Board 8 > MenuWars Plays, with TiTS.

(+) Yeah! (+)

So after fannying about with the launch config setting and getting my pad to work after three attempts (thanks menu for hiding the enable controller button as a check mark in the middle of the menu when there's a fucking okay button) the game starts with me sitting at a chair in a fairly nice cabin looking area with a character called Estelle, who's daddy is late, she seems worried about Schera, and then makes what I can only assume is lewd innuendo about practising with her staff for a bit while everyone's out. Sweet log fire though.

Wait wtf, her dad has kidnapped her a badly beaten boy as a present... erm okay. Hmmm so her dad's a bracer... and deals with monsters... and then we elbow drop the badly beaten kid who's shouting at her really strange dad, and then tells him to rest, ahahaha. This is great, wtf.

Jesus Christ they're all mental.

Beautifully drawn, nonsensical intro compreeto, and I find out the kids name is Joshua and he plays the harmonica. How has she heard so many songs of his already? There's clearly been a time lapse, but I knew nothing to begin with... why?

Wait what now her dad is his dad too, this game moves at record pace. I haven't even been able to move yet... Okay so my training is to be a bracer, and Schera is our teacher, and we're gonna have test, and pick up the Liberl (subtle) newspaper.

Right and we're off...

Okay training is commencing, Orbments are mechanical and use "orbal energy" rightio... and basically seem to be this universes industrial commodity. Bracers are the heroes guild, no surprises there, and Liberl is actually a kingdom in the west of the continent of Zemuria. Hopefully writing some of this down will prove useful later. Liberl is the tech leader and produces a lot of Septium whatever that is.

We were invaded by the Erobonians, and won cus of our orbment ship thingys k.

I'm right with you there Estelle the Bracer Notebook sounds like it's gonna be a pain in the ass, high five.

Never have I been more enthusiastic to go into a sewer looking for "treasure" in my life. Oh god more tutorials and this ones about upgrading and synergising stuff, why overload me this early I haven't even entered a fucking fight yet.

So blah blah blah, central thingy is unlocked, blah blah, needs sepith and ep and quartz and various other stuff, everyones battle orbment is unique.

Elemental value and combination of quartz creates different magic k... wait Quartz are circuits made from sepith, okay...

Useful information wind = green, Time = black, Space is gold, and Mirage is silver, everything else is obvious.

Finally I might be able to leave, go fuck yourself Melders. Wait now you're gonna make me fuck with this stuff even though I have no idea what any of it does, even though you've just made a big deal out of making the most of it being important.

Yeah... Ditto Estelle, let's rock this sewer. I gave her the water thingy and ill give her the fire one too, more attack, but less defense with more hp should be fine unless water and fire make each other weaker without it saying so in the stats screen.

Let's fight! Combats more complex than I expected, a bit tactics meets persona or something. Either way it's a good start despite being spoon fed wins at this point im sure it'll get more challenging.

Of note so far is the really nice musical score, and nice colour palette.

Success is ours and we're promoted to Junior Bracers. Now to find someone willing to pay us to assassinate Melders.
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Tag
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Tower instantly reminds me of Ys: Origin
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Cassius to the rescue as Estelle decides to beat a child instead of rescuing him in a tower full of monsters, not sure what the slug thing was but im sure ill face one eventually. All in all a job well done.

Dad's gone off on a mission to Erobonia, intrigue abounds as something calamitous is bound to happen, but we get some work while he's away so time to grind I guess. Might be able to upgrade a slot soon too which'll be nice. Game seems pretty open in that there's many exits and none seem cut off, albeit I haven't gone off the beaten track yet so perhaps I'd've been cutscened, but the feeling of openness is none-the-less appreciated.

No boss battles yet and with the sprite art being pretty great I'm quite looking forward to one at this point. The S- Break mechanic seems like it'll have a lot of tactical versatility if I'm able to use it appropriately too.
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Opened a chest in some woods by a tree and got completely bodied by 7 hardcore rabbits and tentacle monster... retry compreeto.
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Tag and hype.
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There's a feature called "retry offset", which is enabled by default, that makes fights easier the more often you retry.
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NFUN posted...

There's a feature called "retry offset", which is enabled by default, that makes fights easier the more often you retry.

I just hit run the second I retried moved on and will come back later, I'll be saving before opening chests from now on, that was kinda bs.
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MenuWars posted...

NFUN posted...

There's a feature called "retry offset", which is enabled by default, that makes fights easier the more often you retry.

I just hit run the second I retried moved on and will come back later, I'll be saving before opening chests from now on, that was kinda bs.

Hey, you reacted much more calmly than I did to that chest!
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Actually before I go on is there any point in keeping old items of armour or weaponry?
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MenuWars posted...

Actually before I go on is there any point in keeping old items of armour or weaponry?

No. If you want the achievement for having every weapon/armor you might want to keep them around to see what you've missed, but you're not getting that achievement without a guide anyway.
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Nice! Glad you're finally getting around to this, and hope you like it.
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note that run success rate is 100%

if you get into a fight you don't think you can win, feel free to abuse that
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NFUN posted...

MenuWars posted...

Actually before I go on is there any point in keeping old items of armour or weaponry?

No. If you want the achievement for having every weapon/armor you might want to keep them around to see what you've missed, but you're not getting that achievement without a guide anyway.

Yeah I blind play RPGs it's a gripe of mine that most of them do the inevitable, oh ho, but you didn't talk to the blind man three towns back for an entirely op weapon and skippable quest available only between point x and y that are separated only by five minutes worth of gameplay.

...and then if you do it via a walkthrough you get spoilered to hell regardless of how well someone tries to hide stuff.

Anyway rant aside, I can already tell this game follows that formula just by how brazenly it bodied me for opening a chest. So I'll just muddle along regardless.
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iiicon posted...

Nice! Glad you're finally getting around to this, and hope you like it.

Yes thank you again, sorry it took awhile I got distracted, but I'm in it to win it now.
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MenuWars posted...

NFUN posted...

MenuWars posted...

Actually before I go on is there any point in keeping old items of armour or weaponry?

No. If you want the achievement for having every weapon/armor you might want to keep them around to see what you've missed, but you're not getting that achievement without a guide anyway.

Yeah I blind play RPGs it's a gripe of mine that most of them do the inevitable, oh ho, but you didn't talk to the blind man three towns back for an entirely op weapon and skippable quest available only between point x and y that are separated only by five minutes worth of gameplay.

...and then if you do it via a walkthrough you get spoilered to hell regardless of how well someone tries to hide stuff.

Anyway rant aside, I can already tell this game follows that formula just by how brazenly it bodied me for opening a chest. So I'll just muddle along regardless.

yep. The advice I was given when I started this game was to talk to every body twice, then again with any plot progress, and I still missed some stuff. None of the optional stuff is a big deal; don't worry about it. If you want, just grab it on the second playthrough.
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Tag, good to hear start of game stuff again. It's been so long...
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Right so Joshua died and I'm kinda poor so I just walked all the way home to sleep to rez him, those ants hit like trucks, bought Estelle a shiny new staff, and now I can hopefully sell her original one to get me enough cash to buy a piece of armour for ol Joshypoohs.

Upgraded a third slot for Estelle and a second one for Josh, abusing the fact I can overcharge cp to do double strikes and still have a break available. Taunt feels kinda useless as it's single target and doesn't buff or debuff, only used it once during the fight with the kids to make sure they didn't take any damage.
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Growing some hydroponic shizz down here at the Perzel farm, nice place, seems rather too tranquil to be monster infested, rats in the basement probably.

That's one badass Tractor, hope I get to see it doing something, haven't found the pine monster on the road from the quest yet, and I did explore a little further down the road, I did find the kids shiny rock though. Unless that upgraded plant monster in the chest is what im looking for, but seeing as it says difficulty low, I would hope not.
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Grinding some fresh eggs chicken chasing at the farm, should help with my money woes. Albeit I've not seen how much Sepith converts into yet. Probably a pittance. Apparently I'm supposed to wait for their father to return to the farm, so I guess I've gotta stumble into a cutscene while exploring the place.
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sepith is much more valuable as sepith than money tbqh
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th3l3fty posted...

sepith is much more valuable as sepith than money tbqh

Kinda figured but good to know.

Farm monsters beaten but set free, a love story emerges whodda thunk it, Joshypoohs secret past is still very much a secret to me and I eventually found the Pine monster and killed it, was a relatively tough fight, but very doable. Chest still the hardest thing I've run into by miles.

I think with a third party member I'd be able to do it, or perhaps a fully kitted out duo... or now that I've figured out taunt isn't single target, maybe I could taunt all the monsters at the front, and then run to the back of the arena and have Josh kill the plant with a spell... hmmm
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Right jobs reported, new jobs picked up at the board, I love this kind of quest system, works very well to make the linearity that's inherent to story focused games less obvious and gives you a consistent sense of achievement if you like searching around for stuff.

Next up a mission for the mayor, but first off we have a short time span mission involving replacing a lightbulb on the 6th lamppost from the west on the road I was just on, difficulty medium and the code for the orbment box is 544818 (leaving this here in case I actually need to remember it), off we go!

Also I was promoted but haven't noticed if that does anything for me at all yet other than I've received a new augment.
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Just a general rule: if a mission has a short time span it will expire after the next story mission and needs to be done right away.
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NFUN posted...

Just a general rule: if a mission has a short time span it will expire after the next story mission and needs to be done right away.

Wow, gameplay spoilerz
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NFUN posted...

Just a general rule: if a mission has a short time span it will expire after the next story mission and needs to be done right away.

I figured it'd either be something like that or real time so did it immediately. Got myself a cool new Quartz augment too, should be good against the charge attack those RabBat things like doing so much.
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Ahhh the weekend time to batter this as it's gonna be a slow one. So I went and did the Mushroom quest for Orvid, took me a while cus I searched every damn blade of grass and killed everything on the trail only to find it laying next to a chest in an obvious big clump of grass.

Got Blindsided by a surprise attack from three ants on the way and took a bit of a heavy beating from that but made it through and healed up with tear. Bought us some booties at the store, and I'm level 8 so feeling a bit overleveled now, I hate to imagine how strong I'd be if I hadn't been ignoring a lot of those plants and stuff, but everyone except the regular version of the RabBat things still poses a bit of a threat, so it's not too bad and I'm pretty sure the enemies in that chest would still wreck me, but seeing as I have a mission along that route to help some soldiers in training I think I'll give them a shot again after resting at home. Perhaps that enemy skill negating Quartz I got from the other quest will hit enough folks to let me bust a few down before they can smack me around.

I might make myself a few meatballs before I go in too, that strength boost and heal is pretty nice, but steak is expensive.
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Revenge success, the boots and wind shield paid off nicely, from 100 damage a hit down to 60-80 and I s broke two early critical attacks the enemies would've had, after burning the plant with a fire spell.

Training mission with troops at the checkpoint complete also, that charm that prevents blindness I found whilst doing the mushroom mission proved invaluable as I had estelle taunt one of them whilst wearing it after they blinded Josh, I switched him to magic to focus down the first soldier and it worked. After that it was easy.

Captain seems like a decent fella so hopefully that training will have an effect down the road. Estelle seems to veer wildly from great protag to brat at the moment, but I can sympathise with her need for attention what with her being basically single parented by a guy whom is rarely around, but still she irks me a bit for now.

Josh is just kinda... bland. Not in a bad way but it's difficult to say much about him either negatively or positively thus far.

Anyway with one more mission to complete from the boards, I should be good to visit our esteemed Mayor.
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Hmmm last quest is high difficulty and in an area miles from anywhere I've travelled previously with a long time stamp, unsure if I should just skip it for now or try to blunder my way there and see if I'm capable or not.
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NOT THE BEES!

Yeah I'll come back here later, the birds are pretty hardcore but slow moving so you can surprise attack 'em, bees not so much.
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So I have to go and collect a Septium crystal from the mines, wish I'd done this quest along with the mushroom one tbh, could've killed two birds with one stone but alas, this leads us to needless backtracking busy work in the mines on the cart system for no apparent reason, just gimmie the key you dick I'm clearly not going to have one and you just directed me to the fucking elevator that needs it.

A rest point in a mine you say? Boss battle hoooooooo! Welp not yet at least, just work shy Trent and his Jobsworth colleague Bones... let's go the other way then. Mine Chief Gaton get! Let's see if that rest spot was just a Red Herring.

Eh it kinda was, an escort fight with the useless Chief Gaton, after a cave in drops a load of Crabs into our tunnel, time to get our hero on! Ah they can spam reinforcements... fun!

Yeah you tell that guy Heinrich, preaching when there's monsters here, wasting our time. If you could just give him a little push when you cross the bridge that'd be great... wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Ha nice one Trent, now shut up about food and get moving before I lock you in with the religious nutter.

Ahaaaa looks like we have a traitor in our midst, mr "miner in training", that excuse was more flimsy than Michael Jackson's nose fella... and you're the only character in the game with no name that I can remember, now that I think about it.

Visited Esmelas tower on the way back to explore and found it doable provided I got surprise attacks, the chest trap at the end, after some fannying around trying to figure out how to get to it, would've wrecked me if it wasn't for the fact they were spread apart and I had S breaks ready to go. Strange looking device at the top I'll be back here soonish me thinks. Got a nice staff and shoes though so worth tbh, might be able to do that other quest once I return with my new gear and money for anti poison gear also.
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Enter Josette, from the Royal Academy in Ruan or something, she seems pretty swooned by us being bracers so off to a good start. Ahhhh so this Septium crystal is to be made into a gift for the Queen, she sounds like a decent sort too. Mayor Klaus is a dapper, jolly old gent seemingly, everyone's really nice here, or crazy, this games setting me up for a fall here I think.

Noone in rpg history has got to live as blissfully as this for long. Josette seems nice, and Josh really needs to lighten up a bit, or at least let the veil slip a little, dudes wound up really tight. I go back into the manor and speak to everyone and they seem pleased with our progress, excellent stuff, but Mylene says everything will be fine with us around even if our Dad's gone, thanks for the jinx there, we already know some mischief was afoot at the mines and there's shit going down in Erobonia (heh).

Apparently this next quest is our last and I haven't seen Schera in ages so I'm expecting a meet up soon, or I'd at least like one. Time to check the board after reporting in.

A guy upstairs called Ridge says there's another badass Bracer in the Bose area, probable foreshadowing there, so making a note of it for later. Someone's lost their cat, there's a monster called Rhinocider somewhere on the loose, and I'm gonna be doing another escort mission for some reports from the Liberl News, I'll do the medium time frame one first then the cat then head to Mistwald before continuing on, hopefully I'll be successful this time.

Aina's being requested to marry some dude in town but is looking for a handsome stranger instead, k then... and Schera's still nowhere to be seen.

Cat runs off toward the sewers, I expect the cat to go there so I delve, clear the place out, no cat to be found, check the mayors house, nothing, go back to where I first spotted and another cutscene plays and the cat runs off toward the sewer again, I run around in a circle before going the sewer this time, and sure enough the cat runs into the Church, long story short Estelle scared the cat and little Joshypoohs saves the day.

Right now then... big ol Rhinocider or Big bad Mistwald Forest... I'mma go with Rhino boy first.
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Looks like I infact HAD to go with Rhino first as he was blocking the bridge I needed to cross to enter Mistwald anyway, problem solved I guess, I'm definitely way overleveled and the game screwed him by giving him a strength up which I S broke and ruined him with Estelle's new staff. he hit like a truck but didn't last long after that.

On to Mistwald, both my characters have poison resist trinkets now so Bees should be less damning than before, plus better gear and another level. I'll be hitting lvl 10 soonish these bees give huge xp. Hmmm, mistwalkers are gonna be a problem with that ridiculously high dodge chance, I'll try to sneak round them where possible to conserve my EP.

Damnit surpise attack by a Bee group that hiding behind a tree, thank god for poison resist those guys are faaast. I heal up and venture on through the fork in the road, having no real clue where I'm going, I surprise attack one of those Pine plants and although I get blown up a bit having forgotten about that attack, I succeed in grabbing the Bear Claw, gonna snoop around the other path and see what I can find as I still have some EP left.

That was a mistake I seem to have entered Miniboss land, and after dispatching two groups of Rhinos and Pines I'm spent up and bail out. I at least get another lucky fang for my troubles.

We deliver our medical supplies to the Priest and bail out on the sermon thankfully, report our job to the guild then head over to the farm to see how everyone is doing, nothing doing there but life seems to have returned to normal and the kids are still begging Joshua to spend more time with them. I steal another egg and head on my way to see what these journos want.
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I talk to the people at the hotel and discover a lot of incidents have been happening in Bose recently and it's apparently somewhat of an important trade destination too. We head to the bar as directed by the Manager to meet the journos.

Ah a lewd journo, talking smack to Estelle right off the bat, this'll go down well I'm sure. Nial Burns eh, zing... We're to grab his partner at the Orbal factory and then head off to the Esmelas tower on an escort quest, that'll probably prove fairly challenging as those vampire things are dicks.

I meet someone named Mirano amongst the guests before leaving who is bitter about not being able to purchase the Septium crystal we delivered to the mayor earlier. Might crop up again later, also we learn Schera is a crazy ass drunk from the barmaid. Good stuff, good stuff.

I grab one of each food item from the owner and quiz the chef for recipes to no avail, and head out on our new quest. So we meet Dorothy who is a klutz, and scatter brained and with a smirk I watch as ol Mr Burns has to pay for the damages and repairs.

So there are similar towers to Esmelas in the Bose, Ruan and Zeiss regions too. Currently my money is on fast travel with that weird thing I saw at the top earlier. Onwards and upwards. We have a few close calls, but it's mostly smooth sailing on the way up, attempting to sneak past enemies actually causing the difficulties because of the long trail of our party members.

We make it to the roof and Joshua's apparently honed senses detect someone hiding up here, infact, the dude looks like Shu from Suikoden, k then. Professor Alba the Archaeologist it is then. Sept- Terrions... wut? So the Septian Church backs up the legends, and apparently one of these ancient treasures/entities slumbers near here. I smell a disaster looming. It's name the Aureole... hmmm, that could mean a great many things.

Cue cutscene with people randomly walking into solid objects, but from Alba we learn that Estelle's mother was lost during the war with Erebonia. Joshuas feeling unwell, so we talk to the others and learn some kind of sky pirate gang has been robbing Bose blind of late. Mr Burns suspects the Erebonians could be involved as some sort of revenge for the war they lost... and apparently there's a new person strategising for the Royal Army which has been making "new pushes" of late. So things are picking up in a variety of areas, the plot thickens. Excellent stuff.

All's well that ends well and we part ways back at the town, only to find Schera awaiting us at the Guild, where the fuck've you been?.. well yeah obviously you've been doing jobs, give us the details though... oh no you're just gonna go and get pissed at the bar, right you are then. I guess I'll go hunt down some more escaped pets or something. Wait you want us to come with?... let's roll!... and Estelle immediately killjoys and holy fuck Schera's hitting on Joshypoohs hard... wtf is with you people,

Boom the mayor, craps on the party in style, with news of a gosh darned robbery no less! With his family locked in the attic. That's right Aina, Ridge is the errand boy now, give him the crap jobs we're off to Sherlock this shit.
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Dramatic music time!
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Some great detective work coming out from Joshua here, dude's the very definition of a dark horse. Nice it seems like Schera was pleased with our detective work, and has joined the party with some beasty stats. Josette turned up at just the right time, so she's the obvious suspect, but how did she apply the powder to the safe and more, who are her accomplices. I'm not entirely sold on it being her yet, we need Phoenix Wright here.
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We head to the Mistwald again (damnit could've saved myself some effort), and find Josette of the Capua family boasting about her crime in the woods. Along with that bungling miner from earlier by the looks of it too. It's butt kickin time.

Kyle turns up to spoil the party in some kind of fighter ship, I'll getchoo back fella! Also Schera's a freak, but I guess we already knew that at this point so it's no surprise. A push into the Rolent region huh? Is this Erobonians or what? Just skybandits? Doubt it.

...and sweet we received five bonus points and a recommendation on a job well done after finishing the mission, we now need four more recommendations to become full fledged Bracers. Seems a bit like Pokemon badges to me, but fuck it let's see what happens... oh god our dad might be dead. Accident in Bose, we need a Bose badge, I guess we'll be heading there then.
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Erebonia
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Taking a break while I get some stuff done, but really enjoying it so far, the tale of Estelle's mum's death was well done and it was nice to see a more real side of Estelle. Combats still holding up, and I'm happy the enemies are catching up to me after I did way too much exploring in the beginning, but that was mostly through fear of missing out if I left it too long.

I checked all the vendors and bought a few new things and left on my somewhat merry way to Bose after picking up a letter to be delivered to the Priest there.
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NFUN posted...

Erebonia

Heh
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Boneria
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Back to it, fighting some tentacle monsters and mole's on the road, I find a large monster but have no quest to defeat it yet, unsure how to proceed? Hope someone's here to gimmie a heads up here.
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I'll just leave it for now I guess, I continue heading west towards Bose and meet a man named Grant with a convoy who seems to know Schera. He seems to be another Bracer on an escort mission, he advises us to speak with Lugran about our investigation into the incident at the Bose Bracer Branch or BBB from now on.

I make it Bose fighting sporadically along the way, and nearly getting straight up wrecked by some goopy ufo thing called Wisdom. He spammed something called shadow spear which nearly 1 hit me luckily he was slightly weak to fire which both Schera and Estelle have access to, so we clutched it out with healing balms and spell spam of our own. Not even a warning about him being tough before I fought him either figured it was just a new regular mook type enemy.

So Bose is ranked second on the city hierarchy, right after Grancel... and is indeed a trade hub. I go to deliver the letter to father Holstein first as Idk when the time on it will expire, and find out that Father Divine is a master chemist of sorts a sort of holy Heisenburg, who passes around his new formulas to the other churches to keep everyone healing items in a top notch state. Whodda thunk it.

I then head over to the Bracer guild as instructed to meet Lugran who seems pretty damn old to be a Bracer, perhaps he's just the organiser like Aina was in Rolent. We learn that the Royal Army isn't sharing any information with the public nor Bracers alike about the incident, apparently we aren't so liked by the Army after all, and someone called General Morgan has gotten involved and he's a big war hero that hates Bracers, joy.

But the mayors made a formal request for us to do our own Bracer investigation so we can proceed regardless. We sign up to be Boses new noobs, and are directed toward the mayor, but screw that we've got boards read! Three quests picked up two being monster hunts and one being poultry delivery. Easy street.

We go to crash at the hotel in town and the set off back where we came from as sure enough we now have a quest to kill that scorpion thingy.
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Monster was tougher than I expected with backup from his hench queens, but luckily they all had massive elemental weaknesses. I fought the Wisdom thing again on my way back and he gave me a hp+2 item, so I grinded him out a few more times and got another 2 plus a skull pendant, everyone is level 13 now. My current BP is 59 and I'm gonna go do the poultry delivery as I think I've got enough already from the birds I killed near Mistwald.

Joshua and Schera have new attacks I've yet to use, so I think it's time to go shopping, after the delivery is complete.

I visit the restaurant and it's a poshfest, albeit Horrace the spicy food lover gets a thumbs up from me, nice looking place, but 30 large monster bounties does indeed price us out of the place. Let's find the chef. After getting a lecture about the complexity of cooking we come out with a quest compreeto and a new recipe, we speak to Chef Ross who's basically Gordon Ramsey, and then bail before he murders us and serves us as stew. Let's check to see if we can buy any food here, I have a stockpile of unlearned food recipes here as I haven't needed to use them as yet, but more is always a good thing! Nope can't find anyone serving anything so we clearly are priced out for now.
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I buy chapter one of a novel at the book store, and buy some more ingredients to stockpile for later as well as two new pricey recipes and some Chef blades for Joshypoohs. I'm pretty much spent up after this so travel west towards Ravennue for our quest.

We venture north after a shortwhile on the road towards Ravennue, and after some tough battles with vampire plants and weird chickens we find ourselves ambushed by some kind of Mole meets Minotaur thing, it hits like a truck and is heavily resistant to regular attack so i spam arts until I manage to S break on a strength up and finish the beast. Figaro is mighty happy we succeeded with it being so close to sapling season, the rest of the village is really quite unremarkable, just a quaint orchard and it's folks. I imagine I'll be back to investigate the mine later at some point.

The Chief thanks us for the monster slaying business and says we're always welcome there, perhaps I can harvest moon it up here when Dad's found, fishing pier in the orchard teasing me with no fishing, even though people keep mentioning it. Also I keep forgetting to check the Orbal place in Bose, that's my next stop once I get back there.

I upgrade a slot for everyone and synthesise a mind 1, leaving me fairly broke, I give the mind 1 to Estelle as it gives her access Teara, and I'm still debating whether to give blind to Josh as it unlocks two new spells including the one that Wisdom nearly wrecked me with earlier, I've only just figured out that the elemental values of the Quartz's you slot are what give you access to spells unless im very much mistaken, so doh me for being slow on the uptake there, id just been using them for their buffs so far. I also find the proper weapon but am too poor to buy any of the awesome looking equipment there, damnit. I'll be back!

Mayor's house is lush as I'd expect for the Mayor of the second biggest city in the region, but still nice pad. Butler Mayner, seems to want to be rid of his job and wants to set up the Mayor as soon as possible, k then. She's apparently gone off to pray at the chapel with her maid, so off we go.

I visit the bar on my way to the chapel and Professor Lyndon tells me there's some sort of super fast monster to the West of here so I'll take a look for that later on. I learn from Simon at the bar that Mirano, the one who wanted to buy Septium Crystal is the shadow mayor... and there's also a depressed drunk dude. I grab some food for the recipes and scoff a Cheese Risotto to restore some health.

We meet Lila the high strung maid at the Chapel who immediately grasses up the mayor for avoiding her religious duties, I like the mayor already, Lila joins us to go and meet up with her at the market Mayor Maybelle huh, that's a bit of an alliterative mouthful, but she seems like a cool person bollocking the people for upping the price of food at the market.

We get to eat at the fancy restaurant, and Maybelle gives us a letter to let us slip past Army security in the guise of us being assistants to her. We're to go to Hakan gate, but I might go for an explore first after checking in with the guild again.
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MenuWars posted...

I find a large monster but have no quest to defeat it yet, unsure how to proceed? Hope someone's here to gimmie a heads up here.

Late, but in the future feel free to fight it. No downside to doing that. You still get the reward and all that, if you check the board later you'll find the quest for it and it'll automatically jump to cleared.

MenuWars posted...

I've only just figured out that the elemental values of the Quartz's you slot are what give you access to spells unless im very much mistaken

Nope, that's right. If you open the Bracer Notebook there are pages listing every spell you can use and what elemental values you need to access it. Also an explanation on how the whole system works.
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Thanks xp.

We reach Hakan gate and it really is massive, the border gate between Liberl and Erebonia, the golden stallion! (double heh). We remove our pokemon badges and proceed forward with the subterfuge. I visit the sentry station and im directed to the bar because General hates Bracers isn't around yet, there we meet a blonde haired nobleman from Erebonia, who immediately sees right through our ruse and then starts hitting on Joshua, like, pretty much everyone else in the game tbh, dude's got more game than monopoly.

We're interrupted by the sentry turning up to tell us the General's back and we follow him out, being shadowed by Blonde Mcpervert, we give him the brush off, but I reenter the bar to talk to everyone and rest incase I get boss battled, those massive bird things did a bit of a number on us.

Some guy called Marco gives me another chapter of the book series I'm yet to read, for no apparent reason, we give Blonde the brush off again and everyone else just moans about the current blockades. I rest buy a sandwich and then save, before venturing off to meet the General.

The sentry tells me not to walk around like I own the place cus it's suspicious and the other guy guarding the Guard house tells me not to stoop around and the General's room is the last on the left, I immediately ignore that request and go snooping, noone inside or outside on the ramparts gives two shits about me wandering around and I find a prison downstairs that appears to be empty, nothing of import. The door at the end is locked so we go to do our business with the General.

We learn that it's unlikely to have crashed as there's been no sight of it anywhere it SHOULD have been found, so we theorise a kidnapping or hijacking has taken place... we learn it's the skybandits and Estelle drops us right in the shit.

We're kicked out immediately and just as things are escalating, we get Austin Power'd by Blonde McPervert, in a scene that weirdly reminds me of Deadly Premonition in its awkward tone and the melody itself. He follows us to the bar. Introduces himself as Olivier and then immediately begins hitting on Schera and Joshypoohs. Before carpet bombing Estelle with a burn... Oh shit and Josh doubles down on the burn, bad day to be Estelle.

Alright this guy is great. Some lightheartedness goes a long way after all the serious business we've been upto lately. Olivier joins us as a party member to Bose and we head off.
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Hmmm that was short lived, a gun toting bard that shoots guns and says amigo, Desperado reference maybe? Either way quest reported to Lugran, gonna go visit the mayor and then knock out these others quests I've just picked up and explore the Amberl tower cus that's where Shu said he was headed if I remember correctly, plus I'm skint and the last tower was a goldmine of swag, and nothing is trying to direct me south yet which gives me the impression I might be missing out if I wait. I might be wrong like last time, but better to be safe than sorry.
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<3 Olivier
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I meet with the mayor, and report, nothing of interest really comes up other than she's surprised Cassius was involved. Nial and Connie were there clamouring for an interview with the "sexy" mayor, but Lita kill joyed them and sent them packing, I consider going to look for them but in the event it's an escort quest again I venture south to Amberl first after talking to the chemist about Bear Claws. I figure a lake is humid so might not be a bad avenue to go down, the other option is the valley where there's a beast on the loose so I'll check there next.

The enemies in the south are tough and give me a bit of a kicking but we keep trucking regardless into the tower where the enemies get thinner skinned at first which is nice. Man fuck these turtles these are gonna eat my EP up something fierce. Even flicker barely scratches the surface. I need more fire quartz I'm limited to spamming only tier 1 firebolt on them. But the other wind quartz I gave to Schera proves invaluable with the large aoe magic damage as the green ants are piss weak to everything.

We scrape our way up to the top exploring all the nooks and crannies and sure enough the voices we heard upon entry turn out to be Alba (Shu) he gets jumped by more turtles so I spam them with fire and then save before opening the gold chest as per the norm at this point. Sure enough I get jumped by a lone Robber Trapper and smash him for an Emerald Talisman, I still haven't used the first talisman I've got as the only thing I've seen so far that's weak to earth was that king scorpion, unless I've missed something, it's fucking useless. Hopefully this one will prove more worthwhile.

I open the other chest feeling safe and get jumped by three of the fuckers, so I run immediately heal up and then throw all my C breaks and EP at them and come through completely unscathed because they keep trying to blow up Alba who I repeatedly heal with items using the ever so speedy Joshua.

I'm now basically spent and have to make my way back to Bose with him in tow, this is gonna be difficult.
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