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

I used to do that back when I played Arena, since the game randomly gives you 3 to 6 stat points to spend when you level. But no, it wasn't actually necessary.


Also: Holy Carp! Arena is freeware now?! And has been since 2004?!

#4: The Star Rune

We begin this chapter with the long trek from Guntz to Patrof, our longest overworld jaunt so far. The journey is mostly populated by new faces:



Well, not this one. Here we see poisoned Lux healing after a brutal Brain attack.



Did I introduce the Manta last time? It can cast AGILITY to improve an ally's speed. They're also speedy enough on their own, but not threatening outside of that.



Titans are extremely hardy physical attackers who have neither magic nor MP. They don't have any surprises up their sleeve, so it's generally just a slog to beat them once you get the Water Rune.



So of course they kill me.

Death count: 19



Take two: Lejes kills a B. Demon. Let's give him a hand!



The one on the right is a S. Witch, who usually appears in tandem with a Titan or another S. Witch. Predictably, these are spellcasters. They favor debuffs like DEFENSE2 or PETRIFY, but they can also cast DEFENSE1 or MPCATCHR. The latter is a real annoyance to Lejes.



I love their attack animation. They hurt you by making a funny face!



Did I mention the Coccoon? I think so. Coccoons can easily wipe your party and give a pittance in return. Here, we see that both apprentices have been poisoned, but at least they survived.



And finally, Patrof! There's a rune here, and I don't mind saying that it's the Star Rune, per the chapter's title.

Trouble's a-brewin' in Patrof, where the townsfolk are inappropriately vague. The castle at the north end of town is locked and barred, so our heroes must find an alternate method of egress.



Derr hurr okay.



Here's our next dungeon!



You can see it's littered with treasure chests. Caveat...



These guys are in about a fourth of them. They're significantly stronger than the green one we saw earlier.



It counters Lejes's ICE 2 with a VACUUM1, causing instant death. LAVOS follows suit.

Death count: 20

At this point, because I am Dumb, I loaded a save state that put me back in Pell, pre-Water Rune. Let's Play Catch-Up!



Lejes learns that death spell. It's actually useful, since it has the same hit rate as any other debuff (except that it's resisted separately, but in general, monsters have the same debuff and vacuum resistances). The only issue is that it's prohibitively expensive for now at 32 MP.



And then I find Wilme hanging out and make the mistake of talking to him. He attacks on sight.



Nice rewards.



Remember how I was saying..?

Death count: 21

Anyway, long story short, I got back to Patrof. I challenge the R.Trick to a rematch...



Victory is mine?



The chests in this dungeon that don't contain Tricks have pretty good treasure.



The main foe of this dungeon is the Spidek, a quick, poisonous opponent that casts DEFENSE2. They have low defense, but they're hard to hit.



Magic isn't particularly effective against them, but dying seems to work well.



This latest expedition has left me short of funds to revive Lejes, so I'm forced to sell gems. I wouldn't dare venture into the dungeon alone -- even if he were completely useless otherwise, he fills the niche of "guy who uses the Water Rune so LAVOS can attack."



I explore defensive options, but the only available armor is a negligible improvement for a fairly heavy price tag.

Meanwhile, in Bizarro World:



Valsu joins the party. Lejes is used to such rejection at this point.



Valsu is outfitted similarly to Lejes, but with a much more complementary spell list. Drool~

Back to Real World:



LAVOS catches himself daydreaming about other partners. Lejes finds himself worried that this relationship isn't working out the way he'd hoped. He's afraid he can't satisfy LAVOS the way he used to.



Treasure montage. Look at those seeds!



And a pretty average level up for Lejes.

A full formation gives LAVOS an excuse to showcase THUNDER1, his low-power AOE attack. The effect looks remarkably similar to Romus's regular attack.



If you didn't farm Brains, this is likely to be your first Recvry. Always nice to have.



Death count: 22

In case it's not clear, I'm still sticking to my dodge-the-encounters strategy. I can usually handle them on a case-by-case basis, but repeated encounters quickly put me into the dirt.



Death count: 23

At least the treasure's nice.



At the end of the second floor are these two chests. Both have Tricks. It is probably a good idea to do a separate run for the Tricked chests.



Level 15 brings LAVOS his strongest spell, and indeed the game's strongest spell.



The third floor of the dungeon is a straight shot north to the stairs. I rarely get into encounters on this floor. The stairs here lead to the castle, where the gate is still locked. Thought question: If you can't open the gate from the outside and you can't open the gate from the inside, how exactly do you open the gate?



The castle is full of treasure, none of it trapped. Make sure to grab it all before you head to the throne room, where...

...someone is waiting for you.

I'm pleased to report that my suspicion back in chapter one was correct: the traitor apprentice isn't decided until you talk to the sage in Eygus.

This is the only time that the game absolutely requires you to fight an apprentice. Apprentice fights are hard, imbalanced in the enemy's favor. If you don't want to risk a head-on encounter, losing all the progress you've made through the dungeon, the game presents you with several options. In ascending order by exploityness:

• Suck it up and face your opponent mano a mano. Or in the case of LAVOS, robot fist a mano.
• Recruit a new partner and kill the main character. that apprentice fight for you. The new partner will be stat-adjusted to make this a fair fight -- see intermission #2.
• Kill off your main character and grind up your cohort. The earlier, the better. Since enemy apprentices are matched to your power level, you can outlevel the enemy with your companion.
• Kill off one character before the battle, then revive that character during the battle. I came up with this idea for fighting Ruby Weapon, but I ended up going with HP Absorb + W-Summoned Knights of the Round. It's more effective in this game, where enemies can't use quicksand. I've heard conflicting reports on whether M Water works or you need to use a REVIVE spell.

At the end of the day, though, even this fight has been blown out of proportion. Yeah, you have to fight an apprentice, and yeah, they're all stone cold killers, but the Patrof apprentice is a special case: his level is set in stone when you talked to the elder in Eygus. At that precise moment, his level is set to your level plus 5, and it won't change. So if you're hopelessly bad at this game, you can still fall back on the old grindy-grind. The earlier you got to Eygus, the better, though, so if you are hopelessly bad at this game, you'll have to do extra leveling to compensate for your earlier leveling. Such is the nature of the grind.

There's another way to ease the pain of this fight, though, and it's highly recommended.

Meanwhile, in Bizarro World #2:



Bizarro LAVOS accepts Kamil's proposal, which magically causes the gate to open. LAVOS hits the inn and wakes up full of regret.

That's right, saying yes is the smart move here. If you say no, then you'd better hope you can win the fight the first time around, because otherwise, you've just lost two runes or all your progress since you last saved.

Back in Real World:



Kamil thinks he can challenge LAVOS.



LAVOS spends the first three rounds using B Prtct, B Power, and B Aglty, respectively. Kamil hasn't actually landed a hit so far...



His ICE 1 takes off a little less than half of LAVOS's health. The strategy here is to Defend above 80% HP, Water Rune below 80% HP, and Attack above 50% HP if you managed to Defend last time.



SMACK. With one giant hit, LAVOS erases Kamil from the game forever. Goodbye, most boring apprentice.



Our reward is the ultra-awesome Star Rune, which will become the mainstay of our combat strategy. It casts DEFENSE1, meaning it's now affordable to survive combat.

The townsfolk are all grateful, hooray, etc. Whatever. We got what we came for.

Incidentally, here are the rules for who you'll encounter at Patrof:

• You'll never encounter Esuna. This is supposedly because the townspeople refer to the traitor as "him."
• You'll never encounter Lux. This is probably because the traitor's dialogue is fixed and Lux talks in ALL CAPS.
• You'll never encounter the apprentice who was your partner at the time you talked to the sage in Eygus. The traitor is decided at that moment and removed from the game.

The corollary is that if there's someone you really want to have around later, make sure he's your partner at Eygus. More about fighting apprentices in Intermission #4.

Death Count: 23
Grind Count: 0
Unavailable Apprentices: Kamil, Wilme

Next: Anti-Robot Discrimination -or- What do you mean we're not getting a Rune this chapter?

AAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHH! WHEELERS!!

The what?

heh heh, "Bone"

Intermission #4: Fighting Apprentices



Let's be clear: you want to avoid fighting the other apprentices. Intermission #2 should make the reasoning obvious: the numbers are stacked against you. In many respects, enemy apprentices have all the abilities that you would have if you were playing as them. Additionally, they are immune to status effects and debuffs. The cherry on top is that your partner doesn't join you for apprentice fights. That's understandable; I wouldn't want to get into the middle of it either.

All apprentices have the same battle logic, which looks like this:

• If the apprentice is low on HP, he will cast the best available HEAL spell, regardless of whether that apprentice actually learns HEAL spells. This is equivalent to using the appropriate potion, except that MP is consumed. It's not clear how the game determines which HEAL spells are available, but it's probably based on level.
• If applicable, the apprentice will cast DEFENSE1 to increase his defense (or use the Star Rune for the same effect).
• If applicable, the apprentice will cast POWER to increase his attack (or use the Moon Rune for the same effect).
• If applicable, the apprentice will cast DEFENSE2 to lower your defense.
• The apprentice randomly chooses between a physical attack and the best available single-target attack spell.

Those steps are processed in that order. Re-read that list and you might see an obvious exploit. Do you see it? Here's a hint: step 4.



That's right: if you keep raising your defense, the enemy apprentice will keep trying to lower it. If you have the Star Rune, you can stall indefinitely, but 9 B Prtcts will probably see you through a battle, too. Unfortunately, only one apprentice ever learns DEFENSE2: Lejes. This is why Lejes is a joke, and it's fortunate, because when you let him get to step 5, he usually one-shots you.

As an added bonus, enemy apprentices get double MP (yes, they can run out, but they won't) and you deal 25% less damage to them. Losing to an enemy apprentice means the apprentice takes all of your Runes. You probably want to reset if this happens. Spoiler: You don't need the Runes to win, but they are really, really helpful.

If you manage to chase down an apprentice who stole your Runes and beat him, you get the stolen Runes back. The fight won't be any easier when you're down a Rune, though.



By the way, like I said, the traitor's level is fixed once you talk to the sage: it's set to your level plus 5. That means that Kamil was level 17, which in turn means that he had the following stats:

HP: 103
MP: 118 (doubled from 59)
Power: 59
Guard: 59
Magic: 58
Speed: 58

Weapon: NatrSW (21)
Armor: RoylAR (14)
Accessory: CourSH (14)

LAVOS, meanwhile, has the following stats at level 15 (expected stats sans seeds in parentheses):

HP: 117 (116)
MP: 32 (31)
Power: 69 (61)
Guard: 86 (76)
Magic: 42 (45)
Speed: 50 (45)

Weapon: ZnteFT (5)
Armor: Brwn (12)
Accessory: Pod (2)

Factor in B Power and this was a very one-sided battle. It pays to get to Eygus at an early level -- this can be the hardest forced battle in the game.

#5: Read My Lips: No New Runes

Let's start this update right: with a Coccoon wipe.



Death count: 25

Aww yeah. That's the stuff.

Our current objective is to hike from Patrof to Bone (heh heh). Star Rune in hand, this is a bit less painful than Guntz to Patrof, but it's still a long walk.



Points of interest: I get double-stoned by a pair of S.Witches...



...I almost eat another Coccoon wipe...



...and I figure I'm far enough along to spend a Mouth Water to make it the rest of the way. We can call Lejes's usefulness into question, but at the end of the day, he's still another pair of arms, and Lux isn't equipped to solo these encounters.



Here's Lejes, pulling his weight.



I bump into a dungeon before I hit Bone. Hey, look! A dungeon! I stay just long enough to take a screenshot.



Arriving in the new city, I am immediately propositioned by the guards.

The locals are really interested in the nearby lake. In a setting where there are dragons, you'd think dinosaurs would lose a bit of their punch, but you'd be wrong.



We also get a new recruit: Perole, the mightiest character in the game. He may not know one continent from another, but he'll be the one to crack this game open like a nutshell...

...Nah, just kidding. This is actually the game punching you in the kidney for choosing Lux or Esuna. To anyone else, he'd give a Remote Control, which you'd use in that dungeon to discover that the dinosaur everyone mentions is actually a submarine, which takes you to the first town in the next continent.

Lux and Esuna, however, get a free boat ride that takes them to one of the last towns in the next continent. More on this when we get there.



Perole has a bit of trouble keeping up with us.



Bone equipment check: Lejes is unsurprisingly way behind. I have the cash to get him up to date, but it's not worth it at the moment, since the next town we visit will have equipment that is beyond our current mortal reckoning.



Bone is laid out really terribly, and several of the NPCs comment on this.



The item store here stocks B Fire, which casts FIRE 1 when used. Hooray? But you actually want to buy nine of these before too long, due to reasons.

Anyway, back to Bonro, right?



The guy at the docks won't give you the time of day. You actually need to talk to a guy in the house next to the docks.



This guy.



♪♪ How to Cross an Ocean ♪♪

Whee



You're dumped off here without any explanation, and if you talk to this guy, he'll offer you passage back to Bonro. This is useful precisely if you need to see that ship animation again, since even if you've somehow lost your Wind Rune, you can get Winballs to duplicate the effect for less.



If you decline, he pointedly remarks that it's actually quite nice to travel by ship.



New equipment check! In whatever town we're in! Uh... Pandam, I guess? Let's roll with that. We're in Pandam.

This new equipment is as pricey as it is nice. We'll be grabbing it later.



For now, free stuff! This Ring is one of the four exclusive hidden items on this continent. It grants near immunity to debuffs, which includes stuff like MPCATCHR and PETRIFY. It's also a 10-point boost to Lejes's defense.

Before you get too excited, the item that's hidden in the town everyone else gets to go to is better.



This is the area where we'll be spending most of our time. The game opens up here, gated only by your capacity to survive the monsters. For reference, Bone is near the little lake just south of the ginormous mountain glob that separates our continent from where we were; the town that we should be in is just north of the sizable lake northwest of that mountain glob.

Okay. Are you ready for this? Let's get killed.

Our first encounter in this new land consists of fan favorites Coccoon and Mutant. We're already quite acquainted with Coccoon, who hits hard but also goes down in one hit to Power-boosted LAVOS. Mutant is another story: not only will it wipe you in a single spell, but it's also annoyingly durable. The Mutant is probably the most infamous monster in The 7th Saga: in a game full of things that are designed to kill you, it performs its job exceedingly well. I've had several runs where I can clear the continent but still quake in fear at the sight of a Mutant.

Needless to say, they come in pairs later.



Death count: 26
Mutant death count: 1



The next round goes much better. You'll notice I didn't bother to revive Lejes, which is partly because I don't have liquid assets on hand to do it and partly because I'm hoping to replace him soon. Defeat has weak physical and magic attacks and is easy pickings for even a solo LAVOS.



Naturally, it's time for another Coccoon wipe.

Death count: 27



Olvan shows up to mock me. I try reanimating Lejes to see what Olvan will do. He attacks me. I reload.



Yep.

Death count: 28
Mutant death count: 2

Next new enemy: R.Demons are among the easier encounters here, which is not the same thing as saying they're easy. This one casts BLIZZARD2 for a quick win.

Death count: 29



Yep.

Death count: 30
Mutant death count: 3



Time for EQUIPMENT UPGRADE. This will give Lejes a little bit of endurance.



The game openly mocks me now: the Coccoon takes LAVOS down to 1 HP, whereupon a tick of poison finishes him off. Also pictured: Lejes encased in carbonite.



Death count: 31

Coccoons would have their own death count if they stayed threatening much longer.



I can't be certain, but I probably died here.



I can be pretty certain about these.

Death count: 33
Mutant death count: 5



I really don't know how this happened.

Elsewhere, Esuna taunts me with her presence but ultimately refuses to join.

Okay. Here's the thing. At this point, I could continue bang my head against a wall of Mutants or I could go beat up a few Brains. I think we all know which is the better option.



Grind count: 1

But let it be known that LAVOS only gained a single level from this round of Brain-bashing. (I'd probably do another if I didn't have anything to prove here. BUT I DO.)

While I'm at it, I might as well clean out the basement of Patrof. I can now handle those R.Tricks that I avoided earlier.



Have some tasty instadeath, LAVOS!



If you haven't noticed, I like screencapping purple LAVOS. My strategy for the R.Tricks is as follows:

• LAVOS defends.
• Lejes casts ICE 2.
• Lejes casts POWER on LAVOS.
• LAVOS attacks.

If nobody misses, then this kills the Trick in two rounds, which is very tidy.



This is an excellent way to scrounge up the funds we'll need for a better weapon.

Here's LASER 3. Let's be honest: the first LASER spell looks the coolest, followed by 2, with 3 trailing far behind.



I'm rewarded with a piss-poor level up.



Hooray, new weapon! But LAVOS still hits harder and Lejes will still spend most of his time doing stuff that's not attacking. Why did I bother? Because I'm rich!



I think I mentioned Mirrors in an earlier update, but they're basically hilarious. The Petrify animation plays on your dude, then suddenly, the caster is petrified. At 200G each, they are sort of on the cusp of affordability right now. Later, we won't leave home without 'em.



A little luck sees us to Tiffana, which is either the next town or the previous, depending on your perspective. Tiffana has a bit of a quest problem, which has a distinctive smell of Rune.



Esuna is ever the cocktease. I reload after screencapping her battle pose.



♪♪ Grand Palace ♪♪

Tiffana is our first castle town. Castles make a point of employing the least effectual guards possible.



Okay, now I'll get out.

The king petitions LAVOS to do the thing that LAVOS would have to do anyway. There's a reward attached, so why not?



Because it's funnier to say no, that's why.



Haven't done this in awhile.

Death count: 34
Mutant death count: 6



North of Tiffana, we spy the telltale glow of a Rune in the Crystal Ball. However...



...it's located pretty inconveniently for us. So we trudge north and find a castle.



It's not very welcoming, but on further inspection, there's a side door on the right that's unlocked.



Monsters inside the locked castle? Who would've guessed?



And so we get our first peek at a B.Night. These guys are only moderately powerful. They have a decent attack and a decent ICE 2. But what really distinguishes them...



...is VACUUM2, which causes instant death to everyone who doesn't resist it.



Of course, LAVOS may have survived the death spell, but that doesn't mean he can solo the (K)nights.

Death count: 35



Rarely, you can encounter a new color of Brain. Despite what my wipe might indicate, they aren't too terribly hard on their own.

Death count: 36



Tiffana's item shop carries VACUUM in item form. Lejes can cast it natively for the high cost of 30 MP. Whereas death spells are stupid wastes of MP in many games, they're extremely useful in this one and we'll get a lot of mileage from VACUUM later on.

To change the pace a bit, I explore west to Brush. Brush is probably the last town you encounter in a normal game.



Remember this guy? No? Melenam? Anything?

Well, regardless, he remembers you. He's up to no good and will start causing trouble in your neighborhood at the precise moment you've cleaned this continent of its Rune stock.



If you're having trouble with that, this fortune-teller will gladly point you towards the next Rune for the low, low price of 100G.



Oh. Oh man.

You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to say those words.

On my first try, Esuna joins at level 16, which is exactly what we really don't want right now.



The next attempt hits pay dirt as she joins two levels higher and better-equipped. Despite being the game's ostensible Black Mage, Esuna is a generalist in terms of her spell list. She learns all of the ice spells, both of the vacuum spells, and REVIVE1, HEAL1 and HEAL3, skipping HEAL2. She also gets POWER and DEFENSE1, which are the two most important spells.

Let's take her for a test run. Let's get Busy.



Mutants flee before us!



We're even able to kill one (at the cost of Esuna's life)!



Even the very hint of her presence gives them pause.

Death Count: 36
Mutant Death Count: 6
Grind Count: 1
Unavailable Apprentices: Kamil, Wilme

Next: Failure to Launch

Ah, finally ditched the dead weight demon! Nice.

Business time!

Lawdy.

This statement is either profound, or puzzling.

If you killed off Lux temporarily and talked to Perole with Lejes, would he have given you the remote?

This is a good question. I haven't tested it, but everything else in the game indicates that with a dead primary apprentice, your secondary apprentice is for all purposes treated as The Hero. This leads to some amusing scenarios, at least one of which will be covered later.

You parse it like "Paradise Lost." Yes, we won a victory, but we lost our chance at defeat. Every battle is a tradeoff: how sweet is victory without the sting of defeat? To know both is to know true joy, and this is the real moral of The 7th Saga.

That's why you die so often.

That is not won, what can take an ample snooze.
With peculiar years, even Defeat may lose.

Intermission #5: Magic!



Back in intermission #1, we learned that Lux has the same Magic growth as magical dunces Olvan and Kamil. What differentiates them? Why does Lux have a reputation for nasty magic attacks?

The sad answer is that his reputation is mostly undeserved -- but only mostly. See, Lux learns LASER 3, which is one more LASER than there are ICEs or FIREs. Many are the players who have tried to fight Lux, only to eat a LASER 3 to the face. This usually results in instant death.

As in the Final Fantasy series, each spell has a power modifier that is used in damage calculation along with your stats. FIRE 1 and LASER 1 both weigh in at 30 power, while ICE 1 gets 36 -- part of the reason why Valsu is so awesome despite only having one attack spell. However, Lux gets shafted after that: LASER 2 only has 50 power to FIRE 2's 70 and ICE 2's 80. His moment to shine comes later: he has the most powerful single-target spell with LASER 3's 100 power and the most powerful multitarget spell with THUNDER2's 75 power. They're also the most expensive spells in their respective categories, though! Lux is tied with Olvan and Wilme for terrible MP pools, so there's a chance you won't be able to afford THUNDER2 by the time you learn it.



The electric spells are exclusive to Lux. You knew that, though, right? But you might not have known that Lejes and Valsu are the only other apprentices with exclusive spells. REVIVE2, ELIXIR, AGILITY, and EXIT can't be found on anyone but Valsu, and Lejes gets exclusive access to DEFENSE2 (hooray!). For each of these spells, though, there's an item that casts it.

I mentioned in passing that the Magic stat is used for both attack and defense. This is true, but there's more to it than that. For one thing, the HEAL spells have a fixed effect (40 HP, 90 HP, and full HP, respectively). For another, hit-or-miss spells such as DEFENSE2 don't use the magic stat at all. Every spell that isn't a heal or buff is affected by Speed, though, just like attacks. Magic doesn't get any special boost to accuracy -- it follows the same hit rate formula as a regular attack.

Certain enemies are vulnerable or resistant to certain elements, but only two apprentices can use more than one element, only Lux has thunder, and only Lejes uses fire proficiently, so you are not likely to ever notice or care about the different elements (with one notable exception). In general, all you need to know is that ice hits harder than fire.



As far as apprentices are concerned, everyone has a 30% resistance to everything, stealthily hidden in the accessory slot. Wilme also gets an extra 20% fire resistance from his armor. Most other pieces of equipment do not confer any resistances, but Lux's ultimate armor gives an additional 10% to everything and robes tend to protect against debuffs/instadeath, with the best robes also giving elemental resistance. Finally, there are four pieces of equipment that give special resistances, all of which are secret. We've found the Ring already and the others are coming soon.

The normal updates are great, and the Intermissions are fascinating. There's a helluva lot going on with this game that I never understood, and it's great to find out more about what makes the game tick.

Very much enjoying the way you're dissecting the game (and it is in turn dissecting you)!