Quesada's Swan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

I proceed, trudging through the snowy, crystalline forest.

I have Pidge demonstrate her new powers from Salamando with a Blaze Wall!

The nearby Shellblast is surrounded by flames!

I also test a Fireball on an unreachable Shellblast...

The turtle also has water magic handy as it heals itself!

I go around the forest...where I'm surrounded!

I then demo Max's other fire spells on two Shellblasts!

I go to the nearby north passage...

...where two Howler wolves and a Shellblast push us back!

I demo the rest of Pidge's spells on the enemies here...

Forward now...

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...Into a large castle of sorts! This must be the Ice Palace.

I take care of the monsters at the front by chaining Pidge and Max's magic...

Here's the music for the Ice Palace. The drums make the tune different from other ice-themed music...

These Shellblasts in the entrance hall are quick!

Seeing a nearby switch pad, I press it, pulling the walls apart!

But they push back into place once I let go!

I head to the west and east rooms and press their switchpads...the west one makes a fail sound.

The east one takes out the wall before it, leaving us to go up the stairs forward!

We encounter another slime monster, a Blue Drop!

It takes a spamming of fire and weapons to take care of them...

We're now before a set of two staircases...

...and more enemies come!

Into the west door...

...where there's a switchpad and a Blue Drop guarding it!

These enemies are really quick to dodge the sword, so I change Hero's weapon to the whip.

With some magic and determination, we beat it and press the switch, opening a bridge forward!

What's beyond the west door?

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Three Specters and two switchpads!

When I accidentally left the room and came back, it seems I glitched the game somewhat. The room looks brighter...

Pressing the east switchpad reveals another door forward!

Now who's this enemy?

Seeing a staircase ahead, I ignore him.

Upstairs now, where we encounter our first book monster: a Mystic Book! It seems like Wild Arms and Symphony of the Night might have gotten their inspiration for their floating book monsters from this game!

Come on, hit! Why are our attacks missing?!

Oh no, now it's casting something!

Max's Boomerang stops it for good, though.

Then a Specter and another Mystic Book jump in!

The Mystic Book casts a barrier around itself! It seems to dislike Undine's magic...

Is this place a hall for books of sorts?

Worse, it's a maze...

Even worse, we're out of Walnuts...

At the end of the maze, we find another monster, a Weepy Eye! That's the same one we saw before we went up to the second floor of this palace!

Into another door at the end of the hall...

...and the bookshelves close, trapping us in the room!

We fight off the three Mystic Books here with Max's magic!

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After they're gone, I push on the west switchpad...

...which opens a hole beneath us, dropping us down into...

A trio of Tonpoles! Oh no... :(

Their defense is rock solid, as usual!

But we've learned a lot more magic since the last time we fought one of these guys!

I spend the last of Max's magic here...

...and they gradually evolve into Biting Lizards!

They don't waste time, swallowing most of the party whole!

At least we can attack them more easily.

Whenever they walk around with their mouths flapping, that's a sign that they're hungry and want to swallow one of us...

They can also heal themselves like before!

We decide to focus our attacks on one, and only target others if one of our allies have been swallowed...

Seems like we got one now!

Down goes the second one!

Sorry, cute lizard...

I have Hero finish him off...

Keep casting your healing magic, you can't stop me!

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Afterwards, we're back in the library!

There's now a tunnel up ahead...

But I go back. I use the Magic Rope to try to get out of the palace, but no go!

After a long relentless struggle with enemies, we make it back to Neko in the snowfield! He really doesn't like the cold...

We buy more stuff, recover, buy even more Walnuts, and save here!

I equip a new Golden Vest for Pidge and resave my progress.