So Dark Force, we meet again... and again... and again...

So the party flies off to the other space station, and after fighting their way through they find Dark Force embedded into the main control panel. After a massive fight they finally destroy Dark Force and regain control of the environmental systems, saving the world.

Well it was a little shorter than I expected but still a fun game... Oh, the weather on the ice planet is still going crazy.

So the party returns to the ice planet and Wren digs up an ice digging vehicle in order to get to previously blocked areas. After checking the local weather control building they find nothing is wrong with it and Raja insists that the freak storm is coming from the big evil tower that recently showed up. While exploring the group find a clan of the cat like beings that Myau from PS1 belonged to, and a giant winged one that might be Myau himself. In another village they find that something is causing everyone to get sick and eventually turn into zombies (zombies in my JRPG? it's more likely than you think). once again all signs point to the big evil tower, but before Raja can say "i told you so" he's stricken with the illness too and bedridden.

The party hears that Kyra, a local sage, has gone off to try and take down the tower herself, so they agree to go save her from the carnivorous forest (not coniferous as you would expect) surrounding the place. They show up and find her fighting the trees, and after escaping an unwindable fight (took me 10 minutes to figure that out) she joins the party. Kyra then suggests that they all go to the sage mansion and try to ask their 2000 year old leader Lutz (again, Noah in the first game) for advice. When they get there they soon discover though that even with cryo-freezing Lutz couldn't live 2000 years, instead he transferred all his memories to a psychic ball that would then transfer to a worthy successor. That successor currently is none other than Rune! So the whole time the arrogant Rune was actually the arrogant Lutz (more or less, Rune seems to be his own person, just with all the memories of the previous Lutz), much to Kyra's disappointment.

The head of the sages suggests using the Eclipse Torch (another PSI item) to burn away the evil forest. The party heads over to the temple where it's held and while trying to convince the locals to let them have it, some evil wizards steal it and taunt Rune/Lutz to come after it in the air castle. It seems that after 2000 years Lassic, the big bad from the first game, is not as dead as he once was and is out for revenge. The party find that the air castle some how survived the planet exploding and is hiding in the resulting asteroid belt. They fly off to the castle and after dealing with the 3 wizards they face off against Lassic in another long and tough boss battle. They retrieve the torch and fly back to the ice planet to use it on the evil trees (only you can cause forest fires).

After climbing the gross squelching living tower they face off once again against Dark Force, and in a very hard battle in which only the mages remained standing by the end (ironic since they are the weakest) the party defeats the evil monster! They escape the crumbling tower, Kyra says her goodbyes, they begin to celebrate... and a huge evil beam from nowhere nukes the place they got the torch from!

Looks like their job is not done yet.

The party returns to what's left of the place they got the torch from and find some priests managed to survive. The head priest tells the group that Dark Force, or some even grater evil, must be searching for a long lost place and only the Aero-Prism (another PS1 item) can show it's location. Rune says that Lutz knew the location of the Aero-Prism and it's on an island on the main planet. So the party returns to the main planet and on the way Wren arranges for them a hover craft that can travel on land and water.

After exploring the now assessable water locked areas, the party head off to the island where the Aero-Prism is located. At the entrance of the cave leading to it's location they meet Seth, a historian who was trying to check out the temple on the other side but was chased off by the monsters in the cave. Being completely not suspicions at all he's allowed to join the party, and as they fight their way through the cave system he constantly praising how strong and brave they are, again being completely not suspicious. When they finally reach the temple they get the Aero-Prism and as soon as they walk out side it shoots a beam of light straight up into space. The light also starts to burn Seth and *GASP* he's actually Dark Force! This time Dark Force is in a giant humanoid from and with excessive abuse of the save state system I managed to beat him with all the party still alive.

So now that's left for tomorrow is to finish the last of the Hunting Guild side quests and then fly off into space to see what the Aero-Prism was pointing at. I played for most of today since I wanted to get the game finished by the end of the year, I'm figuring that I'll call it quits for SUGC after that. I have already spent more time on this disc than any other game, and even though the Shining Force titles look to be interesting (Sega's version of Fire Emblem), I think I should end on the high note of PS IV and not the low note of Fatal Labyrinth.