LogFAQs > #942685791

As of right now, my team consists of Rean, Craig -- er, sorry, I mean Eliot -- and a dude whose name I've forgotten so I'm looking at a wiki now and holy crap there's a dude in this game named Leonidas? Oh, um, er, Gaius. The tall spear user is Gaius. The three of them engage in a round of admiring each other's weapons, and then we're off to fight winged cats. The next battle is against slime monsters that basically force us to use arts. And then we enter a third room where we fight a bajillion scarab monsters. Rean gets his ass kicked (actual gameplay) and barely survives. Then Crai--Eli--y'know, I'm just gonna call him Craig. He could use a more manly name, anyway. Craig collapses from anxiety. Just as Rean and Gaius talk him through it and he's standing, a scarab jumps down, and is blasted by Machias, who arrives from stage left "just in time." He's wielding a huge-ass shotgun, which must be firing slugs, because somehow he hit that thing from like 30 yards out.

Machias joins us for a couple battles, as we find the girls, and Machias proves that he's not just a classist, but that he can be denigrating to the girl squad as well. No, he's an equal opportunity bigot. The other boys are like, umm, Laura looks like she knows how to use her buster sword, and she's the daughter of the best swordsman in the land, so just let her play SOLDIER. Their team is probably safer than ours, thank you very much. We then bump into Machias's best friend, Jusis, who single-handedly fights off six monsters that he would never be able to handle within the game's combat mechanics. The guys watch him fight, and then Machias gets into another argument, which has him wander off, defeated. Jusis joins our party instead, trying to act like we're not beneath him. He's clearly making an effort to be open-minded about the class system, unlike Machias, but he's so cold and distant that he still comes off as an arrogant bastard.

Fie, the grappling hook girl, cheers us on that we're halfway there, and Rean thinks, "wait, how does she know unless she went all the way to the exit and then came back?" She executes some parkour moves and leaps up to a balcony. We take the long way. Somehow we get to the exit before the girl squad, even though they went that way before us, and everyone else is grateful to be done but Jusis is disappointed it was so easy. The game, as if to satisfy his desire for a challenge, transforms a gargoyle in the room into an animated construct and a boss battle ensues. Phase two gets dicey because I can only use physical damage, and he periodically does a group attack that really hurts. Plus my healer's OOM by the end, so I just zerg him down at the end.

Then he gets back up. Well, shit.

But never fear, Laura's here! The girls run in, and Cloud jumps in to take the heat while Pigtails fires her bow, and they create an opening, but it's not enough. Then from the door, Machias and Fie show up. Machias blasts it, Fie does a thirty-foot somersault behind it and hamstrings it (which I'm sure does a lot of good to a stone gargoyle,) and Laura finally beheads it. Then everyone charges in together, all glowing, and finish it. Rean's all like WTF was that, and Instructor Sara shows up from the exit to applaud them and invite them to join the school's special new Class VII for realz this time. You guys have some special orbment because you have an affinity for it and can you imagine how amazing a unit people who can actually use this with the ability to know what your teammates are doing and what they're thinking in battle? She sounds like she's trying to sell an army general on her new tech rather than pitching the students to take part in the class. But oh, no pressure, you can totally back out and join a regular class.

Everyone stares at each other, and finally Rean steps up and says he's in. Laura follows, and soon the entire class is in. Machias is the last to join, after Jusis baits him by saying "I'm in the class, so you might as well leave so we don't have to deal with each other," and Machias is like pssh, I do what I want, and joins just to spite him.

And now I'm done the prologue. Oh. So what the hell was that first part with the flash-forward then?

I get to watch the first anime opening again, because I guess they didn't have the budget to do a third one, but they had to hammer home that hey, you're really really starting the game now, kay?

Uhh, kay.

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