Earthlock - Part 14 - A Shade Off
8Our heroes have traveled from one hot, arid region to a hotter, more arid region...and now to the Burning Desert, the hottest most arid region! Yeah, if you've watched these videos from the start, you're probaly as sick and tried of deserts in this game as I am. Guess what? After the Burning Desert, the next region is...the Scrollroad Desert. I guess it makes sense there'd be so much desert if you realize the world of Umbra is tidally locked (even if it's not a realistic depiction of a tidally locked planet). But seriously. Someone on the team must really like deserts.
The Burning Desert, by the way, is the next major dungeon of this game, so it at least gets points for being a very non-typical example of an RPG dungeon in that it's wide open, it's very bright, and it's outdoors, but it still shares the common RPG dungeon traits of a maze-like layout, a central gimmick, puzzles to solve, and a boss at the end. It just doesn't look like that at first glance.
You see, the perpetual sun in the Burning Desert just creates too much heat for any of our party members to endure for long. (And despite Gnart collapsing near immediately in the cutscene, they all have the same heat tolerance in gameplay.) The shade, however, lets our characters recuperate as they continue to stand in it. Hence, you are restricted to the paths the shadows, created by the ruins, allow you to reach before you pass out. The ruined structures are fairly straightforward and close together at the start, but later on, they not only get further apart, but you'll need to use amri activation devices to restart some of the ancient machinery that will create shade--while avoiding being out in the heat for too long. Go even further in, and those restarted machines will move about, creating and removing shade as they function.
This is where the character you select will be rather helpful. Gnart is the fastest runner in this group, Amon is the slowest (which can make things rather tense as he collects amri), and Ive is in between.
There are some hidden paths too, or barely-hidden ones. I found some and missed some others.
And for the record, the timer for heat exhaustion is suspended any time you're in a battle. So go ahead and take as much time to plan out your party's moves. Just be sure to remember where you are and where you're going when you complete the battle.
Eventually, the team reaches the Solar Array, which is the central area of the Burning Desert. It's here that Taika is finally found, captured by Gribelnek, a more-articulate-than-normal goblin who apparently deals in rare animals. Gribelnek himself is not a fighter, but instead you take on his Quadragon as a mini-boss. Naturally, defeating the Quadragon allows Ive to rescue Taika at last--and if you remember from the tutorial at the beginning of the game, Taika has a full set of moves and stances, meaning, yes, Ive's loyal stormdog is the 5th party member.
Taika's two stances are Predator and Packmate. Her Predator stance is the one focused on attack, with elemental attacks based on what she's observed. Currently, she can do Fire Breath and Water Bomb. Using Sixth Sense against specific types of common enemies will grant her more moves, corresponding to the enemy's element. There aren't a lot of them, but we have already encountered one: the Desert Crabler, which grants Taika the Quake attack. We'll get to the others eventually. And we can't get Quake yet, not until we clear the Burning Desert. To my knowledge, all of Taika's elemental moves are spread moves, dealing a below-average amount of damage but applies for all enemies.
In her Packmate stance, Taika has a single move so far, but it's the best defensive skill we've seen yet by far: Elemental Absorb grants immunity to every designated element built up with Taika so far to the target. Though I didn't realize this until later, you can select your teammates (or enemies, if you have some insane strategy in mind) and grant them immunity too. And for the record, the Desert Crabler creates Electric immunity,and Taika begins with Fire and Water immunity.
Shortly after getting Taika though, I got lost, and the poor thing collapsed from the scorching temperatures. Too bad. You just get warped back to the last spot with shade you've reached though, so it's just a slap on the shoulder.