Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: Final Fantasy Music Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Time for some more Cold Steel IV Finale!

More Erebonia exploration! On the beach at Mishelam, all the fishing club members are trying to catch the Grand Lakelord, which is apparently where the family gets its name, and it's what's been destroying the aquatic ecosystem lately. I still have to catch the last special fish near the hospital, and in the process, I get the final volume of Three & Nine from Kargo, which triggers the trophy for getting all books, aw yeah. I also got some Master Quartz for getting over 80% of profile and battle notes logged. And then I get a Black Zemurian Ore for reporting all the books to Dorothee, nice. And then I catch the Grand Lakelord and that's the fishing notebook down, too!

At St. Ursula, we're allowed to briefly meet with the Emperor after his successful operation. Our final Crossbell stop for now (by the way, I can't seem to find a way to enter Orchis Tower. What's the holdup?) is Stargazer's Tower. First, I beat the final Trial Chest and unlock the trophy for that one. Now I'm starting to wonder if I'll get the trophies for every quest and every chest. I've got about 60 treasure chests unopened, but I've always had a quartz that shows the location of chests on the map equipped, so I don't think I've missed any, but it's possible.

More later.

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WandaVision complete!

Good final episode, good show. A couple of climactic battles and a poignant moment at the end.

Next up is Falcon and Winter Soldier in a couple weeks!

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LeonhartFour posted...

At St. Ursula, we're allowed to briefly meet with the Emperor after his successful operation. Our final Crossbell stop for now (by the way, I can't seem to find a way to enter Orchis Tower. What's the holdup?) is Stargazer's Tower.

CS4: I think there's a quest you have to do before that opens up if you can't simply enter through the giant door in the Geofront near the Crossbell Lighthouse Geofront entrance. The quest start point is in Milsante.

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Yeah and these red coin challenges for the secret platforming sections. Easy implementation for 14 more stars!

115/120, time to guide it up for the rest of these coins, and then finally I can replay Galaxy! Haven't done that since just before 2 came out 10 years.

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The FLUDD-less sections of Sunshine were some of the best parts!

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But also one of the worst parts! Damn chucksters

And they give you the FLUDD back for the red coin challenges, which is really odd because it's just easier than doing it normally without it.

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The Chucksters were the worst

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lmao the fludd death fakeout, who wrote these cutscenes?

For some reason I had a higher opinion of that final battle before, but it pretty much just sucks.

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Let's do a little more Cold Steel IV Finale!

Made it to the top of Stargazer's Tower and defeated the cryptid, which triggers the trophy for getting all the lost arts quartz. That's it for Crossbell for the time being, so let's move to East Lamare, where we take out the wanted monster in Einhel Keep first. In Milsante, we trigger a sidequest where Diana has gone missing. She went to Crossbell for a business trip two days ago, but she hasn't returned yet or contacted anyone saying she's been delayed. The two store employees think she really went to Crossbell to visit her family, so they want us to go look for her. Rean says we'll need Juna and Randy for this quest, so I guess I'll be heading back sooner than I expected!

But we'll do that later.

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pjbasis posted...

For some reason I had a higher opinion of that final battle before, but it pretty much just sucks.

Bowser in a Bathtub is the worst final boss ever, and I have maintained this stance for nearly 20 years now!

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I mean, Sunshine could have placed more stars in its levels for you yo just come across like 64 had. Blue Coins by large was there instead of these.

I'm assuming all five missing stars were blue coins?

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Also low key one of the worst parts of Sunshine that I never see talked about is the cutscenes are super cringey. I don't know if it's considered "so bad it's good" by people, but I always thought the story was pretty embarrassing.

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man finding all five vellumental stones in paper mario took annoyingly long
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The cutscenes never really made much of an impact on me. Don't think much of them other than noting that they tried voice acting.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

I mean, Sunshine could have placed more stars in its levels for you yo just come across like 64 had. Blue Coins by large was there instead of these.

I'm assuming all five missing stars were blue coins?

Yeah just blue coins at the end. I had to look up two of the secret shines that involved spraying random shit too like the SUN.

The way Sunshine works I don't think they really wanted you to stumble upon Shines unless they were hidden obnoxiously like those two. There's a very strict Episode structure it adheres to.

Leonhart4 posted...

Also low key one of the worst parts of Sunshine that I never see talked about is the cutscenes are super cringey. I don't know if it's considered "so bad it's good" by people, but I always thought the story was pretty embarrassing.

Back in 2002 cutscenes were just something you didn't even think about adding into your game, but now it feels very un-Mario to have these long set ups with talking characters. The volume balance is wack, the pacing of the cutscenes feels off, and it doesn't feel entirely humorous, like you're supposed to be taking what's happening somewhat seriously.

There's really not many though, just the beginning, Pinna Park, and the ending.

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Yeah, I think the main problem is that they play the story straight. I know there's not much of it, but yikes, it's bad.

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Cold Steel 4 beated! Easily my favorite of the series. It was a very long journey but loved every moment. I only wish we vould have gotten a bit more at the end with your romance option. And Cedric's fate is kinda meh. I felt kinda bad for ignoring new Class VII for a huge part of the game, but Rean, Alisa, Laura, Emma is too good of a team.

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Anyway, enough of that! More Cold Steel IV Finale!

We're off to Crossbell to find Diana after I pick up Juna and Randy. We talk to the clerk at Tallys' General Store, and she said that Diana came there to buy some honey. She used to be a regular a decade ago, and now they outright confirm she's Elie's mom. The clerk says Diana was supposed to contact some people back in Milsante, but she never did. That's when the Junior SSS appears. Momo saw her turn a corner, but when she followed after her, she had completely disappeared. Ryu says this isn't the first disappearance in the area lately either. There were three others before Diana.

Afterwards, we contact the rest of the SSS to help us with the search. I guess this is meant to be a "closure" type of sidequest for the Crossbell team like the Hamel sidequest was for the Liberl team. Now we're out investigating the missing people, and it does feel an awful lot like Trails From Zero now! Although we're kind of limited where we can go during this section, we ask the relevant witnesses and then we have a Q&A section as we try to narrow down the answer to the mystery. I was able to answer them all correctly, and now we're headed to the Geofront near Station Street, just like old times! Speaking of which, it's the old Geofront music!

And much like in the Hamel sidequest, everything suddenly turns red and mysterious. Going through the Geofront is pretty fun as we rescue all the missing people. Eventually we find Elie's mom and we have to fight another one of the Seventy-Seven Devils. The fight is pretty easy, and we get a nice reunion scene with Elie and Diana. Afterwards, the final Pom Party opponent is revealed, and it's Tio! We get a really nice Master Quartz for beating every opponent, too!

Next up is Bridget's request. She's meeting with Alan at the boat dock near Crossbell, and he's got some Zauber Soldats with him. Apparently, Alan plans on replacing Rean as the new national hero in this war against Calvard. Rean recruits Patrick to help us snap Alan out of the hold the curse has on him. Patrick thinks Alan is still subconsciously bothered by the fact that he's a commoner and Bridget is a noble, so her parents don't approve of their relationship. Ferris surmises that maybe Alan believes becoming a national hero will prove he's worthy of her.

The game warns me that a high level Divine Knight battle awaits me. They manage to get most of the Thors class to come along to help snap Alan out of it. Patrick gives Alan a verbal beatdown, and then Rean calls in Valimar, this time sporting his old tachi instead of the Sword of the End. Patrick mans a Spiegel to help even the odds a bit. The Zauber Soldats are still a pushover, even when we're outnumbered. After the battle, Bridget slaps some sense into Alan, quite literally. I guess this sidequest was closure for the Thors crew. Even Beryl randomly shows up out of nowhere, which gets lampshaded in a great way. This is also the quest that allows me to achieve the top rank!

And that's it for tonight.

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Cold Steel 4 Ending. Whoa. I watched the credits again to look at the wedding again and uh, why would they hide this Grandmaster cutscene like that? Pretty sure it didn't play the first time.

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It's definitely bad design!
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Yeah, that was a poor design decision.

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Unless they were expecting you to only find it after ng+, but it's still too likely to just hit skip.

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I know Iron Man 3 is one of the less popular MCU movies, but I always thought it was cool that a large chunk of the movie is set near Knoxville (where I went to college), and there's a news van from Chattanooga (which is right next to my hometown), although there is no News Channel 5 there.

For the record, my wife wanted to re-watch the MCU movies because of WandaVision. She thinks she hasn't seen all of them, but she doesn't know which ones she hasn't seen, so we're just watching all of them (except for Hulk because it's not on Disney+ but that's no major loss).

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Is Hulk the only one not on Disney+?

I've been considering getting a month just for that.

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Hulk and the two Spider-Man movies aren't on there, but I think those are due to licensing agreements since Marvel had outsourced their movie rights to other companies.

I already own Homecoming on Blu-Ray and I wouldn't mind getting Far From Home, too, since I'm a big Spidey fan anyway and I don't mind supporting the franchise.

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Decided to buy the second season pass for Smash tonight and try out the characters. Pyra is actually pretty fun. Sephiroth is okay but he feels a little slow for my tastes.

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Yeah, Sephiroth is a bit slow, but I thought he was really fun to use. He's a destroyer of worlds in spirit battles!

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also it looks like the new dubbed episode of Attack on Titan didn't come out today, which is unfortunate

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Yeah, Toonami didn't have it last night either. I was wondering if you'd get it and we'd be a week apart but I guess not. Toonami'll have it next week so hopefully everything is back on schedule since it looks like they're synced with Funimation.

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Dragon Ball Z Episode 74 complete!

Goku literally saves the day by throwing a frog.

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Dragon Ball Z Episode 75 complete!

seriously guys stop wasting time and make those wishes fast

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All right, more spoilers for me to avoid, but in the meantime, it's Cold Steel IV Finale!

There isn't all that much to see in Leeves, surprisingly. Rosine is paying a visit to the kids in town again, and we get one last enigmatic prophecy from Beryl. Celestin is also heading up a committee with the Makarov, Mary, Aurier, Edel, Hugo, and George about their roles for Operation Shining Steel. Similarly, there's a whole lotta nothin' happening in Ordis, too! We happen upon a meeting between Governor Regnitz, Count Egret, and Marquis Ballad, but not much else. On the bright side, I do manage to get the last recipe and trigger the trophy for that, aw yeah! I did run into a bit of a snag when trying to give food to Edel and Ismelda because I apparently have forgotten to give them each one recipe, but since I have nothing new to offer them, I can't access the drop down menu to figure out which one I'm missing! I don't want to remake everything (especially since I don't have enough ingredients on hand and I ain't grinding for them), so I guess I won't get those extra accessories. In better news, I capture the last landscape photo for Rex at Juno Naval Fortress.

Next up is Sandy's request in Alster. Before we head there, I manage to find a Black Zemurian Ore shard in the Osgiliath Basin where we fought that cryptid before. Anyway, Sandy wants to hold the Harvest Festival as a way to boost people's spirits. They need us to run to a few different places collecting the necessary items. One stop is at Bryonia Island, where I also manage to find another shard of Black Zemurian Ore. Anyway, Toval is invited to attend, and Schera and Mueller eventually herald the arrival of Alster's own Olivier Lenheim. We also get a touching scene where Olivier visits the site of his childhood home.

After all that, we get a call from Toval, saying the head of the Gralsritter asked him to look into something, namely Devils who've appeared with the onset of the Great Twilight. He thinks they might be drawn to a certain type of power, and he says that Matteus, Arios, and Rixia are all involved in this as well. KeA and Beryl also informed Toval that we've been creating ripples in the fabric of fate. All we have to go on is that this place is located at a sacred shrine in the southwest of Lamare.

But that'll have to wait until later.

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Geofront music stuck in my head

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It's a catchy tune

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I wish Mario said the title name in Galaxy. I feel like I can hear it, but it must have been the splash screen before it booted up on the Wii. He doesn't say it on the actual title screen.

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He might say it on Galaxy 2, but I feel like I can hear it, too.

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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Geofront music stuck in my head

Geofront has consistently great music whenever it appears... except for CS3. But CS4 gets Synchronicity #23 to make up for it.

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It's time for some more Cold Steel IV Finale!

So we need to find this new spot. The main hint we have is southwest Lamare, and the farthest south and west on the map is the Auros Coastal Road. Sure enough, there's the entrance to the Sanctus Shrine. I'm trying to remember if this thing has been here the entire game and was just inaccessible or not. Well, according to the characters when we get there, this is new, so I guess it hasn't been here before now! Despite meeting all the criteria, Rean says this doesn't feel right, but then Toval shows up and offers to help out.

This shrine is like a couple of others where it's not really a dungeon but just a straight shot to the end. I imagine that'll change once we find the "sanctuary" proper. At the deepest part, we find the shadowy remains of the now nameless Holy Beast of Earth, and he speaks to us. He says he bears no ill will toward Rean because it's merely fate, and he has no intention of interfering with us. He just wants to bear witness to the Great Twilight. However, Toval says that Rean and company are trying to eradicate the curse, and so the Holy Beast of Earth offers to challenge us. If we can defeat him, he'll show us how to remold destiny, which sounds handy!

This actually proves to be a tough fight as his S-Craft initially wipes out my first party (which he used right after he completely healed everyone, which I thought was a kind gesture, but I guess not...!), but my second party is able to buckle down and win the battle. Afterwards, Argres regains the use of his name. The Ebon Knight had tainted him with its curse, so that was why he had sealed himself away in the Gral. Argres isn't sure if the Ebon Knight expected this outcome, or if Rean has exceeded his fate, but either way, he expended what life force he had left. Before he dies, Argres bestows the last fragment of his strength upon us. He calls it the Earthen Prison. On its own, it won't be enough to overcome the Great Twilight, but he thinks it can be of use. No one is sure how to use it though, but Rean figures he'll know when the time comes. Turns out that's it for that quest, no dungeon or anything!

I think that's about everything, but I didn't get the trophy for completing every sidequest, so I decided to check and see if I missed anything or if something unlocks later or something. Turns out there was a friggin' hidden monster in the Geofront in the last part of Act 3, how lame. I don't remember anything popping up for the Geofront as new at any point, so I didn't bother to check it out, bah. I did manage to get the trophy for the max Thors unity grade though, at least.

More later.

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LeonhartFour posted...

I'm trying to remember if this thing has been here the entire game and was just inaccessible or not.

It isn't. Even if you go there earlier in the Finale.

LeonhartFour posted...

I think that's about everything, but I didn't get the trophy for completing every sidequest, so I decided to check and see if I missed anything or if something unlocks later or something. Turns out there was a friggin' hidden monster in the Geofront in the last part of Act 3, how lame. I don't remember anything popping up for the Geofront as new at any point, so I didn't bother to check it out, bah.

Ah, that sucks.

The ???/Argres quest only pops when you do all the other Finale sidequests (and beat all the cryptids) so you should be good to go on that. Only thing that comes to mind I don't recall you doing is if you tried getting into Orchis Tower again since you couldn't before. I think you may have had to do the SSS sidequest if the game wouldn't let you in through the Geofront entrance near Jona before.

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Oh right, forgot about that. Grabbed the item there. Now I've gotten enough for two ultimate weapons with a couple left over. I'm assuming you can find some more in the final dungeon like in previous games.

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I think there should be enough shards/ore to make 3 before the final dungeon.

Locations: Draco Sanctuary, Stella Sanctuary, Orchis Tower, Osgiliath Basin, Bryonia Island, Mishleam's Fortune Telling Room. And then the full ore you get for reporting 100% Books.

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Oh right, I forgot there was an extra room in the Castle of Mirrors because I was just opening the map in each area and looking for the symbol for quests or special events.

there we go

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Dragon Ball Z Episode 76 complete!

I swear if they bring Piccolo back just to kill him off again right away I'm gonna be a little disappointed

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should have brought back yamcha

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at long last
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All right, back to Cold Steel IV Finale!

Okay, I decided to use my three Zemurian Ore weapons on Rean, Crow (since I figure he'll be required for at least part of this last dungeon), and Laura. Now it's time to begin the operation. We get quick looks at characters all over the continent and the movements for Operation Jormungandr and Operation Mille Mirage as everything prepares to go down. I like how we get quick artwork images for a bunch of characters from past games, including Kevin, Ries, and Anelace. This is a sizable stretch of time where I don't even need to touch the controller!

Finally we cut back to the Courageous II as it's time for Operation Shining Steel to begin infiltrating the Salt Pales. We can pick any of the five teams to start, but once we do, we have to see it through to completion, so no switching on the fly like other split party dungeons. We also get some remote Brave Orders depending on which team we're controlling. I decide to work my way from least favorite to favorite, so it's Angie's team first. The weird thing is that even for characters I've had in my party before now, their equipment and orbment setup is predetermined and locked, which is a bummer.

The individual area of each Salt Pale is pretty short. At the end of Angie's group's area, we encounter an Aion which Roselia says was created because of the unusual spirit vein activity, but that's where we stop for now. Next up is Duvalie's team. It's kind of weird having Xeno, Leo, Ines, and Ennea as playable characters! I do enjoy all the banter between the groups as we progress. At the end, Duvalie's group encounters something that looks like a Black Workshop creation, except it's made from organic materials. Next up is Aurelia's group. It's so wild having playable Victor and Vita. They also find an Aion at the end of their route. I love how Toval is freaked out by how unbothered everyone else is at the prospect of fighting it.

Next up is Lloyd and the SSS, and they get the Dark Dragon, nice. Finally, it's Estelle and crew. They wind up with the Aion from Hamel, fittingly enough. Renne mentions this fight can serve as revenge for what happened to Pater-Mater, which I guess is more Azure spoilers! I was kinda wondering what happened to that thing!

The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

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CS4: Aurelia's team is indeed nuts lol. Toval is like "what even is my life"

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Weak.

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I also started with least favorite Angie and saved the best for last, which obviously meant Aurelia.

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2 hours into Hajimari now. So far it's been all Lloyd so until it actually starts splitting off this is just a 3rd Crossbell game to me

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