Guardian of Paradise (PC) - Part 2

Previously: Tela and his sister Tina live together peacefully until she goes ill mysteriously. Then he sets on journey for a miracle water from Holy Water in the paradise. It's said that you need emblem from various spirits to summon the gate to the paradise. Afterward, Tela rescues one of the spirit: Luca, the forest spirit.

I can summon Luca himself by pressing 'X' key (default). His ability is stamp power where he stomp anything in front of me. It's perfect to hammer the stakes that prevent me from getting that health container. The stamp power cost 1 MP each use.

The health upgrade only boost his maximum health point by only 1. But he still looks happy to have it nonetheless.

By acquiring the forest spirit, the enemies begin to drop mana coins when defeated and they refill MP. So you cut bushes for food item and cut enemies for MP refill.

After some more venturing in forest, i find houses of the collector. Collector A has 3 skittlescarabs and he like to rub them off to Collector B's face. Collector B will reward me with treasure if i hand him 4 skittlescarabs. It's fetch quest, then!   

In Skittlescarab forest, i find this monster that has very tough shell. To crack it open, i have to deploy Luca and then the monster reveal itself to be small fragile jelly that i can kill with sword later on.

Here's one of the skittlescarabs. They can be find inside of certain bushes. Only 3 more to go.

Oh, of course! The last one is in the area where first boss appears. It may seems unfair to fight boss monster that has projectile weapon while i only have sword and short-ranged magic. But i can swat those spiked balls with my sword quite easily. The boss only vulnerable when it open its only eye (which is right after shooting its bullets). You can juggle the boss after striking it once. When it's knocked farther, it becomes invincible for a while.

Awwww! He looks more adorable now. The collector B gives me an emerald after hand over the bugs. It allows Luca to have new power: Grow! It makes juvenile plants to grow into more useful grown form such as: mushroom spring or hint mint. You switch between Luca's power by pressing 'C' key (default).   

I remember there's 1 bud plant on elder's yard. When i give it the magic, he tells me hint about that combination numbers and he won't tell all of them like previous plant before.  

Here's the number locks. He said left number is 3 and right number is 4. You can guess the middle number pretty fast as there's only up to number 5 in this slot.

On other occasion, some plant tells me to turn around from this place and look for wee beastie. What's that mean?

Oh, no! I find a cat being harassed by plant monster. After defeating the monster, the cat thanks me and leaves. Could it be that the cat is the wee beastie?  

Okay, now the plant talks differently. This stage is the one screen maze where you have to go to right direction lest you won't make any progress. He said i have to go right twice...

...and then the cat will show me the next direction. Scout_thanks01.wav

Finally, i get to the cave where forest emblem lies. There's crack on the floor and i instinctively use Luca's power to open it and turns out it's mandatory to make get the forest emblem. I thought it was for optional reward like extra maximum health.

Some section is unlocked by solving puzzle while other by defeating enemies on entire screen like this one. These grasshoppers are unique and tricky. If you approach them, they will jump to the direction where they facing. You can trick them to jump bounce off the wall so they jump closing at you and this is the greatest opportunity to smack them closely.

Oh, it's the same boss again. Using the same strategy will get you through it. So why would i need Luca's power to defeat the horrible beast, again?

I get another emerald for the trouble! This time Luca gains new power: Heavy Stamp, which is stronger version of Stamp Power that allows him to break these dead tree. It cost 3 MP.

Oh, i see now. That smiling schmuck is the scary beast that Luca refers to. Now that i see him carefully, the boss looks like metallic version of Luca. What the boss do is spawn 4 metallic buds that can spawn green flies to attack you. All you need to do is use Luca's Heavy Stamp on those buds until destroyed. Destroy some flies if you need MP and bushes around here if you need health refill.

And here it is the Forest Emblem. It allow Luca to transport me to next level: water world. So here's the routine: 1) Rescue the elemental spirit 2) Get their related gem to make them gain more power 3) Defeat the biggest boss on the world and get the emblem 4) Move to next world and repeat. I said before that finishing Beyond Oasis, makes me want to play this game. Why? Because player on both game have ability to control various element spirit but only one at the time.

In Beyond Oasis, you can only summon spirits that only related to the source. The method on how you summon them is to shoot magic ball from your gold armlet. If it hits water (including that black water), you will summon water spirit. If it hits fireplace or fire enemy, you will summon fire spirit and so on. Meanwhile in Guardian of Paradise/Rakuen no Guardian, you change elemental spirit by getting the appropriate mana coins from the enemies which is far simpler concept. Thankfully, the enemies are color-coded. If they're in green, their element is forest thus they drop forest mana coins. If they're in blue, their element is water thus they drop water mana coins. If they're in yellow, their element is wind thus they drop wind mana coins. If they're in purple, their element is dark thus they drop dark mana coins. If they're in red, their element is fire thus they drop fire mana coins. So it goes without saying that the puzzles that require you to use certain element power also depends on bestiary around. But they're always solvable. Here's the element spirits:

Mizuchi, the water spirit can makes Tela swims in water. But he has better power later on. "Rain" power that unleashes a water projectile at the cost of 1 MP. While "Ice" power that unleashes 3-way freezing bullets at the cost of 2 MP.

Kirin, the wind spirit can makes Tela jumps gap and it's useful for advanced platforming section. She also has "Wind" power that unleashes a wind sickle projectile at the cost of 1 MP that also useful to push block with wind symbol. There's also "Fly" power that's bigger version of jump power with cost 2 MP cost.

Yomi, the dark spirit can makes Tela...runs. Yes, running. It's as lame as it sounds but it's useful power to solve some puzzle, nonetheless. There's also "Summon" power that allow the spirit to possess his statue at the cost of 2 MP. This power only for puzzle solving and it's cumbersome as Yomi moves away from you making his movement hard to control/predict. His final power is "Crash" power which also run but you can break certain obstacle and enemies with this power. The MP cost for this power is 3.

Leo, the fire spirit can unleash slow moving fireball. It has limited range but it only needs 0 MP cost which is free! "Bomb" power unleashes a bomb that explode after some time at the cost of 2 MP and it's useful to blow certain cavern's wall. There's also "Flame" power that conjure torrent of flame with 3 MP cost and its' useful to destroy Orichalcum that blocks your way.

Epilogue

Once i gathers all the emblems, the spirits summon the gate to the paradise and it doesn't look good. There some creepy old man in the paradise near the Holy Tree and he offers me the healing water in exchange of the spirit. It's one of those mandatory question where if you refuse it, you will make progress on story and have to answer the question again with different option.

Of course, the shoddy old man is up to no good. He sends us to this oblivion world and i have to re-rescue all the spirits again plus gather their gems again. This section is more comprehensive than the five worlds combined, thankfully.

When i thought i don't need to re-collect all the emblems, i was wrong. But each time i re-collect the emblems, i get some story exposition like "The Holy Tree have 5 seeds that later become the element spirits" or "That villain Dark Wizard Chaos comes to this paradise and seal the Holy Tree so he get more magic power after banishing all the spirits that guard the tree."

Here's the plot twist: before The Holy Tree  fully sealed, it manages to split some of its power into two fragments: Strength and Soul. Strength fragment becomes Tela! While the Soul fragment becomes Tina! Speaking of her, she becomes ill because she's imprisoned in this oblivion world by Chaos himself. The healing water have nothing to do to cure her but at least i'm on right track as i have to defeat Chaos to free her and the Holy Tree itself. By the way, that white figure in bottom is the spirit of the Holy Tree.    

Thus we meet again but this time Dark Wizard Chaos choose to show his true self but he's pretty easy to defeat. He has 5 assist pods that related to each element. On each occasion, one of his assist unleashes its attack and  becomes invincible. Later Chaos vanishes for a while and drops 2 mana coins of each element and then he continues his routine. The pod can only be harmed with power of the same element. The forest pod shoots lots of green bullets. The water pod summons ice blocks. The wind pod conjures  tornados. The dark pod unleashes spinning ring of poison clouds. The fire pod emits spiral flames. I suggest you take on the wind pod lastly as you can still use "jump" ability to dodge projectiles without any MP cost.

Even with his pods destroyed, Chaos isn't defeated yet. He will conjures a ring of green bullets and move somewhere else pretty quick. You can dodge the bullets by jumping them and you can repeatedly bash Chaos to inflict huge damage. Soon enough, he's defeated for sure.

But on his dying breath, Chaos manages to use his ultimate magic power to kill himself along with Tela. The Holy Tree feels grateful that Chaos is defeated and it's free from his seal. Therefore before The Holy Tree gone for good, it grants its life to revive Tela and Tina and ask them to guard the Paradise [Cue the game's title!].   

Now that The Holy Tree is gone, why they need to guard the paradise again? It's replaced with that normal tree there or maybe that's the new Holy Tree. But thing for sure is Tina is cured and together with Tela they can resume their peaceful live again. The End

Guardian of Paradise/Rakuen no Guardian (2005) is good indie Zelda-clone with some elemental mastery which kinds of like Beyond Oasis but i prefer this game than that one because: 1) the music is better. I'm sorry, Mr. Yūzō Koshiro. 2) The plotline is lot simpler, same goes to map travel. 3) The health and MP refills that are easier to come by. Truth be told, there's no way to increase you maximum MP. The same goes to Beyond Oasis too but at least MP refill in that game is proportional to maximum MP, for example: apple restores 50% of maximum MP or orange restores 25% of maximum MP. In this game, MP restoration is in constant number: 1 MP for each mana coin get. I know that some of the puzzles build around the limited maximum MP (which is: 9). But increasing maximum MP for -say- each emblem get, won't hurt the game in my opinion and can make the game more interesting. I feel that the difficulty comes from the puzzle instead of boss battle because i never get game over during any of boss battle including the final ones. Maybe the key to success in boss battle is: to hoard as many heart containers as you can. As long as you're not fed up with block-pushing puzzles, i'm sure can get health upgrades sufficiently. The knock back system in melee combat is good. The sword covers good range with rather unique shape. The save system is quite friendly. You can save anywhere but the boss battle section and if you load the game you will be in recent state but start at the starting point in the map where you saved, kind of like in Crusader of Centy. The graphic is simple yet gorgeous. The element powers looks good overall except for Dark power which looks lame and hard to control. The "Thud!" sounds of the sword feels satisfying. The story is quite unique and coped with the artstyle, they are cute. 

   

If you search for Zelda-clone game with relative short gameplay (5-6 hours) and innocent kind of story, this game is for you. I personally like the field music and the naivety of the story of a brother tries to find cure for his sister but suddenly have to fight a great evil. That's kind of cute shock therapy on gaming history.

Guardian of Paradise (PC) - Part 1

3 weeks ago i finished Beyond Oasis and that makes me want to play E. Hashimoto (Buster)'s Guardian of Paradise/Rakuen no Guardian (2005) again. 

Thanks to Aeon Genesis for the translation. The title screen is simple and meaningful, a lad looks determined to achieve something. But what's the thing that he really wants to do? We shall see at the prologue.    

The lad lives with his little sister and they live happy life. It goes well and such.

When suddenly, the sister goes ill and the doctor can't find way to cure her because the disease is mysterious. Spy_sf12_badmagic01.wav

He search for healing water of Holy Tree's spring in faraway paradise land unlike Giza in Dragon View who basically does crying and cursing when his sister is ill (and then she dies). I better make him go outside of their house as soon as i get control over him before it's too late. Nice house, by the way. You control protagonist's movement by using arrow keys and i don't find a way to reconfigure that.

I don't know who's the lady but she knows our name: Tela and Tina. Both names are short so no way, i forget them.

After talking to some NPC, i drop in these three knowitall brothers. You may think that 3 NPCs on same roof that give you vital info, sounds really useful. But only the youngest brother that gives me info on next subject. The other just say "We're three knowitall brothers" and "We know something that you may not know". I sense some scam. <_<

By general code of RPG or Action-RPG, i should meet with elder or king before i can leave the starting town. I try go to elder's house to ask permission to leave but his granddaughter says he's out. I try go outside and talk to all NPC again but i can't find him. When i enter elder's house again, he magically appears! Demoman_sf12_badmagic11.wav 

He informs me that to go to the paradise, i need various elemental emblems from each spirit and the forest spirit is in the forest on the east. Off we go!    

 

Yikes! I got blown out by green jelly which is the first enemy that i encounter. To be fair, i don't have any weapon yet. I try to go back to house and search for any kind of weapon but no result. The protagonist and his sister lived peacefully of course they don't have any urgency to keep some weapon. Silly me.    

This is the first block-pushing puzzle, each block can only be pushed once. They darkened blocks means they are already pushed once and can't be pushed anymore. The solution to this is quite simple: push blocks on the corners to bottom and then push the center one to either left or right.

The cave over there leads to dead end obstructed with bushes. So i have to dare to go through this platform and fortunately the platforming in this section is friendly because the platform moves slowly and covers long range even though i can't jump.

At the end of that platforming section, there's just a hole so i decide to go inside of it and i end up in other side of the cave. After another section of monster-dodging and switch flicking, i finally get a sword. It was there inside of a stone like the legendary Excalibur. This may seems harsh for the player to get the sword after first monster encounter unlike Zelda, Beyond Oasis or Crusader of Centy (with unfortunate remainder that your father is dead as you inherited his sword and shield). But i feel that dodging the first type monster in this game, isn't difficult. They're slow and easily predictable.

Demoman_sf12_badmagic11.wav. Everytime i cut the bushes, there's a chance that a piece of cheese will appears. How and why? I get it if they drop apple like in Crusader of Centy but cheese or even more bizarre cartoon meat! But at least the game teaches me that cutting bushes can produce apple (10% health refill), cheese (30% health refill), or meat (50% health refill). While breaking barrel will reward you with the health refill item 100% chance. By the way sword attack button is: 'Z' key (default).

Not all block-pushing puzzle requires you to make the block goes into the floor switch with same quantity. Like here for example, i only need to get that block to one switch and i step on another one later. 

Engineer_negativevocalization01.wav. This one is trickier. The solution is: 1) Move the block that near to me, to up then right 2) Move the most bottom block to nearest switch, you can move around that center bush with no problem 3) Move the first block to switch near the gate 4) Step into the switch in right-top corner. Beyond the recently opened gate, you will get a key. What's the use of this key? For one of NPC's house?

Well, of course not. It's for unlocking a gate...in the middle of wilderness! Whatever. Let's carry on!

The combat mechanic here is rather friendly. If you hit enemies, they will bounce quite distance and you can juggle them before they land. The sword inflict 1 bar health damage. Most lesser enemies have 1-3 health bars. The sword projection needs some time to understand. It's not the usual half-circle based on Tela's facing. Its shape is more like ellipsoid with more in length than wide. Thus Tela's attack has more range in front of him and less range besides him. 

The game teases me with Health upgrade that i can't pick up yet because of this stakes. I'll come back to you, i promise.     

There's also code number puzzle. I randomly fiddle with number machine. When they hit '4' and '3' shortly after i start operating it, the door opens. There must be clue for this but i don't need it and i don't care. Soldier_cheers01.wav

Behind the gate is another key. I like his naive look when he picks the key like he has no worry in the world, for seconds he forgets that his sister ills badly. The stupid lad.

Later i find this mint plant that can talk without me deprived from talking to other human unlike in Crusader of Centy. He gives the hint about number combination but only '4' on left. But you're too late, idiot. I solved it myself.  

In this section i find some strange ball and i lead it to that plate...with my sword, not with my foot. By doing so i break the seal of him and he's happy with my deed and join my quest.

Turns out, he's the forest spirit. Awww! He looks adorable. He tells me that to get Forest Emblem, i need to defeat a terrifying beast. But what this cute little can do to help me against that vile monster? Find out on next part!