We're heading towards both the end of E3 and what I hope is the end of Vbomb's scenario with this, Day 2 of Mento's Alternative to E3. We're still plugging away at lost Squaresoft RPG Rudra no Hihou, or Treasure of the Rudras, released for the Super Famicom in 1996 as the last Square-developed game for the platform.
So far I've discussed this feature and its history (Day 0a), the game's innovative "mantra" magic system (Day 0b) and the brief proliferation of the scenario-based RPG format that Rudra no Hihou and a handful of other Squaresoft games utilized in the mid-90s (Day 1). It's probably time I address the Lord Ganesha in the room; by which I don't mean but am sort of alluding to the game's many references to Hindu/Buddhist mythology and folklore (I wouldn't even know where to start), but rather the game's soundtrack.
If you recall from the intro to this year's Alternative to E3 feature, this was one of the big selling points that got me invested in playing Rudra no Hihou specifically for the 2016 edition; Ryuji Sasai is the lone composer for Rudra no Hihou, and his previous work was the criminally underrated (if only musically) Final Fantasy Mystic Quest from 1992 which he co-composed with former Sega musician Yasuhiro "Y.K." Kawakami, who rejoined Sasai on Rudra no Hihou as Sound Engineer. Rudra no Hihou's soundtrack in comparison is... well, not exactly underwhelming, but not quite the same electrifying rock opera that Mystic Quest was. If anything, it sounds like some Squaresoft-ass Squaresoft music. But then, that's only based on what I've heard in the game thus far, which is barely scratching the surface given the three other scenarios and the places I've yet to visit.
First, let's make it clear that it's not like this game doesn't have some badass tracks. Take the theme for the enigmatic Jade stones that empower the four heroes and are central to the game's overarching plot - The Mysterious Stone. Sasai was presumably given directions from the writers to make this theme otherworldly and mystical to befit the jewels in question, and you can imagine exactly which direction Nobuo Uematsu might've gone with it. Instead, the track sounds more like something from a synth-heavy 80s slasher movie.
Second, the game offers two tracks for each hero, which usually play during cutscenes or walking around towns as that character. These two themes reflect whether it is day or night, with the night theme often being slower and more relaxed. As I've brought up before in the screenshot captions, the game's got a fixed time limit that moves at the "speed of plot": day turns to night and night turns to day as the player completes quest objectives and moves closer to the game's conclusion. The Sword of the Valiant (Day) and The Sword of the Valiant (Night) represent Vbomb the warrior (though perhaps I should use his original name Sion here) in particular. The day theme is fairly traditional rousing and heroic Squaresoft music - though it does sound like it might've come out of Mystic Quest in particular, thanks to Sasai's distinctive style - but the night theme takes away the marching drums and replaces it with some softer synth to make it feel a lot more ethereal. When I played Xenoblade Chronicles a few years back, I marveled at how novel it was that every area of the game had two distinct BGM based on the time of day. I'm guessing Rudra no Hihou wasn't the first to think of it either, but it couldn't have been particularly common.
Finally, Battle for the Fields and Strange Encounter are the standard battle theme and the standard boss theme respectively. These are the two tracks I've heard the most, naturally enough for a Squaresoft RPG where the random encounter rate is so high, but they've been pleasant enough to listen to as I whittle down odd-looking creatures sourced from the Rigveda. Surlent's boss theme is apparently this - The Spirit Chaser - so I feel a little duped that his is a lot cooler. Still, it's another case of how impressive it is that this game has so much music across the four scenarios.
That's going to have to do it for a quick primer on Treasure of the Rudras' music, since I don't want to risk spoiling too much of the soundtrack for myself before it turns up in the game, but I'd recommend giving this full soundtrack a listen. There's some tracks that feel like standard Squaresoft fare, others that have Ryuji Sasai's distinctive rock/synth sensibility and even more that sound so odd it's like they come from an entirely different game and genre altogether. At sixty-six tracks, it's not a SNES game soundtrack with many peers in terms of size or diversity (even the enormous Final Fantasy VI barely hits sixty), which makes it all the more incredible that it came from a single composer. While I still like a lot of Mystic Quest's tracks - Dark King, Doom Castle, Bone Dungeon - there's no denying that Sasai outdid himself with Rudra no Hihou.
Part 7: All-Stops Tour of the Sky Islands
Last time, on He's Not Heavy, He's My Brudra: Vbomb's crew is still adjusting to life on the Sky Islands, and are following the directions of an old nemesis to locate a way back to the surface. There's a Cult to disband, after all, and that can't happen with everyone's heads in the clouds.
You thought I was kidding about the Sky Train? Nope, Faxi here is ready to take us to as many islands as we need to visit, which is apparently all of them. RPGs, am I right?While snoozing on the Sky Train (because I imagine it'd be a very boring journey, flying over the world in a magic train), Vbomb has a sepia-toned flashback to his fighting days. Taurus, it seemed, always favored Vbomb's peers Rostam and Huey because Vbomb was just too reckless dang it. Joke's on them; I'm still alive.The first tunnel we hit proves eventful, as the train is suddenly accosted by a giant sentient boulder. You might ask why a flying train would even need to enter a tunnel, and you'd be right to do so.Right, the big rock is one of those Horsemen of the Apocalypse that the freaky skulls warned us about. The train is well-stocked, fortunately for us. There's a merchant and a guy who heals us for free. There's also this fellow, who gives us a useful mantra for the next fight - it's actually a fairly weak Wind element spell, but it has a Float affect that FF series fans will know as a useful way to avoid Earth damage. Starting to suspect this giant rock might be Earth-affiliated.The "Great" Bhadra (yet another Hindu deity, though you might recognize it as the name of one of Far Cry 4's characters) is indeed an Earth elemental, and like the Earth element in Final Fantasy it sort of sits outside the usual rock-paper-scissors tree of elemental affinities.All the same, it really doesn't seem to like Lightning attacks. Sometimes when a boss has an elemental weakness, you do a lot more damage when everyone's blasting it with spells from that element. Even the warrior types like Vbomb. Despite a really nasty Earth spell that hits all characters for major damage, Bhadra wasn't so tough. I sort of wonder if we'll meet the other Horsemen, or if the fact that there's four of them means that each scenario gets one apiece?There's two exits to the cave. This one doesn't actually go anywhere - the cliffs are too close to the edge, so you can barely move a few squares - but it's another SNES FF trick that this game carries over: you're limited to where you're allowed to save the game, and the world map is one of those places. This, then, is simply a spot to save the game because the developers couldn't be arsed putting in a save point near the train.The other exit means passing through a small network of caves, which isn't all that taxing. It does mean bumping into these adorable umbrella cats though. They hate getting wet! Ironic, given they and every other enemy in here are Water-affiliated.Leaving by the correct exit this time and... the Ark! Those damn thieves have gotta be around here somewhere! And here were are without Ramyleth around to steal it back...The Garal Clock Tower has a cool steampunk aesthetic to it, though there's nothing much in the way of clockwork puzzles and the like. It's yet another tower dungeon too, so that means more floor puzzles.I made an epiphany moving through the Clock Tower - Foxy here takes a lot less damage from all the spells the enemies are casting, which are uniformly Lightning-based. She took way more damage than everyone else while passing through that cave full of Water-based creatures, however. I suspect that if you have increased defense to one element, you'll take more damage from its opposite. Worth considering if you're about to enter an overtly element-based dungeon like this.I met a few of these Dartrys, and despite looking like a boss he was just a normal albeit tough enemy. The game just goes all out on its enemy designs, it's wonderful.So we've found a few of these clock doors, and there's a specific trick to them which I'm sure you've figured out, given how many times I've talked about the game's "quest-time" clock.Monju here is the first of the Divine Danans we've met, who seem to operate like guardians of various abstract concepts. Monju is specifically the guardian of time, and sits on top of this tower waiting for Jade-bearers like us.He's also one of those guys who insists on making us prove ourselves, so we have another boss on our hands. I suspect if we had Ramyleth here, he might've trusted us quicker. Dang it, where did that guy wander off to?The Danan bosses, I'll discover, are all difficult foes that are heavily-Mantra focused. That means a lot of free spell ideas, but it also means working around elements and figuring out how best to approach them. Guy hits hard with his Lightning spells, but the obvious weakness to Wind means we can use a similar strategy to the last fight with Bhadra. As in, just barrage Professor X with Wind spells and stop to heal every so often.Monju gives us some directions, as well as allowing us to activate the Clock Tower's mechanisms. But what could this do?So this is how the clock doors work, now the Clock Tower is active. With eight days left before the end of the world, the Clock Tower will chime once after midnight seven times in total (the first happens as soon as we learn how the clocks work). Each chime moves all the clock hands above doors by one. You can get a sense of how long it takes certain doors to open by seeing how far the clock is along - ideally, you can double back and revisit certain locations at a later time when the door/day aligns right, but realistically I imagine some clock doors will be conveniently open for some groups and not for others.Hilariously, we beat these two chucklefucks to these chests on the way up the tower, so now it's our turn to leave them with nothing. Unfortunately, they return the favor by quickly darting out of the tower and taking the airship with them. Well, at least I know that getting around as the thief will be easier... and besides, we have a cool-ass Sky Train to take us to the next destination!
Part 8: We Continue to Trample On Other Cultures
Last time, on: Opening the Fludra Gates, Vbomb and co. are passing through the Sky Islands for a way to get home. They've been given dominion over the power of time, only not really as all it does is open some doors at opportune times, but it's something at least. We're going to be up here for a while, so maybe we take what we can get? Speaking of which, let's go rob some more places and beat up their guardians.
Conveniently, the train has fixed its boulder-related problems and it's time to move onto... the Ruined City? They need a better tourism board.Catulia is the Reptile part of the Sky Islands, and it's not that bad really. It's a bunch of caves rather than ruins.No thanks, I already had some Chamobadfilenameornumber Tea. I'm glad I thought that was a good goof.Gram's Tomb is why we're here, though we've not been told why we need the Gram sword. Still, it's not like I'm about to turn down a free legendary sword.Gram's Tomb seems kinda confusing early on, but the basement is a lot more straightforward. Lots of hitting switches and checking to see what changed in the previous room.The enemy that pops up the most is this guy, Gir. He's annoying because he has a huge amount of health, so every battle involves a few rounds of healing and clobbering him with weapons, and he shows up in 60% of the encounters. Even so, I gotta thank him for this new Mantra idea."IG" (fire element) and "LUS"(strengthens spells) I already knew about, but FULL is a new prefix that adds a lot of damage to spells (or more HP healed for the cure spells). The MP costs go up too, but Ture's drowning in the stuff. Prefixes are the most common "new" mantras you can find, and there's only so much space to apply them, so you often have to edit the Mantras you have and switch out lesser affixes for new, stronger ones.Marica is the guardian of this place and... he sorta seems like just a normal Reptile dude? Who is down here protecting his race's legendary weapon from thieves from other species? I sort of don't see how we're not the bad guys here. Marica is also extremely powerful - his Rex Spin hits one character for 100 damage and Rex Air hits them all for around 60. You can see our total health, so that gives you some idea of how much healing I had to do per turn. Poor Ture was stuck healing the whole time while the other two whittled the boss down with physical attacks and Water spells.As you might surmise from a legendary blade that was protected by a powerful guardian and emits a giant ray of ethereal light when pulled from its rock, it's... barely stronger than the sword we were already using.Nothing significant's happening here, I just like the little animation of Vbomb waking up and looking around whenever the Sky Train comes to a stop. It's a little relatable character moment that grounds, so to speak, this part of the game's more fantastical aspects.We're now in Roma, the merfolk city. It's an attractive place, but I wonder why they all live in surface caves. Actually, I sort of wonder how there's a lake on a floating island at all, but it's just one of those magical Danan technology things I guess.In case you forgot the laundry list of destinations that Surt gave you, each one of these towns basically says "hey, go to the one other location on this island dummy". It helps to know the next place is full of Wind monsters though.Spending the last of our cash on all the new equipment in shops, as per JRPG tradition, we've already found a weapon to outclass that Gram sword we just picked up. Figures. Well, maybe it has plot purposes? I mean, we did go to the trouble of murdering a guard for it.Sounds like a bunch of Glub fiction to me. (No more random NPC goofs, I get ya.)After leaving Roma, we spot the northern continent. If you recall, the Druidess character hails from this region and has been looking for a way to purify the high levels of pollution from the area.Apparently she figured it out, because the blackened region disappears before our very eyes. We're naturally optimistic about this development, but does it really mean the end of the world has been averted?Frey Ruins does indeed have Wind-elemental enemies, and these guys look great. So much detail in those headdresses. They're easy enough monsters though - they seem to take a lot of physical damage for whatever reason.Man, do I appreciate how these pots are in every dungeon. I make a beeline for it every time there's a boss fight coming up.Opsis is the second Divine Danan, and appears to be one that governs all the advanced knowledge of the race. Being a little more enlightened than his time-based contemporary, he dispenses with the trial by combat and tells us what we need to hear.Nah, just kidding, it's another boss fight against a weirdo with a whole bunch of new Mantras. Pusspeck here, which probably isn't the word I'd have gone for if I was localizing the game, drops everyone's magical defense. That makes it harder to survive the other mantras he has, most of which are Wind-elemental. He doesn't appear to have elemental weaknesses, at least nothing I could find, but he doesn't have a whole lot of HP fortunately.Opsis calms down and gives us our last destination: Danan Temple, to meet Mayura. Isn't that a full circle? He also confirms the nature of the Rudras: they actually come from space, rather than the polluted/corrupted Earth, and the first thing they do is recover all the Jades. With those, they become unstoppable and destroy the world. The Danan have watched this happen four times now, so I'm inclined to believe them. That means we gotta team up with the other Jade-owners and watch our backs for any crazy-looking alien asking us if he can take a closer look at the gem in our eye socket.
And with that, we'll have to conclude our sky peregrinations for today. I'm hoping tomorrow that we can get back to Terra Firma (literally what the game calls it) and reach something approaching a temporary conclusion to Vbomb's story. Tomorrow is, of course, the last day of E3 and it would be really convenient if I could finish this scenario in time. Either way, I'll probably continue this game after E3 is done; I'm having fun, and I'd like to see what the other groups have been up to all this time.
Until tomorrow and the end of E3, I've been Mento, the 2MP Lightning-based single-target Mantra (yes, of course I tried enscribing my own name).
