My Adventures in Illusion of Gaia

Taking inspiration from having finished Breath of Fire, I decided it was time to finish this one off too. There are RPGs that hold your hand, and there are RPGs that don't care what kind of mess you get yourself into with no hope of rectifying the situation. Illusion of Gaia falls at the tail end of the former and leans over into the latter. You see, you don't earn stats the normal way by grinding and leveling up, you earn stats by clearing out rooms. The final enemy of each room gives you an upgrade of strength, health or defense. There is no magic really to speak of, rather you transform into stronger characters.

While Illusion of Gaia is kind of an entry level RPG to ease people into the genre, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on finishing the game. Everything was hunky-dory until I hit that final home stretch. An often overused trope is to force the player to defeat every single boss they've already defeated, just to pad out the game's play time due to developer laziness. While Illusion of Gaia was very generous with save points, which double as healing stations, in the last few parts of the game, I figured I was perfectly fine and this was going to be a piece of cake with ice cream and chocolate pudding on top. The sad reality was the game was luring me into a sense of false superiority and plotting my downfall with each step I took.

In any normal RPG you would carry a stock of healing items, or at the very least healing spells, again of which there are none in this game, to supplement any damage you take after a battle. With Illusion of Gaia I was lured into a false sense of security with as often as I could just pop into a save point, heal and save my progress. Herbs are available to take with you, but that is if you can be bothered to find them as they're hidden in chests, rather than sold by vendors. I felt there was really no need, instead I chose to keep my inventory open for the items I felt I would need along the journey, rather than needlessly hunt down herbs to heal what the save points would already do.

Illusion of Gaia also has a life system, which is kind of useful, but not really to me. Most enemies will drop an orb, each orb gives different points towards an extra life. You can have a maximum of 9 lives and 100 points from collecting those orbs earns an extra life. If you should die in battle one life is spent and you're allowed to restart from the entry of the room where you died. I've used a few lives along my journey, mostly due to my lack of patience. When it comes to bosses though, your life is spent, your health isn't completely replenished and you're forced to start the fight all over again. Meaning you're worse off than you would be just restarting from your previous save, no matter how far back the previous save was.

Some might say that Illusion of Gaia's traps are my fault, and I would say maybe you're right. However, when an item has been useless 90% of the time you've played a game, and you forget it's even a thing because it has been so useless, but when you finally need it the game doesn't allow you to leave the tower to go back and find it, well the item is still useless and this game is just a trap. I did beat this game, but it was a long, hard road. I don't hate this game, that hatred is reserved for Lagoon! Fuck that game! Illusion of Gaia was a nice, charming little introductory RPG that I did enjoy most of my time playing through. I'm glad I finally got through it. I might even play through it again, but just to unlock the final red jewel mansion.

"I want to burn you into my memory."

Autumnal Shift

Autumn is upon us and pedal building season 2024 has come to a close. Against all odds, and desires, this year I built one more circuit than I did in 2023, which I swear I did not plan on doing. I still have kits I put together that will now have to wait to be built in 2025. Beyond these kits I've only found a few things that have inspired me, but I swear it won't be 46 (or more) circuits in 2025! I don't plan on quitting, I just feel the need to move on to other projects for 2025.

As the days turn colder, the nights grow longer, the urge to play RPGs grows stronger. With having beaten a 20+ year old save on Breath of Fire I'm started to wonder what I should tackle next. There is an entry coming up that explains what RPG I beat after Breath of Fire, so I won't spoil that here. I own an SNES multicart that has both Actraisers, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Terranigma, Link to the Past and a few other RPGs on it I'd love to get stuck into. Although I have saves for both Chrono Trigger and Earthbound from at least 2017, and a more recent one for Dragon Quest 5 on my Wii. Maybe I should take care of those first. Who knows, we'll see!

I Finally Beat Breath of Fire (After 20 Years!)

 In late summer of 2001 I was gifted my first Super Nintendo console and some games. In either 2002 or 2003 I purchased a copy of Breath of Fire and went straight to work on getting to the game's end. After many hours had been invested something else took my interest and Breath of Fire was packed away. I truly can't remember what it was, but whatever it was took me away from Breath of Fire so long that I totally forgot where I was and what I had left to do. If you're a fan of old RPGs you'll know, unless it's your favorite RPG that you've played through a few times already, picking up where you left off in an old RPG is damn near impossible. Throughout the years I attempted to figure out where I was, but I kept drawing a blank, getting frustrated and just packing the game away again. Not this time!

I knew I was on a tower with two elevators, so I went to GameFAQs and searched the most suggested walkthrough to see if it could steer me in the right direction. Thankfully it did! Now I finally knew where I was, after twenty years! I was literally an hour or less away from completing the game for over twenty years and never stuck it out long enough to get to the end. What a shame. My tendency to grind levels helped out quite a bit here as I found it fairly easy to get through the bosses I had left. I needed to backtrack through and pick up some equipment and learn some dragon skills, but all in all it wasn't a big struggle, especially the end bosses. #Spoiler: Once I got the agni ability they were actually really easy. Just keep a pocket full of cures and you're golden.

Yes, it's a photo of my TV screen. What?

The main reason why I wanted to beat Breath of Fire was to finally close the book, and have experienced this game completely after all these years. The second is because my 68 in 1 SNES Multicart has both Breath of Fire and Breath of Fire 2, so I have access to a (semi legit) copy of Breath of Fire 2 to play on real hardware. No save state safety net for me! Although I will be using a walkthrough if I get stuck and frustrated. Just being honest. With all the fun I had finishing the game I really hate to just pack it away and only think of it who knows when. I do think of the cartridge now in much the same way as I do my Playstation memory cards; windows to a bygone era when I had a lot more fun in life. Back when I was playing Gran Turismo 1 and 2 on the PS3 I pulled out my PSOne and took a stroll down memory [card] lane to see what my old garages looked like. It was a good time! Now I leave you with a typo I found in Breath of Fire. Yes, it's also a photo of my TV screen.