Nooo Van killed all the old people. And here I thought it was kind of cool that the genius machine inventing wasn't done by some implausibly skilled 15-year-old with goggles on his head as is typical in Japanese stories, but by a team of veteran scientists who look like they actually know what they're doing.
I guess if we need any more gadgets made we'll just have to resign to looking for some kid with a wrench and goggles after all.
And then in the blink of an eye we're at Akzeriuth even though Jade reasonably said it would take 5 days. In fact we got there so fast, we didn't even have time to see who the stowaway was. So much for consistency.
I never thought I'd be going to the planet's core to stop out-of-control Sephiroths in another game ever. Yet here I am.
Final battle with Sync... who is a failed replica of Ion. And the Ion we know is a replica himself! Of course he is. You can never have enough dark secrets in JRPG religions. I guess that explains why Ion seemed to know a lot less than he should and had little actual power despite officially being the head of state in Daath.
In any case the mission was a success despite all the hitches. We also got to meet Lorelei, who is the voice in Luke's head from the beginning. And it's a male? Didn't expect that. Experience has taught me that Lorelei is probably evil and the party is going to unseal him and thus accidentally release ultimate doom on humanity, forcing them to team up with Van to defeat him in an epic battle. I hope I'm wrong though, just because that plot is getting so old.
Speaking of overused plotlines, Tear is getting ill from releasing the Sephiroth due to having miasmatic Seventh Fonons in her body or something. Obviously setting up some huge drama about having to sacrifice herself and blah blah, but it will probably turn out fine.
Really? You consider "a sad scene" a spoiler? Really?
That's like me going to the movies to watch a comedy and someone telling me "there's going to be a funny scene later". Tales of the Abyss is meant to be a darker and sadder game than other Tales games. Of course there's going be sad **** at some point. Grow the **** up.
You know who decides what is or isn't a spoiler? That's right, the one who is playing the game.
I already said I didn't even look at the game cover until recently, because I consider it a spoiler. This should make my viewpoint obvious. If you are going to be a jerk who forces his definitions onto others then go do it in a different topic.
Also "grow up" is pretty much the archetypical remark of someone who has failed to do so themselves. I will leave it at that. Now I will go find some Sephiroths.
It can be considered a pretty big spoiler in the right context.
Aka you meet this adorable puppy in game and slowly grow fond of it. Then you mention "a sad scene near the end of the game". Well damn you may as well just said "the dog gets killed by the final boss" shouldn't you? Thus, spoiler.
Also I got mad when someone spoiled a cameo in Diamond/Pearl so spoilers are quite subjective(which is to say be careful when giving out details not asked)
^Ooooh no you didn't! That was you wasn't it! Deleting my post like that... Bluuuuh. Ok whatever.
Found the next Sephiroth.
Going around these hybrid world map/dungeons is horrible with all the slowdown and the ridiculously slow camera. At least that's over with for now. Also wow this scene with Legretta sets a new record in bad animation. Reminds me of certain abominable scenes in Symphonia.
Tear still acting strangely... there's more to this than any old miasma poisoning.
And whee Aston survived! Now he gets to be not useless. And we finally caught Spinoza, looks like he's got a few regrets. I don't get the point of a new identical airship... maybe Asch will have it, seems to be his colours. Or maybe it has the incredible ability to *gasp*land on sand or fly through mysterious incessant fireworks.
The final Sephiroth is in Daath... I expected as much. I mean, it's been like more than an entire HOUR since the last visit, so obviously we're way overdue for another strolling through the gates of the enemy base.
Why the heck is there a humongous maze inside the cathedral?
Is its purpose to provide numerous employment opportunities for guides who lead you back to the entrance? Does it serve a strategic purpose in case of attack? Who can tell.
The solution to it was quite clever, though.
Yay, the casino finally raised the stakes! I've been returning here to max out on Melange Gels and Life Bottles after every boss fight, which usually only takes a few minutes with my mad poker skillz. Now that the bets are quintupled I quickly earn several hundred thousand chips and buy all the new prizes. I could probably earn enough money to buy everything in the game in just an hour or two of prize farming here, but that'd be boring so I quit for now.
Another Sephiroth activated without a hitch... weird.
Tear runs off with Asch to try to talk to Van... yeah like that's going to work. Van needs Asch to complete his plans, which means he'll probably mind control him later like he did to Luke. This was foreshadowed at the oasis earlier.
The final Sephiroth is at Mt. Roneal, where the rest of the loser squad is waiting for us. But first we stop at Keterburg... where, as it turns out, Dist has been waiting for Jade all this time until he passed out from the cold.
...Why am I feeling ever so slightly sorry for this loser. This is an unexpected turn of events! Also, Dist is clearly gay for Jade.
Of course, Jade being Jade he has no sympathy for his old friend and subjects him to unspecified torture which he may or may not have enjoyed.
On Mt. Roneal, the three still-at-large members attack all at once. This battle is ridiculous. They can wipe out my party in a couple of seconds! Think I'll need a bit of leveling here, and also a lot of luck with the incompetent AI. In earlier fights I've been constantly switching party members to dodge incoming fonic artes, but I can't move them all out of harm's way at once!
From: Takfloyd_mkII__ | #158 Why the heck is there a humongous maze inside the cathedral?
Is its purpose to provide numerous employment opportunities for guides who lead you back to the entrance? Does it serve a strategic purpose in case of attack? Who can tell.
Haha, me and my friend spend hours in that damn cathedral trying to get to that one chest. Why would you ever design anything like that?
Takfloyd_mkII__ posted... Of course, Jade being Jade he has no sympathy for his old friend and subjects him to unspecified torture which he may or may not have enjoyed.
I love how you described this.
On Mt. Roneal, the three still-at-large members attack all at once. This battle is ridiculous. They can wipe out my party in a couple of seconds! Think I'll need a bit of leveling here, and also a lot of luck with the incompetent AI. In earlier fights I've been constantly switching party members to dodge incoming fonic artes, but I can't move them all out of harm's way at once!
Yep, one of the best fights in the game. =) You really gotta be on the ball for this one.
Yep, one of the best fights in the game. =) You really gotta be on the ball for this one.
Not really, it's pretty much entirely luck-based. I can only control 1/7 of the characters on the field, so the AI decides who wins. Almost all of the bosses' attacks are one hit kills when not guarded, even Legretta's basic pistol shots, so it's just a matter of how stupid my party members act, whether or not my attacks randomly stun/knock down the bosses, and who the bosses target. Whenever the bosses each target a different character, there's no way to prevent at least 2 of them from dying if I don't have Overlimit on anyone, and at that point I'm pretty much screwed.
I could have cheated a win just now though. Anise got killed during her Mystic Arte, which caused the enemies to stop moving indefinitely and the menu to stop working. I reset the game instead because as cheap as this battle is, I'm not going to be even cheaper.
I won. Got up to level 42, just enough to survive most of their attacks at full health. Then I charged everyone's Overlimit, and basically just spammed Mystic Artes against Arietta or Legretta.
Whenever luck was on my side I'd be able to deplete the remaining 10000 or so HP of the one I targeted with my onslaught before everyone died. After that, the other two start using their Arcane Artes so it's still just as difficult, but eventually I got lucky and managed to hit both female enemies at once with several Mystic Artes, while their own Mystic Artes missed, and even though I was down to only one member several times, I KO'd them both.
Largo by himself is no big threat as long as I keep the other party members far away from him, so it was smooth sailing from there.
And then... ugh, a "convenient" avalanche deposits the God-Generals into a nearby abyss. How dumb. It would be so stupid if they all died from that... but I doubt it.
By the way it was infuriating to have to sneak past 2 enemies in narrow passages every time I attempted the boss fight. For some reason Tear loses her Overlimit meter from running away, so I had to reload the game every time one of the enemies got me.
Upon activating the Passage Ring, Van's plan to make use of our work for his own plan is revealed. Gotta go to the second Sephiroth, the Absorption Gate, to stop him. First I explore the mountains some more and get the Vorpal Sword. Can't get further without a range upgrade for Mieu.
In Keterburg we get one of those heart-to-heart carousel moments where I go around digging up people's deepest thoughts and stuff. Had a chat with everyone except Guy, who I couldn't find before accidentally triggering the next story event. Asch shows up again to put up his usual "badass loner" schtick that he always fails at because he's nowhere as cool or competent as he makes himself out to be. And then, epic music as we prepare for what is almost definitely not the final battle!
...but I'm still irked by the lack of a bro chat with Guy. I searched really thoroughly before going to the hotel, couldn't find him. Did I fail at some prerequisite or something?
From: Takfloyd_mkII__ | #166 Upon activating the Passage Ring, Van's plan to make use of our work for his own plan is revealed. Gotta go to the second Sephiroth, the Absorption Gate, to stop him. First I explore the mountains some more and get the Vorpal Sword. Can't get further without a range upgrade for Mieu.
Which, thankfully, is available after completing what's basically the next dungeon after the absorption gate.
From: Takfloyd_mkII__ | #166 ...but I'm still irked by the lack of a bro chat with Guy. I searched really thoroughly before going to the hotel, couldn't find him. Did I fail at some prerequisite or something?
He was in the casino.
--
There's always hope for better things in life. But you can't let anything, friend, lover, God himself, be your hope. You have to be your own hope.
Which, thankfully, is available after completing what's basically the next dungeon after the absorption gate.
Don't say things like this. Seriously, haven't I made myself clear enough? You can tell me if I'm about to miss something optional, but this here is nothing but a pointless spoiler. And what you wrote before editing was probably even worse.
This is an "I comment on playing through the game for your potential amusement" topic, not a "you help me play the game" topic.
Also, I checked the Casino. Couldn't find him. Maybe I missed something, I'll go back and see.
I reloaded and made sure to talk to Guy. He was pretty hard to spot actually.
Pretty sure I've done most if not all sidequests up until now, except the one with the 5 maces. As expected from a Tales game, some of them are pretty obscure, like saving a guy at Aramis Spring with the help of his dog. I enjoy this kind of quirkiness and attention to detail in a game, too many games these days feel completely sterile and overfocused to the point where they have no personality. Yes the one that comes to mind first is FFXIII.
The Absorption Gate is a huge place. Cool design too. Gonna try to find everything here before heading for the Passage Ring.
Some nice split-party puzzles in here, even if it makes no sense to have stuff like seesaws in a place like this.
After making sure to get all the chests in here, which required a ton of backtracking, I prepared myself properly for an epic battle and headed for the Passage Ring.
Oh what the hell Van is going all Ganondorf down here. Why do pipe organs go so well with villains?
This battle is awesome. No luck-based mess of attacks constantly raining down on everyone, just a fair fight against a really powerful guy stacked with OKHO attacks that I have to use the utmost precision to keep my party away from. And 200 000 HP. The fight went all over the place, often I found myself down to one party member and having to use 1337 t4ct1cz to get my crew back on their feet.
But alas, 4 on 1 was more than a match for the crooked organist, and he makes a Standard Villain Exit into the abyss, possibly to return later after absorbing the lifestream or something. I'd like to make a Soviet Russia joke about the name Sephiroth here but I couldn't make it work. It was funny in my head though.
Why are the voices so low in the FMVs, it's hard to even make out what they're saying. Some mysterious focus on Van's sword that he left behind... wonder if it has any significance. Also, Lorelei being creepy again with his/its extremely cheesy theatrical voice. Then we lower the Outer Lands with the help of Asch who is presumably at the Radiation Gate. All is well.
ONE MONTH LATER
...Luke is back to being a lazy useless slob in his manor. Haha. Now for some lighthearted antics while collecting my party members back, I presume. Hmmmmm someone's taken Van's sword. Initial deductions on my part say it's Asch, possibly under Van's control. I knew the sword would come up again.
Seems the Score has been banned in Kimlasca. See Van, this is how simple it was. No need to destroy the world. And people seem to cope with it just fine.
The epic world map music and not so epic battle music is still around, I see. So I guess we're officially in Act 3 of the game now, as if that wasn't obvious.
As I collect my party members one by one it seems the previously incapacitated villains are regrouping as well. Dist broke out of confinement(seriously, no prison can ever hold a JRPG villain, even a minor one, so why do they even bother), and rescued Mohs. Later Legretta shows up and from what it sounds like, the entire loser squad is still around. I knew I wasn't going to get rid of them that easily despite their incompetence... sigh.
Asch is still being an idiot too, refusing to cooperate with anyone and getting wounded all the time. How hard can it be to just jump him, tie him up and drag him to Jade for some pleasant Q&A?
Speaking of Jade, after meeting him in St. Binah I am treated to an utterly surreal and completely insane chain of events concerning a mortally wounded General Frings. I assume I don't have to elaborate on the complete ludicrousness of these events because you guys have all played the game. Just... what. (And I spent so much time doing pointless fetch quests for him too...)
The new macguffin everyone is after is the Key of Lorelei, which comes in two parts as detailed earlier in the game. Clearly, Van's sword is one of them and it now belongs to Asch. He's going to need help protecting it.
The fake Kimlascans attacking Malkuth weren't Oracle Knights, they were replicas. Seems we have a clone army to deal with now. And what is up with Anise acting weird all the time, it's been going on since we went to the Daath Sephiroth back when.
Natalia proposes another of her diplomatic meetings to figure out how to deal with the Score. Finally we can stroll into Daath and feel entirely like good upstanding people deserving of their hospitality without fear of ambushes!
...And of course that's when we're ambushed by the Oracle Knights. And the miasma is back. And... Anise has an agenda here for sure. Help comes from unexpected places though, and Arietta saves the day since she worries about Ion.
...Ok what the HELL is Mohs doing here, why is that **** still around and why is Anise with him. Anise has been obnoxious all along but she's also a traitorous spy for the biggest scumbag on Auldrant? Top that off with pretty much the only bad voiceover in the game and you have a recipe for least likeable RPG party member since Cait Sith, which is just so ironic right now. From my experience this means that there is a 100% chance of annoying characters riding oversized stuffed animals being filthy spies.
Jumped into a volcano, killed a dragon, found some traitors.
Ion was already on his last leg, but still managed to help out by healing Tear and giving us a hint from the Score. Looks like we'll have to rely on the thing we're trying to rid ourselves of.
I so wanted someone to run over and maul Mohs there, but he got away again the elusive bastard. As for Anise... this is pretty inexcusable. I can't see how she can possibly redeem herself for this. Hostaged parents or no, you simply do not cooperate with douchebags like this and kill the world's number one role model and beacon of hope and expect to get away with it. Upon returning she even has the gall to brag about it to Arietta.
But of course I'm still forced to have her rejoin the party because we can't just throw out party members like that. Couldn't I have gotten Arietta instead, with equipment and stats carrying over? Nobody should forgive Anise for this. I miss old Luke, he'd never have put up with this Bulls***!
The party is running out of options now. Nothing much came of the visit to Belkend except info on some Scorer who seems to be collecting replica data. Destroying the miasma with hyperresonance is suggested, but it would take far too many Seventh Fonons according to Jade, and would also kill the user. Hmm... this can't be irrelevant. Asch has been slated for heroic sacrifice for quite some time now, and maybe the soulless replica army could serve as the fuel?
The party decides to start with more achievable goals though, such as finding Asch again and looking into this mysterious Scorer.
Hmm this topic is getting empty, is it just me here? Hellooo *echo* Not that I care though I'm writing this for myself anyway.
Still following it. Surprised you didn't mention more about Ion's death. I found it to be very sad myself. "Thank you...for everything...my most...cherished..."
Well, that was one of those moments where the sadness was overridden by MURDEROUS RAAAAAGE against the ones responsible. Also it takes a lot for an old RPG veteran like me to be very emotionally affected. I look at games from a critical standpoint, being a 3D designer/animator myself.
Ion really grew on me though, after initially appearing to be a boring, generic character. His very fitting voiceover helped. Was he and Sync voiced by the same guy? Because I thought Sync had a very childish, forced and fake-sounding voice up until his identity was revealed and it suddenly became perfect, just like how I'd imagine Ion's voice to be if he put on a figurative(and literal) mask of pretend badassitude.
Finally got some answers from Asch. Bout time he stopped being an idi... oh wait he still goes off on his own and lashes at everyone for no reason.
In Baticul we find that Mohs has been captured... and escaped again. By himself. From the entire Kimlascan army. How ridiculously incompetent can they get? This is pathetic even by JRPG red shirt standards. And look, there he is in plain sight, a few meters from the nearest guard. Face. Palm.
Then Dist shows up... and turns him into a huge black blob with bat wings, dude looks like Vaati without the eyes. You know what this means? I'll personally get to dish out some bloody vengeance on this sucker! But not now, they're going to run off to some place called Eldrant, which is obviously the flying fortress from the intro that I first watched just recently and still got spoiled by. Oh well.
Yeah I'm not saying much either due to most of my thoughts being spoilers.
But yeah, I'll never truly understand why Anise said that to Aritteia as opposed to say.... "Mohs.... Mohs killed Ion!", though I have a theory on why that is.
And if you saw my input on the Best/Worst character in Tales of the Abyss, you should now know why I put Mohs as the worst.
^I didn't see anything like that, I wouldn't enter any other topics about the game before beating it. I don't think Mohs is the worst character though, he's a decent villain. Anise is definitely worse, and so are some of the God-Generals, especially Asch.
Speaking of annoying God-Generals, it seems Sync did survive. And he's doing a better job at being a villain now too, playing the clone card to mess with Anise.
Jade puts my thoughts into words: After all these battles we still haven't been able to kill a single villain off for good. Personally I was sure the triple battle on Mt. Roneal would be the decisive battle against the G-Gs; this kinda drags on now. Oh well at least they're fun to fight.
Next up we learn from Teodoro that two Seventh Fonon hot spots have appeared. One of them seems to be moving, this must be the Eldrant right? We go there... and it's not Eldrant, but some entirely random ruined floating city which turns out to be Arietta's personal holiday yacht, now used for fomicry purposes.
There's a lot of appliances for an extented Mieu Fire here, but I can't find the ability. I guess it must have been in Mt. Zaleho, considering the fire theme. I'll go back later.
Nothing much happens here on the Island of Feres, but suddenly: FLOATING CONTINENT! It's the Eldrant, a replica of Hod, and the villains are all hanging out there waiting for me to wreck their s***. Mohs, your time is up!
I also beat the Sword Dancer easily. In fact, the difficulty has dropped all around lately. I suspect the Mt. Roneal battle was the equivalent to Rodyle's dragons in Symphonia, where once you got past that fight the rest of the game was on a downward slope difficulty-wise because of bad balancing. I hope it's different this time though.
As soon as you mentioned the Isle of Feres I was going to get ready to mention the Sword Dancer, as he can once again be easily missed, but you got him.
*SPOILERS ABOUT FUTURE BOSS COMBAT, NOT GOING TO SPOIL ANYTHING IF POSSIBLE*
It gets a bit easier now, but near the end bosses start to spam Mystic Artes pretty hard. That's all.
My problem with Mohs is he's a god damn monster with no redeemable features. Even Sync is more likeable, and he's easily the biggest dick of the God Generals.
I wonder if anything will come of the rocket project in Sheridan. You'd think it's a case of chekhov's gun, but it seems more likely to just be a red herring.
Also I enjoy all those random cutscenes you get from just going places. Going to revisit every location before heading for the Eldrant.
From: Dark Young Link | #187 My problem with Mohs is he's a god damn monster with no redeemable features. Even Sync is more likeable, and he's easily the biggest dick of the God Generals.
He's actually fairly run of the mill for the world; what the score says is what's right by default. He's just the one who knows the dick scores. Karma apparently doesn't exist on Auldrant.
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There's always hope for better things in life. But you can't let anything, friend, lover, God himself, be your hope. You have to be your own hope.
Let me see... got Mieu Fire 2 and the Flamberge, played as Asch for a while to get medicine for Susanne Fabre and an upgrade for the Albiore, helped the people of Engeve again, had some more fun with Peony who continues to be an amazing dude, played some minigames here and there, and got the fanservice scenes with complementary swimsuits.
I also have several secret artes for Luke, Guy and Natalia, and 3 of the weapons for the Planetary Fonic Arte. I believe I've scoured the planet quite thoroughly by now, so I guess I'll head to the Eldrant next!
...Or so I thought, but Noelle's crappy piloting skills prevent us from breaking through the Planet Storm surrounding it.
In Grand Chokmah we learn that the Eldrant is slowly expanding through replication, while the original land is getting annihilated through hyperresonance. Assumedly, the intent is to reform the entire world at the altitude of the Outer Lands, replicating even the Sephiroth trees. And indeed, the map is changing to reflect the effects, with islands being destroyed and huge dark spots appearing on the ocean - whether these are shadows from emerging floating islands or deep water as the sea bed is annihilated is ambiguous.
Mohs is losing his sanity now. I love his voiceover, it captures his zealous jerkitude perfectly. I hope I get to fight him while he's still accountable for his actions, it would feel a bit cheap to defeat him as a mindless monster.
But before anything can be done to stop him, Anise has to finish her feud with Arietta. We return to the cheagle woods for a redux of our first battle, but unfortunately for Arietta, my party has grown disproportionally compared to her. I play as Anise for this battle to honour the duel, and in the end, she really does kill her.
Frankly, it seems to me Anise is the one who deserved to die here. And as usual, she doesn't show any sort of honest remorse, the little psychopath.
Largo is also confronted about his true identity, but Natalia doesn't get to know yet. He'll be the next to fall for sure, and then the drama will be on again when she finds out.
As preparations are made for the summit of the three countries to decide on the course of action, I am treated to some really cool and truly original scenes with Asch returning to the manor.
The hero, his "evil twin", and their parents, all alive and hanging out, albeit awkwardly? This defies all the cliches! All of them. And both Luke and Asch denounce the stupid idea of heroically sacrificing themselves! What a stunning defiance of JRPG tradition.
...and not 5 minutes later, Asch seems to be on his way to kill himself after all, with the replicas being the Seventh Fonon sacrifice, as expected. Dang!
The last Ariettia fight was very painful for me. I didn't want to kill her, and to this day felt that she didn't deserve to die. As for my theory(which is no longer a spoiler to you) I feel that Anise told Ariettia that she "killed" Ion to make Ariettia truly want to kill her. Anise had recently muttered that she should have died instead, so maybe Anise was hoping Ariettia would put her out of her misery. This would also give closure to Ariettia since she finally killed Ion's "murderer".
Edit: Also this portion of the game.... brings up a lot of implications and thoughts.
It's building up to a confrontation with Asch, but as we reach the top of the Tower of Rem, the boss turns out to be a party-crashing Dist. For some reason he's following Mohs' orders to kill the replicas, even though he should be aligned with Van... but in the end, I guess Dist doesn't really care about anything except Jade and their dead teacher. This would be the end of his dream though.
After he's taken care of, Asch appears. Then follows some major drama wherein both Luke and Asch want to be the hero who gives his life to save the world, while at the same time being afraid of dying and wanting to leave it to the other one. It's quite entertaining actually! Of course, Luke dying here is out of the question for dramatical and game-mechanical reasons, so it will either be Asch or neither of them.
Asch seems to also have some other issue he's dealing with, something that has been hinted at for a loooong while now... that his time is already limited.
By the way, in Daath I once again had to reset the game because the game forced me to continue the story before I had talked to all the party members about Luke's dilemma. It's really annoying and breaks the immersion a lot. Why the heck can't there be a "do you want to continue yes/no" prompt in cases like this? Stupid stupid.
I will check around for sidequests a bit more before going back to the Tower of Rem. Do tell me if there's anything missable right now! I also just beat the Behemoth, which was obviously quite easy at this point.
It's strangely inconsistent which sidequests are voiced and which are not. Every once in a while I'll run into a random scene that's voiced, but then some pretty important scenes like Guy and Duke Fabre finally making up are left silent. Is this also the case in the Japanese version, I wonder.
By the way I still don't know what the Enhancement stat does, please do tell me if any of you do! Same with what exactly the Agility stat does!
I also hated having to kill Arietta. Agility lets you move faster. You can run circles around enemies if this stat is high enough. I don't think Enhancement by itself does anything in battle. I think it's just for getting AD Skills.
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SuperNiceDog was not so nice to my bracket. Congrats to SuperNiceDog for winning the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest!
Takfloyd_mkII__ posted... It's building up to a confrontation with Asch, but as we reach the top of the Tower of Rem, the boss turns out to be a party-crashing Dist. For some reason he's following Mohs' orders to kill the replicas, even though he should be aligned with Van... but in the end, I guess Dist doesn't really care about anything except Jade and their dead teacher. This would be the end of his dream though.
After he's taken care of, Asch appears. Then follows some major drama wherein both Luke and Asch want to be the hero who gives his life to save the world, while at the same time being afraid of dying and wanting to leave it to the other one. It's quite entertaining actually! Of course, Luke dying here is out of the question for dramatical and game-mechanical reasons, so it will either be Asch or neither of them.
Asch seems to also have some other issue he's dealing with, something that has been hinted at for a loooong while now... that his time is already limited.
By the way, in Daath I once again had to reset the game because the game forced me to continue the story before I had talked to all the party members about Luke's dilemma. It's really annoying and breaks the immersion a lot. Why the heck can't there be a "do you want to continue yes/no" prompt in cases like this? Stupid stupid.
I will check around for sidequests a bit more before going back to the Tower of Rem. Do tell me if there's anything missable right now! I also just beat the Behemoth, which was obviously quite easy at this point.
It's strangely inconsistent which sidequests are voiced and which are not. Every once in a while I'll run into a random scene that's voiced, but then some pretty important scenes like Guy and Duke Fabre finally making up are left silent. Is this also the case in the Japanese version, I wonder.
By the way I still don't know what the Enhancement stat does, please do tell me if any of you do! Same with what exactly the Agility stat does!
From my understanding, level cutscene line is voiced in the japanese version. Skits too
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"Don't freeze up girl, you're looking quite a sight." - Adam Ant. "Baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man." - Larry Underwood
Yeah I thought Agility affected movement, though not as much as having that speed up AD Skill. The question is whether it also affects attack speed and critical hit chance.
I returned to the Tower of Rem, and... stuff happened. Of course, Luke survived, but I was a bit surprised to see Asch make it through just fine too. As for the replicas... I guess despite all the talk of "clones are people too!", they were expendable after all.
Wow, it sure is nice to have other colours than purple!
But then, the bad news. Luke survived the immediate effect, but he's still going to die eventually. This probably means it's time for the KINGDOM HEARTS SOLUTION. Guess Asch's summer vacation is about to be over.
We return to Baticul for a breather, and some touching scenes. Tear finding out about Luke's condition was excellent, really shows how much she's come to care for him. And then Largo of all people gets some really sympathetic scenes when Natalia learns the truth and confronts him. His wife killing herself because her mother stole her daughter away to be a replacement for the princess? That's pretty harsh.
But now, back to business. Need to stop the Planet Storm to get to Eldrant, and to do that we have to destroy a fonic glyph at the Absorption Gate, using the Jewel of Lorelei that turned out to have been inside Luke all along. Stay tuned!
Holy hell literally all the villains throwing a party for us down here. Strangely, Van and the others still indulge Mohs. Oh and they all got new outfits, just like Dist and Arietta. Dressing up for their own funerals?
One of the funerals comes right away, as Largo meets an honourable end. He even managed to style his hair in between the battle and his death scene! Notice how everyone looks more awesome with gothy hair bangs.
Oooh, here's a JRPG trope this game has lacked so far: Main character floating around in a mysterious void! It doesn't reveal anything new though.
Outside the temple, Mohs finally learns from a new Ion replica that the score predicts the extinction of humanity, and obviously snaps. Meanwhile, Van has some serious trouble containing the rebellious god inside him. It's still hard to predict whether Lorelei's intentions are truly good. Regardless, I think the party is in partial agreement with Van that it should be destroyed if possible.
The villains take off for now(literally), and the new Ion is taken to Daath. He's named Florian and immediately bonds with Anise, who is somewhat conflicted about all this.
Looking for Florian again afterwards, I trigger a couple of events: One is a memorial for Ion where Tear learns how to use the fifth part of the hymn in battle and I also get to hear how the parts fit together for the first time. It's actually a nice song, though it's obviously no Hymn of the Faith. The other has a nice Freud moment with Anise wanting to sleep together with Florian.
Random thought: With all the music themes in this game, shouldn't this be the one called Symphonia? The titular Abyss(The Qliphoth) isn't really as important as it seemed to be earlier in the game, after all. Though I guess like most JRPGs, the name is pretty much just a random English word someone found in a dictionary.