|
Can you slow down your emulator to beat Dein in that minigame?
|
#
?
May 4, 2021 17:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:31 |
|
|
 I love Sharon's pose there. "Stop talking about pirates like I'm not even here!"
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2021 19:23
|
|
|
LJN92 posted:Chapter 13 – Meandering Aimlessly It actually is easy, if you're playing on a controller. While the rules say something about having to move the analog sticks in a specific sequence... If you put your hands on the sticks and just mash them both left and right, you can get *tons* of side jumps way too easily. It's like a 95% win rate against Dein here. Not sure how to modify that advice for being forced to play on a keyboard, though.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
I actually like the fact that Noa is depicted "wrong" here. If we assume this game is set in the same world as the first, but with enough time passed for the geopolitical landscape to change almost completely, it makes sense that the stories of the heroes of the past have changed significantly in the retelling. There's an easy through line from "Ra-Seru have magical powers" to "this group of people with magical powers must be wizards". There are obviously flaws with this interpretation, and I'm definitely overthinking this reference, but still.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2021 08:58
|
|
|
Commander Keene posted:I actually like the fact that Noa is depicted "wrong" here. If we assume this game is set in the same world as the first, but with enough time passed for the geopolitical landscape to change almost completely, it makes sense that the stories of the heroes of the past have changed significantly in the retelling. There's an easy through line from "Ra-Seru have magical powers" to "this group of people with magical powers must be wizards". Hey, not a bad theory, and I'm all for overthinking things myself. But, in my personal opinion, I sincerely doubt the devs put that much thought into it. Prokion, who made this game, weren't even that heavily involved in Legaia 1. Here's some more Hidenori Shibao for context: "Interviewer: It must feel strange to see a sequel by someone else. Shibao: Well, Legaia 2 isn't really much of a sequel. The developers never understood the world of Legaia to begin with - they didn't even use the most important part.... It doesn't have anything to do with my Legaia at all, so it's hard for me to see it as a sequel and not just a knock-off that uses the same branding."
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2021 09:28
|
|
|
Oh I'm sure that the devs weren't thinking of the geopolitical situation of the game world or the inherent unreliability of the oral tradition when they put the girl from the last game in a witch hat for the sequel. I'm definitely putting more thought into this than the dev team did. And that's fine.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2021 10:21
|
|
|
LJN92 posted:Shibao: Well, Legaia 2 isn't really much of a sequel. The developers never understood the world of Legaia to begin with - they didn't even use the most important part.... It doesn't have anything to do with my Legaia at all, so it's hard for me to see it as a sequel and not just a knock-off that uses the same branding." Unless it's the translator taking some liberties the dude sounds pretty bitter.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2021 01:24
|
|
|
Chapter 14 – Pirates of Darek’s Haunt As suggested by Seraphic Neoman, I decided to give the Dein side jump another go with the slowdown function. I didn’t do this before because 1: I’m not very smart, and 2: I plum forgot this was something I could do. I wasn’t sure it would work at first, but…  It made all the difference. I guess it just allowed me to overload the game with input? You could call it cheating, but I was working with a handicap to begin with. Obviously none of this reflects the reality of playing on console but as everyone says, it’s easy to cheese that too. I honestly can’t remember how I did with it years ago on PS2. Anyway, since we actually beat him, I’ll tell you about these juicy end game items I’ve been hinting at the existence of this whole time. “Heaven’s Secrets” are like these little tokens the game gives out for completing certain events, or else having enough money or finding them in certain locations. What they do is they allow to combine for end game weapons and armour. Once you combine a certain weapon or armour enough, you’ll get to the point where you need just one Heaven’s Secret to turn it into the best thing it can be. However, these are useless to us right now because you can’t get to the point where Heaven’s Secrets can be used until you get through all the other combining recipes, which I’m pretty sure all require rare, end game materials that we won’t see until, of course, we’re at the end of the game. Now, moving on, we have more side junk to see before we move on with the plot. Isn’t it fun?  We hand in those tea cakes to the guy that asked for them. This allows us to pick up our reward from the guild.  Whatever quests we complete, we must return to Sonnet in the guild to get our reward. This will sometimes involve a bonus. Anyway, now that the quest is officially completed, all our characters go back to their positions and scenes are re-enabled. We start with Darakin.  Leon: “Nice and browned on top like this is the best.”  “Sharon, what are you doing?” “It smelled so good, I just had to learn how to make it! Mm! My, that smells great! I can’t believe I’ll be able to make something this good!”This teaches Sharon the “Shrimp Au Gratin” recipe.  In the upper crust district, we see someone crying in the corner. It’s Nils, the son of the innkeeper, Sabrina. It’s hard to make out, but there’s actually a gap between the hedge line and the wall you can move through to reach him.  Nils: “Waah!!” “What’s wrong, Nils?”Nils: “Waah! *Sniff!* I followed…a strange man…*Blubber!*…and ended up here! Waaah!! Mama!!” We get to choose to either take him home, tell him how to get home, or just leave him there. Cocky Lang may be up his own rear end, but he’s not an rear end in a top hat. “Don’t worry! I’ll take you home!”Nils: “*Sniffle* Really…?” “Sure! Come on. It’s this way, Nils!”Nils: “Okay! Thanks!”  Nils: “Okay, I promise. Thanks! Here, you can have this. Some guy gave it to me.” We acquire a “Doplin Lunch”, a consumable that is in a lunchbox shaped like the Bishop himself. How disturbing. (Maybe I should warn Sabrina about strange men giving gifts to her son…?)We leave Darakin in search of more side content. It’s at this point I remember camp conversations are a thing too. Did I mention some only occur when stopping in specific areas? For instance, we get this camping in Yuno…   “You’re cold because you’re dressed like that! Put on some more layers!” “But, bundling up just doesn’t look sexy! Didn’t you know that? Aah…Atchoo!” “Really? Is that really true?” “No, Maya, it isn’t. Not at all. And even if it were, you wouldn’t want to catch cold, would you?” “Who…Who’s caught…Ah! ATCHOO! Caught a cold? Oooh…” “I guess YOU did, Sharon…” “Sharon…I have some medicine…” “Ooog…Do you? Really Maya? Thanks! You’re my savior! Thanks….HATCHOO!”We head back to Nohl.  (What’s this about…? Better drop some eaves…) “I know exactly what you mean. Waiting is tough…but…There’s also a certain joy in it, too.” “There’s joy in waiting?” “While you’re waiting, that person lives in you. It means that whoever you care about is with you all the time.” “Hmm…I don’t know if I get it.” “Well, perhaps you don’t feel that strongly about the person yet! Not that I would feel strongly…about HIM.” “Sharon, Do you…have one?. A person like that?” “Hah! Of course I do, as many as the stars! I’m a professional in the field of love.” (A professional in the field of love?!?)Solid Lang really feels the need to repeat things he hears, doesn’t he? The scene ends here. Given how Nancy’s acted so far, and how there’s only one person she knows that isn’t sitting around Nohl with her, I think you can figure out who she’s talking about. In fact, if we leave and re-enter Nohl, the game will spell it out for us.  “Do I…Do I have to sit here and just wait for you to come back, Lang? I don’t want to! Staying here alone, just worrying all the time…I’m going with you, Lang!”Nancy is in fact an optional party member. You can only unlock her by having a high affection rating and checking in on Nohl like this regularly. She starts at level 1, but she can become the strongest character in the game if you train her up. We get a choice on whether to let her come with us, and we choose to have her come along.   “Will Kazan and Maya let me go??” “That’s a good question…” “I guess it would be hard…And if I saw a monster, I could only try to run away…On second thought, I think it’s best for me to stay here.”You guys knew I was bullshitting, right? I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, there are no meaningful choices in this game. Besides, half of you have already played this game.  For some reason, they plum forgot to put any punctuation or anything else here other than “Nancy”. “It’s okay, Lang. Like Sharon said, I’ll find the joy in waiting!...so don’t make me wait too long. I’ll be here ‘til you come back.” “Yeah, of course I’ll be back, Nancy!” ”Nancy, that’s stupid. Dein would spread rumours about me if I had only lived here for a single day.”Now let us leave Nohl and its legal incest vibes behind. Kravia is our next stop.  Gipelli: “Come on now. Don’t talk like that! My wares are number one in the world! Take another look!” “Take another look? Are you trying to tell me there’s something wrong with my eyes? Why…you…!!”Gipelli: Yikes! Um…Now…calm down, there…”  Gipelli: “Do something about him for me, will you? He’s trying to ruin my business!” Gipelli actually is something of a lovely, con artist merchant. All his stuff is next to worthless on its own. I think his gimmick is that you can combine his stuff into better stuff, but I can’t remember for sure. Either way, he’s basically a crook, and we’re gonna agree with Kazan.  “He’s absolutely right!” “That’s my boy! My star pupil!” “Anytime!”Gipelli: “No! Please! Forgive me! I’ll sell better wares from now on! I’ll even sell them cheap!” “Really? I doubt it…Well, Lang, I’m not so sure he’s really mended his ways, but why don’t we give him another chance?” “It’s up to you, Master.”The scene ends here. It’s funny to think that Kazan was keen to beat down this crook but when the fate of the world was at stake, nobody ever suggested just taking the Mizel Red Sand back from Kenjiro.   This game won’t let minors drink, so we know how accepting would go. We decide to buy her something to curry favour. “Nah, nothing for me, thanks. But I’ll buy you a drink, Sharon. Order whatever you want.” “Really? OK, let’s see…I’ll have a Colondas and….a Dear Mother….And I’ll have some steak. And…” “Hey! Wait a minute! I said ‘A DRINK!’” “Come on! Don’t be such a tightwad! Let’s make this into a little party!” ”Why are you so glum? This is a drop in the ocean compared to the cash we have!” ”…you know, you’re right.”Indeed, this only costs us 10000 gold, and we have far more than that at this point, and can easily replace it with a few battles.   We dropped 10000 for Sharon, why not 30000 for Maya? “You want it, Maya? Why don’t I buy it for you?” “No, it’s okay. Really!”We get a “Diamond Ring” out of it. This is a decorative item for Maya’s house. “Try it on, Maya.” “OK.” “Hey, it looks good on you! It’s real cute, Maya.” “Thank you…Lang.”Upon re-entering Kravia…  “Grr! What a pain you are! If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll slash you!”Jon: “You’ve got the greatest voice! You’ve slashed through to my heart! Come on, hang out with me for a while!”  Naturally, we’re getting in the middle of this. “Come on, you’re bothering her. Leave her alone! You’re making a fool of yourself.”Jon: “Who the hell are you? Don’t try to weasel your way in between us!” “You’re the one that’s the weasel! Lang and I have a really SPECIAL relationship! No room for you here! Nothing can come between the two of us!”  “So…What were you saying? Something about a really SPECIAL relationship…?” “What-Lang? You WANT a ‘really special relationship’ with me?” We leave Sharon be and go check out the guild.   Well you know what Cocky Lang is saying, don’t you? “I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty good.” ”…nah, that’s bullshit, I WANT to brag! I have been kicking rear end from Mt. Gabel to Tanza, dude!” “Hmph. So you’ve got confidence in yourself, huh? Watch it, confidence is a killer.” ”Yeah, my Master keeps saying that, and I keep proving him wrong.”Speaking of Tanza, let’s go there, shall we?  “What do you think, Lang? Don’t I look different after taking a bath?”We get to choose our response. I’m going to show you one I didn’t pick before I show you my canon choice. ”Dense Lang” posted:
I choose to have Lang say she’s sexier, if only for what happens next. “Now that you mention it…Your skin’s all pink, and kinda….Sexy!” “Yay! ♪ So you can tell, Lang..! A soak in a hot spring can make a woman feel 100000 times sexier! From now on, men will…”    The game does objectify Sharon a bit, but she’s usually entertaining during these moments.  Maya’s usual hang out in Tanza is right in front of the hot springs. Remember how she judged us for riding the sheep in Nohl? Well…  If we try to enter the ladies’ bath in front of her, she suddenly runs away. We can find her elsewhere in Tanza.  I decide to joke about it. “Heh heh! You caught me!” “What in the world were you thinking?” “Aaah, I didn’t mean it…I didn’t know it was the wrong side! Ha ha…ha!” “You’re so silly, Lang.”No matter what option you pick, Maya will not genuinely realise Lang might have been trying to perv. She is an honest and innocent creature. Once we leave, Maya will go back to the bathhouse, and will never react to attempts to perv again.  We find Kazan in the hot spring. We will occasionally find party members in here. Although we won’t see the girls in here for a long time. Yes, like that. Now we’re finally done with the side content here. Let us move on with the plot. Darek’s Haunt was our destination, where the pirates hang out.   “Dareku no Kubi(?)” I’m not so sure about this one because that is clearly the Kanji for “neck” and other related meanings and I’m reasonably sure that can’t be interpreted as “haunt” in the sense of a place where people hang out or live or what have you. Maybe the intent was it related to the peninsula looking like a thin, neck like place rather than being where someone is, but I wouldn’t know. Perhaps someone else can give some Japanese context?      Guntz: “This ain’t no place for kids! Be off now! If you want to keep your head on your shoulders that is…”   Now Playing – Pirate’s Pride   “If my father were still here, he’d have cut off one of your arms I bet! Isn’t that right, Guntz?”Guntz: “Not that! Please, boss, I didn’t know! I’m sorry!”   Guntz: “You got it, bo-I mean, Captain!” The two run off. “*SIGH*” “Why do they call you boss, Sharon?” “Heh heh heh heh…Ha ha ha ha…Ahem…” “And Captain of the strongest pirate ship in the world…The Blood Hawk!”  Let me just show you what happens if we choose to burst her bubble… ”Blunt Lang” posted:
Cocky Lang chooses to humour Sharon and let her believe she’s a master actor. “It’s…It’s not that we’re not surprised…We’re still in shock….It hasn’t sunk in yet.” “Whew…It was worth it! You don’t know how hard I tried to hide it! Maybe I should become an actress…♪ Well, don’t just stand there! Come on! Let me show you the hideout!”Despite being ushered towards the hideout, we can now move freely.  This guy on the Blood Hawk would have taught us the Thunderflash Art, but we learned that back in Gale Canyon. We now head inside the hideout.  We can infer we just exposition dumped Sharon. “I’ve got to tell you though…This Avalon guy…And the Source Forge…”  ”Could have left a few parts out though. Did I really have to hear about the sexy gorilla?” ”Every last one of my exploits deserves recognition.” “He was…my father.” The game hovers over Kazan. What could it mean?  “But something happened…His first mate left, and then one by one, others started to leave too…Now the few of us that are left spend our days hiding away in this hole like rats…” “No matter what it takes…We’re going to have a fleet again and rule the open seas! In order to do that, I’ve got to do something really big! Something that’ll shock the entire world! Something…Something that will make Sharon Blade so famous that people come here begging to join us!” “Hmm…There’s no guarantee that people will thank you for helping us. All our efforts may come to naught.” “That’s true. But I’m sick and tired of hiding out here like a stinking rat! It’s times like this, I know I’m my father’s daughter. Just talking about doing something like this has my blood pumping!”  Well there’s no way I can’t show you what happens if you’re an rear end in a top hat here, can I? ”Jerk lang” posted:
Obviously, we choose to be nice and accept her help. “Thanks, Sharon. We’re going to win this fight and we’re going to do it together!” “Well, let’s not quibble! We’re going to make a big splash!” “Hmm? Did you know my father?” Well that’s believable. “That’s right! See, he knows what to say! My father was a man of the sea! And I’m a woman of the sea! All right you scoundrels! Get ready to weigh anchor! Come on now! Put some spring in your step!” Guntz: “You got it, boss!”   The scene ends and we’re free to move. We’re supposed to go outside, but we go upstairs real quick.  We can’t get inside, but surprisingly the most entertaining option is to give up. “OK. Can you at least tell me why I can’t go inside?” Jane: “Because…Um…Because it’s my sister’s room, that’s why!” (Gee, that’s a great answer…but a good question is why the heck I think I’m entitled to enter?)Anyway, we head outside.  “Just where are we off to, Lang?” “I’m pretty sure that the Pyrolith is on the Volcanic Isle.” “The Volcanic Isle? The only Volcanic Isle in these parts is…Dupon!” Dupon: “But just what are we supposed to be looking for there?”  “Um…Actually, we’re looking for the Pyrolith.” “Pyrolith…? Is that some kind of humongous ruby? I bet it’s big enough to make us all rich!”Dupon: “Captain…I hate to spoil this little party, but the ship won’t budge.” “What?! What’s wrong with it, Dupon?”Dupon: “The ThunderWind Stone is dead. Without a replacement, we’re dead in the water.” “The ThunderWind Stone?” “It’s a rock that moves the ship. Don’t ask me how it works, but it lets us conjure up the wind whenever we need it. The Blood Hawk isn’t like other ships. We use that stone to create wind for our sails. It’s been used since my father’s heyday…I guess it finally wore out.” “So what do we do now? Can we get another one?”Dupon: “The ThunderWind Stone isn’t something you just find on the beach. It’s rarer than gold and silver…Maybe even more than diamonds. I think they used to mine them in the northeast canyon on Tanza…A place called The Thunder mine, if I’m not mistaken.” “We might just find one if we look there!” “*SIGH* That’s quite a detour. We might go all that way and find nothing.” “But the ship won’t work without that rock, right?” “Hmm…” “We’re not going to get anywhere with that attitude, Kazan! I thought this was urgent!?” “We should just go to the Thunder Mine!”And there’s our next objective. This is the second arbitrary search for a plot coupon in a row. Heck, they weren’t even plot relevant, we’re just getting what we need to get to the plot. This is where we shall leave things for now. Join me next time, where we brave the treacherous horrors of the blandest, most irrelevant dungeon ever.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2021 08:51
|
|
|
yay more plot coupons I mostly suggested the slowdown to shove Dein's face into the dirt. Get hosed, Dein.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2021 20:26
|
|
|
LJN92 posted:“Dareku no Kubi(?)” I’m not so sure about this one because that is clearly the Kanji for “neck” and other related meanings and I’m reasonably sure that can’t be interpreted as “haunt” in the sense of a place where people hang out or live or what have you. Maybe the intent was it related to the peninsula looking like a thin, neck like place rather than being where someone is, but I wouldn’t know. Perhaps someone else can give some Japanese context? Yeah, I'm not sure what they're trying to do here. The English subtitle for the area in the Japanese version is 'Neck of Dreak' which makes me wonder if they fumbled the transliteration for [Francis] Drake*, but it doesn't really explain the neck part either way. The Japanese guy whose video I'm looking at also thinks it's 'kubi', though it's not like he has any more context than we do. * it'd be unusual for them to stick in a reference to a real person here too, but I wouldn't rule it out
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2021 20:59
|
|
|
Chapter 15 – Dull and Grey Where last we left off, we had finally visited Darek’s Haunt, only to discover the SHOCKING secret that Sharon was leader of the pirates there! She offered to help us using her ship, the Blood Hawk, to take us to our island destination. But there’s a problem. The boat needs a special stone only found in a special place to function. Hence our destination is the Thunder Mine. But of course, first we must do side content. Darek’s Haunt itself is now a place to visit, see scenes, and do minigames.    As you can see, this is a knife throwing minigame in which we’re aiming to press the X button when the yellow bits on those two gauges are more or less in the middle. Every middle hit gives us 100 points, and two in a row gives you an extra knife (you can see we have 5 to start with) and more points. If we keep hitting the middle, we keep getting knives, and we get more and more points for every successive hit.  Hitting off centre gives you 20 points, wastes a knife and breaks any chain you’d built up thus far. You won’t get any good rewards hitting nothing but 20s. You can also get a 0 if you completely miss the wheel.  Every centre hit gives you this dramatic animation and zoom in.  Every successive centre hit will make Asteya comment. These lines are voiced. I swear the actor is doing DBZ’s Oolong. Click here to see the minigame and the voiced lines. This minigame is really quite tedious because you will find yourself sitting there, waiting for the gauges to line up perfectly, and it can take some time for an opportunity to arise. Unless you’re cheating or have good reflexes, it can be easy to miss opportunities and flub the ones you think are good. Even worse, if you want to get a reward out of this minigame that isn’t forgettable, you need a score of 50000. This is only achievable with a very long chain of good hits. Scoring more for every successive hit only gets you so far on the road to 50000. But we get there  We are rewarded with a Heaven’s Secret and the “Knife Master” nickname.  You can see the knives you threw sticking to the wheel and wall until you leave.  Bacadee here runs a restaurant like the others we’ve encountered. He will of course refuse to serve Lang a glass of grog. The only recipe Lang can’t learn here is Roast Beef. There’s not a lot of new side content to cover since we haven’t crossed our next plot hurdle, but there’s some things for me to show off.  Terao, who was in the first cut scene from when we arrived in Tanza, now has a minigame to offer us. Rice Planting. No, really.  It basically boils down to inputting the above sequence over and over, as fast as you can, in order to beat whatever NPC you have to face.  The game has a little display to help you remember what buttons to press, but it’s not all that helpful if you want to really win. You need to learn this input off by heart to do it quickly enough.  If you make a mistake, Lang falls on his rear end and you lose time. It’s basically a guaranteed way to lose. Whereas the knife game is tedious, this one is aggravating. When you first do it, you’ll be watching your rival do it faster than you, probably panic, make a bunch of mistakes, and then lose. I wasn’t even going to bother trying it, but eventually I tried my best and got the sequence down.  You get the “Rice Master” nickname for getting under a certain time, not just for beating Terao. Of course, beating Terao is not where this minigame ends. No, there is a new challenger.   PaiPai is an absolute beast at this minigame and far harder than Terao. I tried, I could not beat her. Unlike sidejumping, people generally say this one is actually hard, so less fault on my part, I guess? If you did beat her in under 15 seconds, you would get the “God of Rice” nickname and a Heaven’s Secret.  We find Kazan in the upstairs part of the hot spring inn, sitting with an NPC.     Gyne: “Huh? Why are you staring at me?”   “I have not. But there is something special about this one…I believe he may be able to actually do what Rauss only dreams of.”Gyne: “Mastering the Tenga-Ryu techniques…? If he make you feel that way, he must be quite extraordinary.” “But compared to myself at the same age…He is but a fledgling.” ”Never complain to me about overconfidence again.” Gyne: “Nazak and I survived many a battle together! I used my fists. Nazak used a sword!” Remember what Kazan said all the way back on Mt. Gabel? I always preferred to use my fists?  Gyne: “What? You don’t even know the name of your own Master?” “Relax, Gyne. I left that name behind me. Now I am called Kazan.”You probably figured it out by now, but yes, Kazan’s birth name is just his current name spelled backwards. “And…I have laid down my sword. I fight with my fists now, as you do.”Gyne: “I see…But I presume you haven’t lost your strength yet! So you use your fists now? Then let me give you some pointers! I think you can handle it.” “Gyne…”Gyne: “Even if you have left your name and past behind, our bond will never change. Here! Learn my style!” “Thanks, Gyne. You have my deepest gratitude.”We acquire the “Way of Quake” scroll which teaches Kazan the “Earthshaker” Hyper Art. In the local bar/restaurant, we find Sharon.   We’re going to “accompany her”. “Sure, sounds good!” “Okay, then! Hey! Something for Lang!...Wait. You don’t like this stuff!” ”Uh, I’ve never actually been given the stuff…” “*sigh* That’s sad. If only you liked this stuff…Lang, when you acquire the taste for it, come find me! I’ll be waiting!”We’re done with Tanza and side content for now. But before we move on with the plot, we’ve got some new campfire chats to see. Genuine Surprise “I never would’ve thought you were a pirate captain, Sharon! I was so surprised!” “Ha ha ha! I DID surprise you, didn’t I? I’m glad I hid it now!” “Hmph! What good are pirates if they can’t even get a ship to move? Hmph! Ridiculous!” “What did you say?! I dare you to say that again!” “Shar-Sharon, calm down now…!” “That’s right! We’ve just gotta get a ThunderWind Stone, and the ship’ll move, right? Let’s get to the Thunder Mine, then!”ThunderWind Stones “Just what does a ThunderWind Stone look like, anyway?” “It kind of looks like a glass ball. But deep inside, you can see sparks like electricity running through it. They used to get them in The Thunder Mine, but that was a long time ago. I don’t know about now…” “If we can’t get one there, I guess we’ll have to SWIM to Drokonia! *Sigh!*” “What are you trying to say? Are you saying this is MY fault? OK, fine! It’s MY fault, then! Hmph!” ”But Sharon, he never suggested it was your fau-“ ”EVERYTHING IS THE FAULT OF NO GOOD DIRTY STINKING PIRATES HMPH!” ”…oh…”Reflecting on Dreams (That crater in Kravia…In my dream – Was that Avalon’s…? So that was real…?) “What’s wrong, Lang?” “Um…Remember the large crater in the middle of Kravia? That hole…” “That crater was made by a Mystic. Long ago, there was something called the Mystic Hunt in Kravia…They hunted down Mystics…I mean, people with the birthmark, and they murdered them…I heard the fury of a Mystic who lost his friends is what destroyed the town. Looking at Kravia today, it’s hard to believe it really happened.” “That’s terrible…” “I can understand the townspeople mistaking them for monsters, but still…Anyway, I’m glad we don’t live in that period! I mean it!” “I knew it…It wasn’t a dream…” ”I better not mention it to the others, though, or it might make Avalon sympathetic…even memorable….”Choice of Women “Hey, Lang…Do you like older women or younger women?”  We get to choose. Given that younger women than Lang would be, you know, illegal teenagers…. “Well, let’s see…I guess I like older women better.”  “Ah, a man of taste! Great answer! It’s just like they say: ‘Like fruit, women are best when they’re ripe!’” “And what exactly happens when a woman is ripe?” “Hee hee hee! That’s a secret!” “They say that fruit is sweetest just before it starts to rot…” “You just stay out of this! You’re not adding anything to the conversation!”Now, let us finally head to the Thunder Mine.  “Kaminari no Haikou”. The Kanji actually denote it as an abandoned mine specifically, but eh.    So, have you noticed something? Does something stand out about all these screenshots you’re seeing? No? Well that’s the point. The Thunder Mine is largely a bland, featureless nothing of dull, grey, linear paths. Now that’s not entirely fair. There are a few trees, some little puzzle things that will come up, that kind of stuff. But for a lot of your experience here, you will be staring at ugly grey walls. It’s almost impressive how they managed to come up with such a dreadful concept for a dungeon. Click here to see a completely realistic depiction of the Thunder Mine experience. Let’s take our mind of it by looking at some enemies, shall we?  Now, Cloud Eater’s may look like enemies we haven’t seen before, but we actually just missed their first incarnation. “Necroskels” could have been found in the sewers back in Darakin after the Eclipse, but we skipped that segment. They use attacks that either cause Paralysis or “Plague”, which does HP and MP damage over time. Hanged Shapes are just recycled Hanged Snails.  Helgigasi are Hilgigasi but in blue. Also note the names are a single letter apart.  Oh look, they pallet swapped the Lyps. Unfortunately for them, cooking and Sharon long since robbed them of the chance to escape us.  And more flower pallet swaps.  Could it be? An original enemy? Fiend Bulbs are Legaia 2’s answer to Final Fantasy’s Bombs. They will explode if you let them do it. Of course, by this point, we kill them far too quickly, as even when they do get to act, they take a turn to set up their suicide attack. Apparently they can also absorb AP when they hit you. Now let’s talk about the dungeon proper. Like I said, it’s largely a bland, grey place, but it does have some treasure and puzzles.  This here teaches Sharon the “Lord of Eden” Hyper Art.  To clear this dungeon, we need to collect these “Lightning Tear” items and use them to solve the central puzzle. We’re collecting items to collect an item to move on with the plot. Isn’t it fun?  The central puzzle is found here, where we have to insert the Lightning Tears into pedestals to get into the pit in the centre.  If we try to go on without inserting a Lightning Tear into a nearby pedestal, these doohickeys will block our path with lightning. It doesn’t do any damage, though. All pedestals will only unlock the two closest doohickeys, so you have to go searching in the areas you can reach for more tears. We need all pedestals adorned with Tears to proceed.  This dungeon has a single “puzzle” beyond the usual growing vines, punching boulders and moving pillars of earth. These monsters block your path to certain areas and you have to use Arrode to zap them.  You’ll encounter a small problem proceeding normally: the final limb of the dungeon that hides the last Lightning Tears you need is hidden behind the last pedestal. However, if you’ve used your Tears on two pedestals already, and that is necessary to get this far, you won’t have a Tear to put here. The solution is simple if you aren’t a stupid child (like me playing this on PS2!). We go back to the first pedestal and take the tear out of that one. Since we had to have placed a Tear in either of the nearby pedestals to get here, one of the doohickeys will still be de-electrified and we can reach the final one with a usable Tear. Then we put it in, go into the final limb, and get the two other Tears we need.  If you squint at the wall, you might make out the enemy that will ambush you when you grab the chest. You can use Arrode to kill these things before they try, but I forgot these things existed.  Until now, the game has been pallet swapping almost every enemy it has. But here, the game has decided to do something revolutionary and just re-use the exact same Jelly Melt enemy from the sewers. No upgraded stats or HP, it dies as quickly as it would have back then, and faster now that we’re magnitudes stronger. Funnily enough, there is an actual stronger pallet swap enemy called “Evil Jelly” you could find in the sewers, but I guess they felt the original Jelly Melts camouflaged with the dull grey better? Once we nab all the Tears we need, and place them in the pedestals…   Lightning strikes the doohickeys barring our path into the pit, and we can now proceed.      When I was remembering this game as I played it, I honestly struggled to remember what the boss for the Thunder Mine was. I could remember every boss fight in this game except for this rear end in a top hat. Storm Idol is the most forgettable and uninteresting boss in this game, which I suppose is fitting for the most dull, grey and uninteresting dungeon in the game. It is also fitting that we destroy Storm Idol in a single round. Unlike Bubba, Storm Idol doesn’t even get to act. Storm Idol’s attacks are pretty dull, too. They’re mostly physical attacks with gibberish names like “Branterios”, “Xeriahalt” and “Temperius”. I have no idea if these are even meant to mean anything or the devs just liked silly fantasy names. He also has an all hit lightning attack called “Ozmarakia” and a healing spell called “Gardihon”. Since Storm Idol isn’t very interesting, let me talk about a different feature of the game to entertain you.   If you watch the video I make of this, as pathetic and short as it will be, you might notice Lang and Kazan have two Hyper Arts I haven’t mentioned before. This is because certain Hyper Arts “level up” as you use them. For Lang, using Raging Fang eventually has him learn Roaring Fang, which can level up again from there. For Kazan, Fists of Rage becomes Fists of Glory, and you’ll see him use it against Storm Idol. Every character bar Maya has Hyper Arts that develop from other Hyper Arts, but we’ll get to all of those much much later. Click the image below to see the Storm Idol’s last gasp of air.   “With a rock like this, my ship will be unstoppable! There’s not a storm I can’t handle now!” “Well then, let’s go back to Darek’s Haunt and attach it to the pirate ship.” “Sounds good to me!”And that’s it. Dungeon over, we can walk out and deliver our coupon. Honestly, wouldn’t it have been simpler if they somehow merged the last two segments? Like, maybe we meet Sharon in Tanza, or we meet her when we go to Darek’s Haunt and she demands we help get a ThunderWind Stone to proceed, we get one, and Bubba could ambush us in the Thunder Mine? All the important bits from the last two dungeon segments with less of the fuss and bother. It would have made the game shorter, sure, but artificial padding just detracts from the experience. Of course the best decision would be to come up with a more interesting idea than either of the last two segments, but the former could be achieved with little overall change to the game. I will end things on this note. Join me next time, where we blow off the main quest to go complete all those guild quests I’ve been neglecting.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2021 22:20
|
|
|
You know all told we didn't really spend enough time with either Sharon or Maya to get to know them that well so I don't know why they'd be in Lang's relationship strike zone.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2021 19:40
|
|
|
When men have the swagger of Cocky Lang people tend to just assume they've got at least one lady on their arms.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2021 20:10
|
|
|
The rice paddy game is legit impossible. You have to be PERFECT, and that doesn't just mean not screwing up the order, you basically have to enter a zen state to beat them
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2021 21:16
|
|
|
Chapter 16 – Questing on the side Where last we left off, we had just braved the dull terror of the Thunder Mine, slain the Storm Idol and claimed the ThunderWind Stone we needed to reach the isle of Drokonia, where the Pyrolith lies. Heading back to Darek’s Haunt and setting sail on the Blood Hawk would be a normal person’s objective. But we’re going sidequesting instead!  There are a few new quests since we last checked. This will be the trend from now on: we pass plot milestones and unlock new quests. New ones will also unlock from completing certain side quests. We take up the one about finding the Lypster.  I pointed out Fujima before. Kenjiro knockoff. Fujima: “I’m Fujima, the one that sent the quest in to the Guild. Glad to meet you! What I want is a Lypster. Got that? NOT a Lyps! A L-y-p-s-t-e-r! It’s not a living creature. It’s an item. In this business, you need something to soothe your spirit and make your calm. I hear all the Lyps get together and have a party…Oh, yeah! I just remembered! My peddler buddy gave me a good piece of information! He said the Lyps gather in the forest just beyond Gale Canyon. You might find one there!” There’s only one forest beyond Gale Canyon. He means Hunter’s Wood.   In the Woods, we find Lyps running around the same way we do. Touching them leads to an encounter. These are easy to win, because we’re even slaying the upgraded Lyps faster than these things can act. None of these normal Lyps have what we want. Where can we find the Lypster we’re after? Where do you think?  That’s right, exactly where everything happens in Hunter’s Wood! Where we fought the Gather Crab, Avalon, and saw the Eclipse start!  Now Playing – Elfin You can’t tell at a glance, but one of the Lyps running around in the Gather Crab grove is the special one we’re looking for. Touching it starts an encounter with a special Red Lyps and one regular. The Red Lyps can take a beating. I have to have all of my characters attack to bring it down in one round. But nonetheless, it goes down in one round. This does give its buddy the chance to run away, but that doesn’t matter.  Obtaining the Lypster causes all the other Lyps to despawn, meaning we just have regular random encounters to deal with on the way out. Unlike many guild quests, there’s a camp chat associated with getting the Lypster.  “Don’t sell it! We’ve got to take it with us, or we can’t complete our quest!” “Why not?! We might get more money selling it than from the Guild’s reward.” “No way! Look, this is a Quest! We’ve got to turn it over!”Now let’s do as Maya says and turn in the Lypster.  Despite claiming the Lypster isn’t a creature, it’s actually moving here. What is it, a mechanical doll? Fujima: “Than you for everything! Please take this as a small token of my appreciation. But you get your real reward money at the Guild.” He gives us a Vaccine Syringe. This is a usable item that prevents status ailments on one character for a battle. This will be very useful at certain stages of the game. Fujima: “What a great thing the Guild is! I’m happy! You’re happy! What could be better?” We return to the guild and collect our 60000. The next quest on our list is “My Daughter is Lost!” Sonnet informs us that Count Lonatello, the quest giver, is staying at the Three-Star Hotel in Darakin. Does that name sound familiar?  Yes, that’s right, this is the same room with the sewer entrance. I think you know what this means.  All the people in the hotel have something to say about Cammie’s disappearance, but it’s just stuff that makes it clear she’s gone through the sewer grate. So down we go! As far as I know, there’s no hints as to where in the sewers this Cammie has run off to, so you get the delightful task of wandering aimlessly until you find her. Yay!  Here are the Necroskels I mentioned getting pallet swapped in the Thunder Mine.  And in the corner here is an Evil Jelly, the pallet swap of the Jelly Melts we fought here before and in the Thunder Mine. Better in every way, but they decided not to use them in Thunder Mine. Around where we found Kazan’s Hyper Art scroll, we find Cammie.    I assume she’s doing her own dramatic narration here. Cammy: “This is like a bad play! Stick around for act two!...Assuming I make it out of here. Since I’m already in character, let’s try a cute, girlish scream…”  Cammy: “Goodness! I can do better than that!”     Unlike everything I’ve faced to date, these Warmongers are actually a threat. To start with, their ambushing us gives them a free shot at us. Furthermore, due to sucking at remembering which of my keys aligns with which PS2 button, their Hate Force attacks often do upwards of 2000 damage, which is most of our character’s health right now.  This attack causes the Spellbound status, preventing us from using Arts. Arts have long since replaced Origins as our greatest damage dealer, so this is a huge hindrance. Of course, struggle as I might, I come out on top. This ends up being more endurance match than actual problem.    Yes, this is basically the same fight, but with no ambush, despite them attacking from behind. We dispatch them somewhat easier this time.  Cammy: “Hmm…Not quite what I wanted on my headstone, but…” “Cammy…? Did you try to smoke the glowing moss?”Cammy: “Huh? How did you know my name?” “That’s easy to explain…we were…"There’s a cut where Lang presumably explains being hired by the guild. Cammy: “I get it. You were hired by the Guild. You’re a sight for sore eyes. I could just kiss you!”  Cammy: “I can’t wait to get home and take a bath! I must reek of the sewers! You don’t mind if I leave before you, right? Thanks!” ”I mean you could easily get killed by-“ “…and she’s gone…”We go back to Cammy’s father.   Cammy’s just fine, so we head back to the guild.  We get a “Lion Heart” in addition to the 80K cash reward.  It’s armour for Sharon. Since, you know, her outfit is just a bra and pantaloons? The weird part here is Lonatello had this and, what, figured Sharon needed a new bra? Hopefully this wasn’t his daughters… The next quest to take up is “The Golden Giant”. This directs us to go kill the eponymous Golden Giant in Gale Canyon.    Unlike the Warmongers, Gorgoneon here isn’t very tough. He has a lot of HP, but his attacks are all bland and don’t hit us hard enough to make us worry.  I told you these two would show up in guild quests, remember?    “Stop that, Balzac. Can’t you see he’s scared?” ”Scared!? ME!? Those are fighting words! Draw, bitch!” “But me want scare boy. Boy kill my monster.” “Enough already!”   “Stow it, Balzac. Come on, Balzac, let’s get going. Ta-ta, Lang.” ”But did you hear that guys? My reputation precedes me!” ”OVERCONFI-“ ”Stow it, Master.” ”Why doesn’t my reputation precede me!? I’m the great, undefeated Sharon!” ”Can we please just go?”We make our way back to the guild.  We get the “Gaia Blade” on top of our money. As mentioned, this is an earth based weapon. This will vacillate in usefulness based on when an enemy is weak or immune to earth. The last quest we have to do at this juncture is “Mysterious Contagion”. This has us go to Yuno to inquire about a disease that has cropped up there.  That guy dying on the bed is Simba, Kazan’s old student who he got drunk with when we first came here. Suda: “It’s the Apolu Fever that hit us several years ago. The old nightmare has returned to our village…We need Gunang Weed to make a medicine for the disease. When this plague last attacked our village, a doctor by the name of Hugo had the herb…” Hugo is the bloke in Tanza that buys rare monster parts from us. He is also a medical doctor. So we gotta go talk to him to find out about the Gunang Weed. By the way, you think Maya and/or Kazan have anything to say about Simba dying and Yuno being in peril?  Nope! Camp chatting just gets us generic dialogue to remind us about going to Drokonia. Now let’s go to Tanza.  “Are you Hugo? Listen…”Hugp: “I see…What?! Apolu Fever? That’s terrible! I want to make the medicine right away, but…” “What is it?”Hugo: “Gunang Weed is such a rare herb. I don’t have any with me. It might be in bloom now. You can find Gunang Weed in The Forest Maze…It only grows near water.” Now our destination is the Forest Maze.  Oh look, it’s these two lunkheads again. “It’s no time for making excuses! And it’s your own fault for dropping the Mizel Red Sand that we bought from the peddler!” “You rush me! Baaaaa! Balzac need food! Badly! No more walk!”We could just walk past them and carry on, but…  I’m gonna show you the jerk option. ”Jerk Lang” posted:But we decide not to be a jerk canonically.    “Stop hogging it! Gimme some of that!...Oh!!!! I’m not really hungry. I was just joking!!” ”Your acting is about as convincing as Sharon’s.” ”But she isn’t convincing at all!”That’s it for the lunkheads. Now we find the Gunang Weed.  There it is, the wee plant next to the water/rocks. We pick it up and head on out. You can interact with the wee waterfall here to recover HP and MP too. Not all of it, though. But as long as you have camping supplies, you can just rest at the camping spot for full recover instead.  Funnily enough, it’s not Hugo that needs to prepare the weed. Suda can do that instead.  The lunkheads have managed to get through to Yuno too. If you went to Tanza, you’d actually see them standing in their usual spot, and then would find them here, as if they got into and out of the Forest Maze at record speed.   Suda: “Simba! Drink this! It’s medicine, brought by Lang!” Simba: “Unnngh…I need to drink this? G-g-gulp.” Suda: “It may not take effect immediately, but the fever will break by tomorrow.” Simba: “I-Is that so…? Thanks, Lang…Forgive me, but let me sleep now…” Yes, this whole sequence played out with no visuals. I guess they needed to save the animation budget for Balzac’s meat craze?  We are now free to leave.  Simba’s son gives us this if we talk to him. It’s a decorative item for the house.  And with that, we have completed all available quests at this point in time. More will unlock after certain events, like clearing Drokonia.  At first I thought he was reacting to us being a creepy peeper, but no, he’s just using the latest nickname to be acquired. Naturally, Cocky Lang is owning his reputation. “That’s me. What’s the matter? Hard to believe?”Stekin: *gasp!* Wow! You must be stronger than you look! You gave me quite a start!”  Stekin will keep using your latest nickname when you talk to him here. Now, let’s go see some non-guild side quests, shall we? As I mentioned before, that Kafil bloke sitting in jail here in Kravia is the subject of a side quest. To start it, you need to grab a note from a table in Doplin Castle’s dungeon.  Rosemary and Karen are a pair of NPCs living in the Darakin slums. Now that we’ve read the letter, we can go talk to them about it.  When they mention Kafil in their conversation, Lang will bring him up.  The pair are overjoyed at the news. In any other case, you might think this was the end of it, but we know where Kafil is, don’t we?  Now that we know who he is, we can help get him out.  The guard offers to let Kafil out for a bribe. 100000 is pretty steep, more than most of the current guild quest awards. This is why it’s better to do later when you’re flush with cash.  The guard releases Kafil in inky blackness. Legaia 2 once again displays its lack of budget.  Finding Kafil in Darakin nets us the “Last Dragon” sword as a reward. However, it’s not as good as the Gaia Blade we got from the guild. But hey, at least we’re done, right? Here’s another random thing we can experience right now.  After having passed through Kravia, checking this grave will trigger a small event. As you can see, Kazan walks to this grave as part of his little Yuno routine, so if you follow him around, you’ll find it. It’s tucked to the right of Yuno’s entrance, so it’s very easy to miss. After having checked it out, a new camp chat will occur, but only when camped outside Yuno specifically. “Hey Lang. Know what? The grave at the entrance to Yuno…isn’t normal.” “Why?” “Somebody died there long ago. And everybody saw a spirit wandering around there…So the mayor built a grave there. The ghost hasn’t been seen since.” “I see…” “But…I head this from Rona. There was a man with dirty clothes wandering around there the other night. Do you remember the grave being a bit tilted?” “Hey! Stop it! Or I won’t be able to sleep tonight!” “The other night? Do you mean the night we came to Yuno? I wasn’t going to say anything, but I visited Maya’s family grave in the middle of the night.” “Whew! That’s it! It must have been you, Kazan! Yep! That’s gotta be it!” (So…Why is the grave tilted, then?)Now, if we go to Kravia and camp chat… “Hey Lang. Have you heard? ….The rumor that the second floor of the bar in Kravia is haunted?” “What? By a ghost?” “They said someone went upstairs to check on a noise. But…nobody was there! Just a cup filled with warm coffee, and some food on a plate…” “Didn’t somebody just run off without paying?” “No way! It has to be a ghost! Nobody saw anyone go in! What’s more, the bartender swears nobody was there! Lang, let’s check it out!”We get to choose. Yes, no, or ask Sharon along. We’ll ask Sharon. “Sounds interesting. Can I ask Sharon to join us, too?” “I’ll pass. I just can’t stand ghosts, spirits, or…well, anything that sounds scary!” “So there’s things out there that scare even Sharon…All right…I’ll go.” “Great! Thanks! I’ll wait for you in front of the bar. It’s decided, then!” Entering Kravia gives us this little scene. We have to manually go find Maya in town.  Talking to her here initiates the scene.  Other Mysterious Voice: “All that fighting we did…All gone to waste…!”  “And I don’t think anybody went downstairs…” “Yikes! You scared me!”Belisia: “Years ago, they hunted down all of the Mystics in this town. My husband is just a regular human, but he fought alongside the Mystics. But then he never came home. I can still hear my husband’s voice here, though…his voice from that time long ago…I believe my husband’s going to come home someday. I know it in my heart…” Belisia: “I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear about all of this! Never mind what I just said. Now then! Let’s go downstairs.” We are then teleported downstairs.   There’s nothing more to do or say here. But if we exit and do a camp chat… “What’s wrong with you two? Why are you so quiet? Ah, I know! You went to the bar in Kravia to find a ghost, right? There’s no such thing as ghosts! You’re disappointed because you didn’t find one, aren’t you?” ”How the gently caress do you think ghosts can’t be real when we’re all Mystics? Anyway…” “Actually…There was one…The raging fury….of a murdered Mystic…” “Stop! Stop it! Don’t scare me, okay? I can’t take it!” “But it’s true…The workers there still see it to this day.” “Eeeek! C’mon, give me a break! Please? I’m begging you!” “The fury of Kravia, eh? Long ago, many Mystics were…” “Hey! Why do you keep torturing me? Why?! Maya! I didn’t know you liked ghost stories!” “No…I don’t really…I’m just curious.”This gives Maya the “Occult Lover” nickname. And that’s the only reward. But as I mentioned, nicknames don’t actually do anything, so we basically got nothing. I will leave things here for now. Join me next time, where we finally go to Drokonia….or do we?
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2021 22:16
|
|
|
This game really wants to be a Tales game huh
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2021 05:38
|
|
|
Chapter 17 – The Drokonia Fake Out Where we last left off, we had just completed a whole bunch of sidequests. Our objective since the chapter before last has been to deliver the ThunderWind Stone to Darek’s Haunt and get on our way to Drokonia. For once in this LP, let’s go straight to the objective.  Dupon: “Whoa! It’s huge! I’ve never seen a ThunderWind Stone this big!”  Yahn runs off to do as much. Dupon: “I’ve got to say. I didn’t think they’d actually go find one for us. I’m impressed.” ”I’m standing right in front of you, buddy.”   The Crew: “Aye aye, Captain!” The Blood Hawk begins to sail.    In a master class of intelligent thought, Kenjiro here has not only snuck into a pirate’s den, but also decided that he can somehow make a lot of money off of their venture, and is now going to jump onto their ship and somehow climb in and hide.  A short animation of the Blood Hawk sailing plays. Drokonia is of course the big island with the map marker.  Now Playing – Quiet Ruin “Kazanjima Dorukonia”. No, not like our Kazan. The translation is on point.    “I’ve never been here before. What makes you think I would know?” ”…good point.” “That’s right…Didn’t Doplin say that they were heading south to look for the Sacred Stones? These footprints could be theirs.” ”Actually that was Mr. Bumble who told us.” ”Bubba.” ”Right, right…” “Look at this! See? There’s a treasure here after all.  “    “It looks a lot like the letters we use in my village, but….I can’t read all of it…” “What does it mean? What are we supposed to do now?!” Now Playing – Already Rented    “I knew I’d make some money on this trip…I overheard you at the pirate hideout, so I snuck on board.” “You snuck on board….my ship? Well, well….We can’t have that now, can we?” “There’s only one way to deal with stowaways….And it’s not pretty…” “Sharon!” “The letters…Those letters in the magic circle…I know them! If you kill me, you’ll have no idea what it says!” “Is that so….You’d better be telling the truth…for your sake!”     This is why Sharon’s the best character: where everyone else balks at the idea of just smacking Kenjiro when he’s being an annoying and obstructive poo poo, Sharon just boots the bastard in the face. Imagine how quickly we’d have gotten the Mizel Red Sand with her around?  “When I said that I knew the letters, I meant that I know the island they come from!” “An island…?”    “I’ve done business with people there! These letters are exactly the same as the ones they use!” “What do you want to do, Lang?” “If there’s something on that island that’ll help us make progress here, we should go check it out. Kenjiro, you said that Jinga is southeast of Tanza, right?”   “Well, I don’t believe you, but Lang seems to. You’re the only one that knows the way! Back to the ship with you!” It’s hard to tell by screenshot, but Sharon here is kicking Kenjiro towards the ship.  “*GULP* I don’t have a problem, ma’am.”Kenjiro then runs off to the ship of his own volition. “Jinga, the island of ruins…He could be lying, but should we try to find it anyway, Lang?” ”Well it’s either that or stand around. Might as well go…”So yeah, once again, we’re being diverted from actually completing the plot. Woo. We are now free to leave and head to Jinga. But, we’re also free to head to any other place we feel like too.  I’ll take this moment to mention that when moving around on the map, you usually see Lang’s sprite run to the different locations. For anywhere we need a boat to get to, we see the Blood Hawk sailing. If we try to move to, say, Drokonia from Nohl, Lang will run to Darek’s Haunt and then get on the Blood Hawk. Speaking of Darek’s Haunt, let’s go there again. Now that the plot is over in regards to it, we can find our party members there.  As if we needed any more obvious hints that Kazan had something to do with these pirates.  Kenjiro is now permanently stationed on the Blood Hawk, and you can find him any time you’re in Darek’s Haunt. He sells everything, but the really useful stuff he “sells” won’t come up until later.  Trying to convince Maya that the pirates are evil just gets her mad at you. But either way, Sharon’s gang are clearly not evil, the people in Tanza said as much. There’s no reason not to agree. “Yeah, you’re right. We can’t really offer them anything, but they’re still willing to help us…” “That’s because they understand. They must know why we’re fighting…That’s why they’re helping! That’s got to be it!”Let’s see some camp chats while we’re at it. On the Sea “Lang, wasn’t the sea huge?” “Yeah. It just went on and on…like you could see right to the ends of the earth!” “The sea is unending. It goes on forever. That’s why it fills you with unending dreams. Hey, listen to me, will ya? Ha ha ha! But it really IS unending, you know. That’s because it’s all connected in a big loop!”Riding the Blood Hawk  Of course Cocky Lang enjoyed his adventure. “No doubt! Cutting through the sea breeze! Being out on the sea is great!” “Thatta boy! I knew you’d like it! I’ve got an idea. How about we start our own little pirate legend together, just you and me?” “Um…” “We could get us a bunch of henchmen. And about five pirate ships! Yeah! We could form a whole fleet!” “Ahem…” “You could be the captain, Lang! And I could be the captain’s girl. What d’ya say?” “Excuse me!!” “WHAT? What do you want?!” “We’re trying to get the Source Forge back to the way it was, remember?” “OK, already! I get it! But can’t a girl dream for a while? What do you look so mad for?!” “*Grumble, grumble….*” ”Psst, Sharon, I’m totally down for it when this is all over…” ”Thatta boy!”Silly love rivalry aside, Sharon surrendering her captaincy to some dude just ain’t right. Kenjiro  Him being an acquaintance is the most correct option. “Yeah, he’s an acquaintance of ours.” “Really? Well, listen to me, then! You better not have anything to do with a guy like that! Trust me on this one! The guy gives off the DISTINCT odor of a con man!” “What an awful thing to say! True, Kenjiro might not take a bath as often as he should…But that’s no reason…!” “Well, it’s not good to judge a book by it’s cover, but in Kenjiro’s case! If you don’t watch that guy, he’ll scam you!”Now, we could go on to Jinga from here. Or…..  Remember how the bartender in Kravia told us about this place? Once we get free reign with the Blood Hawk, we can come here before the plot compels us to.  Now Playing – Dream of Paradise “Gokurakujima Foochuun”. Exactly as translated.  Before we can enter freely, the man in charge stops us with his bunny girl cadres. Demetrius: “This is Paradise Found!!! This! Is! Phorchoon!! Pardon me, Gentlemen. Do you have any form of I.D.? This is the most exclusive of exclusive membership resorts! Yes, you are in…Phoooooorchooooooon!!!”  Oh look, it’s our Darakin-based plot coupon. Assuming that only nobility are meant to be allowed here, this will make the presence of some we meet here very strange. Demetrius: “Yes, of course. Please enjoy your time here.” We can now explore Phorchoon.  Phorchoon has a casino. It has typical games like Roulette and Slot Machines. Like any casino, you have to buy chips to play the games. We’re not going to bother playing, because there are easier ways to make all the chips you need in this game.  Here we have the in game measure by which you can see your affection values with different characters. You need 10 coins to use it, but 10 coins aren’t all that expensive, as for 100 gold per coin you only have to pay 1000, a trivial sum at this point. Which character is tells you about is randomized like this…    We haven’t been doing nearly enough to push our relationship with Maya, so of course we’re not full blown lovers here. And all the better for it, since she’s still 14. Obviously there are other characters to come up here, and they include: -Sharon -Kazan -Our 5th and final party member (who we will meet this chapter) -Nancy -Phanta -Balzac -Joe (the information guy from Darakin who wears an eyepatch) Why the game bothered to track Joe’s opinion of us is beyond me, but you’ll see him crop up if you waste a lot of coins on this psychic. To give you an idea of how we’re doing, here’s the relationships we get so far: -Sharon: Is “madly in love” with Lang. -Nancy: Is also madly in love. ”Yuck!”-Kazan: Thinks of us as a near and dear friend. -Phanta: Is developing a crush on Lang, because of course. -Balzac: Hates us, probably because we’re stealing his girl. -Joe: Also hates us, for reasons unknown to me. What does any of this matter? I think you know the answer. Now let’s get on with the side scenes.  “Oh yeah! Back at the auction house, they were having a food competition. They had a really good dish there. It’s called Wild Gratin. There’s some weird mystery meat in there. Wild beast meat. Try it once, or regret it for a lifetime! One of these days, I’ll make it for y’alls….I just know you’ll love it!”Sharon then leans the aforementioned Wild Gratin. “And? Why are you here?” “Just doing some background research on the Roulette wheel. There’s got to be some kind of contrivance, a secret to win!” “Sharon…You’ll get yourself in trouble doing that.” We move on to the Auction area. I’ll tell you about auctions in a bit, but first we have a scene and a recipe to learn.  We allay her worries. “That’s ridiculous! No need to feel that way! We probably have more money on us than these twits by now!” “…Really? You think so? Thanks, Lang…” Eating this club sandwich teaches us how to make said sandwich. Now let’s go actually auction in the auction room, shall we?    Except for one instance later on, every time you do an auction, Sharon will join to act as your bidder. She describes herself as “competing” with you at one point, but she’s more acting as your agent. Anything that’s purchased is the party’s stuff.  As you can see, Maya has technically joined us by virtue of happening to be in the same room. She does not do anything, unlike Sharon.  How auctions work in Legaia 2 is that Demetrius will present 3 items to you every session. The “Inscribed Sword” is not a weapon, but a decorative item for Maya’s house.  Before you even get to act, the NPCs will typically start throwing around a few bids. You might recognise the name Lonatello as the dad of the girl we rescued from the sewers. But when you talk to him outside an auction, he’s called “Donatello”, so I have no idea if they’re genuinely the same person or not.  Your choices are to make a bid, watch the NPCs bid some more, or just check out because you don’t want the item. We check out on the sword, but there’s a stat raising item we can get here.  It says it’s sold to Sharon, but like I said, it just goes in your inventory.  The third and final main limb of Phorchoon is the Arena. As expected, it lets you fight battles in exchange for casino chips you can turn in for prizes. It’s far simpler to just fight for chips than to rely on luck. I’d describe the arena battles, but we’re not doing them today. No, we’ll be leaving that for near the end, actually.  Yes indeed, this is the third son of the Mesai Clan, brother to the MIGHTY Balken and Raynoff the Brave. We’ll be seeing him when we finally face the challenges of the arena.  Oh look who’s here. Apparently, Bubba won’t appear at Phorchoon unless you place the Friendship Ring on Elfin’s grave. Good thing we did.  Why would we bother to say no?  “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her! That’s when I gave her that bracelet, as a token of my undying love…She looked pretty happy when she got it, if you ask me. She’s probably still wearing that thing, wherever she is now…Thanks.”So I never quite commented on Bubba’s weird relationship with Elfin. The game skirts the line of Bubba having love love for Elfin or just being very affectionate to his not-a-pet. But I think this cements the former: clearly the “Friendship Ring” was called the “Love Bracelet” in Japan, and they changed it to avoid the bestiality reference. I assume they forgot to change it here. Yeesh.  Yeah, we can face Bubba in the arena. He’ll be a lot stronger than his boss fight counterpart.  This guy would teach us a Super Art, but we learnt all of those a long time ago. Also, you might notice those two monsters in the arena. Every time to come out to the stands, you’ll see some monsters fighting. Every time there’s a different pair. If we go out and in again, we can see new scenes.   We choose to be nice and offer her a coin. “You’re in luck. How much?”  This a whole lot of coins. Naturally, I don’t have that much on me. You get to choose again, but we don’t have enough to offer even if we wanted to. “OK…Ohhh…I don’t have that much. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” “Haw, haw!! I’m kidding! I can’t believe you took me seriously! Which aristocrat should I hit up?”  And so Maya learns the “Fruity Pie” recipe. Now, with all that out of the way, let’s finally go to Jinga.   Now Playing – Roar of the Sea and Sky “Kyojin no oka Jinga”. Exactly as. There’s an entrance area prior to this place that serves no purpose. It just makes getting into Jinga slower and harder. And let me tell you, as this is a city of giants, it is very annoying to get around quickly.     We get this cut scene where this…dragon? flies overhead and roosts on a far off building. At the entrance to said building, you see someone we’re about to become very familiar with.     Trying to talk to the locals nets us either silence or strange and threatening words. Our only recourse is to go where that flying whatever went.   Elderly Giant: “Those people are different. They are…’Nature Speakers’…”  “’Nature Seakers’…?” Chief West Wind: “I believe they call you Mystics now.” “What do you mean predicted…?”Chief West Wind: “The Spirit, Reym, told me that you would come to these lands. Come with me, ‘Nature Speakers’…”  “Does not our law forbid contact with those from the outside?”Chief West Wind: “Do not let that concern you now, ‘Silent Eagle’…Come, there is much to tell and little time.”    ”Awwwkwaaaaaard…..”Now Playing – Wind, Tree and Water   Chief West Wind: “Something…That only I would be able to answer. Correct?” “Yes! We’re trying to get further into Volcanic Isle, but we’re stuck! There’s this place with letters carved into the ground and some kind of jewel in the center.”Chief West Wind: “You speak of the Earth Crest. You must sit on it.” I think he meant he wanted us to sit down, given…  “How do you know about the Kabel?”Chief West Wind: “I have watched the world for many, many years now. Their legends have not passed yet from this island. The Kabel were a people that sought to control the world…Through magic.” “Control the world through magic?”   I think Legaia 2 realised that it would have to have Maya make something of her Kabel heritage here, and realised that would be too interesting and left it out.  Chief West Wind: “And what they craved…Was power. With each new power they acquired, they lost a bit of their humanity…By the time they controlled nature…even life and death itself…They believed themselves all-powerful…But the Kabel were destroyed…” “How?”Chief West Wind: “The Kabel were destroyed by humans. Their arrogance proved to be their downfall. The Kabel were overconfident in their powers. They started to believe that they were not human, but gods. At least, that was their claim. The rest of humanity feared their control. They wanted to save the world and it compelled them to action. The ability to survive, enjoyed by all humanity, had been weakened in the Kabel due to their dependence on magic. So when the wars began, the Kabel were indeed powerful, but were lacking something. Humanity prevailed in the end.  Chief West Wind: “Our one tribal law is as old as that legend.” “We can have nothing to do with the outside world. That is our law. From our perspective, the outside world is full of heathens. Getting involved would make us impure as well.” ”What about Kenjiro? He’s the most impure prick out there!”Chief West Wind: “Well yes, but one has to have an avenue of trade.”  Chief West Wind: “But I am the only one left that is able to communicate now.” Chief West Wind: “’Nature Speakers’…The Spirit told me that you would come here and why. If the legends of my ancestors are true, you are searching for the Altar of Fire on the Volcanic Isle. However…You will never reach it…Unless you can go through the Earth Crest.”  “What’s this?”Chief West Wind: “This…Is the Blue Sky Shard. With this…The Earth Crest should lead you to the Altar of Fire.”    Chief West Wind: “The ‘End’ is quickly approaching. We can no longer sit by idly and watch. The time to act has come. Our tribe lives on this world too. We are part of this world, ‘Silent Eagle’. You, the most noble and strongest of our warriors, are the only one fit to complete this task.”  As expected, nothing you say matters. Silent Eagle is joining whether you like it or not. May as well be polite. “We’d be happy to have him! Are you willing to fight with us?” “I cannot. I will follow the orders of ‘Chief West Wind’, but I will not follow you.”Chief West Wind: “You must help each other. ‘Silent Eagle’, you are hereby exempt from the law until your task is complete.” “But…”Chief West Wind: “Listen to me, ‘Silent Eagle’. The law applies only to the living. If the world is destroyed, there will be no living and the law will be useless.”     So Lang canonically pulls this name out of his rear end and applies it to this stranger. Huh. “Fine.”Chief West Wind: “’Nature Speakers’…We have many valuable items that can only be found here. Some…may prove useful in your journey. However, we have no use for money from the outside. If you have something of equal value, you may be able to trade.” As the Chief says, Jinga runs on a barter economy, and you can get great items here, but only in exchange for equally rare stuff. I’d go into more detail, but I think it’s best I leave things here for now. Join me next time, where we learn more about Sile-I mean, Ayne, and finally, FINALLY experience Drokonia for real.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 09:57
|
|
|
Haaaa I totally forgot this beat in Ayne's character of "I don't like any of you, don't call me by my true name". Then again I had misremembered him joining during the Thunder Mines, not there being two separate road blocks between us and the volcano so.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 12:26
|
|
|
In awe at the size of this lad Absolute unit
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 12:58
|
|
|
...I completely forgot Ayne exists.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 13:42
|
|
|
Cyflan posted:...I completely forgot Ayne exists. I didn't, because I remembered steadfastly never using him in battle at any point through the entire game, his first impression on me was that bad. Why on earth would I ditch Best Character In The Game Sharon for this surly meathead?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 16:15
|
|
|
Sharon made a lot of life decisions in that skit goddamn. also gently caress me ANOTHER detour??
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2021 17:36
|
|
|
Seraphic Neoman posted:This game really wants to be a Tales game huh This nails it. I love the original Legend of Legaia. The differences between that game and this one are really jarring. It makes sense the guy who worked on the original sounds bitter, because it was a solid story with a tight focus on its characters and priorities. Legaia 2 feels like it took the systems, music, and designs from the first one and then pumped it full of anime bullshit. I've owned this game and beaten it at some point, but there's a lot of it I don't remember at all or specifically purged from my brain (not looking at you, weird midboss duo with panty shots). Sharon rules. I ended up using Maya a lot somehow and Ayne maybe once or twice? There's so much going on at any given point in time that none of it has time to resonate.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2021 07:18
|
|
|
I can't remember how far I got in this game and I remember absolutely nothing about the plot or any of the locations we visited, but I remembered Sharon and the second I saw Ayne in the screenshots I remembered him. But I don't remember ever using him in a fight.Rigged Death Trap posted:
Apparently he's 8'8" so yeah he's a pretty huge dude all around.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2021 08:15
|
|
|
They're not kidding when they call him a 'giant'. Also, considering when you get to the casino, Sharon's love reading comes back as 'madly in love', I'm pretty sure that skit was her proposing to Lang. Still kinda not great that it's written that she's willing to hand over command to him instead of making him co-captain or first mate or something similar though.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2021 10:40
|
|
|
Chapter 18 – Only A Sibling Elegy Where we last left off, we were sent on yet another diversion to get a plot coupon from Jinga that would let us actually go to Drokonia properly. We also picked up Sile-I mean, Ayne, our 5th party member, one of the giants of Jinga. We are now finally set to go to Drokonia and get our hands on the sacred stone we’ve been seeking 7 chapters ago. ….but you know what we must do first. First, let’s talk about Jinga.   As mentioned by Chief West Wind last update, Jinga runs on a barter economy and you have to trade items to get items. It’s all very much worth it, of course, because the stuff you get in Jinga is some of the best in the game. From Summer Sunlight here, you can get “Monster Meat”, which is the rarest ingredient needed to make the Atomic Heat dish. As I’ve mentioned, Atomic Heat is the absolute best cooking recipe in the game that can let you trivialise even the worst parts of the game. The kicker is we need items that won’t be found until the final dungeon to trade for it. Jinga is also home to this game’s most simple and profitable money cheat. We’ve discussed some of those in thread already, but Jinga’s one is easy to pull off and makes a lot of money at a time money starts being more useful. However, we can’t do that either yet because the necessary item is held in a secret shop we won’t see until later. Jinga itself is not actually home to a lot of content, and thankfully so because it’s stupid large and hard to navigate. But we will return later for this and that. For now, we shall leave Jinga and seek content elsewhere. I’ll show off some camp chats first. Good Fortune (This takes place if you camp on Phorchoon, naturally) “What a great place! Gorgeous! Full of life! The perfect place for a girl like me!” “We’re not here to have a good time, you know. You DO know that, don’t you?” “Come on, don’t be so stuffy! You’re having a pretty good time at the arena, yourself!” “What, that? That’s just…you know! To gain fighting knowledge and experience!” Cocky Lang loves having fun. “Of course! The auction! The arena! The casino! I can’t get enough!” “That’s just how I feel! Let’s stay here and have fun to our hearts content!”  Absolute Unit “Ho! Ayne…You are HUGE…!”  “That’s for sure! One of your hands is about as big as…Maya’s head!” “Um…Make sure you don’t crush it, OK…?” “Don’t worry. I’m always very careful when I sit.”…wait what? Ayne’s Mark “Anyway, Ayne. Is that mark on your shoulder the birthmark?”I think he means his Mystic mark. “It’s a tribal emblem proving I’m a warrior. It’s not the birthmark.” “Hee hee! Now I get it! You…You’re too embarrassed to talk about your Origin! Aha! Your Origin must be a squid or something!” “A ‘Squid’ Origin…? What’s that?” “A weird, wriggling creature with ten tentacles!” “There’s no such thing!”I think he’s denying that he has a squid Origin more than he’s saying there’s no such thing as a squid. “Don’t you worry! We’re all friends! You don’t have to hide your true self!” “I said there’s no such thing.” Just so it’s clear, Ayne is actually not a Mystic, and his tattoo is just that. He doesn’t have an Origin, and instead has a different ability you will see this chapter. Now that we’re done chatting, let’s take Ayne into Phorchoon, shall we?  This dialogue plays every time we talk to Ayne here, but for some reason the game will treat it like a scene every time, giving us this unique shot of the arena. But Ayne’s not the only one watching the arena.  “By the way, Lang, I tried the Seafood Pizza a while ago. Crispy baked squid and shrimp….delectable seafood goodness! I’ll cook one up for you one of these days.”And of course Kazan learns the Seafood Pizza recipe. We’re done with Phorchoon, so let’s go to, I dunno, Nohl?   Elukk: “I wanna go next. Me! Please?!” “Kids are so…innocent.”Ayne gets the “Mr. Giant” nickname. Guess he left his xenophobic douchebag attitude behind on Jinga.  Also new in Nohl is this guy, Monjiro. As you can guess, he’s related to Kenjiro, and serves as a peddler. As you can tell from his dialogue, his services are not yet available. Why they bothered having him show up before he can do anything is beyond me, but here he is. He will also give us the location of something special when he does open up. To the best of my knowledge, this is where content ends for Nohl. I never got Nancy or Galvan to say anything unique again, they just comment on Monjiro showing up until the end of the game. Let’s go somewhere with more content. Darakin, this time.  In case you’re wondering how standing pans out… ”Jerk Lang” posted:
The niceness caveat of Cocky Lang still applies to Ayne, even if he was a bit of a dick on Jinga. “Ah. You sit on it….But maybe it’d be tough for you, Ayne.” “I guess so….I’ll stay like this for now.”If we go to Darakin’s snobby clothes store…        Lang nods. “Hmm, something for Lang…Let’s see…How about this? This would look good!” “No, no. This one would look best on Lang! No question about it!” “That one’s too gaudy for Lang! He’d look awful in it!” “What do you know? That boring thing you’ve got wouldn’t bring out Lang’s charm!” “That’s not true! This one is the best one, I tell you!” “No way! I’m telling you, this one is perfect!”  We don’t even see what they’ve supposedly picked out for Lang, so it’s just a choice of favouring one character over the other or dithering to avoid offence. We’re going with Sharon, since she’s the better character in every way, and that scene is the most interesting of the three. “Huh? Me…?! Um…I like the one Sharon picked out.” “How…could you…?” Just look at Lang, being intimidated by how much Sharon revels in this victory. There’s more scenes to experience after going out and in again.   Nils: “Let’s go that way now! I want to see the castle!” “Ahh children, such fun…” Joe: “Nothing wrong with my life! I’ve always been this way, I don’t need anything, and nothing ties me down. I can’t change the way I am now…It’s too late for that.” “Ya can’t jush spend your whole like like….some kind of stray dog! There mush be some kinda better work for ya than thish!”Joe: “What kind of work is there for me? In a world like this…?” “I know! We could be pirates! Hic! Man, that’d be fun…You and me an’ our henchmen…having lots of fun every day…!” Joe: “I wonder just how serious she was about that…” ”Well she made me the same offer while sober…”Joe: “Oh, hi, Lang….Hey, this wasn’t what you think…She’s out of it, and wanted to pick a fight. There isn’t any special meaning to it…Hey, Sharon, wake up!” “*groan* Hey, where’s tha’ thing I ordered….? *snore*”We’re done with Darakin. Let’s hit up Kravia.  “What is it, Ayne?” “I need some money.” “What’s up, all of a sudden?” “In Jinga, we don’t need money. I wanted to see what it was like to actually use it.”We get a choice. Not giving him money ends things here and isn’t very interesting, so we fork up 10000 for Ayne. “OK, sure. Let’s see….Is 10000 G enough?” “I don’t really know how much that is…But thank you.”We give Ayne the money and he vanishes, presumably to go shop around. We don’t see him again until….   “I want to give this back to you.”Ayne returns our 10000. “Didn’t you go shopping?” “Yes. I looked at the stuff, and took out the money. But they said I didn’t have to pay.” You can see why Ayne would scare people, but Cocky Lang has killed bigger things than him single handedly.  “Really? That’s good!”The scene ends and we exit Kravia. Let’s head to Tanza.  We advise Ayne to just give it a try. “Haven’t you tried it, Ayne? Why don’t you try it. You’ll see why.” “Um…But…There’s people in there. I don’t feel comfortable getting naked in front of them.” “You’re worried about that? I didn’t expect that from you, Ayne. Don’t worry, I’ll be with you.” “Thanks…” “Something nice?” “A cool looking accessory! I thought it would suit you. Go on, try it on!”The screen fades to black, but nothing visibly changes about Lang. “Okay, how do I look?” “I knew it! A perfect match! By the way, the previous owner was some guy lying in the dirt. I was thinking to sell it, but then I thought it’d be perfect for you, so…”We get a choice. Rebuke her for stealing, take it with gratitude, or politely refuse. We choose to take it. “Really? Are you sure, Sharon? It looks pretty valuable.” “What?! Y-y-you really think so? Um…Hey, Lang? Can I have it back? I’ll give you something else, okay? Please?” “Huh…?”We get nothing out of this, implying Sharon took it back. Tanza is done, so we go to Darek’s Haunt.  The ship’s here to hide, so… “Because it’s a pirate ship. If it were out in the open, it would draw too much attention and that would be bad.” “Really…”Ayne gives the same one word response no matter what you say. Very uninteresting. We are finally done with all the side content, so let’s finally, finally, FINALLY go to Drokonia. Before we go in, we of course cook. Checking the camp chat at this point yields…  No point being a dick about it. “Ayne, you can cook? Sure! It sounds great! What do you cook?” (Dummy! What are you saying? Don’t tell him that!) (What’s the matter, Sharon?) (Well, just LOOK at him! Who knows what kinds of things he eats!) (Get real! You make Ayne sound like some kind of monster! He’s our friend, isn’t he?) (I’m only thinking of you! Would I give you bad advice? Now I’m telling you, you’ve gotta nip this in the bud!) “What is it, Sharon? Can’t wait to try my cooking, huh?” “*gasp* I wasn’t saying anything, Ayne!” “Don’t worry. I’ll make plenty, so you can have second helpings.” (Lang! This is all YOUR fault! You’ve gotta take responsibility and eat it all now!) (Oh calm the gently caress down, Sharon.)Now to actually genuinely really go into Drokonia.    We’re in.  “You’re joking, right?! How are we ever gonna move that?”    “Whoa…” “Hey, you’re pretty useful to have around!” “We should hurry.”As you can gather, Ayne’s shtick is he’s very very strong, and if there’s a puzzle that requires shoving things or picking up heavy poo poo, Ayne’s your man. But now that we’re in a dungeon, we should actually learn about how Ayne works as a battle character. The first time I cleared this game, I forewent Ayne in favour of keeping Kazan, both because I was comfortable with him and because Kazan has an Origin, giving him at least two distinct advantages over Ayne. Both for the sake of showing him off for this LP and because he can hit some ridiculous levels of damage output, I bench Kazan for him. Click here for an Art Exhibition. Haven’t had one of those for a while, have we? (And yes, the Spirit part is taken from an end game save because I forgot to use Spirit on Drokonia) Ayne fights with big weapons: big axes, big hammers. His main advantage is that he hits stupid hard, being able to do more damage than any other character with little extra effort. When we give him some new skills and stuff, he’ll be hitting even harder. The catch is he’s stupid slow, fitting in with his big lumbering giant shtick. Ayne will, at the very least, always act last out of any characters you have fighting, if not last out of all combatants. As I mentioned earlier, Ayne does not have an Origin, but this does not mean he doesn’t have special abilities. Ayne has “Spirit” instead, which involves calling on spirits of various types to give buffs. I’ve never been much of a buffing guy, always preferring to just keep attacking, but Ayne’s buffs are only used on him too so they’re not very useful outside of special situations. It also means he has no multi-hit attacks like Kazan gets via Deva. He’ll be serviceable, at any rate. This game will never be so difficult that one of the other characters is necessary to overcome the challenges. Now let’s talk about Drokonia.  Pallet swaps.  More pallet swaps.     And even more pallet swaps. I think there’s a single enemy that’s unique on Drokonia and we won’t see it until after a boss encounter. As for puzzles, as you might expect, it’s all about introducing Ayne and his strength, so…  You push blocks to make a path forward.  And you push these crystals to activate teleporters to move forward.  This one is optional, but it takes a bit more thought than any of the others. You just have to move those big grey blocks around so you can push the crystals onto the red squares. The game tricks you into thinking each crystal corresponds with a specific square, but the solution involves moving one of the side ones onto the middle red square first.  From there you use that crystal to manoeuvre the leftover crystal into the final slot and bam, you’re done. The treasures we get from this one are an accessory I never use and a “Life Syringe” that gives you the ability to avoid being KO’d for a turn (recovering full health if something does kill you). However, it also prevents you from acting for a turn, so it’s not as useful as it sounds. Not really worth the effort put into that puzzle, honestly.  This campsite (awkwardly camouflaged against the tan patch of ground) indicates a boss is up ahead. Who could it be?   Now Playing – Eri and Mari Oh brother. We all know what this means, don’t we? It has been a long time since these two were so much as mentioned, and longer still since they were on screen. It would be easy to forget they were even part of this game.    “We’ve heard rumours about you in every town we passed through. You’ve been busy. First you steal the Sacred Azure Stone from Bishop Doplin, now you’re after the Sacred Burning Stone! Your greed will be the death of you! I don’t think I can forgive you now!” “I really hoped that we could become friends, you and I…It’s such a shame.” “Give it up, big brother….People of our status shouldn’t befriend scum like him! He might have been a subordinate…No, a slave…No! More like a pet! Or a toy for our amusement!”    ”OH BANDERAS I CAN SEE HER WHOLE UNDERCARRIAGE!”  ”In all my years, I’ve never seen something so obscene…” ”That just ain’t right!” ”To think outsiders could be this profane…” “Ooh…My head hurts…That bold lady just said something…Something awful about us.” “Oh-ho, you’re gonna swim with the sharks for that remark!” “What? I didn’t say old lady…” “Not another word, pretty boy, not another word!” “Marienne! She’s scaring me!”   “What did you think you’d be able to do with it anyway? You’ve seen the black sun. The black sun is going to erase the filthy past and anything else we don’t like…Won’t it be wonderful?! It’ll only be a short time before our perfect world is born…” “Why don’t you just hand over the Sacred Azure Stone? Tell you what. We’ll even let you live. For the short amount of time you’ll have left on this miserable world! Ha ha ha ha ha!”We get a choice, but it’s a “pick your flavour of refusal” choice. Either don’t do it or “fight if they try to stop you”. Cocky Lang’s a fighter.    “I know, Marienne. You have them one last chance. They were just too stupid to take it.” “I grow tired of this chatter, my brother. Let’s just kill them!”    This is basically the same fight as last time, only they have a few new attacks, and we aren’t being railroaded into losing. In fact, this fight is a complete cake walk and they do basically nothing to us in terms of damage. With a single Variable Art, we shave off half the health of our target of choice. We start with Marienne.   “Marienne…” “I will not go back to living in the shadows, cowering because I am a Mystic!” “Even our own parents abandoned us!”  “…He was the first one to treat us with kindness…And for his sake as well…”  “Enough of this! No more games!” Despite Marienne’s bravado, she dies after Lang combos her.    ”Haha, oh wow, is this your mighty vengeance being wreaked upon me!?” ”S-shut up! I’ll kill you!”Annoyingly, Marienne’s corpse persists upon the battlefield, which makes it difficult to take screenshots that don’t require censorship. The fight goes on for another round, mostly to build up AP to unleash another Variable Art on Elliott.  But once we unleash, the fight is over, and the siblings go down without even having unleashed a single Hyper Art. Last time we fought the siblings, I didn’t give you a video due to too much little girl underwear. This time, you’re getting one! Heavily censored, mind you, but you’ll be able to see and appreciate the cut scenes with minimal loss. I’ve also included the ones for when you target Elliott first. Click the image below to see Elliott and Marienne literally die.    “Marienne!”  “Marienne! Don’t you die on me! It’s almost here…Our perfect little world is almost…” “My….dearest…brother…I don’t want to leave your side…” “Marienne! Marinenne! *SNIFF* Don’t…Don’t leave me alone!”     Did you perhaps think I meant “knocked out” or some other such non-consequence? No, Elliott and Marienne very much die here. And they’re never seen again….or are they?  So, uh, Lang’s Gang just kind of stood there watching the sibling’s dying moments. “I didn’t think they’d fight to the death.” “We could have reached an agreement…We could have all lived together…”Maya didn’t seem to consider she could have tried healing them as they lay there having a heartfelt moment.  “Their own family…A place to live….It might have been pride…I don’t know what, but they had something. And they fought for it with their lives! The same as you! You’re fighting for something that you’re willing to die for…It’s not your fault they’re dead. Two sides, both willing to die for their cause…Somebody had to win.” “No…I was just surprised to hear such a philosophical interpretation…” “I wasn’t trying to be philosophical…That’s just how I see it….Nothing more.” “We’re fighting to protect something…important…” “That’s right. We’re protecting something that’s even more important than our own lives, right?” “Absolutely…We can’t stop here. We can’t quit. If we do, it’ll bring sadness to a lot more people than this.” ”Should we do something about their bodies?” ”Eh, kick ‘em in the lava.” ”Kicking ‘em in the lava!” ”Wait, no!”By the way, did you notice something about the whole last segment? Something missing, maybe? No? Well I don’t blame you, because as forgettable as Ayne is, who would notice he didn’t have a single line of dialogue here? And this will be a running theme going on. But we won’t be going on just yet, as the chapter shall end here. Join me next time, where we finish the last segment of Drokonia, face down Bishop Doplin and find the Sacred Burning Stone. LJN92 fucked around with this message at 09:46 on May 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 10:29
|
|
|
Not sure if this is random or affection-based but there's some variations here, Kazan will ask if they're just working for 'that fat, corrupt bishop' and Maya will come out with 'Why?! Why must we fight?' (there's probably still no line for Ayne, though)
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 16:01
|
|
|
I never did play past the point where Kazan joins, but two of the named evil anime Nazis have gone off and died already? I'm getting a feeling this game is kinda short.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 02:14
|
|
|
I feel bad for Maya but man your competition is Sharon. And come on game, you treated these two as borderline comic relief you can't expect me to feel bad about their demise. Especially given what a pain in the rear end they were.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 02:29
|
|
|
There's a Lang portrait where a Sharon portrait should be in the Ayne cooking skit. And you can't tease me like that game! At least let me know how it turned out!Seraphic Neoman posted:I feel bad for Maya but man your competition is Sharon.  They're completely unlikeable in just about every way. That's like trying to get pathos out of a Saturday morning cartoon villain's death.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 09:28
|
|
|
Commander Keene posted:There's a Lang portrait where a Sharon portrait should be in the Ayne cooking skit. And you can't tease me like that game! At least let me know how it turned out! Good catch. Should be fixed now. But don't worry, I'm quite sure that cooking chat gets a follow up.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 09:47
|
|
|
Chapter 19 – The Death of a Moustached Bean Bag Where we last left off, we had just murdered Elliott and Marienne like they were nothing to us. Now we must continue on into the bowels of Drokonia and find the Sacred Burning Stone. For quite possibly the first time in this LP, we won’t be wasting time on side content first. We’re just gonna keep walking.  Just beyond where Elliott and Marienne died, we find Drokonia’s sole unique enemy, the Blaze Wheel. It’s a gimmick enemy that mostly serves to inflict status ailments. It can cause Petrification, which is fairly obvious in what it does, and has a “roulette” attack that causes random effects like halving MP or HP and decreasing stats. We don’t see it do any of these things, because of course, we’re killing them too quickly.  You might think these weird little lava thingies on the ground are barriers of some kind, but no. What happens is occasionally when you walk across them, there’s a chance a corona of lava will rise up and hit you, causing a bit of damage. I don’t even come close to having that happen here. Beyond these lava paths, we find another campsite. Yet another boss lurks beyond, so we cook, rest, and chat… Right and Wrong  “Hey, what’s the matter with you? You’ve been moping around and sighing for a while now! We put our lives on the line. So did they. One of us had to die in the end. Don’t tell me you think WE were in the wrong?”We get a choice. “Maybe we were”, “Nah, we were right”, and “It’s not a question of right or wrong”. Cocky Lang didn’t give a single poo poo about killing the dumbass siblings and kicking their corpses into the lava. “We weren’t in the wrong! We’re out here trying to get the world back to normal!” “Why do you look so unhappy, then?” “It’s not about who was right and who was wrong. It’s repenting for the act of taking life…But we must go on. If we can’t go on, can’t get over it, then the meaning of the victory is lost. Don’t you see that?” ”You know you weren’t this “repentive” when we killed Raynoff the Brave. In fact, you just made fun of him. What, did he rate as less of a human being than those two creeps?” ”Um, well, you see…”Kazan’s  “If she knew…If Sharon ever found out I was ‘Thunder God, Nazak,’ what would she do? I wonder if she’d hate me, thinking I left you? Listen, Alphis…Someday….I just might have to tell her…”As we’ve all figured out, Kazan used to be part of Alphis’ pirate crew. Frankly, this revelation just makes the way he acts more confusing. He was clearly good friends with Alphis, and yet acts like the pirates are some gang of evil criminals and acts like a petulant child towards Sharon on multiple occasions. What gives? Shouldn’t he know Alphis’ former crew aren’t bad guys? And why be so harsh to your old friend’s daughter? What’s Ahead “Those two were willing to go just THAT far to protect this place. We’ve gotta be careful!” “??” “That mustached bean bag…Doplin….He’s definitely up to something!” “’Mustached bean bag…?’ I have to see this guy!” “Trust me, you don’t want to see him!” ”Holy Banderas, guys, he might be ugly, but he wasn’t that interesting!”Now, let us cease conversing, and actually behold the mustached bean bag for ourselves. Now Playing – Evil Desires   That’s what Slogar was before he got the Kabel makeover. Doplin also calls this thing Slogar, so I assume it’s a type of monster.   “Elliott and Marienne…What happened to them?!” “We defeated them!”  To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Doplin is a 2 dimensional evil villain. “Oh well. They were just strays anyway…At least they slowed you down for a little while.” “You…You bastard! How can you say that?!” “How awful…They thought of you as their real father…They died fighting for you!” “Ho ho ho ho ho! They thought we were a family?! Oh, that is rich! Ho ho ho ho ho! I found those two after their own parents had dumped them in the woods. Since when are strays part of the family? Ho ho ho ho ho! I can’t stop laughing! What does that make stray dogs and cats?! Ho ho ho ho ho!”   “Every person has the capacity to be dishonest and mean…But I’ve never met anyone as rotten to the core…This is not a man, he’s garbage.” “But that’s about to change! I’m going to be more than a man! The gods have chosen me above all others! I will prove it! See for yourself! The power of the gods!”          “There are no limits to the secret Kabel techniques! Witness the ultimate living creature! It transcends all others! And the one that controls it’s every move is….Ho ho ho ho!”  “What?! You’re not going to stay and watch? You’re missing a great show! See the power of the ultimate being, Slogar!” “Eh, do what you want. But I’m staying to watch! I’ve wanted this bunch dead for a long time! Ho ho ho ho ho!” Show them, Slogar! Show them your awesome power!”  And she’s gone.  And now we fight “Slogar”. Way back in Chapter 8, I pointed out a book in the Kabel Ruins called “Val Kenus, the Primeval Fire”. Yeah, they foreshadowed this that early. For once, we don’t annihilate the boss before they can use some attacks, although in Val Kenus’ case, it’s strategically intentional on my part…   Val Kenus hits pretty hard. 2200 is over half of Ayne’s HP, and he’s got the most of all characters we have. But he only uses it twice before we kill the bastard. He’s meant to have an all hitting attack with a charging period, but he doesn’t use it. But the fight’s not over yet…      Doplin’s voice actor sounds more annoyed than worried here.   “Stop it, Slogar! Le…let go of me!” “What is the matter, your excellency?” “Isn’t that the follower of god that you’ve always wanted…?” “Tha, that’s not funny! Hurry! Help me NOW!”  “You…!!! Traitor! You have turned against Avalon and I….Uggg!” “Heh heh heh…You still don’t understand, do you?”  “Avalonnnn!! I am the High Priest! The Lord has chosen me….Arggggh!” “You are just another human. You are simply unfit for this world.” “…Ve, Velna! Dddd….Don’t do this to me…..!”  The commentary you get here is dependent on who you brought with you. ”Maya” posted:
”Kazan” posted:
That I’m aware of, Ayne doesn’t have one of these. Obviously I got Sharon with him and her, Maya spoke when I had her and Kazan, and Kazan spoke with him and Ayne. Maybe it’s an affection thing, but I had no way of prompting Ayne to comment. No matter what happens, Lang says this…   It’s a whole new battle now. Val Kenus has become “Var Zelph”.  Also here is “Var Kurtz”. I think it’s meant to be the hand Var Zelph used to melt Doplin, but why it popped off and became a boss monster, I wouldn’t know. I refrained from using Variable Arts against Val Kenus because I knew this was coming.  We immediately flatten Var Kurtz with one, preventing it from acting. It didn’t have any exciting attacks anyway, it just added to the damage you might take every round.   That’s quite a bit of damage. Fortunately, we can heal almost all of that with a single “Silver Barome”, a healing item that gives 1500 HP to every party member. Sharon’s great agility lets her put out healing items faster than most bosses can act.  Volcano Storm is just Lava Storm but it hits a bit harder.  This is the prelude to a nasty multi hit attack, giving us a clear indicator to put up our guard.   Honestly we may have done just fine tanking the hit without guarding. After this, Lang finishes off Var Zelph, ending the fight. Click the image below to see Val Kenus, Var Zelph and Var Kurtz in action.    Oh look, the Origins are out. They haven’t had screen time outside battles for a while.   And that’s Ayne’s first line of dialogue since we got here. “We still need the Aerolith…I don’t even know where to start looking…I seem to remember seeing it on the tablet. It was on a pedestal in some ruins in the clouds.” “In the clouds? Wouldn’t that mean somewhere in mid-air? How’s that possible?! There’s no way there could be ruins up there, right?!” “Not necessarily…Perhaps it is a reference to the Wind Tower?” “Wind Tower? Where’s that?” “I believe it is an island to the north of Jinga. I have head the ‘Chief of the West Winds’ talk of it.” “But even if that island is the right place, how would we get to the clouds…? Lang, I think we’d better go to Jinga again and have another talk with the Elder.” “Then it’s settled! We’re going back to Jinga!”That whole scene passed with the Origins out but they said absolutely nothing. What gives? Anyway, we’re done here, so I guess we’ll have to make our way out of Drokonia. Sure was a long, winding path leading here….  Hooray for convenient dungeon exits! Once I exit Drokonia, I decide to stop for a camp chat. Power Corrupts  “What do you mean?” “I mean, having all that power….too much power to handle, really, and ending up filled with greed and desire. I think that’s what happened to Doplin once he got a hold of the secrets of Kabel. If we’d ever used our powers like that, summoning our Origins for our own greedy desires, we might’ve ended up like him, too.” “Desires can ruin a person. But without desires, man can’t live. I guess the key to everything is moderation.” “Yeah, you’re absolutely right.”But funnily enough, Doplin had no power of his own. The secrets of Kabel came from Velna, and he only had the power to command people due to holding an office. The Awful Sound of Music “Hmm, the moon is beautiful tonight. Why don’t I sing you a song?Oooooooooo…In the eastern kingdoooooom, in a land of freeeedooooom…!” (Holy….! What an awful voice! It sounds more like shrieking than singing!) “….Lived the greatest thieeeeef….Gifted beyond belieeeeeef. No treasure he couldn’t steal!” “He stooooole the sacred scroooooll from the eastern hold, ♪ from the western mine, all the gooooold. ♪” “Sharon?!” “You…You know this song?” “My father always used to sing it when I was a kid. I just learned it naturally…But no sad stories tonight! Come on, Kazan, pour me a drink!” “What? A drink? Sure…!” “Sharon, you’ve got a lovely singing voice.” “Me? Thanks! There was a time when I thought I wanted to be a singer…Or did I wanna be a dancer…? Or maybe I wanted to be a waitress? Oh, well. It was a long time ago. I forget.”Funny that Kazan is surprised to learn Alphis’ daughter sings a song Alphis knew. I’m actually going to end the chapter here, but I want to take a moment to mention something I thought of after re-experiencing Drokonia: Elliott, Marienne, and Doplin are all completely worthless to the plot of this game. What did Elliott and Marienne do? They capture Lang in Gale Canyon, sure, but that could have easily been accomplished by any other character (Bubba was right there). They spend most of the game off screen just to die a cheap death on Drokonia. They accomplish nothing and leave no lasting impression besides how obnoxious and disgusting they are. One might say Avalon needed Doplin’s resources as Bishop, but did he? He found the Aqualith all on his own, and Doplin didn’t seem to know where the Pyrolith was (they repeatedly mention Doplin searching for sacred stones, even after Avalon had Velna put the Pyrolith back personally). I can’t think of a single thing Doplin did that advanced the plot in any way. He was just there to twirl his moustache and claim importance while other people did the work for him. You could have cut all three characters from the game and the plot would still make sense. It would be much shorter, but it would still make sense. Avalon still gets the stones on his own, the Eclipse happens, people want to stop him. Bam, you have the plot of this game. Well, that’s enough ranting for now, I think. Join me next time, where we do a little side content, complete some more guild quests, and maybe find out our next objective at the end.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2021 10:39
|
|
|
You gotta have a mustache twirler somewhere in your 00s RPG. It lets the writers give ypu someone to hate while they leave the sympathetic writing to the real villain
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2021 12:14
|
|
|
We're not exactly given a lot of info on Avalon either.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2021 17:52
|
|
|
I mean, not yet. But with how avalon is also a survivor of the mystic purges its definitely coming.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2021 18:32
|
|
|
Chapter 20 – Meander the World and the Seven Seas Where last we left off, Bishop Doplin was melted into nothing, we fought Slogar for the 3rd (and 4th?) time, and finally acquired our second sacred stone: the Pyrolith. Our task now is to go talk to Chief West Wind in Jinga to find out how to reach the “Wind Tower” Ayne mentioned. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut first! We’re going to experience the lovely lovely side content that has cropped up due to clearing Drokonia. We start in Darek’s Haunt.  We hear voices coming from Sharon’s room in the hideout. “Huh? You’re giving that to me?” “You can have all of my old stuff if you want it. I can’t wear most of it anymore.” “Really? Are you sure?” I’d say Lang shouldn’t eavesdrop, but that wouldn’t be very interesting, would it? (I’d hate to waste this chance to see what’s going on in there…) “Wow! There’s so much to choose from…All right! How about this? I really like the color…Um…” “Is this supposed to have holes here? Wouldn’t everyone be able to see your…” “Ahem! You don’t know anything, do you? That’s the point!” “But why would you want people to see your…” “Well, maybe I’ll explain some other time! You don’t want that! Here! Why don’t you try on, whoops! You don’t want this one!” “You’ve got a lot of interesting clothes, Sharon.” “I know! I see something interesting and I can’t help but buy it! That’s how I ended up with so many.”Lang accidentally makes a noise here.  Cocky Lang has balls of steel and will own up to what he was doing.  “Eavesdropping on us girls, Lang? Just what were you expecting to hear? Hmm? It’s not proper to eavesdrop on ladies. We’ve got our little secrets to keep, you know…”And the scene just kind of ends there. No consequences. Guess Sharon and Maya know better than to try and punish the mighty Cocky Lang.   We are now freely allowed in Sharon’s room, where her sister blocked us before.  She has a parrot, because she’s a pirate. You wouldn’t know it, but this parrot will be important to us later on.  ”Okay first, why do you have a problem with another ‘girl’ specifically? And second, she’s in the room right now, dumbass.”Now if we exit the Haunt and come back in…  Bacadee: “Just take any left over ingredients or whatever you’ve got lying around, spice it up with some curry, and voila! You’re done! Make sure you don’t let the curry get too runny! You don’t want to drown the pasta with it, just give it some extra flavour.” “What are you doing, Maya?” “I’m learning how to make Curry Spaghetti! It’s really easy to make!”Bacadee: “Don’t tell the rest of the crew, but I make this whenever I don’t feel much like cooking. Ha ha ha ha ha…” And of course Maya learns how to make Curry Spaghetti. I think she’s the only one that learns a dish from Bacadee here. I also remember this recipe in particular being easy to miss if you barrel on with the story. We move on to Tanza.   “What are you doing, Sharon?” “The manager’s sick, so I’m helping out! Want to try my cooking?” Zigolo: “That’s the truth! How about staying on as the full-time bar lady?” “Ha ha ha! Don’t tempt me!”Sharon gets the “Bar Lady” nickname here.  We can eat here just as usual, but now all the dishes are “Sharon Style”.   As you can see, “Sharon Style” is just supersizing the dishes.  This one is so big I’m pretty sure Lang’s standing on a stool.   Our reward for stuffing our face on Sharon’s jumbo meals is the “Glutton King” nickname. Not much of a reward since they do nothing, but Sharon’s entertaining enough to make this segment worth it.  Ayne decided to take Lang up on his offer to get in the spa together. Going in and out, we go back to the restaurant…   Here’s what happens if you “whack him”. ”Jerk Lang” posted:
Now, if we ignore him… ”Less Jerky Lang” posted:
But Cocky Lang must be nice to his party members. “Master, wake up! You’re bothering the other patrons. Come on, wake up!” “Uhmmm….What? Lang…Ordering ME? Who’s the Master…Mumble…” “I is…I can…Okay! NOW I’m READY!!!”Despite being the “look after” option, it’s almost like a negative outcome. No matter what option you pick, the scene ends like this…  Yorumi: “Man, what an annoying customer. Especially when I’m so busy around here!” So I mentioned destroying the snowman in Yuno. It will get rebuilt every time you destroy it. On the third destruction, however…  Mick here starts shadowboxing Lang.   The snowman will be rebuilt again, but from now on Lang will refuse to bust it up. Moving on to Darakin, we find Sharon in the fashion store again.  Marlee: “Oh, really?! Do you mean it? Oh, darling! My dearest sweetheart! *Kiss! Kiss!*”  “Blech! She’s sickening! There’s no reason to carry on like that, just because he’s got money!! Isn’t it disgusting, Lang?”We get a choice. We agree, because Cocky Lang hates a shcleimer too. “You said it! You can’t judge a man by the size of his wallet! That kind of thing really makes me mad!!” “Can’t judge a guy by the size of his wallet…Good one! I like that! But you’re still going to treat me to something nice every once in a while, aren’t you?” ”I got millions of gold with your name on it, Sharon.”Now let us dispense with the silly scenes and do some guild quests.  First on our list is “Winged Mountain Beasts”. Sonnet: “This is a quest from The Central Continental Union. They say that vicious, wanted monsters have escaped to Mt. Gabel. The prize for these monsters is 160000 G. The reward money is high because they’re REALLY dangerous.” The game is clearly warning us this one will be tough. We’re gonna do it anyway. Sonnet: “They’re really ferocious! But you’re still willing to accept this challenge? You must be a thrill-seeker! Or maybe it’s the money?”   Cocky Lang isn’t taking this poo poo. “Why don’t you mind your own business? I can do whatever I want. I’ve fought beasts allegedly dredged up from hell, I can take an extraordinary monster!” “Tsk, tsk. Rubbed you the wrong way, did I? And I was only trying to be nice…Well, you can do as you please. Maybe I’ll head over there and rescue you later. Don’t kick the bucket before I get there.”So as was mentioned, our destination is Mt. Gabel. Despite his promises to head over “later”…  Somehow he got here before us and took down one of the beasts. “Hah…I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I wanted to kill them all before you showed up, but….I don’t think I’ll be doing much more fighting now…”We get a choice: help, laugh, or ignore. Cocky Lang is cocky, but not a jerk.  “Hah…Forget it. That’s not going to help at all. Just keep going…There’s still one more out there. It ran off towards the summit. I managed to wound it pretty badly, so…even you should be able to beat it…Go get it.” ”Bitch I could have taken both of them alone.” ”OVERCO-“ ”You said exactly what I said after killing Raynoff, you hypocrite.”We can camp out right next to Stiel and just talk about him like he’s not there.  “He seems fine. He just asked us to leave him alone.” “He’s odd…I’ve met a lot of swordsmen in my day, but he’s the most menacing I’ve seen.” “Really? I thought he was just showing off.”Anyway, we’re bound for Mt. Gabel’s summit.  Just like with the Morg, we can see the Zahatule in the distance. It’s a bit hard to make out, though.   While they’re just pallet swaps of the big bird enemies we’ve fought thus far, it’s interesting they went to the trouble of making the Zahatules different colours from each other.  All we need to bring it down is some Hyper Arts from Sharon and a Variable Art. One round take down. So much for the mighty Zahatules. Speaking of the Morg, why don’t we pop in on his old cavern?  He has risen again. I’m not sure how quickly this happens after the fight, but presumably it’s earlier than the Zahatule fight.  We can’t fight him again or anything. I guess they just respawned him so kids would feel less bad about “killing” an innocent spirit? Making our way back down the mountain, we find Stiel…  Although it’s true Cocky Lang doesn’t need Stiel’s help, we’re gonna be nice to him.  “Hah…Don’t worry about me. The last thing I need is some rookie worrying about me. I’ve still got my pride.” We shall split the money like gentlemen. “Hm…the fair thing to do would be to split it.” “Hah…I figured you’d say that…Okay, we’ll split it. I’ll go to the Guild and pick it up.”We head back to the guild.  “….130000? Didn’t you talk to Stiel? I’m supposed to get 80000 G…”Sonnet: “The Central Continental Union wanted to reward you in addition to the 80000. They know how dangerous those monsters were! You’re certainly a true Hunter now! Do you have any kind of special nickname you go by?” ”They call me lots of things. Including, uh, Peeper….” This one is a follow up to the last Yuno quest.  “Gauraze?”Suda: “A demon from hell. Gauraze. A curse upon our world. His body is filled with venom. So long as he lives, the plague of the Apolu fever will spread…But that is just the beginning. For more horrifying things lie ahead! We must rid ourselves of him before it’s too late! You must be extra careful. His venom triggers illness! And the illness can bring death…Gauraze must be somewhere in The Forest Maze. I’m counting on you.” For all this talk, it amounts to finding a pallet swap enemy in the woods and killing it.   Gauraze isn’t all that different from any other fight with one of these two headed wolf things, but its regular attacks can cause the Plague effect, like Suda warned us. It’s also fast enough to act before Sharon, at least at this level. Gauraze has enough HP to make the fight last three rounds, even after unleashing a Variable Art on it. But it never really comes close to being a threat. Once Gauraze is dead, you don’t have to return to Suda. You just go back to the guild to collect your pay. However, Suda does reward you with the “Tempura Noodles” recipe. I don’t actually pick that up here, but I will get to it later.  We get a “Maiden’s Robe” tacked onto our cash reward. It’s armour for Maya. Would be neat if we were using her, but we aren’t. The last quest we have to do is “Find Mari”. It’s being offered by Cammy.  Yes, that Cammy. Her father had the sense to move them out of the sewer room, at least. Cammy: “Waaah! Mari is lost! We went down below together, but then I lost her…! Lost my dearest friend I still pursue beauty’s way Life is very hard This haiku expresses my present feelings for my dear friend in terrible danger!” “Okay! All right, already! I’ll look for her. What does your friend look like?”Cammy: “Mari is very fair-complexioned. But she might have gotten dirty in the sewer water. Please find her!” Yes, that’s right, we’re going back into the sewers.  Turns out Mari is a cat. What a twist.  Trying to grab Mari results in her dashing into that hole in the wall. As you can tell, we have to block it with that crate using Ayne.  Then you walk around to where Mari is now trapped and grab the cat.  Cammy: “So! Still kicking, huh? That doesn’t sound right…Ahem! ‘Oh, Mari, thank heavens you’re still alive! Oh thank you!’ That sounds better…Meow, meow! Mari!” “…Well…I guess that takes care of the quest.”Indeed, quest over. We get our reward and forget we wasted our time. Let’s finally go to Jinga, like we’re supposed to.  This guy behind Chief West Wind can give you nicknames for hitting certain milestones. I could have spoken to him earlier, but he had nothing to offer us back then.  He gives Lang this nickname for learning a specific Origin move. You’ve probably noticed I’m learning Origin moves and not showing them off much. Don’t worry, I’ll show them all off in good time.  He dishes out names for other characters too, as you can see Sharon getting a nickname here. You can also see the option to “Change nickname”, which lets you change the one that’s currently applying to a given character. This has no real function other than changing what is displayed in a handful of situations. Let’s finally talk to Chief West Wind.  Chief West Wind: “I see….You seek the altar enveloped in wind. The Aerolith….That which you seek is there. It is just as ‘Silent Eagle’ said, the Wind Tower can only mean one place…Ellsworth.” “Ellsworth…?”Chief West Wind: “Yes…Created by the Kabel as a testament to their power, it is a tower suspended in mid-air by magic.” “Suspended in mid-air? How are we supposed to get there then?”Chief West Wind: “The Kabel had a magical means of transporting themselves there, but that knowledge has been lost. There is only one method of reaching the tower now. You must use something that flies. There is no other way.” “A way to fly, huh? I guess we’ll have to ask around.”In the end, Chief West Wind couldn’t actually give us any helpful info at all. Knowing that we need to fly to a tower in the sky is hardly a revelation. Obviously now our goal is to leave and find something to fly on, but if we re-enter Jinga…  “I do not know. I only follow the orders of our chief.”  Yeesh, Ayne, tone it down with the war face. Also want to point out how awkward sex must be between a dude as huge as Ayne and this woman who, despite being a giant herself, still only barely reaches his chest. Spring Sapling: “It is true. You must promise me that you will return to me safely. Will you promise me?” “Of course! I will not die! I will come back to you and the child! You have my promise! Take good care of yourself, ‘Spring Sapling’….”Spring Sapling: “I will, dearest heart…”  She’s hugging him, if you can’t quite tell. Or maybe sort of leaning against his chest?  ”Also please stop eavesdropping on everyone you meet.” ”No deal.”Now we shall leave Jinga and head to….Yuno.  Remember Faldo? He’s the guy who considers himself Maya’s boyfriend.    Faldo: “What kind of relationship do you and Maya have, anyway? Go on, tell me!!” Choice time. We can declare Maya our girlfriend, but she’ll just deny it, despite blatantly crushing on Lang in every other scene. We go with the correct and platonic answer. “Maya is my very special….friend!” “That, That’s right! We’re fighting To save the world!”Faldo: “Uh…Well….After you save the world, you’re coming back to Yuno, right?” “This village is my home. I’ll be back. That’s a promise, Faldo!”Faldo: “I see…So you’re called Lang? Please take care of Maya…for me.” Now, as for actually finding something that flies, we could go back to Darakin and pay Joe to tell us where to find something like that. Or….  “Hmm…You’re looking for a way to fly, huh? Well, I’ve travelled all over the world, and that’s no easy task. Now if you could just get a hold of a Flying Dragon…” “A Flying Dragon…?” “That’s right. I saw one the last time I was over at that island…what’s it called….Oh, yeah, Jinga! Flying Dragons are noble creatures and bigger than any bird you’ve ever seen. They’re like the king of the skies!” “Where can I get one of those?! You’ve got to tell me!” “Well, rumor has it there’s a competition over in Phorchoon. First prize is a Flying Dragon! Oh, sweet, rich Phorchoon! Playground for the rich and famous! I’d love to get in there!”This is where you’d learn about Phorchoon, had we not already heard of it from the bartender in Kravia. “Oh, that island.” “What?! Don’t tell me that you’ve already been to Phorchoon, Lang! How did you manage that?! You’ll have to teach me how to get in there sometime, Lang. You’re just full of surprises!” ”I just picked an Emblem of Nobility out of the trash in Darakin and they let me in when I showed it off.” ”Well I’m no stranger to dumpster diving!”We finally have our next objective made clear to us: go to Phorchoon, fight in the arena, and get ourselves a Flying Dragon. But I will end this chapter here. Join me next time, where we experience the Phorchoon arena and find out about our next terrible evil villain.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2021 10:06
|
|
|
Ayne fucks. Also we're loving maximizing the use of that loving sewer hell yeah baby Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 10:21 on May 22, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2021 10:18
|
|
|
Holy crap, did they more or less kill off the comedic relief on their second appearance? At least they (arguably) didn't die a gruesome death like a certain poor secretary in the first episode...or a certain blonde in the third episode...
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2021 02:19
|
|
|
If I may make a suggestion, you should probably JPEG your images, there's a lot of them and they make the thread load slowly as PNGs. Making them jpegs with like 85-90 quality should do a lot to make the images lighter on browsers without losing too much noticeable image quality. Screenshots from 3D games look much better as jpegs than those from 2D games because the images are more complex.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2021 08:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:31 |
|
|
Gilgamesh255 posted:Holy crap, did they more or less kill off the comedic relief on their second appearance? At least they (arguably) didn't die a gruesome death like a certain poor secretary in the first episode...or a certain blonde in the third episode... What are you talking about sharons right there
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2021 10:02
|
|