The Fortress 

The problem with benders is that when you come to it takes you quite a while to figure out how you ended up with the cast of Our Gang, a pirate who looks like the gone-in-60-seconds edition of Angelina Jolie, and a bomb collar strapped millimeters from your carotid artery. You learn quickly in situations like these that it is best not to ask questions and work on priorities. Number one being that bomb with the sixty minute fuse and the ability to deep throat you the wrong way.

Options aren’t many but it appears the best one is in that giant white orb that has landed in the middle of a grassy meadow. The central room of this lobby is full of people that will give you very longwinded explanations of the game mechanics. Normally longwinded-ness is good (I am often guilty of it myself) but now it is not the time. Instead, I will give you the basics here to save you clock ticks.

Attacking:

• If you want to attack a monster, run close to it and then press the Right Trigger.
• After hitting Right Trigger, a ring will expand outwards indicating what you can attack. The right hand menu will list all monsters within that ring. You can select all or some of them before hitting the fight button
• If you rope two different species into the same battle, there is the chance that those two monsters will fight each other instead of you.
• In most cases however, only one species will be within range and you will be facing them alone

Battling:

• Once you picked your monster, you are in the time-honored tradition of RPG, turn based battles.
• You can attack, use magic, or items.
• Some characters will have something called “Magic Sword” which will allow you to cast a single elemental magic attack against the enemy. From here on out I will refer to the Magic sword as “X Sword” where X is the different forms of magic.
• Attacks can happen immediately or you can charge them. Charging an attack means that you are purposely delaying your turn but in return, the strength of that attack will be stronger.
• After selecting attack, the Charge menu appears, tap A once and watch the grey meter move across the timeline of combatants. Tap A to stop the meter. Where you stop the line is the where in the sequence of turns your character will attack. If you want to attack just before the next monster’s turn, tap A just before the grey meter is at the monster’s white line.

That much information can get you pretty far. The only other thing you should know is that you have two spell casters, the female one is named Kluke and the other is the kid with the dramatic hair part named Jiro. Kluke can use offensive magic (called black magic) and Jiro serves as the healer and defensive caster.

Time is short though and you have about five rather lengthy boss/mini boss battles ahead of you. For this reason, I recommend skipping all dungeon monsters where possible and don’t go exploring. When attacked by basic dungeon monsters, you can always choose “flee” from the menu and continue on running for you life. So when you leave the lobby full of the long-winded tutorial characters, venture down the right side of the path the whole way. Don’t make any turns. Along the way there will be a chest surrounded by skeletons, skip that. There will be purple panthers that attack, flee from them. The only monster that is absolutely necessary on this floor is the one called Stone Giant. Attack him with your team and have Kluke use Waterus attack to finish him off.

Through the next door, the fortress goes from being a primary colored Kubrick space odyssey to a giant gazebo floating above the rain soaked beaches of Astria Oregon. Mind you, we are still in the giant white orb.

Szabo attacks and it seems that sometime during our bender we fought him before. His voice sounds like Dr. Neil Tyson of Nova . Szabo summons his dead beat friends who arrange themselves in formation called Cowboy. Now, if you have ever wondered what RPGs would have been like if they existed in 1972, listen to the greatest battle music I have ever rocked out to. The song is “Eternity” and it is sung by Deep Purple lead singer Ian Gillian (track 4 of guitar hero is their number 1 hit, Smoke on the Water).

When they are all defeated in comes:

Over the PA system we find out that Nene, the ultimate evil, is responsible for the bomb collar and is watching these kids. Step into the light to be transported back into the Kubric hallways. Don’t worry, you did not loop back to the beginning. This is in fact a new area.

Go straight again and pass all the attackers, you need the time. When you reach the treasure chest you will be ambushed by four Armored Fish. Attack each one straight up  - don’t use any charged attacks. From there you can sidestep any of the octopi, sword serpents and skeletons.

The only beast that you can not side step in this dungeon is the Grand Poo. Based on the characters name and the coiling I am going to have to assume that this beast is some sort of excrement (an excrement with a nasty case of Vagina Dentata). Its not exactly clear what the elemental counter to feces would be. Wind spells seem to be a bit complimentary considering gas is a natural cousin to poo; probably wouldn’t do much harm. Flarus would probably be a good weapon against it, if only because of fire’s part in the old bag, poo and doorstep gag. So Flarus and Flarus sword when attacking the beast.

After defeating the defecation, recharge your party here by press Y and from the menu selecting spells. Select Jiro and cast the spell Zephyrus on everyone.

When you proceed through the door you encounter a huge room full of robots. The platform moves towards the party and all the robots come alive. They form together into a single, grand one and attack:

Enter a room that was clearly inspired by the Berneni’s Ecstasy of St Theresa

Nene makes his grand appearance and he looks like a borscht colored Woody Alan with a Great Gazoo-esq  sidekick named Deathroy. Nene refers to all of the hardship he has been inflicting upon your party as a trail. He is just toying with them. With a quick touch of his Bruce Vilanch glasses he pushes Shu back and activates Klukes bomb necklace. But, instead of being loaded with explosives it shoots out four curving legs that suspends her above the ground. The rest of the party grabs at these legs in an attempt to pull them off of her? I am not sure exactly what they are planning just follow along with the context sensitive cues that appear. With a quick move Nene slaps the rest of the party with these spiked collars. Nene then confesses that he brought them here to extract their youthfulness and allow him to live on indefinitely.

Using abstract wizardry, Nene is extracts their souls and consumes them orally. Doing so he increases the strength of his own dragon shadow and his skin becomes more vibrant. The party now engages in a battle with the newly revitalized Nene. Luckily the party doesn’t look drained in the least. Considering that, they should have just willingly handed over their souls without incident and helped an old man live longer.

So thanks for playing the first half. The plot seems to be standard, kill the bad guy save the princess (Kluke). I do think that it is an interesting twist that the princess while in trouble is there fighting along with you. It’s also interesting too to see that when the party invaded Nene’s lair to save Klue, they all ended up being burdened by the same bomb collar. It kinda seemed like an allusion to the Iraq conflict. Of course everything is reminding me of Iraq now.

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