Iron Fortress
The Iron Fortress is a location in Epic Battle Fantasy 5. It is the fifth area visited by the party, with Matt, NoLegs, and Anna breaking in to rescue Natalie from Lance.
Description
Dominating much of the ravaged landscape now called No Man's Land, the Iron Fortress is an imposing castle with a sinister industrial aesthetic reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Its exterior is lined with cannons, weapon stockpiles, and red banners depicting Lance's symbol: a black "X" in a white circle. Parts of the outer wall appear to be damaged, possibly from conflicts with the neighboring Greenwood Village.
The Iron Fortress was built by Lance and his fascist followers as their main stronghold to investigate the mysterious monoliths that landed around the world, which Lance believes to be the first stage of an alien invasion. It is also a factory for manufacturing various powerful weapons and robots, as well as a prison for Lance's enemies and kidnapped women deemed suitable for repopulating the planet once the threat of the monoliths is dealt with. Unfortunately for the fascists, Natalie's capture by Lance motivates Matt and NoLegs to join Anna in assaulting the Iron Fortress in order to rescue her.
The Iron Fortress has a number of puzzles to complicate the party's travels. Several areas are blocked by spikes or gates that can be lowered by activating levers around the area (similar to the Waste Disposal Plant in Epic Battle Fantasy 4), and arrow-marked tiles will force the player to walk in the indicated direction until they hit an obstacle or another arrow tile; once they find the Magnetic Boots, they will also stop automatically if they walk over a metal tile. Additionally, a few areas of the fortress feature special tiles that light up if stepped on, creating "walk-once" puzzles that require the player to light up all of the tiles in the area without stepping on them more than once.
One room in the Iron Fortress contains a monolith, presumably extracted from The Rapture to be analyzed by Lance's scientists. The force field surrounding the monolith can be deactivated by interacting with the nearby control devices (which look suspiciously like Xbox gaming consoles); once the party obtains the Stepladder from the Mystic Woods, they can approach the monolith and search it for treasure.
The women's prison in the back of the Iron Fortress contains a sort of makeshift Food Shop; it becomes available once the spikes are lowered and Natalie rejoins the party. Strangely, the shop remains functional after the prison is abandoned, despite no one being around to operate it (the owner having gone back to Greenwood Village to run her Steroids stall).
Like No Man's Land, the Iron Fortress uses Never Falter as its theme, but a radio in the monolith room can be activated to change the music to TPF Trans from Epic Battle Fantasy 4.
Enemies
Most of the foes in the Iron Fortress are Thunder and Bomb-based, with many of them being mechanical in nature.
- Metal Idol
- Slimes
- Dogs
- Electric Bat
- Flybots
- Thunder Sprite
- Turrets and Bombs
- Fishes
- Steel Wraith
- Mirrors
- Defenders
- War Mammoth
- Worms
- Dolls
- Lance (miniboss)
- Neon Valkyrie (boss, with Lance)
Map
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