So the party have gotten themselves involved in Colosso, the reasoning being…um…we have nothing better to do? Well, okay, Babi did suggest we do so and when you’re a stranger in town and the local centenarian-plus ruler who’s said to be morally-shady in the background tells you “jump” you ask “how high?”, and doing well will likely make him more likely to give us answers but…
Anyway, the line’s still out the door at the coliseum entrance but Babi has left some soldiers there to pick us up so that we can beat the crowds and head inside, most of whom express their indignation at Isaac competing despite being Just a Kid and being directly seeded into the final eight despite not having competed in the preliminary trials (FYI: NPC chatter reveals that all of Babi’s soldiers are former Colosso winners themselves, explaining their consternation). Oh yeah, Isaac’s going to be the only one of the party competing in the tournament, much to Garet’s chagrin.Thanks to Babi’s graciousness, the rest of the party can watch Isaac from the special, front row seats, and we’re taken on a little tour of the arena so that the guard can lay some exposition down on us as to how this is going to work.
Colosso is not merely a gladiatorial competition but also a race of sorts, as to start with both combatants will have to race through an obstacle course, American Ninja Warrior-style, and whoever reaches the fighting stage first will get the first pick of the gear stashed there. That’s Colosso’s other gimmick: each warrior starts out mostly naked, so to speak, so when it comes time to throw down the speedier of the two will have the advantage by picking the better piece of equipment.
Garet, Ivan, and Mia apparently have absolutely no faith in their leader’s ability to come out on top so they devise a plan to plant themselves at key spots in the stands to “cheer” (read: cheat with their Psynergy) to make the course easier for Isaac. The seating area is broken up into four sections (they look more like pens to me since they’re standing room-only) corresponding to four different sections of the obstacle course, and we can talk to an official to get the low-down on what each section’s gimmick is, after which we can deposit a party member. This course mostly involves pushing stuff: posts, pipes, and logs, so you can shorten the section by having Garet Move one of the posts, Mia using Douse to prematurely weigh down a scale that water from the pipe is supposed to flow into, then use class trickery on Ivan so that he can use Growth to help Isaac bypass a “collapsing bridge” segment. Once everyone’s placed Isaac himself is taken back to the venue’s waiting room where the rest of the competitors, burly guys with manly names like Buford and Galahad covered head to toe in armor of all the colors of the rainbow, wait, then it’s time to start! Thanks to our friends’ “helping hands” it’s very easy to snag a Nut out of a treasure chest hidden out of the way and get to the stage long before the gold-armored gladiator, Azart, does and scoop up the Iron Shield laying out there. The slowpoke is stuck with some Padded Gloves, starting gear. Then we fight.
Azart
HP
- 450
- Weak to Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water
- Oil Drop - Deals Fire damage to two/three enemies.
- Nut - Restores 200 HP.
What’s neat is that Azart’s tiny arsenal is derived entirely from the consumable items found on the course. What’s not so neat is the fact that his defenses are exactly the same no matter which piece of gear he was able to grab. I can’t imagine that would’ve been very hard to implement. Anyway, Azart is not much of a challenge at all out than the Oil Drop and Nuts basically being a 50% heal; I’m not even bothering with any Djinni mixing to give Isaac more spread since he’s going solo - the base Squire line already has everything he’ll need.
The Colosso battles also give no EXP or money, good news if you’re like me and can’t stand to see characters fall behind level-wise due to inaction and whatnot. Also, Colosso has an interesting way of handling game overs. Instead of being booted back to the last sanctum, instead Isaac will wake up in one of those beds in Babi’s palace, his loss being All Just a Dream and then we’d start this section all over again.
Anyway, with Azart beaten we can move on to Round 2. This stage has five sections to it instead of three, and they’re a little more varied, including a short maze, moving platforms, and a climbable rock wall. Here you’d have to utilize the utility Psynergy items to make things easier for Isaac, like using Halt to freeze the guy who’s operating the platforms’ levers, and Force to topple over a standing log. That really begs the question of how no one in the audience catches anything funny. Yes, the muggles can’t see the giant magic hands and whatnot, but surely someone would catch obstacles on the course moving around or prematurely activating on their own? Anyway, at the fighting area is a piece of Chain Mail for the winner and a flimsy Cotton Shirt for the loser, who happens to be the green-armored gladiator.
Satrage
HP
- 570
- Weak to Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water
- Smoke Bomb - Attempts to delude one enemy.
- Nut - Restores 200 HP.
A little more HP than Azart and he’s got two Nuts to consume instead of one but he’s still no threat. A single casting of Ragnarok takes out around 120 HP, and it’s cheap enough to be easily spammable.
Colosso’s third and final round has a whopping six sections of Japanese game show goodness, this one combining post-moving with pistons, conveyors, and more, with a Claymore or a Hunter’s Sword waiting at the end. Our final opponent of the Tournament Arc is the warrior with a pleasing shade of magenta: Navampa.
Navampa
HP
- 820
- Smoke Bomb - Attempts to delude one enemy.
- Sleep Bomb - Attempts to put one enemy to sleep.
- Nut - Restores 200 HP.
Giant invisible magic swords, apply directly to the face.
Despite this being the end of the tournament, this is one of only two battles in the whole series that you’re actually allowed to lose (not counting the Saturos/Menardi pasting). Regardless of whether Navampa is down on his knees in defeat or has his hands raised in victory though, the post-battle cutscene plays out the same: Isaac totters on his feet before collapsing, but much to the relief of his friends he’s just asleep, worn out from all the fighting. Eventually, some time later, he wakes up in one of the palace’s beds, surrounded by his friends. After a brief bit of banter Ivan says that Babi was quite pleased with Isaac’s performance at Colosso and that he wishes to speak with us now as promised.
So it’s upstairs to the throne room where Babi and Iodem are awaiting us. Babi starts off by congratulating Isaac and has Iodem hand us the prize for winning the tournament: the Lure Cap. The Lure Cap looks like a very cheapskate, shabby reward (it’s a silly-looking cloth cap with a big dongle on the end that’s nothing remarkable stat-wise) but it does have a unique function: as long as someone is wearing it the enemy encounter rate will actually increase. I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but since you don’t need to level-grind much in this game and the GBA games already have a reasonable encounter rate compared to some other games as far as I’m concerned I mainly use this if I’m seeking or trying to farm certain item drops from monsters.
Now, to the point of why Isaac and co. were summoned. Babi tells the group that he’s taken Iodem into his confidence by disclosing everything about Lemuria, and now it’s time to tell us. Lemuria, he explains, is an ancient city that’s out to sea, and that one-hundred years ago, during the time of a great flood, he came across it while traveling with none other than the great thief Lunpa, the founder of the city of the same name north of Vault. Lemurians are Adepts, he says, and that they are also able to live for centuries and centuries thanks to a magical elixir that slows aging to a crawl, the very same draught that he had hidden in the cave and has thus allowed him to live as long as he has.
However, Babi’s problem now is that he is now fast running out of the draught, numbering his days. Fearful of dying, he wants us to find Lemuria again, a task which he has never succeeded at no matter how many times he’s tried over the decades. By constructing his lighthouse in Gondowan, he hopes that its beacon will help a ship keep its bearings in the treacherous seas surrounding Lemuria and he also happens to still have a Lemurian ship for us to sail on, the same one he originally used to leave the mythical island. He promises that if we’re able to pull this off he’ll grant us whatever we desire, a promise that, Mia points out, that always begs to be broken.
In the midst of this discussion Garet speaks out to remind Isaac that right now they don’t have time to go hunting for Lemuria, they need to reach Venus Lighthouse before Felix and the others do. Babi is actually quite pleased to hear this, as Venus Lighthouse is apparently just on the way to the construction site and he’s been wanting to get a look at the place himself. In any case, Iodem says that we’ll need his help if we want to reach Venus Lighthouse, so Babi arranges for him to accompany us on the next leg of our journey, with the place of rendezvous being Gondowan Passage to the south. Iodem goes on ahead to do whatever it is he needs to do, and Babi retires to his chambers, leaving us to take care of whatever it is that we still need to do.
Soundtrack
- Ready For a Challenge
- This could easily be used as a battle theme.
- Battle! Colosso ver.
- Huh, I never realized until now how incredibly short the loop on this one is. Good track regardless.
- In the Presence of a Lord
- Interesting that Babi is another one of the very few non-antagonist characters to get a unique leitmotif. He's pretty important to the backstory though even if we never see him again after leaving Tolbi, so I guess it makes sense.
