Wild Arms 3 Part 32: For Whom the Cat Meows

Put on your bib, because today is December 5, Tenderloin Day. The tenderloin of a livestock is the region of meat along the backbone. By this definition, the tenderloin of a cake is the creamy frosting on top.

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Our team climbed a clock-themed tower. After clearing a number of traps that had the solution of “talk to the Baskar guy”, they have reached the apex.

Or… just about. We quit last time in an elevator.

Now we’re on top!

A few treasures to greet us at the chock. The chocktower is complete.

And now for the fireworks.

This is Alice in Wonderland, and Janus has always been the hare that leads Virginia down the rabbit hole.

Asgard is… I dunno… Tweedle Dum.

Gee, do you think maybe they both work for the same guys? Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one…

Oh! Right! The plan! It failed to account for a regular-sized robot.

As if Gallows was ever going to have a response that wasn’t “wing it”.

“Hey! We’re still adjusting our equipment! Give us another minute!”

Asgard feels sad about not having emotions, but they feel excited for a fight.

“It is also… the only time… I get out of… the house.”

“Punching you… fun.”

Sucks that Asgard keeps trying to kill us (and is sometimes successful), but at least they’ve got a reason.

Always pushing his work off on the ‘bot…

Asgard fight!

Yes, but they are terrible at working together. Did you bonk your head on the way up, Clive?

“Small favors! Shoot the golem!”

So Asgard again. Unlike some of their compatriots, Asgard is a different boss fight each time.

Asgard really, really wants to kill you all with Fortress of the Gods, the move that murdered everybody the last time…

But, presumably thanks to Werner’s jammer, it will literally never work. That “Power at 0%” message will be continual through the whole battle, and it will never reach a viable percentage.

But that doesn’t mean this fight is all rainbows and puppycats.

Literally every hit Asgard takes will be countered. And, given Asgard is a solid steel (or something) golem, they hit hard.

Yeah yeah, 0%… Anywho, so the strategy here is that you can take as long as you like with healing and restoring, just so long as you always make sure an attacker has more HP than Asgard’s counter-hit. Or, put another way, just have your bulkier dudes (Gallows, Clive) lay on the offense, and let your more fragile party members heal the tanks.

This battle was barely a speed bump in the “Level 100” playthrough, but know that if you don’t like watching your party die, an “average” leveled party might take for freaking ever. That is definitely what happened on my PS5 playthrough…

And then the fish guy comes to play.

…. In a different fight.

Okay! We fought Melody and Asgard together, looks like the next battle is going to be Janus and Asgard together.

This could be difficult, as both Janus and Asgard were (separately) responsible for our only canon losses.

And they both harness some kind of ancient power that we barely understand.

And it’s not like we have leveled up all that much from any of the fights where Janus was tossing off multi-hit, super strong attacks. Between Janus hitting everyone, and Asgard’s single-target, big damage…

… Oh. Maybe we don’t have to worry about all that.

So… uh… Janus just goes ahead and stabs the crap out of Asgard.

And he makes it clear that this was something he had been formulating for a while.

And while the two bad guys are playing, Gallows dashes forward.

The plan! It’s the plan!

Three turns will kill him
Three turns will chill him
Why don’t we all waste
Three turns!

Three people, three rounds.

You know, there are exactly two instances in Wild Arms 3 of there being a three-person party. One lasts for a bit of a dungeon, and the other is exactly one (this) fight. And I am impressed they bothered to space the GUI so appropriately for a trio.

Janus is still not participating, so Asgard is up to plate despite his robo-entrails spilling out.

That hit from Janus got everything going again, so Asgard will go all out on their strongest offense.

Assuming you are not at, like, 12 HP from the previous battle, there is no reason you cannot simply defend for three turns and call it a day. That said, if you have the power to do it, you can defeat Asgard and earn some rewards (which Gallows will not receive).

Gallows is still talkin’ Baskar at ancient monuments.

There was that bit of lore a little while back that the Baskar were once a lot more overtly scientific in this world, and all the shrines are less “worship sites” and more “god sucking machines”. Here is how one of those machines works.

Chaka boom.

Some manner of starry portal opens up overhead.

“But I woke up too late for breakfast too many times to be happy!”

“I mean, I made a pretty rad toothpick sculpture, but that was about it.”

Umm… sure. That sounds right.

Gallows just bleeding character development at this point.

“Nobody wants some scaley dude to be president!”

Eat destiny!

Things are looking stormy.

Janus decides to go with what he knows, and stabs Asgard again. Right in the mean bean machine!

“Wow! Neat portal up there! Want to investigate, Asgard? Here, let me help you.”

Little fuzzy here, but it looks like Asgard is going for a trip.

Aaaaand they’re gone. Portal is deactivated, and Asgard has gone off to Guardians know where (or when).

Looks like that was it. Good plan, generally, but a little off on who was the target.

“Was tearing space and time a new one hard?”

So Asgard has been sent somewhere in time, which is about the best way you can hope to stop a sentient invincible fortress. And I’m sure the fact that they are immortal will have no impact on time travel shenanigans.

Oh, you’re still here?

So just to review: Janus baited the gang into coming here, everyone knew it was a trap, the gang devised a clever plan to end Janus once and for all, but Janus was expecting something like that, so he dragged along Asgard so Asgard would take the bullet meant for him. It is like a plot from Death Note, but without two characters explaining it for fifteen minutes.

So now the Prophets’ most loyal/effective weapon is gone forever. Janus got everything he ever wanted.

“But what if we just shoot you?”

Gasp! He knows about the tree!

Finally! All those Nidhogg clues were getting tiring.

So Janus’s ultimate goal seems to be letting his villainous bosses and our heroes duke it out, and then he will conquer whatever remains. Plan has been working well so far!

“Welp! Gotta go tell the prophets their robot is gone!”

Oh? Really Gallows? You can’t create localized blackholes normally?

So Janus and/or the Prophets did not drain a Guardian of its lifeforce for once, as we went and did that ourselves. The end result is the same, though: new medium! Yay!

“But now we get new magic spells, so it’s not all bad.”

This is literally the first guardian that has actively done something (other than be a summons) to help the cause.

So we kinda sorta know the way to find Janus/The Prophets/Yggdrasil now. We must get past Nidhogg.

Where is Nidhogg? Well, if you didn’t already catch all the clues available up to this point, Clive falls short of outright stating “talk to everybody”.

And that’s that for that dungeon.

Baskar is an extremely short Sandcraft trip to the East, so stop back at Gallows’s home for snacks and tea with Granny.

“God is dead, Granny.”
“No, he has nine lives.”

Speaking of ol’ Dan, here is the Cosmic Cog medium. It increases physical/magical defense, speed, and evasion. I have always found it to be a good fit for Jet.

Dan Dairam was an optional Guardian in the previous two Wild Arms games. His existence here is a bit of a downgrade from previously being one of the best Guardians you could ever find, but one would expect that when he goes from “super secret” to “plot mandatory”. All that said, Death Status Ward, SOS Guard, and Eagle Eye are some of the best skills in the game. Instant-death attacks are common in the future, SOS Guard increases defense when the chips are down, and Eagle Eye prevents ambushes and “only one character can fight” encounters. Other party members can still be ambushed, though, so we will have to see about getting Eagle Eye on other mediums…

Dan has some extremely situational spells in his repertoire. If you never noticed, there isn’t a run command in Wild Arms 3 (as your “run” is more or less supposed to be based on canceling encounters before they start), so Escape is your only option for ending a fight if it goes south. Reset is similar, and is that Final Fantasy 5 classic that will take the battle back to the start if things are going poorly. Only issue is it requires 100 FP, and if things are so desperate you need to reset the battle, you are unlikely to have the much FP banked. Banish is an instant-death spell that costs 48 FP, and will be ignored as the waste of a turn that it is.

The interesting one here is Replay. It has a steep cost, too (100 FP, literally the maximum FP you can ever have), but can be wildly/situationally effective. It works not unlike Final Fantasy’s mime: you target a character, and, if they survive a round, they will repeat their same action again at the end of the round. Unfortunately, this action is bound by game limits, so, if you have a character “repeat” using an item, or taking an action that requires FP, and they already exhausted said item/FP, it will fail. That said, if an enemy has an elemental weakness, doubling up a mage’s attack turn can make a huge difference. Or, if he’s got the ammo, a maxed-out “fight” command from Clive can be debilitating when doubled. Additionally, replaying Virginia mystic’ing a party healing berry effectively expands your healing potential. So, long story short, Replay isn’t game breaking, but it can really help in a pinch.

And speaking of using all of your FP, here is Dan’s summon. System Chronos is the only summons in the game that completely ignores the standard of one-time damage or healing.

Summoning Dan will pause all time for every character except the summoner. From there, depending on how much FP was expended, said character can use 1-4 rounds of uninterrupted nonsense.

Keep in mind that, by virtue of using a summons, you will “start” the free rounds with 0 FP. But from there you can do anything you normally would, and FP accrues normally. If you want to heal the party or unload a bunch of bullets on your opponent, you can do whatever you want. Just keep in mind that healing/damage does not technically add up until time resumes, so if you are using System Chronos against a group of monsters, remember not to waste turns on killing something that is already dead.

And then time resumes, and whatever you did will be done. Seconds after this message, that poor balloon burst into a billion pieces.

And that’s that for our time adventure. Now let’s hunt down Janus and avenge that robot we never liked!

Next time on Wild Arms: Two dungeons for the price of one.