next morning at the town inn with the innkeeper telling us not to worry about the inn. Now that the sun is out the people of Garoh are a lot more friendly and are quite appreciative of the fact that the party won’t freak out over the fact that everyone in town is a werewolf (save the healer at the sanctum, who’s apparently convinced that their souls are damned if he can’t “save” them). We head back down into Maha’s little hideaway to continue talking as promised. Kraden asks to hear more about the nature of werewolves and eventually admits that he finds the ability strange. Which leads Maha to go on a little filibuster on how the ability to transform isn’t so strange at all when you consider that lots of creatures change their bodies to adapt to their environment, either through a physiological change or simply curling into a different shape. Even humans use weapons and armor to strengthen themselves. I have to say that I wasn’t expecting a little treatise on Darwinian evolution from a werewolf from a fantasy RPG.
Moving on from the topic of werewolves to the topic of Adepts, Maha wants to know more, since up until last night he thought only people of his clan could use Whirlwind and Reveal. Kraden speaks of how Felix and Jenna come from Vale at the foot of Mt. Aleph and how everyone there is an Adept to some degree, causing the werewolf to exclaim that Mt. Aleph exists in their legends too. Kraden says that he thinks that exposure to the Psynergy Stones within Mt. Aleph are responsible for their powers, and of course we encountered that large Psynergy Stone crystal within Air’s Rock. Sheba suggests that the heavy winds around the rock carry trace particles of the crystal all the way to Garoh, explaining why their Psynergy ability seems to be so much weaker that Vale’s. All very interesting, but they never present a more solid hypothesis for werewolves themselves existing. You’ll have to wait until the third game for more info on that, and even then it’s still nothing definitive.
Anyway, all this has provided Maha with some interesting information to chew over, and to show his gratitude he presents us with the third Jupiter Djinni of the game, Ether. Anyone who’s played Final Fantasy or a myriad of other fantasy games will not be shocked in the least to find that its effect is to restore PP to a single character, about 10% of the max. That’s about all there is to be done in Garoh. The village is actually completely optional in the grand scheme of things, so you could skip it entirely if you don’t mind being down a Djinni and missing out on some lore. We’ll be saying goodbye to Maha and Air’s Rock at last and shipping out for the next leg of the adventure.
Soundtrack
- Air's Rock
- At least this gives you a good sense of the scale of the place, both inside and out.
- A Full Moon in Garoh
- The initial in-game version of this track is punctuated by the occasional howl. Once it turns day, it naturally disappears.
