Lurker > ZeldaTPLink

_stingers_ posted...

theres basically a semi-required character for every boss rush fight here...if you dont bring the person that relates to the ouroboros member in the plot you miss out on cool dialogue

You mean in this chapter? The game already required me to bring Zin and Schera. Who is required for Renne?

Thorn posted...

Grail Sphere OP. Best S-Craft in the game.

I like Walter's S-Craft too but sounds like you may have beat him before he could use it lol.

Yeah I saw the other two's s-crafts, but not Walter.

He just went down so fast since he didn't use status or other bullshit. And the wolves' attack is so puny. And I entered the battle with 3 characters on max CP. So it was kinda overkill.

I climb Carnelia tower. Not much to add, it's the same as last tower. This time enemies are weak to water and immune to fire, so Kloe has a field day. I also give Zin an item that makes his attacks all water based. The tower gets steamrolled.

I find the Mind 5, which increases Kloe's ATS even further. But it doesn't unlock any new spells, because the final water spell, Cocytus, requires 25 water, 12 wind and 4 space. That would force me to tailor Kloe's entire build just to be able to cast this spell, and right now it's better to have some Action and Cast instead, so she can cast other stuff faster. Maybe later, once I get an Evade 5, which gives me that 12 wind with a single quartz

I face the 2nd enforcer boss, Walter. Who is kind of a joke. He and his summons are very physical, but my party is just stronger overall and since he doesn't use any kind of magical bullshit like Bleublanc, I just pin him down and kill him in like 3 turns.

however, like with the dragon, beating him gameplay wise does not mean beating him story wise
ZIn and Walter engage in kung fu sprite battle. This is better action than a lot of shonen manga.

Kilika shows up, stops the fight, and hints at a prevous relationship with Walter. Meanwhile, Estelle and the others are like popcorn.gif.

The mcguffin is done mcguffining though, so Walter leaves for now

meanwhile, Non-Playable Bracers save some orphans from a pack of cyborg cougars with daggers in their mouths. That's an actual sentence.

next is Sapphirl Tower, where the boss is related to Schera, so she is coming. I pick Kevin too. The dungeon is weak to fire, so everyone gets attack quartz. This is one physical party that can also spam fire arts.

the interior of the tower is beautiful. The red from the previous tower didn't fit with the themne, but the blue in this one does

this dungeon is a straight line, with more focus on combat than exploration.

Awesome

Luciola's s-craft is impressive, but you know what else is impressive?{

Kevin's defensive s-craft

(now jokes aside, I havent been very ovewhelmed by Kevin this game. He doesn't hit very hard, either with physical or arts attacks. His scraft is strong but is well, an scraft, so its expensive. His ability to spent 65 cp to give 120 cp to the party is borderline OP, though. But hey, the timing to block Luciola just happened to be perfect here. Good job, Kevin [pats head])

I'm gonna go and assume every person who has ever played this game used Schera's s-craft to deal the last blow on Luciola. It's too satisfying

and... I have to reset because half my party has accessories that make their attacks fire elemental, and luciola's summons are immune to fire. Facepalm

won the 2nd time, now with non-counterproductive equipment

Unlike Walter, Luciola doesn't mind revealing her motivation to her old friend. However, the truth really shocks Schera. For all she was acting cool, it turns out Schera just didn't have a grasp of how evil their enemies could be. While Zin seems to be the wiser one.

Have those characters considered maybe trying to destroy the doomsday device during the fight? because this whole "we beat the bad guy, but their still completed their plan AND escaped alive" is getting old. Is Orobouros ever going to take a loss?

Estelle: We will bring Renne to the light! Eh... Josh, you don't think I'm being naive right?
Josh: nah you are basically OP at this combat therapy thing. Go get her, girl

after an obscenely long time fiddling with gear and orbments, during which I'm sure the bad guys were able to conquer the world already, we descend into Esmelas Tower. After having climbed each tower twice, either for sidequests, unrelated plots or just looting, it's weird to finally interact with the towers for whatever they are meant for. Which... I'm not sure what it is yet

However this isn't the normal towers, it's the Altered Space versions of them. A sign an RPG has gotten serious when the dungeons start getting psychodelic

this dungeon's song is very cryptic

I just realized I brought Schera, the wind magic specialist, into a dungeon where everything resists wind. I somehow failed to take that into consideration when building the party
I switch Attack 3 for Defense 4 on Schera. She is now a pure spellcaster, with focus on earth, this dungeon's weakness. Gotta love flexible magic systems

we find some computer pillar things, which gives us data but most of the letters are corrupted. I assume I have to find the pillars in all 4 towers to read the full message. It better be good

decision: so I spend my hard eared CP to kill a shining pom, or do I save it for the boss?

I spent Agate's hard earned CP (he can get more by hurting himself) and saved the rest

Estelle got 2 levels, Agate got 3, Schera got 4. Worth it.

we get to the roof, where Bleublanc awaits us

Can I finally beat an enforcer? pretty please?

Hes mad that we didnt bring Kloe. We could have had, and then I guess he would say pervert stuff to her instead. I think I made the better choice

Apparently there is reason Bleublanc would normally oppose the evil plan, but he's helping it because he's curious to see if the people if Liberl can fight back. Interesting.

Blueblanc beaten. This was a cool fight. it wasn't difficult, but I had to use a lot of different tactics to prevent it from getting difficult. Titanic Roar to beat his clones, buffs, dbuffs, s-craft spam

I kinda wonder what was the point to build a rivarly with Olivier if the later wasn't even going to be mentioned, let alone join the battle

He's not dead or captured though, so I assume there will be a rematch. Good. Those enforcers were hyped too much for all of them to go out in a single chapter that's not even the last one. Next time we'll make sure Olivier is there to beat him up

Next is Carnelia Tower, where Zin's old kung fu partner awaits. Kilika will also get involved somehow. In any case, Zin is a mandatory party member now. I pick Kloe for the 4th to balance the magic, and also cuz Schera gained like 10 levels last dungeon so I need to even things out

We unlock level 3 slots. There is no quartz for them yet in shops though, we have to find it "in the wild". I'm still not even done purchasing all lv 2 slots, I guess I'll just give lv 3 ones to characters as they need them

Kloe gets the first one, because gamefaqs tells me there's a Mind 5 in the next dungeon

colliding posted...

I always felt like the reunion was a bit unearned; like joshua essentially goes back to "normal" too quickly

You could maybe say that. But I think I get what happened to Josh here. It's not like he needed to have his traumas and psychological issues erased (they are still there). He just needed to be convinced of a point or two (that he is actually afraid and that it's fine to be protected by Estelle instead of protecting her). And it worked because Estelle has such a huge emotional sway over him, by being so close to him, she is a person whose opinion he can't help but listen to. And because she does understand him really well, too. The two are just that connected, it's been said before they often guess what the other is thinking. I think if the roles were reversed, Josh would also convince her pretty easily too. She has shown many times in FC she really values his opinion.

estelle meets the Big Bad, who is playing an opera in an organ when she enters the room. The guy knows what the most important thing for a villain to have is

https://media.tenor.com/_pwqKF9a3uMAAAAC/megamind-presentation.gif

that, along with being ridiculously good at misdirection, are Orobouros' trademarks

The professor says he will answer all of Estelle's questions then proceeds not to reveal anything actually useful. Though he gloats about how he made Josh into an assassin, which prompts Estelle to attack him. Alas, the entire Wacky Elite Henchman Crew is in the room, ready to protect their master.

He resorts to some classic emotional manipulation to get Estelle to join, but I think he'll need more than that. Estelle is too heroic to start commiting mass murder just to meet her boyfriend. Either Weissmann has an extra trick he'll playing to use, or he's grossly misunderstanding Estelle's character. Which is a common trait for villains who are too evil

Loewe actually gets her. I gotta say, other than maybe Renne he's the least evil of the bad guys so far

He reveals Josh's backstory. Which I had mostly guessed. But the politics involved were even more evil than I had imagined

Estelle does the classic hero thing and swears she will pull Josh out of the darkness anyway

But then Loewe says he intends to kill Josh personally, and I have even more questions

Time for the classic escape montage. There are dumb guards and everything.

Estelle makes it extra cool, though.

She vows to bring her man back, alive, against all odds. She should scream that lower though, that's not wise in the middle of a sneaky escape

Estelle getting mad at force fields is hilarious

I am surrounded my jaggers, who are led by a very minor antagonist from the last game. Estelle has trouble remembering him, and he's insulted

well hes acting like he leads them, cuz apparently even the jaggers think hes a nuisance

Unfortunately this is 1v5 and I'm absolutely rekt. Gonna guess this is one of those optional win fights that are only winnable if you are an rpg savant, and if you have prepared in advance, neither of which I have. Moving along

Josh to the rescue

I gotta say, this is one very specific way for the two to finally meet again that i wasn't expecting

So Loewe says he saw Josh coming. Fine. But then Josh activates some device and catches Loewe off guard. Let it be registered the first time in a game an a half ANYONE has caught Orobouros off-guard. Of course, it was Joshua, the sneaky former enforcer, and who spent a lot of time just planning this whole thing

Josh gained 3 levels between the previous scene and this one so he's still way ahead of Estelle. No matter, her rightful fury will still hurt when it connects to his face

oh how I missed those broken dual strikes

We meet Campanella. I guess even when you fool part of Orobouros, you can't fool all of them

like a good enforcer, he sends a random boss un us instead of fighting himself

this entire sequence is so ridiculously awkward it has to be done on purpose. Estelle is just dying to talk to Josh but she can't because they have to escape from a mothership first

We start being pursued, but the sky bandits show up. I gotta say, I've grown to love that trio over all this time

The action scene ends, and I'm ready to see Estelle punch/slap Josh. She doesn't, but she punches his mind. No, seriously. She psychoanalyses him so hard, so completely, it makes him cry for the first time in 10 years. She should just drop this bracer business and go be a therapist.

Also the scene is pretty sweet

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/7/6/AAO9CbAAEcvE.jpg

Estelle's typing gives her 4x advantage against edginess

Josh's plan to destroy the glorious sounds solid but I can imagine 10 different ways it would have failed. Those guys are just too freaking resourceful.

They start kissing. It gets interrupted. Danmit

and as it turns out, Estelle was only kidnapped to distract Josh, which was pulled off by setting up that empty base for us to invade. Those guys don't miss a beat. Ever.

Josh explains why their enemy is incredible, but he promises he'll never leave again. Daw

Chapter 6: "None of this mess would have happened if child therapy services existed in this setting": beaten

Meanwhile, bad guys make speeches and mcguffins are activated

Chapter 7: "Now that character stuff is done, time to advance the actual plot": begins

Next scene, people apologize to each other and stuff. Also, Kevin goes to Josh's ear and tells him if he drops Estelle again he's making a move on her next. I'm not sure how much of a credible threat that is, but it's a threat indeed.

Cassius gives the slap we have all been waiting for. Close to what I expected.

This scene is a challenge on how many exclamation points can fit the screen at the same time

That's one... random moment for Olivier to leave the party. Surely it won't be part of a future plot point

And he leaves right as we are about to fight his rival. Yeah, he's totally returning next scene

I don't remember if it's much better than Agate's AoE attack, I need to test.

Clearly we must get LMS to play TLOU so we can hear what he thinks about that series.

So, Josette does like Joshua huh. I thought she was just doing it to mess with Estelle

Joshua is still lv 72. Estelle is catching up, man. You better start leveling up or she will have enough STR to make that slap on your face hurt really hard. Tick tock.

Don't forget she has an Attack 4 quartz, and it works on unarmed combat

The sky bandits unleash heavy artillery on what is apparently an Orobouros airship. By heavy artillery, I mean, they have Joshua dock it. May Aidios have mercy for those people.

We don't get to see the cool thing Joshua is about to do. Meh.

Chapter 6: "We have visited every region twice. Now what?" begins

In a rare instance of non-protagonists being more useful than the protagonists, Kurt's team has found Orobouros's base.

the game makes me choose the whole party so whoever I didnt pick goes ahead to the lake inn. The choice it's easy, I pick whoever didn't get massive xp from the dragon (Kloe, Schera and Zin). Plus Estelle, ofc

gamefaqs teachs me a small hack where if you do to the next story location but then say you are not ready, Kevin joins your party and you can use him for quests. yay

he's very overleveled though, and I'm only gonna use him for the novelty cuz my ocd demands I use the other guys

we do a sidequest involving finding Lila's lost family. It's cute

She finds her aunt, who says she hopes she visits sometimes, although it will be expensive.

Lady, she works for the mayor aka capitalist overlord of Bose, she can go anywhere really

Mayor Maybelle and Lila are totally a couple and the game is barely hiding it

A man goes fishing without telling his wife. We tell the wife. She gives us his favorite fishing rod. That's one evil quest

I do a sidequest that I only know exists because I check the faq, involving extermination of some metal bugs. I'm rewarded with a cutscene about the jaggers. I did not expect that

the party, now with 8 people, goes over who will sleep where. Unfortunately, someone has to sleep with Olivier, and nobody is safe with him, regardless of gender. Agate draws the short stick

the characters discuss the Big Bad. I just realized one weakness to wiping people's memories is they can still remembers blanks where the memories got wiped, and if a lot of those people start talking about it, and if they also know there is a secret society who wants to rule the world... they will figure out what happened, even if they don't know who you are. So now they are on guard for our friend The Professor

there is a cute montage where the characters have fun. At one point, Zin and Agate fight. If this was a gameplay fight I don't know who would win, but it's a cutscene, where Zin is stronger than the entire population of Liberl, or something, so he wrecks Agate's shit

I mean, excluding Cassius, ofc

The characters talk about how Estelle is good at fishing. Kevin is, too. Well, you have to be if you are going to be a playable protagonist in a trails game, I suppose

Estelle now knows how to play Josh's song in the harmonica. If he doesn't return soon she will start using dual strikes in his place. Shes only 6 levels behind now.

Kevin tries to make a move on Estelle. Heh. It's not a bad idea, assuming Josh continues to screw up. Sometimes you gotta play the long game.

An unconscious Kurt appears in a boat. Sounds like he and his buddies tried to fight the bad guys, but lose because they are, well, non-playable

I swear to god if anything happened to Anelace

(It won't, though. She is invincible)

(... or is she)

Kurt's memory got wiped but Kevin just undoes it. This is the second time he cockblocks otherwise invincible Orobouros tech using church stuff. Forget Estelle and Josh, if there is any hidden counter to the bad guys, it's Kevin

That said... they still let Kurt live and sent him on a boat floating where we are

We have to form a party. Estelle is going, because she is the MC, and Kevin, because he is OP. The other two are up to choice

I pick Kloe and Zin, who are kinda low level. I also imagine Kloe would want to go there, if we meet Josh. Schera's level is lower than Zin but I pick him for physical-magical balance, plus I'm kinda liking him in battle lately

Ok pop quiz: does Orobouros know we are about to invade their base?
A) Yes.
B) Hell yes.
C) In fact, the success of they entire plan depends on us invading their base now.
D) Heck, they probably engineered history's events to make the party members be born at circustances that led us to being in this time and place to invade their base and advace their plans.

I will believe this cast can outfox Orobouros when I see it

orbment setup prepared. Kloe has 610 ATS. If this isn't enough power to incinerate those enforcers the moment they enter our sight, I don't know what it is. Or freeze, in Kloe's case.

The others just have whatever combination of attack and magic I could cramp on them. At this point, elemental distribution doesn't matter much, since everyone can cast everything. And two people can earth wall, so we are golden.

I'm assuming this is one of the "13 factories" those guys keep mentioning. It definitely is a factory

We meet Grant, who has been brainwashed. That may or may not make him a more interesting character, tbh

After Grant is wasted, Zin learns a thing named Thunder God Kick

I dunno what it is but it sounds OP

Carna rescued too

One of the doors leads to a mysterious looking orb on top of a mysterious round roof. There is zero chance this is not the key to the entire plot

thunder god kick is ridiculous

finally, we fight Anelace, who as it turns out, is not invincible at all.

We meet Josh unconscious on the floor. Ok, that I did not expect. The guy prepared for this for like half a game, and that's all he has to show for it?

Gonna bet now it's an illusion

It's Renne. Close. Wrong enforcer's trick.

I suppose you don't have to worry about Josh leaving your organization when you have the ability to mass produce Joshbots

The Joshbots go down, and we see the big bad triumviratte. Renne, Edgelord and Aizen. I guess this is where they gloat and reveal all our efforts have been for nothing

Estelle is no longer a playable character. That's when you know shit has hit the fan

The bad guys have succesfully kidnapped Estelle. Another dungeon, another uncontested Orobouros trap.

Estelle has a nightmare. Then she wakes up and is relieved as she sees Renne. Then she remembers Renne is evil and goes OH SHIT

You know a villain's base is huge when it gets an anime cinematic to show it for the first time

Renne is the lead character but she isn't controllable in battle. Nice touch.

I like TLJ but I can't defend RoS. I just can't.

I dunno, TLJ was a divisive film. I have a hard time seeing anyone who likes Other M.

I think Other M is more like Rise of Skywalker.

I have never been a huge SW fan. I'd say I care more about it now than maybe 3 years ago, but that's because Andor exists, and that's easily my favorite product in the entire franchise.

Don't really care about other content, though.

ok time to raid a dragon's lair

I spent the last 30 minutes making the perfect orbal setup so I feel great. I'm prepated to kill even Loewe if he appears in front of me

Olivier is the man of choice here, and his spell list is multiple pages long

after a lot of walking around and trying to convince an npc to help us, we enter a dungeon where the normal enemies look like bosses

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/5/AAO9CbAAEcKp.jpg

have heard this game took long to release in the rest, but wow

I was expecting to have to fight Loewe. We have to fight the dragon.

The dragon is... kind of easy? It has one attack that deals massive aoe damage, but only uses that once and then spends the rest of the battle doing nothing. The 25k hp is a lot but its defense isn't much greater than average so it goes down eventually

Tita gains 4 levels, Agate/Olivier gain 2 and Estelle gains 1. That's nice.

obviously, the thing is not really dead. That was like the first hp bar. it rampages

clearly the solution is to fight in a cutscene, not in a gameplay battle. The protagonists do that and it works. They don't kill the dragon, but destroy the thing controlling it

the dragon gameplay fight was completely pointless but the devs wanted to throw the player a bone, I suppose

the dragon decides to atone for his sin. In gold, like a good dragon

Agate decides to barter with the dragon. Lmao

Who do you think you are, Bilbo Baggins?

oh hes just making the dragon "hire" him to deliver the rest of the gold to the villages. Ok.

the dragon says Cassius once challenged him to a duel. I wish I could see that in all its sprite glory

he says more cryptic stuff and leaves, like a good npc god

we get an ominous scene where Agate, Tita, Mogran.... and Loewe, mourn at some graves. They mention Hamel, the city Joshua is apparently from. Interesting

Chapter 5: "Shen Long just gives people gold": beaten

Cool chapter. I think 3 is still my favorite in this game so far, the build up to Renne was just perfect. But this was a really cool (and bizarre) sequence.

meanwhile, Loewe complains about the hassle of having to tame a dragon as if he's complaining about having to write a boring report on a friday afternoon

He reveals Agate's rank. It's C. That's lower than Schera, and just half rank higher than where I am right now (D+). Because the in-game rankings are just plan unrealistic, tbh. Story-wise, you probably aren't supposed to advance a whole letter by beating about 5 bosses, finding 2 missing cats and solving 3 sets of phantom thief riddles

Never mind, Agate was promoted to B. I'm still catching up soon, though.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/8/AAO9CbAAEb9a.jpg

You don't make snarky remarks about the backstory of the party's edgelord if you don't want to face his wrath. Just don't.

They engage in sprite combat, and Loewe starts reading Agate's psyche. This is a problem for Agate, because having your opponent give therapy to you during an anime combat is a sign you are losing the fight.

While Agate risks his life fighting an enforcer AND a dragon, I take my time combing every inch of the previous area for treasure chests

Loewe does the classic anime thing where he breaks the protagonist's sword in half to asset dominance

Just one sprite fight scene in this game is better than any lightsaber fight of the latest star wars trilogy, give or take

...

Tita just went up a few positions in my tentative character rankings

and the army arrives, which makes Loewe leave, because as much as he has A FRIGGIN DRAGON, videogame wisdom says even dragons have limited HP, so you don't test it against a country's military might when you can save it for a time where you have tactical advantage

the dragon is called Ragnard the Ancient. That's probably a lv 22 monster in DnD, or something like that. Not something for a normal party to face.

Agate is going to win the award for Most Time Spent Recovering in a Bed amongst the party members by the time this trilogy ends

General Mogran is a pretty good chapter once he drops the arbitraty prejudice against bracers. And once you no longer need a red herring to make the real villain (Richard) less suspicious.

we get some great character development scenes involving Agate and that's just all I have to say

The queen has sent the best airship in the country, and invited the press to join, so they can show everyone the power of crown slaying a dragon. Smart political move, though I think there's zero chance that will work as intended.

Agate and Tita did not make it in time, which means they are being saved to be the good guys' ace in the hole when things get rough

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/9/AAO9CbAAEb9b.png

Capture? They are awfully cocky.

this is a cool plan, Mogran, but there is 99.99% chance Orobouros wants you to use all of your resources so they can test their own tech and advance yet another step in their evil plan. Don't those good guys ever learn?

soldiers doing the military hand gesture when estelle passes by is a nice touch

I'd say the Arseille is grossly understaffed. They did not bring in the most important airman to the crew: the Singing Helmsman.

We get some Ship vs Dragon action, and I estimate about one third of the game's animation budget went into this chapter

Huh. Cassius knows the dragon himself. Ofc.

The plan seems to work. Until it doesn't, because Orobouros predicted it and set up a trap. Another chapter, another successful trap by the bad guys.

The Arseille chases, but the dragon already knows where to go to lose it.

Fission mailed.

Time for our ace in the hole to show up. Agate knows a guy who can get us to the dragon, and Tita brings a special sword with some orbal technology that can be used to break the gospel. I'm calling it the Monado.

one of the Phantom Thief's last hints is inside the bracer's guild. The clerk is PISSED that he didn't see an enforcer sneaking in. He should be.

Amberl Tower has 25 chests. That's a lot of searching around, but it also means 25 witty jokes. Like this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/6/AAO9CbAAEb1a.jpg

Or this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/7/AAO9CbAAEb1b.jpg

Good stuff.

monster 2 eliminated. it looked strong but spent the whole fight confusing and attacking itself. Huh

Monster 3 eliminated. it also spends the fight attacking itself. The characters comment on it. Agate implies it has happened before

We return to the guild. Agate is about to explain what happened the last time the monsters acted strange, when the game decides one image is worth more than a thousand words:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/8/AAO9CbAAEb1c.jpg

I think if I kill that I'll get enough EP to become S-rank right away

Lorence, aka Loewe, aka Leonhardt (dude likes Ls), introduces himself as the Bladelord. I think I'll just call him the Edgelord.

He has a character portrait for looking behind with a smug face. This game is dedicated to its very specific character portraits

Agate, in classic Agate fashion, announces he'll try to kill the dragon alone. His position as the #1 Edgelord has been threatened, and he must fight back for it.

Agate left with my quartz and now we have to go save his ass. Danmit

the city's normal upbeat music has been replaced by a sad one. this is how you know the bad guys have gotten the upper hand

Just kidding, they've always had the upper hand.

Since the market was stomped by a friggin dragon, the mayor ordered the hotel will operate as the market for the time being. You can count on Bose's mayor to ensure capitalism never get interrupted, even by a dragon.

We go to Revennue village, where we learn the dragon breathed fire at the city's orchard and flew away. That's one way to be mean. The citizens are all depressed since their livinghood was scorched.

We get confirmation Agate's sister is dead, by reading the damn tombstone at the local graveyard. See kids, that's why you always take notes in RPGs! (I never do, not even in tabletops)

Prof Russel and Cassius discuss the mechanics of how the gospels work. I like the implication that EP is an unit of energy, since they mention it on one sentence and joules in the other. I wonder what the conversion rate from EP to joules is.

They also mention, once again, the idea of warp paths, which seems to be a recurring theme in this game. We have the seption veins in the ground, and the mysterious "trail" to the Aureole.
(it's in the sky, guys. That's the title of the game)

NPC in the airship: "Bose has been absolutely peaceful lately, it doesn't even appear in the news anymore. That's something to be happy about!"
PC: "Well, WOULDN'T IT BE A SHAME if I moved the plot of the videogame to it?"

Olivier: "tries to get Estelle into letting him teach her about sex"
Estelle: "I WILL REMIND YOU THAT I HAVE A VERY LARGE STICK"
[insert bonk meme]

Estelle almost gets him to reveal what kind of personal flashbacks he had while he was in the illusion but he manages to hold it and switch back to women stuff. I swear, we will get that character development out of you, Olivier. Just you wait.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/3/9/AAO9CbAAEbpv.jpg

Schera talks more of her backstory. Good stuff

She mentions how Estelle has the ability to attract other people to follow her. Yes, that's standard anime protagonist stuff.

Tita and Agate talk about the later's sister, and the plot continues to hint pretty hard that she's dead

And Zin talks about how Cassius is basically a savant at everything he does. While Loewe is incredibly strong, but is not quite the same thing

Agate is, this time, a mandatory character, which means he is finally getting some character development. The whole thing about letting me pick either Agate or Schera for the first 3 chapters just crippled both of them character-wise, imo. Since it made them interchangeable. Schera really enjoyed being mandatory on chapter 4, so let's see what they give to Agate.

the local shop is now selling tier 4 quartz, so I drop a bunch of it. Attack 4, Defense 4, Mind 4, Hit 4 and Action 4, all distributed among my party. The current party is Estelle, Agate, Kloe and Zin.

I build Estelle for Aero Storm and back-up healing, as well as Blue Ascension and Cyclone Napalm. Who says I can't optimize Estelle for both melee and magic? Not anybody in stick hitting range, I tell you.

And Kloe for healing, time magic (Clock Down/Clock up Ex/White Gehenna), and Earth magic (both Titanic Roar and Earth Wall, as well as stuff like La Crest). I'm pretty sure that titanic roar is going to break the geneva conventions when used by Kloe and her 500+ ATS. She also unlocks Athelas, which revives a single party member with all HP. I'm not even sure if I need it, but getting healing arts that the party doesn't need is Kloe's speciality.

And Agate/Zin just get the standard combination of attack, action, hit and move, in tiers 2/3/4 depending on what I could save for them. Not being the party's source of arts means you are low priority for certain quartz

The ongoing plot with the noble girl and her maid from the academy finally turns into an actual sidequest, where the girl tries to escape an arranged wedding. the entire party immediately takes her side, because adventurers are more progressive I guess. But the girl ran alone into a road full of monsters and/or a dragon, so we gotta drag her back to town

The damage scale of this game is just hilarious now. Kloe is casually dealing 3k damage with aqua bleed while the rest of the party struggles to do that with s-crafts. All because of some boots and armor.

I'm changing the Buzzer to Estelle to reduce the difference a little. But nothing can be done to make the physical characters not bad in comparison. Except make more Attack 4s, I guess

I beat the first monster I have to exterminate. It doesn't attack me the entire fight, because it "seems scared of something". Huh.

(it's afraid of the dragon isn't it)

We learn the issue with the arranged marriage is less about the marriage and more of the fact the maid is a jerk for setting it up in secret. This is getting spicy

Maid: "It doesn't matter if she hates me, my job is to be hated". That's some pretty bad customer service you do, girl.

I go report the monster I just killed and the guild doesn't take it. This is weird.

For the record it's a minor issue, otherwise I wouldn't be singing praises to this game this whole playthrough. But it keeps coming up and I felt like this sidequest was a good time to talk about it.

Where I live (Brazil) alcohol is also culturally accepted too much in my opinion, maybe not as much as Japan (we do have the prudes in the other end who think it should be banned). If you are in college you are expected to drink so much you remember nothing next day. I went to parties in college where next day we would check the news to see how many people had died of overdose, or from drowing in some pool after drinking. I look back and think "why the hell did we think that was normal". And I'm making this rant because I think media should have a responsibility of portraying binge drinking as a problem, not as something fun.

But I won't keep talking about this too much because I imagine most of you didn't come here to talk about RL issues. Thanks for bearing with me, normal programming is returning.

we meet a guy who wants to make a potion that will make him immunte to the effects of alcohol

Schera: "That's an insult to responsible drinkers!"

Agate: "Responsible my ass, Schera"

YR: another quest about recovering an item stolen by the Phantom Thief

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AAO9CbAAEbkY.jpg

We complete the quest about finding a fish for the anti-booze potion, but now we have to watch as the client tries to use it for a date with Aina

And I love how Olivier finds himself into the scene even if he is not a party member, and the party members are like "how the fuck did he appear here, he's not supposed to be in the party now". This game does a great job with writing multiple versions of the dialogue depending on who is with you. I imagine if Olivier is in the party he just asks to join the table with the other group, or something like that.

We get an amusing scene where the client and Olivier challenge Aina to a drinking contest, but still come short

... alright, rant time.

I hate the way this game portrays alcohol.

Look, I'm not a prude. I drink rather often myself. But I impose limits to myself, because alcohol is addicting. And the way this game deals with it goes along how real life deals with it, which is unhealthy as fuck. A part of society tries to completely ban it (which is unnecessary and impossible), but another part goes the opposite way, by acting like getting drunk until you fall unconscious is normal, or that alcoholism isn't a horrible disease. The fact Schera and Aina can drink insane amounts of booze without getting drunk is not a virtue, it just means they are alcoholics. Aina being able to drink multiple bottles of the strongest liquor in the store without feeling anything is just a sign she's not far from having liver failure. It's not a thing to be treated as a childish joke, people die and families get broken up because of it in real life. And the fact they keep trying to drag other members of the cast into it, and the game plays it for laughs, is rather offputting. There was even a scene at the start of the first game where Schera tried to get Joshua to drink, and he is a minor. That never happened again, but it didn't get much better than that either.

Maybe it's a time thing, and this was ok in like 2006, but at this point I've had enough exposure to the concept of alcoholism as a disease, both in real life and fictional media, to not enjoy those jokes that much. I mean, joking about a character being drunk here and there is one thing, but here it's just too much. And it's the reason Schera can't break to the top half of my character rankings.

so yeah, fun little sidequest, but while one part of my brain was going "lol", the other party was like "this is SO wrong"

The priest makes a note that drinking too much is bad, but it's basically a footnote to a running gag that has run too far

Me: faces a boss who spams Blind, only has 3 anti blind items
decide to leave Zin without one, he spends the whole fight blind and being useless
Then at the final turn, he snaps out of the blindness and kills the last enemy
Zin: "They messed with the wrong guy!'
Me: [roll eyes]

Estelle is now lv 60. Wont be long before she catches up with Josh. He should learn from her, the best way to train to take down an evil secret society is becoming a mandatory party member in an rpg

yknow, doing these sidequests makes me realize how huge Rolent is. It's advertized as a small town, but it has so many little hidden bits. Definitely bigger in content than Zeiss, and probably not much behind Ruan and Bose

Though Zeiss kind of wins if you count the factory, I guess

we recover the document that was stolen from the Phantom Thief, and the characters have a debate on how to secure it. Truth be told, there is little this small city can do to protect anything from what might be the best thief in the world. Because that's the kind of guy who steals stuff from banks, not official documents from miner's houses. The PT is impossible to stop as long as he keep making small crimes like this

He offers us 500 sepith of one color of my choice, and the answer of course is black. It's always black

Ok NOW we can go to Bose, 5 quests and another bracer rank later

Fiop posted...

That's a dangerous thing to say about a Trails game. I mean, not specifically the fight Enforcer in same chapter thing; truth be told, I don't remember this one way or another. Trails sometimes does throw things out of left field, though.

To be fair I imagine the game will drop all patterns when it's time for the plot to catch up, and I expect that to be soon since we are about to explore the final region of the map.

Fiop posted...

I remember this scene feeling really tense, since I had just beaten the boss and it had been awhile since I saved. I was really hoping I wouldn't stumble onto another boss or something. These moments seem to come up less in more modern games that are better about letting you save.

I mean at this point I've caught the pattern. You don't fight the Enforcer in the same chapter they are introduced, ever. You fight a random creature and/or tank.

after I interview the citizens to learn what happened when people started faiting, the cast comes to the conclusion it's an enforcer who is doing it (you don't say). The cast randomly decides the men will patrol during the night while the women go to bed. Kind of makes sense from the perspective of Estelle and Schera since they have been walking all day, but other party members are flexible. Whatever.

Olivier tries to join the female group but he can't be subtle about his intentions. Agate drags him kicking and screaming back to the patrol group

Estelle and Schera have a cute scene at night where they talk about Joshua. This is where Schera is best as a character, when she gets to be the mature, empathetic mentor instead of the overbearing alcoholic.

Schera also makes fun of the possible love triangle with Josette, and I love it.

the next section will also be with an all girl party. Too be fair, lately I've been preferring those fixed party scenes, because it means everyone gets custom dialogue.

I lost a quest about finding a missing cat during the night. Very short term, and I was paying too much attention to the plot to notice. Danmit.

tbh the game autosaves too but I used all autosave slots by spending a good hour roaming around looking for fishing spots for another quest

I also wasted a lot of time fiddling with orbments, because I decided to do the setup gamefaqs recommended, until I realized it only works if you have that Luck quartz you get for doing all the quests in the first game, which I did not

so I then wasted more time moving back to my slightly less optimal setup

the optimal setup was optimal because it gives Kloe stronger earth magic, which is good in this chapter. But Kloe's ATS is so off the charts she hits like a boulder (literally) even with the weakest earth attack. She doesn't have stronger ones, cuz I chose to give her Scent so that she isn't completely devoid of AoE.

The big losers here are Tita and Estelle, though, since the smoke enemies have huge evasion. Though Estelle charges her s-crafts faster due to an item and Tita has Hit 3, so they hit sometimes, I guess.

the enemy got to the farm before I could arrive to evacuate the people there, so now everyone is in a coma. Rough

After the last chapter's "Tea Party", Orobouros is back to "experiments" that actually hurt people
Ok that tank was dangerous but Amalthea was being so pathetic while using it it didn't really feel like it

Estelle has a small breakdown because she feels useless. Because this time, the villains didn't just lead them into their location for free, and that's a requirement for the good guys to accomplish anything in this game

this chapter is really milking Schera's mandatory party member presence, by focusing on the relationship between her and Estelle. I like it, with how flat of a character Schera had been so far

A wild Kevin appears

because someone needs to watch over the comatose people and the game doesn't feel like breaking my party in half now

the cast discusses how they just fell into a trap. Kids, when are you not falling into traps? The antagonists of this game have the plot on a tight leash

the bad guys finally decide to lead us into where they are and we decide to go there because that's basically the only way we know to find them

I pick Kloe and Olivier, for an all mage party

those floating fish metal horse thingies are weird as hell

Olivier finally learns Howling Bullet 2, so his s-craft is no longer a complete waste of CP

for some reason, the equipment that boosts magic the most (Holy Cloth and Duende Slippers) is female exclusive. this means Kloe is actually the best magic attacker of the party, even if Olivier is better for other reasons (more flexible orbment). I'm giving him my only Mind 3 and the Buzzer and he still can't compare to Kloe. Her ATS is 100 points higher at the same level.

I arrive at Lost Woods. You have to follow a bell to get to the other side

I get to the exit, somehow. Actually the exit is the entrance, but the maze is gone. Or something. Whatever.

this time the enforcer sent the chapter boss after me before even appearing. which I think is stupid because the xp they give levels up both Olivier and Kloe, and that heals their EP back. You don't want to face this Olivier and Kloe at full power, trust me

Estelle is put under some illusion where shes still a kid and her mom is still alive. I imagine the non-protagonist party members have been put through other illusions

Estelle breaks out of the illusion by remembering the scene at the start of the first game, where Josh plays the harmonica at their house. The Power of Love is too stronk

Well this is some good emotional scene

We meet yet another member of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew, Luciola.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/8/AAO9CbAAEbP8.jpg

These guys know how to make introductions

also that's an attire that says "evil sorceress", right there

those guys all dress like the could be the final boss of some videogame. Plus, the fact the game doesn't let me fight them directly and keep sending unrelated bosses so I only fight the main ones later adds up to the hype. I can't wait to kick their collective asses

Schera wants to kick her ass, but like everyone else, she has some escaping power. And that's it for another build up chapter

we got back to the guuild and Aina lists all the enforcers we have met so far. I think that's the sign we have seen the whole evil cast of this game, minus any secret plot twist villains

that's seven characters. enough for everyone to have individual archnemeses, and enough for one hell of a boss rush

Chapter 4: "The World's Biggest Fog Machine": beaten

meanwhile, bad guys talk about plans in cryptic terms so the player can only guess what's coming

In my mind, Campanella's voice is incredibly annoying.

next, other bad guys go meet a dragon. Because they aren't strong enough yet, they need a friggin dragon in their ranks. The dragon is also intelligent.

Dragon: "GTFO, I can see your evil"
Professor Aizen: "Well... duh!"

Chapter 5: "The plot seems like it will start moving now": begins

We are going to Bose! Except there are 5 new quests. We are going later.

Agate and Zin are the lowest leveled party members, so time for a full physical party. If this was FC I'd calling myself crazy, but physical characters are actually ok in this game

_stingers_ posted...

No information? Do you get a hybrid quartz that includes it or something, I forget

I do, that's the point I'm making. You get the hybrid quartz way before the regular ones and then you don't have an use for the later.

I'm roaming the Rolent region and enter the farm, where npcs greet Estelle and ask where Joshua is. I'm actually feeling nostalgic myself, we came here to do the first quest in the game, where Estelle and Josh taught some monsters to be good. And now it's all world threatening stuff and dark pasts. The game felt so small back then

I obtain Scent, which was buffed in this game to give a total of 10 points of 4 different elements. It seems made for Olivier

But the party needs to level up so Olivier and Tita are swapping out, Kloe and Zin come in, and Estelle gets that Scent instead. Which gives her a new fire attack, Cyclone Napalm

it's weird to explore Esmelas Tower now, a dungeon designed for the first game's prologue, in SC's chapter 4. Because it's clearly the most linear of the 4 tetracyclical towers, so after all those maze-like towers, this is a cakewalk

I gain Shield 4, a quartz that gives insane magical defense but lowers your magical attack power... I give it to Zin

I find a pair of boots called Duende Slippers, which greatly increase magical attack. I give it to Kloe, along with Mind 3 and an armor that also increases magic. Her ATS is now 529

... what have I created

We return to the guild, and spend a long dialogue sequence clueless at what to do. In chapters 1 and 2, we were able to point the location of the boss after drawing a map. Here's there's nothing. And in chapter 3 the boss basically summoned us to the fighting spot. This time, there's nothing.

Suddenly, the mayor shows up and announces people have started fainting, because we need a plot hook, one way or another.

I level up to D-rank and gain Haze. Bitch plz, I have Yin-Yang now

kind of weird how this game has improved versions of the overworld quartz from last game, and gives them to you ealier than the basic versions. I basically never use Eagle Eye. Haze seems like it will go unused. Heal had a short use and I still don't even have Information!

spent a good amount of time at the orbal shop in Rolent. Open a few slots (finally maxed out Estelle's) and buy an EP Cut 3. The mana cost curve has caught up to me and I'm burning through EP restoring items really fast.

Estelle is the main healer and can use high level water attacks. She also heals her own HP and EP after battle and has some fire magic too. I boost both her physical and magical damage.

Schera can use Aero Storm, making her my main AoE. She also gets the EP Cut 3 because her mana is kinda bad. She is built as a witch, for mostly magical damage. Though Sleep gives an incentive for physical attacks too. Shes also a back up healer.

Olivier is the main user of Earth (earth wall, titanic roar) and time (orbal down, white gehenna). He hits a little less than Schera since he doesn't have Mind 2, but I went for spell options here. And honestly if you have earth wall, you are not the main magical attacker in the party anyway.

Tita has the standard phys damage stuff. She ends up carrying Heaven's Eye because there just aren't two space options that fit her. But there is one, Strike. This girl is going to hit hard

everyone gets aerial. You can never go wrong with aerial.

Rolent's kids are still brats but Estelle has matured since last game so she's just giving them lectures left and right. Our girl has grown up so much

I think Rolent's song is the worst of the 5 towns. It's cute and all, but it gets old really fast.

Estelle in this game seems to be more physical than magical. Her arts seem to have fallen behind, even with Mind quartz, but her crafts have gotten boosts and they are much more worth spamming now. Tita's damage also seems better. That also increases the relative value of pure magical attackers, such as Olivier, Kloe, and to a lesser extent, Schera. But they saw their physical power get nerfed, which means there is now a bigger need for EP. This game is just more balanced and forces you to make harder decisions, I suppose. While in the previous game you'd just spam white hegenna with everyone and ditch the physical characters, here you have to optimize.

Estelle has learned True Barrage and I'm just feeling bad for future bosses.

A boss drops HP 4, my first tier 4 quartz in the series. Estelle uses water but she already has enough, and Mind 3 is more useful for her, while Ying Yang is good for the party. Well, I guess Tita is finally breaking the 3k HP threshold

That seems incredibly difficult.

fight an optional boss who is 4 flaming birds that spam feathers. I win because I give Agate eat a zeram powder to max cp then delete the entire field, because I just wasn't dealing damage fast enough. They are weak to water but water is bad for damage, all the aoe spells trade attack power for some 20% freeze chance that isn't reliable

exploring the sewers once again is a pain, but the game makes it worthwhile by adding A LOT of optional minibosses, and goodies.

two little stories about npcs end up with them going to the same airship as us. One is a tea maker who wants to become a master and surpass her sister, so she is travelling to Bose to train. her sister misses her, though. The other is a lazy guy travelling with his friend for adventure. Love the little npc plots

Nial shows up as we are about to depart to Bose and asks Estelle for a private conversation. Everyone goes to the ship while she stays to talk. Except Olivier, who stays and asks her to consider him as a stone in the pavement. Schera returns and drags him to the airship. Was worth the try, I guess.

It's a photo of Josh looking badass while stealing an airship with the sky bandits.

The chapter ends now, even though I called it over earlier. Never mind.

Chapter 4: "My man is now a criminal. What do I do": begins.

we get a flashback of the bandits well, doing the deed. Coupled with some classic scene of two idiot guards going "man, I'm glad nothing is going to happen tonight!" before things happen tonight

I actually get to play as Josh in this sequence. Niiiiice

His orbal setup is everything and then some. I want that EP Cut 4

the devs did him dirty by diving him 5-3 lines instead of 6-2 like Kevin and Schera, though

and he is... level 72? holy shit

Josh has a new spell named Abyss Fall, which summons Freeza

Josh: "My switch wasn't flipped last time. Now that it was, I've gained 827598375984857578 xp and 100x more edginess."
Uh, is it just me or Weissman shouldn't have turned that thing on?

Yet he can't compare to other enforcers in an 1v1, because he was trained for stealth instead of combat. Well, those Orobouros guys better have some mean survaillance tech, then

Josh's victory quote is the same as last time's, but a little slower and more exhsuated, as if he is just fucking tired of this shit

Dorothy has found the solution to world peace. Just feed military tastier food, so they will stop wanting to attack people. Of course.

Josh also has Death Scream, which summons... I don't even know what it summons. Like, I was in a in a heavy metal festival yesterday and that thing wouldn't feel out of place there

Josh's stats are so busted it's better to use AoE with lower damage so you wipe out enemies faster, than single-target attacks, even though the later are his speciality

I have to face Mueller as a boss on a 1v1. I say 1v1 because Josette dies in 2 hits, but fortunately the game doesn't force you to keep her alive. Mueller is a tough cookie, but once I manage to cast Clock Up Ex on myself, it's kind of over since I get 2 turns for each turn of his, and I have healing spells

we move on to Estelle, who is just really having a bad day

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/6/8/AAO9CbAAEaRI.jpg

She gets it

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/6/9/AAO9CbAAEaRJ.jpg

Focusing on the things that matter

Estelle and Kloe bond over how much they want Josette dead. With how good this game is at holding plot points, I'm just hyped for when the 4 finally meet. With some classic "We were taking a break!" sitcom misunderstandings

Estelle almost catches Olivier talking with Muelle about Josh on phone, but she doesn't because cellphones don't exist in Liberl yet, so she can't guess what he was doing. Phew.

Olivier: "we are both hiding things from each other, so you stop asking questions and I won't reveal I know what you are hiding". Sharp.

She then makes a speech about how she trusts Olivier against all common sense and he actually breaks character and looks surprised for a few seconds. A few seconds.

We are going to turn this guy into a 3 dimensional character eventually, just you wait

Rolent is attacked by the world's biggest fog machine and it seems chapter 4 is going to be here, not Bose.

Schera is now a mandatory member, since she is from here. I wonder how this works if I had picked her in chapter 1. Does she just stay mandatory for 4 chapters?

I form a party of Olivier (currently the lowest lv char) and Tita (it's early chapter so there will be minibosses. I'll just pull her away when we go fight the chapter boss)

Hbthebattle posted...

yeah well it stops happening after this lol

Which thing?

Mega_Mana posted...

XD XD XD

I always think I look forward to Grancel during FC because so much plot happens. But then it's the first day or Arena. Then sewers. Then more Arena. Then seeing more guards on patrol. More sewers. More Arena. Most guards. Such a pace killer after Zeiss.

SC does it better because it uses the city more, and makes the sewers optional. Still, you could have filled the city with sidequests, with how many npcs there are. Other areas make that work, but Grancel is weirdly allergic to sidequests for some reason.

The guild was attacked while I was busy falling in an obvious trap. Ofc

they should start getting used to this already. orobouros uses diversions. Do not go to where things are happening, look elsewhere

The entire party has been drugged so Kevin, Schera and Anelace are the party now

Well not Anelace, because she is sent to another sidequest. Danmit!

Cid realizes shit is going down and calls for reinforcements. I'm guessing Dad. Though chances are it's just the boring option (Julia)

They forgot to drug Not a Falcon. That will be their downfall. Unless that's also part of their plan

I'm not following something. Amalthea seems to be the culprit here, but we do know she is not quite aligned with Orobouros, and a repeat of the last's game plot with the intel div being manipulated would be boring. Something else is afoot

I finish making the orbal setup to end all orbal setups, but all the ep increases I just got are useless because the game doesn't let me go to the inn to heal my EP

whatever I'm using items

Kevin's voice acting is annoying

my selective spoiler makes me realize what is about to happen. Amalthea is not Orobouros. But Renne is. She is about to murder the entire intel crew, right?

Amalthea busts out a fucking tank and announces she is conquering the kingdom with it.

Look, that's a powerful looking tank, but I don't think that kind of plan has ever worked before. Worst comes to worst, the queen can just escape through one of the 15 secret passages the castle likely has and return later with 5 airships armed with a thousand bombs each.

The midboss energy Amalthea is giving rn is real. It's clear why Richard was the villain of the last game, not her

lol she doesn't even make it to the castle. Julia stops her

the two are about to fire at each other when... Plot Music starts playing and what seems to be a gospel activates

yeah the tank is definitely from orobouros, but Amalthea is too stupid to realize

Kevin busts out an artifact and neutralizes the gospel. The man is full of tricks, isn't he

the tank has been downgraded from cutscene boss to gameplay boss. TIme to destroy it

Ooooh I get to play as Julia. Nice.

she has a bunch of high end arts. I'm guessing her orbment is full of Tier 4 slots. Niiiiice.

unfortunately its a bunch of aoe and we are fighting a single foe. Whatever

the tank has higher stats than pretty much anything I've faced in the series so far, but it's got the tactical flexibility of a rock. It hits things hard and is sturdy, but is very easy to manuever against

it does make a big explosion when it finally goes down, though

Amalthea doesn't give up though, so we have to face her too. Does she never learn?

the whiole thing is, predictably, pathetic. Can we not fight this boss again plz? She was easy enough the first two times

And Renne, the mastermind, reveals herself

Yep, Doll Knight was foreshadowing

she makes some cool exit. And leaves Estelle heartbroken

Well I was spoiled but I'll give it to ya, this is a cool reveal scene. Albeit it's a little convoluted of a plan for what was just yet another gospel test. But hey, those enforcers like their convoluted plans

We get a cutscene where Cassius brings Richard to Alamthea so he can convince her to stop being an idiot. At last.

The good guys lament not seeing Renne coming. I don't blame them, but that's the 3rd consecutive chapter Orobouros just runs laps around them, and that's not counting last game. At some point they have to stop doing things the most predictable way imaginable. This isn't Legend of Zelda, this is an opponent who likes to use deception

Estelle vows to redeem Renne. If Casius could why can't she, right?

Kevin reveals he is a member of the Church's macguffin hunter squad.

All 8 party members join together. Except Anelace again, because the devs are mean. She joins some other non-playable characters. Kevin also stays out for the time being.

Anelace's team will go find the bad guys' HQ, certainly so that they can later stay outside while the PCs invade it

We get another scene with the bad guys, where Aizen decides he wants to make Estelle join. Out of "free will". After he breaks her mind, that is.

Loewe mentions an interesting detail. The gospels are not meant as weapons. Because the bad guys probably know the same thing I said above: a tank is still just a tank, no matter how strong it is. Now what they are actually meant for is the interesting question.

Chapter 3: "If you need manpower, just use child soldiers": beaten.

now this was a fun chapter. Grancel is kind of lame, so it focused on story instead. The plot felt random, until it was revealed the randomness was intentional, given the nature of the villain.

Agate being a mandatory party member is way beyond forced now. It made sense when only he and Estelle were bracers, but noiw Zin and Schera are around, and Zin is canonically the strongest party member.

I pick up a new sidequest. A sidequest? In my Grancel? madness

its the damn phantom thief again. Should have known

we visit the Calvard embassy. theres an entire book with 22 chapters in one of the shelves. Whats up with this game and books?

I actually went and read the whole thing (got an achievement for it too). It's a cheesy but fun tale about fighting puppets. Yeah.
we have a chat with the Calvard ambassador about realpolitik, and I almost forget this is a videogame

fun little chapter. instead of running randomly asking about ghosts or earthquakes, we are talking politics with a lot of npcs

the phantom thief quest ends with a boss fight against an ice monster, fortunately it only knows how to cast diamond dust over and over. My party has 3 characters with Impede. GG.

A maid from the Erebonian embassy speculates on who Olivier is really chasing after. She needs to do her research on Olivier: the only possible answer is "everyone"

this embassy has the carnelia book series, which I did not bother to read last game.

Olivier is soloing this chapter. His political skills are top tier. Kloe is good too, but he's even better. He sounds silly until he suddenly says exactly what has to be said, every time.

The Erebonian ambassador isn't so bad, after his initial introduction. I was expecting something similar to the Duke. Yes he is a dick, but a few levels better than the other guy.

Carnelia is even longer than the Doll Knight and I'm lazy so I'm reading it online later

next person to investigate is Nial the reporter, who I suspect will have 99% of the information we need

Random woman outside the Erebonia embassy: "You were talking to that black-haired Imperial soldier, right?

Hmm, yes... I'm a big fan of his"

Nial knows nothing we don't know but his read of the situation is still miles better than everyone else. They are probably not attacking the ceremony, they want us to think they will

I mean let's be real, Orobouros is a widely known threat (not by the general public but by every authority figure in the setting) and they have a tendency to use diversion tactics. Why would they strike the most obvious place that is likely to expect them and guard against them?

The real question is what their actual target is

we learn Renne's parents are basically ghosts. Hmm.

knowing the deal with Renne makes the hotel scene incredibly ominous

meanwhile, Schera and Anelace engage in some Mission Impossible at Bose, and I get to play as them in a fight against some intel div bad guys

they meet Green Haired Enforcer, the leader of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew. Campanella the Fool. That's a name.

he gives us what is probably the more violent scene in the series so far. Though the complete lack of blood makes it seem like he just broke a bunch of legos. Lel.

well turns out they are a bunch of legos! Or androids, apparently. Is this start wars?

I like the parallel with the fact I just read a book about puppets in some random in-game library. Turns out... that was foreshadowing

Kevin shows up again. The man is everywhere

we cut to Josh, who apparently knows everything that is happening. Turns out he left some intel for Schera's group to help them deal with the incoming events. But he's not going to help himself. He doesn't want to risk meeting Estelle, I guess

we are treated to a sequenece where Estelle roasts the Duke, and I'm 100% having it

I love the sequence where Renne just walks out in the middle of the dialogue, and nobody sees it
about when we started mentioning Enforcers in front of her, too

We learn from some npcs Ruan elected a new mayor. And it's the tourism guy, not the port guy. I know because they mention that Portos lost

Renne delivers to Estelle what seems to be a letter from Josh and I only have more questions
its obviously something fake, because we just saw a scene of Joshua saying he's NOT going where
Estelle is. But Estelle doesn't know, so she goes there alone. Honestly, Agate is kind of an idiot for letting her do that, considering Josh is involved in Orobouros business

She meets someone and the scene cuts away before we can see who it is

It's Kevin. Again.

[it's a trap meme]

Kevin and Josh need to hold a competition for who has more information that the party doesn't

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/4/5/AAO9CbAAEZ5V.jpg

Estelle is not one for discretion

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/4/6/AAO9CbAAEZ5W.jpg

Or for patience, either

tcaz2 posted...

Okay but like why not just not google or TVtropes it instead and do something completely unrelated to the thing you're experiencing for the first time when you're bored that doesn't spoil it?

Because that's not how my brain works. It wants more Trails, and if I'm somewhere where I can't play Trails, I'm getting Trails some other way. Other hobbies feel less interesting as long as I'm engaged with Trails.

Look, I'm not going to turn this into a thing where half a dozen people try to change the way I do things. I am bad at avoiding spoilers. That is not going to change because some people in a forum keep telling me that it has to change.

I don't know if she actually is currently Orobouros or if her status is more like Josh's though, and I wont try to find that in advance. I just know her arc involves redeeming from it.

Might as well go and say I know everyone who is a playable character.

Also means I know Richard has some sort of redemption arc waiting.

The thing is that I get bored and start reading tv tropes pages about games/media that I'm reading/watching/playing. The site does spoil tag most stuff, but there are a few things that slip by.

Also Renne seems to be a major character in the entire series so you google something about whether Estelle appears in a future game and there's some stuff about Renne along it.

exploring grancel sewers once again. I hate this place tbh. But there be xp and goodies

I beat a fairly difficult extermination monsters, four plant things which spam a mud aoe that confuses your party, and summons crabs that faint it. Annoyance.

and another one against some carapace things that "don't have any weak points". But in a balanced game, no weak points means no strenghts, so it's a breeze

we are looking for a little girl in the villa. Estelle gets down to search for her under a table

Olivier: "Your unmentionables are quite mentionable now"

We meet the dude who is in house arrest. Olivier makes a comment about how he is lucky he didnt try to do a coup in Erebonia or he would be hanged. Estelle then makes a cute speech about Kloe, and I wonder what would happen if I brought Kloe in this party.

We find the little girl by giving up on finding the little girl. Profound.

She is Renne

(who I happen to know is a playable character in game 3, and is/will be/was a member of orobouros at some point. I didn't read much beyond that. Sorry not sorry. Either way, she is very plot relevant)

So based on spoiler reverse engineering, I'm guessing shes the one the society planted to spoil the ceremony?

So Renne is now a party member. I mean, an escort. She is obviously a little girl who can't help herself.

Someone needs to distract the little kid while the protagonists talk business. But Josh, the one who usually does that, is not here. Tita reads the room and takes over. I'm impressed.

The next party composition is arranged for me. Agate is going on a solo mission, Tita is distracting the other kid and I play the other 4 chars.

Tita and Renne want to go shopping, but Estelle thinks its dangerous. They use Double Puppy Eyes x2 Combo. It's super effective.

The sad part is that I left my precious Action 3 with Agate and I doubt the game is giving it back.

Renne's family is from Crossbell. Is this the first time that gets mentioned in the series? I think so.

Do we get to explore the insides of the embassies now? I think this will be fun.

knowing Renne is bad news and that we left out 12 year old alone with her is ominous af, though. I predict memory wipe shenanigans. Agate is not exactly safe, either.

Took me 2 tries, if you don't count the one in the middle where I accidentally wasted an s-craft in the first turn and resetted it.

The escort is a bit of a roulette. If the minions don't kill him in the beginning and if you do kill them yourself, the escort will run to the corner and then the only move that will ever hit him is the status one, which doesn't deal damage.

Now the penguin in FC was maybe the hardest fight in the game, because I had Tita and she was just a bad match, so I could barely overcome the healing. But in SC I was usually dealing more damage than needed.

At some point it confused two and sealed the third, but Olivier was none of them so he could remove the status. And he had just used La Crest, which helped mitigate damage.

I do a quest in limestone cave, about rescuing a dude from the last game who was looking for a pirate's treasure. He managed to find the treasure in the cave. However, it belongs to the penguins. As soon as he opens the chest, the cave's alarm system triggers and the penguins come to defend it.

Yes, penguins have an alarm system.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/2/AAO9CbAAEY1y.jpg

They also call... whatever this is.

It teleports. We have a teleporting giant penguin. All hands on deck.

And I have to fight against it with a dumb escort that dies in two hits. Godanmit

And it has a move named Samba de Penguin where it just dances a lot and statuses the whole party.

The teleporting, samba dancing, self-healing penguin menace has been vanquished. The world is a safer place.

Not bringing Tita this time is a good call. You give Agate and Zin some str boosts and they are wrecking shit with chain crafts and s-crafts. While Olivier and Estele play support, but a much needed one. The dumb escort was smart enough to GTFO after the 1st turn.

The quartz faq tells me to fight this guy over and over to farm some HP 3 and I'm like... yeah no thanks. I'd rather just buy them or something.

The pirate treasure is an actual artifact that warns the owners of incoming danger. Turns out the dumb kid was right about treasure, huh. Even if he almost got himsellf killed. You need Devil Fruits to do that stuff, dude.

We do get a new quartz, Yin Yang, which combines heal and haze and gives a shitton of water element. Estelle now has Diamond Dust and Blue Acension. It does cost her Napalm Breath, but I haven't been very impressed by that

Actually this setup is probably made for Kloe, I just happen not to have her in the party now tbh

The best background character in this game is the singing airship pilot that appears when we are trevalling between regions

We get some character development. Tita reveals stuff about her family and nerds out about airship tech, Olivier tries to make a move on Kloe and gets cockblocked by Not a Falcon, Zin reveals Walter killed their master, because the kung fu plot wasn't cliche enough yet.

That's why Cassius went back to the army and stopped being a bracer, being a mentor in a fictional story is a life risk.

This stuff is basically Kenichi (the manga).

the next mission is to bodyguard the event where they will sign an international treaty. Like in classic Megaman Battle Network fashion, I expect the lights to go dark and for us to have to explore some electricity themed dungeon, or something like that. Where nautrally we will meet another Enforcer in the end, who will not fight us but will send another random monster boss to fight instead, and in the end form a rivarly with another member of the party.

Grancel continues to be a horrible place with almost no sidequests. Smh.

I'm keeping Olivier and ZIn. That's a fun party. Also I'm lazy about changing orbments again

We go to Grancel museum and the local npc talks about Professor Alba's research. Unfortunately, Estelle doesn't remember who professor Alba is supposed to be.

All part of the plan

It's kind of weird, being a player who knows more than the character I'm playing as because the bad guy has messed with her memory. I wonder what else she doesn't remember about the last game. Or what Josh doesn't remember.

He mentions the seven artifacts. Of course we have seven artifacts. Do they call a giant dragon who grants wishes if you get them all?

I dunno, next quest is at Limestone Cave and... there be penguins.

And Tita was pretty useless against it last time.

my bracer rank levels up and I gain a quartz named septium vein, which increases septium drops. i'm never taking it out

It also gives a ton of elemental power which ofc makes Olivier EVEN more broken. He is now responsible for casting high levels spells for wind (Aero Storm), water (La Teara, Blue Impact), space (Dark Matter) and earth (Petrify Cloud, Titanic Roar, La Crest).

Also... Earth Wall has made its glorious return. We are never getting separated again.
This frees Estelle for using fire and time arts. She is the new Josh. Meanwhile Tita gets Chaos Brand thanks to the Hit 3 I just got

And Agate hits things with a sword. Hey, it works.

I face a quest boss composed of a swarm of self healing bugs. It doesn't matter because Olivier just deletes them with Aero Storm

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/9/AAO9CbAAEYqV.jpg

Now this is how you do continuity

I do a quest about finding a peeping tom in a bath. the quest is worth it just for the massive amount of teasing they give Agate. I have zero regrets about picking him over Schera here.

also in the end we fight a boss that is basically a bunch of sheep monsters combined into a sheep megazord who fights kung fu. Devs do some heavy substances sometimes.

Olivier: "Why did you invade a military base and not call me? It sounds so fun!"

We meet Dad Bright at the base. He knows stuff. He also seems to know all about Olivier.

We place the third and final device and a wild Anelace appears! And Schera, ofc

Anelace has a cuteness overload upon seeing Tita

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/0/AAO9CbAAEYqW.jpg

Not having this gem be a permanent party member is the biggest injustice in this game

Schera is investigating the sky bandits. She's in the right track

Bad guys: "Let's attack the military base yet". Cassius: "Hmm I think they will be tempted to attack the military base this time. Let's prepare."
Dude is a mastermind.

Swapped Olivier for Kloe for the end of the chapter, so she can get some xp too. Kloe's orbment setup is considerably worse. Like, she's not even bad, just can't compare to Olivier.

Carnelia Tower is considerably less fun to explore without Haze. It has some huge mobs in tight spaces

I just killed two shining poms in a single fight and the windall of xp was as predicted

got some good loot from Carnelia tho. Lots of clothes, Attack 3 and Action 2. Agate is happy

Got to Elmo village, for the final confrontation. To make the situation worse, the bag guys' avtions are also causing the hot springs to overheat. This game's scenarios kind of remind me of Megaman Battle Network. Each chapter it's one henchman interacting with the mcguffins and causing distress for the local civilians. In that game, it was because everything was connected to systems that were being hacked. here's it's septium veins and other steampunk mumbo jumbo

There is of course a dungeon at the hot springs fountain. of course.

I find a hot spring that heals HP and... CP. The boss ahead must be really strong if the game is letting me come at him with 4 full CP bars, imo

We meet the next member of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew, Walter the Direwolf

Walter is less wacky and more bloodthirsty. he explains how he wants to splatter people under his earthquakes in graphic detail. For the "thrills".

[It's a trap!] meme

he wont fight us though, because I guess those guys are being saved for later chapters. we fight a mob of worm things. "Mob" is the worst strategy anyone could possibly use against Tita, though.

we are put in surprise battle formation though, which means the enemies surround us and its hard to get a good aoe

which would be a problem, if those guys weren't pathetic. but they are.

the fight ends, characters are all saying it was incredibly tough and villain is mocking us for having a hard time. I object to this storytelling your honor, it doesn't reflect my actual performance!

then he knocks the party out in one punch. Ok, sorry.

But then he says he's going to hunt Josh.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/1/AAO9CbAAEYqX.jpg
Bad call.

I gotta give it Estelle, she is ready to die a pointless death for her man. That's pointless. But brave.

Zin to the rescue! Because while he's not necessarily stronger than the party gameplay-wise, he is in-story

Also Olivier cuz why not

this setup works better because Zin and Olivier were kind of a duo in the last game

Zin and Walter apparently have that thing going where they are the good disciple and the bad disciple of some kung fu master. Classic.

Ooooh the bad guy likes the guild's clerk. the plot develops.

Walter leaves, and we go back to the guild. The clerk (Kilika) gives ZIn a hard time because he let the bad guy get away with the mcguffin. She has a point, but the guy literally phased into the air and I'm not sure if Zin has that skill too.

I smell a love triangle. I want the flashback plz

And Kiliika was the master's daughter. They aren't even trying to be original here.

We go to the 10th argument in the series so far about whether a 12yo should be allowed to join a deadly bracer mission and I'm just tired at this point. She's a party member, it's fine. We have reviving magic anyway.

Also Zin joins the party too. Just at the same time as I get a petrify quartz. Convenient.

Chapter 2: "They are running out of excuses to bring a 12yo to combat": beaten

meanwhile, we see a scene where military does stuff. Cassius and Julia are sparing, though the fight is rather one sized

the sprite fight animations in this game are fantastic. I keep saying it but it deserves to be mentioned over and over. They are so fun to watch.

The good guys have plans too, I guess. Sometimes.

Meanwhile, it's Richard's right hand woman, plotting to break into the fortress to free him. Well I want to see that. And like, if a party of kids did it last game, then why can't she too?

Chapter 3: The Mad Tea Party. That's the real name, not a joke, because the real name is silly enough.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/2/AAO9CbAAEYqY.png

I dont know how to deal with this level of choice

Tita can't magic, so I managed to fiddle with Olivier's set to give him all the healing Kloe had while apparently not having him lose anything himself. I don't know how I pulled that. Olivier is just amazing

Clock Down is gone, though

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/7/AAO9CbAAEYW7.jpg

What happens when an extremely underleved character meets a gargantuan pile of xp? Kill a shining pom with Tita in the party and find out

courtesy of Morale + Wild Rage boosted Agate s-craft

She went from level 40 to level 49 in one fight

The rest of the party is level 50

what is math. What is truth. What is reality. I don't know anymore

Tita has learned Smoke Cannon 2. Time to wreck shit.

It dealt 1200 dmg against some mob. Heck yes.

Alright: carniviruous plant of sleepiness, IT'S ON

Narrator: "It wasn't on"

I need to stop making Agate kill himself with Wild Rage

this time I won. The winning play is to stop trying to AoE those guys and just focus on one at a time. It helped to have two healers too, Tita and Olivier. Also gave Olivier the only sleeping immunity item I had and La Curia to heal the others from it, but in the end I didnt need it.

And also I counted Agate's HP before burning it this time.

and I almost ruin it by rushing to the next story event without saving and getting stormed by a mob of crazy blue sheeps. Fortunately, that one is not immune to blind

From what I read the devs started making the Crossbell games, then suddenly realized they needed backstory so they went back and made the 3rd.

tcaz2 posted...

Lol you are going to have a hard time in 3rd when you get to it.
Or god forbid when you get to CS4 (and, presumably, Reverie).

I mean if they just join and quit it's whatever, but if I have to choose I'll usually pick the lowest level characters so they can catch up. Unless my ass is getting kicked, ofc.

Yeah restricted characters means better dialogue writing. Can't say I mind it either.

I predict a lot of annoyance with quartz setups soon. Maybe I'll have less magical chracters like Tita keep a fixed set while I swap arts between the wizards.

I'm likely using Olivier for a while, if only because I have to finish his quest of testing the orbal gun. But I might switch down the line. Having a character with lower level gives me OCD.

ok I've figured out the orbmentz. I took some pics but then I changed half of it so i'll just says what they can do.

Estelle is kind of a mixed attacker/witch, with mostly fire (napalm, spiral flare and forte), but also aerial and dark matter.

Kloe is the main healer, with La Teara, but also has wind and some time hax like clock down. For single target she has blue impact and dark matter.

Olivier is for petrify cloud, earth lance, dark matter and guess what, wind. Aerial is OP, what can I do. He's also the backup healer. And also la crest and petrosphere, which sound useful. Olivier is versatile. Just don't ask him to deal physical damage.

Agate whacks things with a sword. His sword is big. Nuff said. I gave him Action 2 and Attack 2 so he can swing his sword harder and more often.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/9/AAO9CbAAEYHz.jpg

this game makes good use of fonts

I could just listen to this factory song all day

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/0/AAO9CbAAEYH0.jpg

I do a sidequest about beating down some soldiers to "train" them. There was another one of these last game. This one is trickier, but not much.

Then I finish the quest and Cid decides to challenge us, and I instantly regret wanting him to be the boss of chapter 3 last game, cuz he kicks. asses

Ok I still beat him, but dude has Grand Stream, which is one of those end game spells. I might have lost if Agate didn't seal his 2nd in command in the first turn

I just lost 4 consecutive times against some carnivore plant boss. it spams aoe sleep. I have no sleep resistance items. godanmit

We are looking for a guy with sunshades. The funniest part is them explaining what sunshades are and Estelle going "wait, don't they make you blind?"
Steampunk settings can be fun

Tita joins the party and Agate goes "wait, our party is big. I think we need to leave someone behind. For... uh... reasons"

Chrono Trigger's End of Time was the greatest excuse for party size limits ever created and it went downhill from there

The game forces me to keep Agate, Estelle and Tita. With Kloe or Olivier as the last

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/1/AAO9CbAAEYH1.png

Olivier looks fabulous even in the character selection screen

Tita is only level 40. That's low

Panthera posted...

You always need more EP. You might run out. You won't, but you might. It's super important to make sure that you avoid running out by a larger margin.

I think I prefer to get Spiral Flare and La Teara a chapter earlier, thanks.

Fiop posted...

In Trails games, I usually try to spend as little Sepith as possible on quartz, and focus on upgrading slots, and using the quartz they give me, since you find a lot of it. Though at least in Sky, I think there were usually a couple elements I had a bunch of extras of anyway, and action was really important. It's probably better to upgrade more stuff.

On a separate note, whenever a game has stones that are associated with giving you magic, I subconsciously just call those "materia". This despite that I had played 6 Trails games for the first time since my last playthrough of FFVII.

Upgrading isn't as good in SC as in FC tho. It just lets you use more tier 4 quartz, which I only have one of (meanwhile I'm sitting on 11 upgraded slots), and raise EP. Now, raising EP is great, but there is only so much EP I need at a given time, and using EP 2 or EP Cut 2 may be more beneficial for the arts anyway.

They nerfed its damage and increased the cost, though.

Look at what they did to my boy.

Mid chapter scene. The Phantom Thief meets Lorence, and they talk about plans. Suddenly, they realized someone is listening to them. They are about to kill the person but some drunk thugs show up and they decide to just leave. I'm guessing the spy is Josh, but it's Kevin. Sneaky.

Chapter 2: Now With More Party Members: begins.

the poker sidequest is a 10/10 moment. Olivier ftw

He's shipping Estelle and Josh. Yes.

there's an earthquake, and I give it 99% chance it's orobouros' doing

The mission is, ofc, to investigate the quake. We also have to recover the guild sign the Phantom Thief decided to steal, because I guess the dude isn't waiting for half a game to be an antagonist again.

we meet Tita and Russel. Tita is too busy being an useful NPC to join the party now. Meh.

I arrive at the orbal factory and I'm stunned by the number of options for quartz. Pretty much every tier 2 quartz is available. I wonder what do I get now. I can't just replace all my 24 slots with new stuff, ofc. But there are options. From Spiral Flare/Napalm Breath, to La Teara, Earth Lance and Petrify Cloud, and I think I can even try to force a White Gehenna if I build for that. This game is giving me stronger quartz a bit earlier than the last one.

I feel like SS is old enough that people already feel nostalgic about it even if they hated it back then.