31 - Ruined Forever
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Last time, we explored Aswan and I learned more about the 1860s cotton industry than I ever expected to. This time, we're going to check out these damn ruins everyone keeps talking about.
If you have enough bad karma, you can just straight up mug this guy. No need for Cascada to stoop to that.
It's possible you would have met this character before, but I didn't choose the right options to do so. It's also possible for someone else to show up, but it's up in the air if I'll loop back around to show that off in NG+.
As 7SU is aesthetically patterned off the SaGa series, Gallahad is a reference to a character from Romancing SaGa, which I've never played. His cohort Miriam is buried somewhere in this game too, but I don't believe we'll encounter her this time.
It's pixelated as hell, but note the resemblance in the hair.
Gallahad is not a Stand-user and can't be directly controlled, but he's got a full slate of gun and explosive attacks. He's thus still quite effective against anything with a physical presence.
I think my character class would also be "Adult Man". Into the ruins we go!
The first room of the ruins is a long corridor full of zombies. The way they move means it's extremely difficult to dodge around them, so we're looking at a good dozen or so encounters.
We're so overleveled at this point that this is tedium more than anything else. And as Graham Spector said, "Death to tedium!"
There's a hidden side path that goes straight past all the zombies.
We're back on the main Aswan map, on the other side of the river.
Heading south is a dead end other than this mysterious bloodstain. Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed these before; there's one in every hub. North it is!
Only Stands can defeat Stands. Bullets are useless without a user to shoot them at.
The waterfall and shadows are neat details, I think. Little touches like that can add a lot.
North leads to this larger ruin complex.
Always check the sides, even if you know in your heart there's nothing there.
I have killed 9999 of these guys. They are not a real threat in any way whatsoever. But when you can't control the party? Enormous pain in the ass.
Zombies fucking everywhere. I've mentioned we're playing the "R" patch which strips out all random encounters in favor of overworld enemies, but I'm pretty sure these ruins are still like this in older versions. Again, the chokepoints mean you will end up in some fights.
Is it better or worse for a JRPG to have you gunning down a bunch of brown people versus simply not acknowledging them at all?
Tell you what, it's less than I'd spend blasting some zombies. Quicksilver is a thirsty Stand.
At last, we muscle through.
Recognize that sprite?
It really does feel like it's been 100 years. We haven't seen Freu since Update 7, which (assuming I'm putting these new ones out at a decent clip) is right around a full year ago. And we all know that post-2019 years count for two decades each.
...For reference, he tried to mug us and we kicked his ass.
Well, down we go.
We fade in on an ancient burial chamber.
If we think back...
Vins can and will resummon the adds indefinitely, which could make the fight tough if you elected to bring both AI-controlled party members like I did. However, we have the strongest multi-target attack in the game at our disposal.
Other than Vins and Hanoi Rocks, only the Giant Zombie survives this blast. Wave-Motion Gun is insanely strong, but we can only use it three times before Cascada is running on fumes, and Vins has enough HP to handle it.
Again, only Stands that possess physical objects can take damage from non-Stand attacks, so Gallahad is here more for mopping up zombies than actual damage. Iggy gets hit with Hanoi Rocks' blinding attack on the first turn and barely does anything the entire battle.
There's a unique animation here (by which I mean, a repurposed "mysterious dark circles" animation that's also used for Venom Cannon) for resummoning enemies. It happens for free at the start of Vins' turn rather than using up her action.
It takes a couple rounds and using Absorb Iron to fill up SP, but...
It sounds like a pretty tight timer and it still ticks during fights, but the ruins map really isn't very big. The actual worst part is that the screen is constantly shaking like that .gif above no matter what you're doing.
With Freu gone, these rocks don't move to block you anymore.
See! Made it in under a minute!
The ruins have completely collapsed. Another cultural artifact destroyed.
Our job done, we fade to black...
See you again!
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