Grinding: it's not just for coffee anymore. Let's Play The 7th Saga!

It really does.

Come to think of it, have I still not managed to paraphrase that for a GSQ bio quote? I keep meaning to, but I think the only time I actually did it the FF6 thing happened instead.

#3: The Water Rune



Exposition! Pison has returned from the Dark World (which I'm sure is an SNES-era euphemism) and has taken on a new hue. The exact circumstances of his reincarnation are left to the viewer's imagination, but the point is that Pison's back with a hankering for revenge.



♪♪ Epic Confrontation ♪♪

I mentioned earlier that Pison deals more damage to Lejes than Lejes has HP. Even under Defense status, it's all he can do to stay alive.



I kind of gave this away, too, but we're not exactly pounding him into the ground here.



Here's what I didn't mention: R-Pison casts HEAL 2 to restore 90 HP. What a jerk! I got hopeful here and used my M Water from Melenam to revive Lejes...



...but I shouldn't have bothered. I was out of potions anyway.

Death count: 17

At this point, I would've reset, but I didn't save recently. This was dumb of me.

It's time to stock up for round #2. Lux's initial armor sells for a sweet 1000G, another great reason to pick up the Brwn. This lets me grab 9 each of Potn 1 and Potn 2. Like its sister spell HEAL 2, Potn 2 also heals 90 HP. Potn 1 isn't out of style yet, but against enemies like R-Pison that can deal more than 40 damage in a round, Potn 1 is sometimes lacking.

There's one more thing I want to do before rechallenging Pison.



A Defend/Attack from LAVOS and a FIRE 2 from Lejes are all it takes to kill the Trick. I was partially wrong when I said it drops a Topaz -- it turns out Topaz is just the most common drop. Tricks and their relatives can potentially drop any gem, up to and including the Emrld I got from this one. That's 5000G! Armed with this knowledge, I'd say it might be worth resetting if you get anything worse than a Sapphr (2500G). I got lucky and landed the Emrld on my first try.

...I haven't actually used the money. I just wanted to kill the Trick before I forgot about it.



One nice touch is that many bosses have alternate speeches for your second attempt. The designers knew you'd die, so they added Easter eggs for you! Most of the bosses express some surprise that you're still alive, which is a sensible sentiment in general, but somewhat puzzling coming from a guy who just cheated death himself.



The battle starts out the same as before, but this time I remember to use my stinking B Power. I can't tell you how cheesed I was when I realized I had one of those sitting in my inventory for the entire first battle.



The preparations pay off. Potn 2 reduces the need for healing, since I can go two or three attacks before LAVOS needs to be healed. Meanwhile, LAVOS is dealing 80 damage on a Defend/Attack. Lejes is contributing less damage, but he's largely here as a dedicated healer.

I've knocked Pison down to a sliver of health. Time for the coup de gr�ce.



Oh, you've got to be kidding. Pison survived or dodged everything I threw at him, and I went for an all-out attack in an attempt to kill him before he could heal.

FORTUNATELY: I remembered to save this time.

Death count: 18 (This one is non-canon, but we'll count it anyway)



Round 3 goes much more smoothly, and Lejes grabs his first level up as a result.



Pison was standing on an extra Mouth Water (which, yes, is invisible). We grab it to replace the one I wasted earlier. I escape and heal, then come back for the rest of the cave. There's only a short jog between Melenam and the exit, with Pison located about a third of the way in.

Here's the game jerking your chain. If double revives wasn't fun, triple revives has to be fun. Right? Right?



B.Demons have no elemental weakness, despite their peculiar color. The R.Demons that we'll find later are weak to ice, though.



♪♪ The Farthest Reaches ♪♪

What's this? That short length of cave has relocated us to the farthest reaches of the world! (I totally wrote this before noticing the song title, guys) Our goal is to reach the northwest end of the island, from where we'll take an even shorter cave to an even greater distance.



This island is notable for the abundance of Brains. I can't honestly say why they're called Brains, since they're quite obviously writhing masses of tentacles. I mean, I know "Writhing Mass of Tentacles" is too long, but still!



However, I'll give them this: they are absolutely brutal. Their physical attack is nothing to laugh at, but it's their LASER 2 that really hurts. Brains are notable for being a good source of Vitamin XP and for dropping Rcvry, which completely refills HP and MP. If you've got to grind, this island is a good place to do it. But don't do it just yet! This is important!



♪♪ Lively Village ♪♪

At the other end of the island is the town of Eygus, filled with people who love talking about Melenam and "the continent." Some inspection will reveal that these are the ancestors of the survivors of Melenam.



The other thing everyone will mention is that you should talk to the sage. 7th Saga is drowning in sages, elders, and prophets.



You have to have the Wind Rune to advance beyond this point. There is a very good technical reason for this: talking to the sage silently and permanently removes one of the apprentices from the game. If you had lost the Wind Rune to that apprentice, it would also be gone forever. What happened to that apprentice? We'll find out next time. For now, let's just be content with knowing that it's not Lejes. (I happen to know that it's also not Esuna, but again, that's for next time.)

Now that you've talked to the sage, if you want to grind Brains, go for it.

The cave beyond the sage is filled with familiar foes. Nothing new here except their arrangements.



♪♪ Kamil Dowonna ♪♪

As I mentioned, the cave is short, and once again, we've journeyed across the world. From here, it's a very short walk to the next town -- short enough that you can see the dungeon and town on your radar at the same time (not pictured).



Here's our first new enemy on this side of the world: the Manta. Mantas aren't particularly tough or powerful, but they're fast, and they can cast AGILITY to make themselves or an ally even faster. Lejes bit the dust here, but LAVOS carried the rest of the battle.



♪♪ Olvan Jaess ♪♪

You don't say. Shocking revelations abound here in Pell!



Among them is the price tag on our friend's equipment upgrades. Sorry, chum! I'm not going to dish out that kind of cash right now.

Why is the Seas Robe so expensive for a mere 2-point upgrade? The Xtreme Robe that Lejes is currently wearing doesn't give any resistances, whereas Seas gives 20% resistance to death and debuffs. Is it worth spending that much? You decide.

Wait, no. In this instance, I decide, and I decide that it isn't. Every robe from now on will impart those same resistances, so I'm better off holding out for a bigger increase.

By the way, if you want to make a few pennies, you can sell off your ally's equipment before you give him the boot. While you can't unequip directly, you can buy a cheap replacement. For better or worse, your fellow apprentices have escaped the foul curse of Gafgarion and will acquire replacement gear before the next time you meet.



Here in the tavern, there are drunkards, but also information. (I can't be sure, but I suspect Quose was a layabout alcoholic in the original Japanese.) We have a lead on our next Rune, so let's get ready and go.



Joy of joys! Item shops start stocking B Power here, an essential item for any team that can't cast POWER. After B Defense and maybe Potn 3, this is the most important item in the game. Buy buy buy.

Our next destination is pretty far away, which naturally means that we're in for some more dot-dodging. As a general rule, I don't run from encounters unless I'm pretty sure they'll kill me. As a general rule, encounters that would kill you are very hard to escape. Avoiding encounters altogether is the secret of my relatively low-level success.

Haha, okay, I exaggerated. We'll have to walk way farther than this in the future.



Here's an enemy we could've encountered much earlier: Despair. They appear as early as Zellis and will absolutely wreck you at that point in the game. For our hyper-advanced party, it's not a big deal.



And here we are already!

♪♪ Troglodytes! ♪♪



♪♪ Equipment on Sale ♪♪

Here's the secret best part of the town of Guntz: this guy sits alone in a room that plays the shop theme, then tells you he won't sell you anything.



We already knew Guntz had a rune, but if you didn't talk to anyone in Pell, here it's laid out again for you.



The village elder has it, but won't fork it over. What's a hero antihero sociopath to do?

♪♪ Benny Hill Theme Song ♪♪



Talk the guy to death! Sooner or later, he'll budge, right? Otherwise, the game would've let us die at his hands fight him by now.

Added bonus:


We loot his desk before we go. Score!

At this point, if you paid any attention at all in Pell, you know exactly what to do.



♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Like Brantu before him, Quose is not a battle participant. He won't stick with us long in any case.



♪♪ Great Achievement ♪♪

Our reward is the Water Rune, which heals a nice chunk of HP when used in battle -- it seems to be between 50 and 90. That obsoletes Potn1s in battle and greatly reduces our overall reliance on healing items. It'll become less significant as the game goes on, but it'll never go all the way out of style.



Naturally, Quose is parting ways with us.

Death count: 18

Grind count: 0

We've won two runes without having to kill anyone for them! Can we keep this up? No.

Next time: Betrayal! Where's an exterminator when you need one?

Oh, awesome, a 7th Saga LP. Man, I both loved and hated this game back in the day. That's the paradox of 7th Saga. It had some cool mechanics and a fun quest, but dying repeatedly gets a little old.

Never did manage to make it to the end. I'll be interested to see the latter portion of the game!

Oh, and good LP so far.

Man, is it just me, or does this game have significantly more towns than dungeons?

This is one of my favorite little moments in 16-bit gaming (witness my first post on this incarnation of TT): the blithe way it just pulls the reason for a fight out of thin air and expects everyone to roll with it. Why red? Because.

It should play the sad trombone sound when you leave!

Next update: The town that is a dungeon!

The update after that: The town that's laid out like a dungeon!

Intermission #3: Fighting with an Ally



Adding an ally to the party changes the dynamic of combat. Herein lie the most subtle nuances of the battle system.

The parts that should surprise no one: In each combat round, everyone in the battle may act once. This is true even if that battler was revived during the round: if he had previously acted during the round, he doesn't get another turn, but if not, he gets to go. Petrified battlers always act last, so if the status is cured mid-round, that battler still gets his turn. There is no concept of turn order: the Speed stat is used only for evasion. The enemy will never act ahead of you.



The subtler details: Enemies will always attack following the turn of the target they're attacking. This is vital. If I'm fighting enemies that have no multitarget attacks, then LAVOS doesn't need to worry that his partner is at 1 HP. The partner won't be attacked until he's taken a turn.

The thing everyone misses: You can switch the turn order at the start of each round. Press left or right to have the other apprentice act first.

The implications:

• It's usually a good idea to have your beefier apprentice act first. If no one attacks, then it's often a very good idea to have the partner defend (even if that partner has no intention of attacking afterward).
• If one of your apprentices can deal a killing blow, it's usually best to have that apprentice attack first, before the enemy gets a chance to act.
• If you're planning on having one of your apprentices defend, have that apprentice act first. This lets him scout out the enemy's attacks for the guy who isn't defending.
• At the start of a boss battle, have your physical attacker buff defense. If he's attacked that round, the partner can buff his attack to get your damage engine started a round earlier.

And many more! The rules here are fairly simple, but the strategic ramifications are rich. Mastering turn management can get you out of some extremely hairy situations. Of course, you can always ignore strategy if you want to grind!

Whoo! This is going to help a lot! I've been playing along on this one too. (Well, sort of. Got bogged down trying to get Olvan and his spell-casting friend Lejes and their science-nerd buddy Brantu over to Melenam. The overworld starts to get thick with nasty things like dual Manrots and giant bugdudes with really thick armor midway between Zellis and the cave.)

I did notice the obvious thing that the player always acts first every round of combat (and that fights tend to be really RNG-swingy in spite of this useful consistency). I also noticed the subtleish thing about enemies only attacking the party member who acted most recently.

But I completely missed "The thing that everyone misses". And even before I read the rest of that paragraph the manifold serious implications of that fact (in combination with the previous one) began unfolding in my mind.

Damn. That really is going to be a game-changer isn't it?

Yeah. THIS is why I've been telling people that this game is actually pretty good all these years. The combat engine is simple but there's surprising depth and a lot of room for tactical application of your (fairly limited) abilities.

Though I can't imagine solo runs being much more than a grindfest...

Hmm, I wonder if that makes it one of the only RPGs in existence where using a party is faster than soloing? (Pretty much every RPG speedrun solos a large proportion of the game, because it's usually faster to stack all the exp on one character to make enemies easier to oneshot, and secondary characters slow you down by having to take their turns.)

It's still faster to solo most of the game, just less interesting. Experience is divided between living allies.

Of course, living allies implies that an optimal strategy might be to use an ally only when it befits you, trading around from time to time to replace dead-weight allies for newer models.

Hey readers! This is a good a time as any to ask: what's your position on swapping allies? Lejes is trailing behind in the levels due to his cardboard defense, but he's still pulling his weight as long as he can stay alive. Do you want to see other apprentices, or should LAVOS and Lejes keep on trucking?

Screw Lejes! Get the alien!

I, uh, may have made the alien mad.

He's kind of a boring partner anyway!

I'm cool with seeing other allies, I think it'd be a little more interesting to see an overview of most of them. Also considering 90% of Lejes contribution seems to be "taking a dirt nap" it's not like we're seeing a lot of awesomness come from him.

Oh. Does helping Lejes make the alien mad?

If so, how about the dwarf?

I'm up for switching it up but I have no particular preference who to try next.

No. It's in the next update. I did a dumb thing.

No more small elves leading your team!

I say give Esuna Busy a chance. But don't let her lead your team.

To be fair, it's unnecessary in Fire Emblem too. Actually, are there any games with random growth rates where you can find yourself in an unwinnable state?

Huh, I didn't expect they'd name a town after him.

Also, I'll vote Esuna. Clearly the best choice...somehow.

I believe what you meant to say was...

Let's Get Busy!

It's business time.

Valsu because he's awesome.

You should save Esuna for last.