Medusa, best known as Anise, is the overarching antagonist of the World of Mana video games series. She is the evil counterpart of the Mana Goddess and the primeval Demon Queen, whom every Great Evil of Mana seeks to succeed. Anise is constantly threatening the multiverse, always kept at bay by the Goddess' chosen heroes.
Appearance[]
Anise never appeared in the flesh until the remake of Trials of Mana, always manifesting through possessed victims, who get horribly warped by her influence.
Most of her incarnations and counterparts share her tall and regal stature, flesh-revealing lavish robes, and very long, flowing purple hair (pink for her benevolent counterpart in Sword of Mana), that flow horizontally. Fitting the mythological Medusa, she has a distinct snake-motif, evident in her demonic forms.
In Dawn of Mana, her host becomes taller and adult-looking, with red eyes, pointed ears, purple skin covered in white intricate motifs, and an elaborate hairdo.
For she final battle, she becomes more demonic. She gets snake-like eyes and hair divided into tentacle-like locks. Two gigantic, demonic serpents, one red and one blue, protrude from the hem of her robe, and she emits an intense aura of violet darkness.
In Heroes of Mana, Anise is a tower-sized, quadrupedal monstrosity, retaining her host's long blond hair, facial structure, and mask. She has blue skin with darker stripes, grotesquely thin and long limbs, three crystal-like horns on her forehead, one much longer, greyish feathered wings, and ribbon-like tentacles protruding from her back.
She later transforms into an even bigger, wraith-like and draconic-looking demon made from pure darkness, with large glowing red eyes, two horns, no legs, and long thin arms.
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Anise in the remake of Trials of Mana.
Anise's undeniable beauty is downplayed by her devilish features, red eyes, and pale purplish skin. She is thrice as tall as a teenager, she wears a lavish, revealing black and red gown, jewellery, gloves, and walks barefoot, not unlike her manifestation from Dawn of Mana.
Contrasting the Goddess' Mother Nature theme, she is as dark as her realm, emitting a violet aura. Her purple hair expands to her sides, getting paler, solid and crystal-like at their end, an array of crystal-like lilac spikes on her head, shoulders and waist, and an array of black horns covered in red veins glowing in slow pulsation, from her back.
She later transforms into Dragon Anise, a titanic, hundreds-yard-long snake demon sporting a draconic head full of sharp fangs and pointy protrusions, her eyes and the double horn on her forehead glowing red. She is purplish black with a brown underbelly, a spiked cobra-like hood, and she retains the array of horns with glowing veins and the lilac spikes of her humanoid self, now on her head and back.
Characteristics[]
Anise is shrouded in mystery, some games featuring her being retellings of the distant past that faded to myths. Heroes of Mana refers to her as an immortal witch who envied the Mana Goddess for her divinity. This is a reference to Legend of Mana, her first appearance in which she really was a witch, and a probable in-universe explanation of why she is called her Anise the Witch. However, Heroes distinctly refers to her as a goddess in the Final Battle. Her real name is Medusa (due to being based on a Gorgon monster from the first game), but mortals call her Anise, out of fear of the deadly curse carried by her name. Dawn of Mana explains that the original Anise was a priestess who became her first vessel and whose name was substituted to her own in the following centuries.
The game also introduces Mavolia, the Demon World, and the Echoes of Mavolia: the sentient heart of the demonic realm and the manifestation of everything wrong in the universe, which Medusa wants to unleash to obliterate all of creation, and which influenced the priestess Anise to become Medusa's vessel. Mavolia being her creation, stated to have come to be after she engulfed another world in darkness, it could be guessed that the Echoes personify her essence, that forever seeks to be reborn through a human host.
Anise is an undying Demon Queen nearly equal to the Mana Goddess herself, who like her came to be at the Dawn of Times in the Primeval Dimension of Illusia. While the Goddess created the world of Fa'Diel, the Mana Tree, the Elemental Spirits, the mortal races and the Mana Power sustaining everything, Anise created Mavolia, its Echoes, demons, monsters, and is all but stated to have spawned the Benevodons, all sustained by the corruptive Psi power she diffuses. She exists in every world and alternate timeline and will not rest until she has destroyed them all. As long as there is Mana to destroy in one dimension, she can enter it to wreak havoc.
Just like the Mana Goddess never truly dies and is always reborn through willing fusion with a Faerie or a woman of the Mana Clan, Anise is never slain for good, always resurfacing by possessing a mortal (mostly a woman), killing them in the process while assimilating their aspect and traits. She will also resurface when the Goddess is weakened. The mightiest evil beings can seize her throne, but never surpass her or supplant her for good. Without her influence Mavolia can be pacified, as servants of the Goddess ruled it in her absence, but evil always drove them out.
Powers and Abilities[]
Anise is unfathomably powerful. She absorbs Mana Power, which her Psi power disrupts, growing as it decreases, weakening those who depend on it while empowering herself and her demons. She can sense, see, talk and project herself across worlds, travel through the multiverse, teleport, shape-shift, alter her aspect, steal, extract and displace souls, grant powers or syphon's people magic. She builds artefacts infused with her essence, manifesting through them and spreading her influence. They corrupt people drawing power from them, making them potential vessels.
Worse, she can warp reality and blur the line between illusions and existence, drawing from people's mind to create replicas of what they know she controls and reshapes at will. She can create evil beings, dark doubles of people with their powers, or parallel dimensions storing her victims' souls. The more souls she controls, the more she can create. In Heroes of Mana, her mere presence breaks the fabric of dimensions and tears a huge rift in time and space. She gathered enough power to create a Sea of Chaos: a barren wasteland outside of reality for the final battle.
Personality[]
Anise is cruel, merciless, relentless, sadistic, and hateful. She appears collected and unshakeable, being indifferent to the passing eons and dismissing even being destroyed as a minor setback, knowing that she is bound to return. But this facade of poise hardly veils her searing hatred for everything that exists, which she seems to regard as an affront, and for the Mana Goddess, knowing that she is only second best and despising her for it.
She has a very high opinion of herself, reacting to opposition with amused, derisive scorn. She greatly enjoys flaunting her might to cower victims but welcomes a challenge. Her even tone and dignified manners contrast her scathing insults towards her foes. She revels in chaos and destruction, feeds on suffering, and delights in toying with her foes' emotions and memories: by showing them replicas of places important to them twisted by her power. Unlike her successors who covet Fa'Diel to shape it following their designs, she strives to obliterate every dimension, mostly to enjoy the resulting void all for herself, but also out of petty spite towards the Mana Goddess.
Anise is a perfect orator and manipulator. She uses her people' fears, pain and doubts against them, and can corrupt them with words alone, aptly feigning concern to gain their trust and twist their desires. Worse, she subtly sets her pawns on paths she designed, when they further her agenda believing to advance their own, without needing to act.
However, Dawn of Mana shows that her vessels' traits and memories become her own, albeit hideously twisted. Indeed, she wants their loved ones by her side as her demonic consorts, and violently lashes out at the hero Keldric for killing her previous vessel's lover (oblivious of his choice to die by Keldric's hand to test his valour).
Inspiration from previous games[]
Anise is based on several unrelated villains from early games of the series, later assembled into a single character. This is explained in-universe by each game being part of a distinct continuity, all of them forming a multiverse with many distinct timelines.
Final Fantasy Adventures/Adventures of Mana[]
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Medusa in Adventures of Mana
Medusa is just a normal boss in the first game of the series. She is a regular gorgon and the mother to the Illithid Davias, the dictator of the city of Jadd and vassal of the Dark Lord, who turns dissidents to birds. The Hero Sumo (Duke in adaptations) and his friend Amanda need her tears to free Amanda's brother Lester from Davias' spell.
Sword of Mana[]
Medusa is made Queen of Mavolia in this remake of the first game, although it is the only game to present demons as neutrals. Medusa herself is a tragic figure, not unlike her inspiration, in the myths in which she was turned into a monster. She married her lover Lord Granz, ruler of the Granz Realm and leader of the Gemma Knights, who toppled the Vandole Empire. They had twin sons, Stroud and the Illithid Devius (Davias).
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A much gentler Medusa (artwork from Circle of Mana).
Unfortunately, not even Medusa could ignore the law separating Fa'Diel and Mavolia, starting to lose her memories and life-force. She was forced to return to Mavolia with Devius, as only she could rein his out-of-control power, while Stroud was raised by his father.
As the Dark Lord, Stroud is hunting the Mana Clan, hoping in vain mend the rift between Mavolia and Fa'Diel and save his mother. Devius rules Jadd and keeps Medusa in a room frozen in time to halt her decline, surrounded with minstrels whose music preserves her memories. But she can no longer control her power, turning them all into animals without meaning it, and keeping them for company.
Legend of Mana[]
The first game to mention Anise, and to present her as a harbinger of Chaos seeking to emulate the Goddess: Here, she is long dead, but remains critical to the backstory, with her actions still shaping the story even eons later. At the Dawn of Creation, the Mana Goddess gave life to six Moon Gods, absent from every other games, and gifted each a Stone serving as the mightiest source of magic in existence. Anise was the first and greatest of human mages, who built her lab in a hole she bore in the trunk of the Mana Tree itself. She then syphoned Mana Power in her tries to copy the Goddess' stones, but could only create powerful Eyes of Flames jewels, bringing evil out of anyone.
They proliferated and unleashed untold corruption, tainting the Mana Power itself and tearing rifts into the fabric of space, depleting Fa'Diel's primeval purity and leading to the mages' rise in power. For a millennium, Anise's mages disrupted Balance, killing the faeries who were resisting them. Aion the King of Faeries allied with humans and slew Anise with a powerful stone that was called the Seventh Moon, but the Mana Tree was burned.
Aion exiled himself to the Afterworld where he atoned by judging the departed souls, and Mana gradually healed. Only three Eyes of Flame were recovered, but wars were waged for eons for their control, with mages seeking them to regain their lost superiority. However, Anise's daughter Elise, who had fled her mother's tyranny, gave the mages a better purpose, teaching them to create harmless things and creatures, while dragons and faeries restored order.
The game takes place nine centuries after the Mana Tree was destroyed. Global wars were waged to control what remained of the Mana Power, with evil spreading all over even corrupting the regrowing Mana Tree. As the heroes restore Fa'Diel, they must battle the Mana Goddess herself to rid her of her corruption and heal the Mana Tree. Despite her prominent role in the backstory, Anise is barely even mentioned in game and has no plot relevance. However, the battle against a corrupted version of the Goddess might have been an inspiration for the character's final status as her evil counterpart.
Role in the Series[]
Games featuring Anise are also part of different continuities. Though Dawn of Mana is the prequel to Children of Mana and Heroes of Mana to Trials of Mana, with the events of Dawn resembling the backstory of Trials. All games share the Creation Myth in which the Mana Goddess created the world of Fa'Diel and incarnated herself as the Mana Tree, infusing everything with her Mana Power.
The intro of Trials of Mana states that when there was still only darkness, she beat the Benevodons with the fabled Sword of Mana and sealed them into Mana Stones. Medusa is not mentioned, aside from his Dark Majesty seizing power in Mavolia by killing his predecessor. She was perhaps sealed or destroyed by the Goddess, likely during the Dawn of Times, hence why she spends most games as a disembodied presence that must incarnate into vessels.
Dawn of Mana[]
A thousand years before the start of the story, a Tree Maiden (priestess of the Mana Tree) named Anise fell in love with the human-like spirit named Granz the Masked Guru. Alas, the Echoes of Mavolia sealed under the Mana Tree took control of her and made her open the Door to Mavolia, causing her to become the vessel of the Demon Queen Medusa. She almost destroyed Fa'Diel, but Granz managed to seal her in Mavolia and close the Door.
The story begins as the Ice Kingdom of Lorimar is invading the island of Illusia, location of the Mana Tree where live its guardians of the Mana Clan. The evil king Stroud seeks to open the Door to Mavolia as part of a deal with demons, aided by a newly awoken Granz who seeks to set his beloved free (in all senses of the word).
The hero Keldric (nicknamed Keldy) and his best friend the Tree Maiden Ritzia set out to awake the protector of the island, in fact the White Dragon Flammie, the mascot and main mean of transport of the heroes throughout the series. There, they befriend the child faerie Faye. Keldric gets chosen by the Mana Tree herself, who implants her seed in his right arm which he can shape as any weapon he chooses, but they end up captured by Lorimar forces.
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Medusa in Ritzia's vessel (credits to Lunsel).
Stroud abducts Ritzia, who is the key to Mavolia, steals and corrupts the Sword of Mana, and throws Keldric at sea, but Faye saves him. Stroud uses Ritzia to open the Door to Mavolia and makes her into Medusa's new vessel. Keldric and Faye spend the next year gathering allies. Alas, Mavolia has spread all over the world, spawning countless Thanatos Spirits that turn all they touch into demonic Grimslies. Stroud absorbs all the Thanatos Spirits he can to boost his power to the maximum.
Keldric must kill Lekius, his childhood friend turned Grimsly, who wants to bring his Tree's seed to Medusa. The Demon Queen later appears before him as a projection using Ritzia's aspect, trying to tempt him to become her prince and rule by her side, which he refuses.
He is later confronted by Granz, who fights him to test whether he can save Anise, explaining more about her in the process. Keldric ends up reluctantly killing the Masked Guru, who dies satisfied.
- Granz flies out of reach, alternatively casting a Flaming or Frozen Barrier. Keldric must break it with the opposing element before attacking. Granz's rapier can stun Keldric, and he summons Sniper Visages (floating masks firing purple beams, that must be destroyed). He casts Flaming Gale or a barrage of Ice Crystals, conjures a green sphere causing all negative status, a violet Poison Mist, and Meteorite: a devastating rain of meteors.
Granz reveals that Stroud is Keldric's brother, who threw him at sea when he was a baby to get rid of competition, but the Mana Tree herself saved him. Before disappearing for good, he opens a path enabling Keldric and his allies to retake Illusia. Later, Flammie takes him to the tyrant's lair.
As Keldric confronts him, Stroud strikes down Medusa to steal her throne and rule both Mavolia and Fa'Diel. After Keldric destroys the hugely powerful Grim Stroud, Medusa reappears now fully controlling her vessel, having survived the attempt on her life which she saw coming. Keldric took down a threat, only to face a much direr one.
Medusa's true form as the giant Grimslie in Dawn of Mana.
Medusa starts terraforming Fa'Diel into a second Mavolia. Encouraged by his allies' spirits, alive and dead, Keldric and Faye face her in her eldritch Nethermanse castle, below the Mana Tree where the Echoes of Mavolia remain sealed.
She needs Keldric's Tree Seed and Faye to unleash the Echoes and destroy the universe. She drags Keldric and Faye to a twisted mirage of his and Ritzia's favourite meeting place, before confronting him, but he destroys her.
Granz's soul frees Anise's from Medusa's possession and brings her to the afterlife. Alas, the only way to restore the Mana Tree and Fa'Diel anew is for Ritzia and Faye merge with it with Keldric's Tree Seed, renouncing their physical existences to awake the Mana Goddess, who recreates the Sword of Mana and the Elemental Spirits.
The Final Battle[]
Keldric must chase Medusa, who does not attack but endlessly spawns Bloodwraith and Frostwraith monsters who strike and fire dark bolts, fireballs and frost blasts. They constantly appear before him, hindering the chase and risking wearing down his energy and supplies. The battle starts upon reaching their tree.
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Keldric battling Medusa.
Medusa is quite challenging. She spawns two Blood and Frost Serpents from herself and surrounds herself with a spherical barrier. Keldric must knock out the Serpents by striking their heads or throwing at them the Rock Crystal of the opposite color. He must then take down her barrier and attack her as much as he can until the Serpents awake.
The Serpents attack with a headbutt, repeated bites, a fiery or frosty breath, and by vacuuming Keldric to chew him. As for Medusa, she still summons Wraiths to hinder Keldric, but she casts Mine Blast to conjure golden runes chasing him along the ground before causing a huge purple energy blast, or the very powerful Dark Twister, which conjures a storm of darkness all around her and levitates all the Rock Crystals, forcing Keldric to stay away.
Heroes of Mana[]
This real-time strategy game has the player directing characters and troops against armies, sending units against specific targets. It begins when the hero Roget, a young officer of the Ancient Kingdom of Pedda and childhood friend of the Boy King Inath, is sent on a reconnaissance mission on the Nightswan flying ship.
Roget, Lieutenant Yurchael, the mercenary Qucas, the forest girl D'Kelli and the warrior lady Gemiere investigate rumors of warmongering in the Beastman Kingdom of Ferolia, but the beastmen shoot down their ship and capture them. Horrified, Roget and his friends discover that their mission was a diversion, so that Pedda's troops led by Yurchael's former girlfriend General Cecilia Baxilios could invade the capital Lowenburg. They place a strange Black Mirror in the throne room, stating that it is Pedda's key to world domination.
General Baxilios (artwork from Circle of Mana).
The heroes rebel and ally with the beastman king Gauser. They fail to save the Wind Kingdom of Laurent from Pedda's vassals of the Thieves' Guild of the Nevarl Desert. The Guild Lord Olbex puts a Black Mirror there as well.
In the Holy City of Wendel, the heroes ally with Belgar the Oracle of Shadows (the future Masked Mage) and with Falcon, a rebel leader from Nevarl. They defeat a projection of Xan Bie, Benevodon of Fire, gaining seven Benevodons as summons, for they want none but them alone to destroy Fa'Diel.
Despite joining forces with the Grassland Kingdom of Valsena and its ally the Magic Kingdom of Altena, they can barely stall Pedda, backed by dragons lent by the Dragon Lord, as they plant Black Mirrors in every nation. Inath attacks Wendel on his ship the Guldrea. He offers to name the heroes his officers, laughing off Roget's pleas when they refuse. Even defeated, he leaves taunting. The Elemental Spirits join the heroes, who save Wendel with the Luzio Malis, an ancient Altenian flying fortress armed with mighty Warp Cannons.
The Black Mirror of Anise.
The fallen kingdoms form a coalition and retake their land, while a heartbroken Roget is forced to kill his former best friend and fiancée, who view him as a traitor. General Baxilios places the last Black Mirror in Wendel, to drain all Mana and engulf Fa'Diel in Psi. The heroes later awake the White Dragon Flammie.
The heroes storm the capital city of Pedda, but it was in fact a trap. Inath and Baxilios destroy it with the laser cannons of their flagship the Vel Vimana, going as far as to sacrifice their people. The heroes reach the Jungle of Illusion and the Mirage Palace, where the original Black Mirror of Esina is located, draining Mana from the Mana Tree itself by channeling its power towards its copies, planted in every kingdom.
There, they confront the Mirage Bishop, Roget's twin (or other half), who is overseeing Operation Psi: the plan to engulf Fa'Diel with Psi and absorb it all into the Black Mirror. The Bishop traps the Elemental Spirits in the Mirror, which channels Anise's power. He teleports everyone, including himself, Baxilios and Inath, in the Dark World formed from the Mirror's reflection, but the Goddess sends the Sword of Mana to Roget. The heroes defeat the Bishop and the army of dark clones of themselves he spawned from the Mirror. But it now becomes clear that Anise chose Baxilios, letting the Bishop delusionally fancy himself as her chosen one able to create a new universe.
General Baxilios possessed by Anise: The Goddess of Doom.
Anise uses Baxilios as her vessel, engulfing Inath and the Bishop in the process, turning her into the Goddess of Doom. She turns the Dark World into the Sea of Chaos, from which she could obliterate the multiverse. When defeated, she transforms into Anise' Incarnation.
She shrugs off every attack until Baxilios' soul reveals that Anise used her grief for their stillborn child to corrupt her, and that she can only be killed by breaking her Mirror with the Sword of Mana. This turns Anise back to the Goddess of Doom and Flammie knocks her away from the Black Mirror, enabling Roget to throw the Sword at it, destroying it along with its creator.
Freed from Anise's corruption, the Mirage Bishop's soul can pass away, revealing that every stolen soul will be restored and all damage undone, but that the ruins of Pedda will remain forever outside of time and space. Having lost his home, Roget chooses to travel through the dimensional rift torn by the battle, to slay Anise in every world she exists and purge the multiverse from her blight. His friends join him, not knowing when they could return, but no-one will remember them nor even the war.
The Final Battle[]
The Goddess of Doom is very resilient, powerful, and hard to beat. If she kills Roget or destroys the flagship, the game is lost. She creates doubles of herself causing devastating lilac energy blasts when slain, and spawns monsters granting items when killed. Her attacks are infrequent but deadly: yellow explosions or giant, purple, exploding energy spheres. She can teleport and swap places with her hard to distinguish doubles.
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Anise's incarnation.
Anise's Incarnation is even harder. She still spawns monsters, and even doubles of the Goddess of Doom, and her attacks are devastating, easily wiping out squadrons even from far away. She spams grey crescent-shaped waves, fires a gigantic lilac-coloured shockwave, and surrounds herself with a giant dark sphere causing many deadly dark explosions around her.
The heroes must swarm her with every available unit, and never get close more than strictly necessary. After Baxilios' spirit appears, Anise must be attacked until she reverts to the Goddess of Doom.
Trials of Mana (Remake)[]
Anise was absent from the original game but resurfaces without needing a vessel in the remake for Mana is nearly totally depleted. She is unlocked after the Final Boss is beaten yet takes place in-universe just before the final battle. As the main villain just killed the Mana Goddess to take her place, she awakes in Mavolia. She briefly wonders where she is, but quickly perceives the state of the world and prepares to annihilate it. Fortunately, Master Grand Croix, an archmage from eons ago, preserved his knowledge into a sentient magic tome in the Royal Library of Valsena.
Just as they are about to challenge the main villain, the heroes are told to go to the library, where Grand Croix's tome explains that Anise is about to open Mavolia upon Fa'Diel to obliterate it. To stand a chance against her, the heroes must reach the legendary Fourth Character Class, by each earning a specific sphere. Official sources state that the Fourth Classes were discovered by Grand Croix eons ago, and used to defeat Anise with the Goddess' help.
The knight Duran earn the Valour Sphere from King Richard of Valsena. He must fight the Bruiser knight he beat at the start of the game, who fights like a level 50 Knight enemy, before facing alone an echo of his late father Loki at level 65. Loki fights as he did as the Darkshine Knight, but is faster and mightier, using Duran's deadliest techniques.
The mage princess Angela must earn the Sage Sphere from her mother, Queen Valda of Altena. She must venture into the Labyrinth of Ice and overcome a reflection of herself alone, in a Trial of Queenship. At level 65, her double is a tough foe, fighting with her staff and casting her deadliest spells.
The beastman prince Kevin must earnt he Instinct Sphere from his father King Gauser. He is challenged by a guard fought like a level 50 Silver Wolf enemy, before facing alone Gauser himself in his wolfman form. He is a deadly foe at level 65, who smashes the ground, causes a whirlwind with a flurry his blows, and uses Kevin's deadliest moves.
The half-elf cleric Charlotte must earn the Hope Sphere from her grandfather the Elven Elder. She must destroy a gigantic level 65 Revenant in the Woods of Wandara, flanked by ghouls and zombies of the same level. It is huge and very strong but is fought like a normal monster by all heroes, before meeting echoes of her late parents.
The ninja thief Hawkeye must earn the Loyal Sphere from his adoptive sister Jessica. He must search in the Fiery Gorge for the Nevarl Guild's treasure, hidden by his late best friend Eagle from Belladonna and kept by a giant, level 65 Mimiqueen. It uses mighty attacks but is fought like a chest-monster by all heroes, before meeting Eagle's echo.
The amazon princess Riesz (Lise) must earn the Kind Sphere from her caregiver Alma. She must battle a level 65, Empreeb female bee monster in the Somnosa Meadow. It is very fast and strong, uses Riesz's deadliest techniques and is flanked by two level 53 Bee Lancer monsters, but is fought by all heroes, before meeting her parents' echoes.
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Concept Art of Anise's demonic form.
Anise taunts the heroes as they return to Grand Croix, having noticed the archmage's scrying. She opens a portal to Mavolia in the sky and dares the heroes to face her, delaying her apocalypse for the sake of her amusement. They change to Class Four and venture within her dark realm, filled with mighty monsters and twisted mimicries of their homelands. There, they destroy Anise who is not even phased, knowing that she will return sooner or later.
Confronting Anise[]
| “ | Writhe, worthless Mana worms! Fall from the tower of your dreams and wallow in the pits of despair! Feed me with your pain! | „ |
| ~ Anise to the heroes at the start of their battle. |
Anise is a formidable enemy at level 75, but her attacks are telegraphed by red zones where they are about to hit and she can be knocked out and left open for attacks. She floats and teleports, being protected by four level 73 Elemental Crystals that cast spells of their elements and must be destroyed.
She creates explosions at close range, conjures demonic spiked tails under the heroes, and casts Super Shackles (a rain of light orbs) or Counterattack (reacting to attacks with a shadow sphere). The heroes must boost themselves and weaken her. She can also summon a double of herself, and level 60 Shadow Zeds who can shape-shift into monsters or clones of the heroes, as a diversion.
Dragon Anise, her true demonic form.
At level 76, Dragon Anise is even mightier and tougher. She takes most of the screen, yet is fast, spry and hard to dodge. Her head is vulnerable but harder to reach. Her attacks cover a wide area and her spells strike every hero at once, including Annihilate that kills lower-level targets, and still summons Shadow Zeds.
She charges, flies and dives into the ground to erupt under a hero, forcing them to get away. Touching her shrinks the heroes and her bites poison them. Artic Beam turns them to snowmen, and Flash turns them into harmless Moogles, so cure often. She casts Destructo Bomb (explosions on the ground), Set Trap (huge fireballs exploding when the heroes get near) and Ruin Wail (purple circles over the ground). When she conjures several Dark Crystals to draw power from, they must be destroyed as quickly as possible to knock her out and leave her vulnerable, lest she unleashes Scarlet Dust: a devastating, flashing pyroclastic blast.
Echoes of Mana[]
Anise whispering into Dema's ears from the shadows.
Anise is the overarching villainess of this medley game, having corrupted Dema the False Goddess and planted in her mind her plan to erase and rewrite the multiverse. She gave her a ruined world to create her Sanctuary, and with it its last two survivors.
She divided one soul between the two of them, for Dema to send on a quest to usurp her sister pretending to restore all worlds. With that done, Anise sends her brother Gossamare after them.
Anise was meant to be the true final boss once more. However, the game got scrapped by its developers due to poor results, so she will remain unseen and unfought.
Trivia[]
- Medusa is based on the most famous of the Gorgons of Greek Mythology.
- Being a gigantic snake demon who seeks to destroy a God Tree sustaining the world, Anise evokes the eldritch, demonic serpent Nídhöggr, who gnaws at the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil in Norse Mythology.
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 Villains
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Final Fantasy Adventure / Sword of Mana Secret of Mana Trials of Mana Legend of Mana Dawn of Mana Heroes of Mana Echoes of Mana | ||