Hah, nice! Did my playthrough influence that retrospective, by any chance?
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I'm playing through the classic Mana games! Let's all go plant trees!(Trials of Mana complete!)
- Thread starter Second Duke Revier
- Start date
The party finds Sylphid, who is currently being assaulted by a black knight! They rush to its aid, and the black knight vanishes.
But not before summoning a huge harpy! The harpy is exceptionally evasive, dodging most of the strikes sent its way. Further, it has really powerful aoes it doesn't hold back on, and a bunch of sleep inflicting moves! It was quite the nasty customer, burning through most of the party's healing, and actually making me use up all the damage items I had stocked up. But they won the grueling battle, and rescued Sylphid.
They query it about the dark knight, but it knows little - just that he had an interest in the elemental seals, and had stolen some of its power to summon the harpy! Sylphid, like every elemental spirit so far, willingly joins the party. After a quick detour to restock, they head to the resistance base and enact the plan!
The garrison gets a taste of their own medicine, as the flowerbed's pollen knocks them out! The Laurentian amazons are quick to take advantage of this and take over the place! The team hunts the castle for stragglers, who are easily dispatched. Interestingly, Hawkeye seems to have no qualms with fighting them - he probably feels it would be awkward to not help Riesz out in her crucial battle, even if that entails murdering some of his former mates.
Near the castle's top, they fight their next boss, a sentient fireplace! It summons a bunch of random monsters and buffs them up, making it the most interesting foe the party has faced so far! It also has powerful spells and aoe moves, which, combined with the monsters, made it quite the challenge! Thankfully, the team did have enough consumables to get through, and they did get a full heal after beating it.
Which was good, because they faced a fierce duo of ninjas afterwards! While they didn't have a lot of health, they had a bunch of nasty moves, and one of the party had to constantly keep healing to let them survive!
At the topmost room, they finally catch up with Isabella. Hawkeye swiftly moves to take revenge, before being reminded by her that she has linked her life to his girlfriend. She also reveals that she's working for a dark ruler of some sort, and leaves. Laurent is officially reclaimed, and Riesz considers taking charge, as she's technically the next ruler, but in the end she decides to continue adventuring to rescue her brother and take revenge on Isabella. The Laurentian force promises to keep a tight hold on their kingdom, and the party leaves for Valsena to continue consulting its king about their mission.
On the way back, they run into Neko, who spills the beans on how Nevarl has been doing these days. Things have gone from bad to worse, Isabella has been mind controlling everyone and summoning monsters, and she threw both its king and his girlfriend into prison, as they were able to defy her spell, and the latter had her life tied to hers, besides. Hawkeye advises him to go inform the Laurentian army about these, so they can figure out something, and the journey continues after a small pit stop in the town for restocking and refitting.
Something is clearly off about their transport, however - it keeps circling around instead of heading to their destination.
Hawkeye notices the ship's rather irregular schedule, and a high pitched scream wakes the party up! It turns out they are on the aforementioned ghost ship, but the fairy urges them to stick onboard and look, as she faintly senses the presence of another elemental spirit. Now, I could have restarted the game, grinded up until the wind seal would let me class change, and then got onto the ship. Buuuut I felt that would just be tedious and boring, and I do want the game to actually give me some challenging moments outside of its boss fights, so I decided to press on.
The ghost ship is more or less what you'd imagine it to be - full of nautically themed tiles and creepily themed enemies. Among the notable moments was a friendly ghost merchant selling items, a bedroom the party could safely sleep in, and another bedroom which pretended to be safe but was a setup for an ambush!
The ship also has this very bizarre mechanic where one of your teammates needs to be cursed to progress, essentially making you fight through most of the ship with a trimmed down party. This was a bit challenging. A little. The enemies were still too unsophisticated to pose a genuine threat, though, especially with an item shop on board!
Eventually they reach the ship's top deck, where Shade reveals itself to be in control. When the party asks it to free Riesz from the curse, it challenges them to a duel. It teleports all over the place, and, as is customary of most bosses so far, uses a wide variety of powerful spells. These were constantly a danger to the team, as, being physically oriented, I hadn't bothered to upgrade their magical stats at all, and thus they were still facing them with a bare minimal amount of magical defense. Still, it made little sense to focus on those, and they did win this fight and were constantly winning these fights, despite the tight margins.
Once Shade is defeated, it readily gives its powers and lifts its curse from the ship, releasing Riesz in the process. The fairy asks it if the elemental seal of darkness is nearby, as the party hadn't run into it in the ship. Turns out, that seal had been broken during wars of yore, as the power of darkness had grown too immense to be contained by it. The shadow beast had almost plunged the world into an apocalypse, but it had been defeated. Meanwhile, Shade had been left bereft of a home and took control of a long abandoned ship to use as shelter. It does not know how the shadow beast had been defeated, and it senses that the beast is still alive, and perhaps has even entered the world again.
The ship was only held with Shade's powers, and once he unleashed his control, it began to sink violently. The party was thrown aboard, and listlessly floated to a volcanic island nearby. Whose volcano is about to erupt. Great.
Well, we shall sort their predicament out next time, as this is where this session ends. Until then!
FelixSH
(He/Him)
Considering the conditions for the second class change, were you definitely have to grind (at least if I remember correctly what the conditions there are), I wouldn't be surprised if the developers intended you to do so here.
In both cases it's questionable design.
But then, it's not like a new player actually knows that they will lose access to the stone for some time, right? Maybe they assume you will class change anyway, just because that mechanic is always fun. I certainly grinded, not because I knew something was coming up, but just because I wanted to class change.
In both cases it's questionable design.
But then, it's not like a new player actually knows that they will lose access to the stone for some time, right? Maybe they assume you will class change anyway, just because that mechanic is always fun. I certainly grinded, not because I knew something was coming up, but just because I wanted to class change.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
This motherfucker. I was stuck here for SO LONG.
Near the castle's top, they fight their next boss, a sentient fireplace!
the journey continues after a small pit stop in the town for restocking and refitting.
Something is clearly off about their transport,
Welp, nevermind I guess. I get it, you want to get through all these games as fast as possible, but it's a bummer.
That isn't actually my intent, it just seemed like it would take a really long time to level up on the foes being served in the Laurentian mountains and castle, and I generally don't enjoy grinding in any game. But don't worry, the next time I come across an elemental seal, I'll be sure to get the levels and change classes! At what level can they class change?
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Level 18. I feel like the next area is going to be really tough if you aren't close to that already but we'll see!
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I had a look at the second class change, and it's even worse than I remembered. Aside from the right level, you need specific seeds, which are random drops. Then you plant them, and get a random class up item. Each tier 3 class has its own item. So if you you want to change Liesz to a certain class, but get the item for the other class, you need to keep grinding. You need to get lucky two times.
I guess it's not necessary to use a spoiler her, it's just a really awful mechanism. I thought it was really stupid, even when I played it as a teenager, were I didn't mind grinding that much. Today I'm just baffled by how awful a decision it is.
Honestly, I feel like they should just let you class change when you reach the crystal. And the second time after some plot flag. Or make it a side quest, like in the first Final Fantasy.
I still think this game is pretty cool, but I just can't understand why this would be done that way.
I guess it's not necessary to use a spoiler her, it's just a really awful mechanism. I thought it was really stupid, even when I played it as a teenager, were I didn't mind grinding that much. Today I'm just baffled by how awful a decision it is.
Honestly, I feel like they should just let you class change when you reach the crystal. And the second time after some plot flag. Or make it a side quest, like in the first Final Fantasy.
I still think this game is pretty cool, but I just can't understand why this would be done that way.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
This is no longer in the remake at least. Also I think in the original enemies only drop seeds for your current path until you do the second class change, so at least it's 50/50? After you change they drop all four. I think?
I was inspired by this thread to go back and replay Trials for the first time in forever...and I'm reminded of why I keep replaying Secret (and FFA) but not Trials. The subscreen is the first part: It's slow and unintuitive and a step backwards from the Secret version, particularly when it comes to equipment (which you inexplicably need to buy separately for each party member!).
The second part is the class system: It's totally obtuse, you don't know what you're going to get from each class until you take it and then gain some levels (so you can't even save, change and test, and then revert--you need to grind levels to learn spells after you change classes). The second class change is locked behind random drops that have a built-in delay to them, so again, you don't actually know what you have until you've gone through additional steps. And in practice this means that unless you start the game with a guide in your lap, you don't know what (if any!) magic you'll get or when you'll get it. Sword of Mana also has a pretty obtuse class system, but it's derived from the stat-ups you choose (so you'll always at least get something suited to your playstyle) and you can always use all of the magic and weapons regardless of which class you take.
The third is the plot gating: I feel like they're a lot worse about "you must talk to this specific NPC to unlock the next quest." Certainly that tripped me up trying to get to the Dwarf Village.
And the fourth is that there just is nowhere near the variety that Secret has. Each character has one weapon, and they all are pretty much the same--close-range melee attacks functionally identical to the sword in Secret. There's no bow/boomerang/javelin ranged option, and even Riesz's spear doesn't actually have any additional reach. Yes, there are spellcasting items, but they're extremely limited. All this combined with the very limited spellcasting options above means that you're playing a dozen hours of the exact same combat.
The second part is the class system: It's totally obtuse, you don't know what you're going to get from each class until you take it and then gain some levels (so you can't even save, change and test, and then revert--you need to grind levels to learn spells after you change classes). The second class change is locked behind random drops that have a built-in delay to them, so again, you don't actually know what you have until you've gone through additional steps. And in practice this means that unless you start the game with a guide in your lap, you don't know what (if any!) magic you'll get or when you'll get it. Sword of Mana also has a pretty obtuse class system, but it's derived from the stat-ups you choose (so you'll always at least get something suited to your playstyle) and you can always use all of the magic and weapons regardless of which class you take.
The third is the plot gating: I feel like they're a lot worse about "you must talk to this specific NPC to unlock the next quest." Certainly that tripped me up trying to get to the Dwarf Village.
And the fourth is that there just is nowhere near the variety that Secret has. Each character has one weapon, and they all are pretty much the same--close-range melee attacks functionally identical to the sword in Secret. There's no bow/boomerang/javelin ranged option, and even Riesz's spear doesn't actually have any additional reach. Yes, there are spellcasting items, but they're extremely limited. All this combined with the very limited spellcasting options above means that you're playing a dozen hours of the exact same combat.
The island introduces tomatomen, who summon weird things like machine golems to deal considerable damage. This is actually a bit of a problem, as the party is out of healing items, and is nearly whittled down.
Thankfully, they find a native village populated by tomatomen, who are strangely quite friendly, despite the tomatomen enemies outside. They don't say much interesting, but they do sell gear upgrades, and, more importantly, supplies. The party quickly restocks and refits themselves. And good thing they did, because the path ahead is filled with nasty birds that are a huge step up in difficulty - they have tons of health, do oodles of damage, occasionally petrify with their attacks, and are even accompanied by goblins who debuff the team's defense, and can apply the debuff on their own! I sure burnt a lot of consumables getting past them, and even had to retreat once to refill them!
Thankfully, the caves ahead were a lot more reasonable, though the tadpoles there gave me bad flashbacks to Secret of Mana's tadpole/lizard bosses! It also had obnoxious healing lizards, but, to be honest, I was glad to see them show up, as it proved that enemies could get more complex and thus more interesting. Actually, both this area and the path leading to it seemed to have a theme of enemies transforming and growing stronger with damage, forcing careful positioning and targeting.
The caves did, however, exact a massive drain on my supplies, and so I was worried when the game seemed to be foreshadowing a boss fight here, as the team ran into the vampire Isabella talked about. He revealed that he, too, was working for a greater dark king of some sort, and that said king had need of Riesz's brother. Then he taunted the team by pointing out they were going to be cooked by a volcano soon, and left!
Thankfully, a huge turtle carried them off before they were fried by the eruption, and carried them back to Maia! I looked around for a quick path to Beiser, but there was none, so the party gritted their teeth and took a not so quick trip through the Golden Road to get there. Why did they do this? Well, I noticed how potent thrown items could be in boss fights, and I also noticed that poto oils were a multitarget heal, which would definitely be quite handy for future situations. I stocked up on both, and then took the cannon to Valsena, which correctly landed them in the city this time round!
The king informs them of the location of the remaining elemental stones, and offers them the turtle summoning flute, finally opening the world up! Their first stop was the continent of Altena, the kingdom that had invaded Valsena, as it was the closest to their home continent. They refitted themselves in a small coastal hamlet, and then proceeded into its wilderness.
They were populated with sea themed foes, who were considerably less tougher than the enemies the party had fought on the tropical island. This is not to say that they were unchallenged however, the Sahagins constantly debuffed their attack, which noticeably cut their damage, and one of their companions hit pretty hard themselves, making for some pretty tricky fights! It didn't help that later, they were joined by wizards, who could destroy any party member with their spells! Good thing I had stocked up in Beiser before coming here!
After a long, gruelling trek, they ran into the dark knight again! The knight speaks of a Dragon Lord seeking the Mana Sword, and sics a bunch of machine golems on them! They proceeded to destroy the party and the rest of my supplies with many multitarget spells, and it was only through sheer persistence that they somehow, amazingly, eked out a win. By the very skin of their teeth. Maybe I should invest into some damn magic stats for the magic defense after all!
Thankfully, the elemental stone was right behind them. Unfortunately, it had already been activated by Altena. Hawkeye brings up why they can't just let the villains activate the stones and then open the portal to the holy land. Uhhhhhhh, because we're trying not to let the villains get there first? Duh! The fairy points out that, under the current circumstances, unleashing the stones would weaken Mana even further, accelerating its imminent demise and the rebirth of the ancient beasts. Undine appears, moved to tears by their allegedly noble quest, and joins them!
And now for the moment you've all been waiting for.
I looked up the classes, and while the Ninja may sound cool, it has too much overlap with one of Riesz's classes, essentially doing its job better in every possible way. Besides, while the Ranger apparently gets a lot of flak online, it has some cool oddball abilities that I want to try out. Ranger for Hawk!
That class, in turn, influenced how Riesz would be going. Both of her flavors are boring, locking her into simplistic stat buffs or debuffs. Since Hawk isn't debuffing, she gets to play with them as a Rune Maiden.
Last but not least, Kevin has two choices - learn a minor healing spell and attack buff, or hit harder. While it could be argued that the heal would help with letting the party conserve resources in dungeons, especially since they have been running out quite a bit lately, he is the fighter of the team, and as such, dedicating all effort to making him hit harder seems more productive. Thus, I picked Brawler for Kevin.
And, after a quick retracing of steps, I end my session here! Until next time!
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
That is the image for the "Vuscav's Great Escape" memory gem in Echoes of Mana, which is supposed to depict this moment when Busky is introduced. Echoes of Mana was the most recent mobile attempt to cash in on people's pleasant memories of the Mana franchise.
There are also the Buskaboo/Vuscav cards from Circle of Mana, which was an earlier attempt to bleed people dry via a mobile game that gives you good Mana brain feels. This card game had a sort of "rank up" system, which saw the higher level Vuscavs gain... cool shades?
Anyway, that's got the Riesz/Angela/Duran party through the four different versions.
ADDITIONAL BUSKABOO FACT: The big turtle theoretically becomes the turtle island where you pick up Sea Hare Tails in Secret of Mana. It was kind of implied in the original that you were on some kind of turtle, but the remake went ahead and stuck Buskaboo's signature flag at the center of the island.
Oh, and yes, this guy becomes a recurring fixture of the franchise. Ask me about when you fight zombie Vuscavs! Or don't! It's better that way!
There are also the Buskaboo/Vuscav cards from Circle of Mana, which was an earlier attempt to bleed people dry via a mobile game that gives you good Mana brain feels. This card game had a sort of "rank up" system, which saw the higher level Vuscavs gain... cool shades?
Anyway, that's got the Riesz/Angela/Duran party through the four different versions.
ADDITIONAL BUSKABOO FACT: The big turtle theoretically becomes the turtle island where you pick up Sea Hare Tails in Secret of Mana. It was kind of implied in the original that you were on some kind of turtle, but the remake went ahead and stuck Buskaboo's signature flag at the center of the island.
Oh, and yes, this guy becomes a recurring fixture of the franchise. Ask me about when you fight zombie Vuscavs! Or don't! It's better that way!
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Ah, I forgot about that! It was a cute touch.
That is pretty nice art indeed. And, as Felix mentioned, it happens to have my exact party, which must be one hell of a coincidence if they didn't draw multiple cards. Is this like a generally popular team or something?
I meant to respond to this, but was quite tired after playing and writing my latest post. I definitely agree with your points, and see why you find FFA and Secret of Mana more enjoyable games. That being said, I think Trials has done a fairly good job of offering a generally more polished, intriguing experience. My main complaints, going by what I've played so far, would be:
a. The clumsy equipment menus, which feel like a definite step back from Secret's elegant menus. Bring the equipment circles back!
b. The long time spent being in basic classes, which are, as you said, mostly melee fighters with little flavor. Well that's not completely fair, Hawkeye's double strikes and Riesz's longer, more deliberate swings with the spear do differentiate themselves nicely, and I haven't experienced the "dedicated mages" of the cast yet, but I do wish the party had got some sorts of spells before class changing.
c. The lack of running in combat. I kinda get what they were trying to do with this, but it mostly ends up just needlessly dragging revisits out. Just let the player decide if they want to engage in random fights!
I definitely wish the game would bother explaining the classes better, but I suspect that's a consequence of it being developed for the SNES, with limited budget for both UIs and text. Presumably the remake avoids this particular issue and is more upfront about what they do, but I can only imagine someone playing it back in the 90s getting all lost and confused, unless they were described in the manual or something.
I genuinely wonder how much of Trials of Mana was designed with a sort of "artificial" replayability. You can only select three playable characters of six, and (as you've seen), the three characters you miss are "advertised" as having their own little adventures/goals. Will that encourage you to play again to find out their respective deals? And the class changes are not explained at all, and then (as noted earlier in spoilers), the next rank up has a random-ish component to it. So are you going to use the same characters again just to see the other class branches? Or is that supposed to be a sort of consolation prize for replaying with "a" same character again, but now you can explore how they work with different skills. Maybe you really liked Riesz, you now want to try her in a party of Angela and Duran, but you can see how she handles on the opposite path as last time. Outlining how exactly the jobs work would allow you to make a "best" choice, but keeping it obscured encourages you to try again and see how it works out. Adding randomness to the next step even allows you to play "as the dice rolls".
Mind you, I don't think this is good design, I just wonder if the mystery is the point, so to speak.
EDIT TO ADD
If you want to see how the 3-D remake handles, I just uploaded our playthrough of about three hours of the thing from last month. This segment starts at just after Watts/the mines, and ends at the trap door that kicks my ass.
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The original Japanese manual provided some information on class changing. So the intent was for it not to be a complete mystery.
Here is a translated page from the manual
Here is a translated page from the manual
Ah, I suspected it would be something like this. Interesting that the manual considers the special strikes to be the most important aspect of each class, and not, y'know, the spells.
I mean... kinda sorta? Is there more to it than the names? The remake goes into detail right there on the screen with what stats are impacted and the general direction of the skills ("this class has an emphasis on healing"). This is just names and one "fatal action". Or, put another way, you go ahead and tell me the difference between God Hand and Warrior Monk (without mentioning Clover).
If that's all that is provided by the manual, I am maintaining the original intention was to have no idea what you are missing on the other side, and starting a new game to find out. The difference between "Ranger" and "Ninja" sounds significant and alluring without any further context.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I broke out my Super Famicom copy and manual and confirmed there is more info on other pages.
Thank you to @Blergmeister for that link, details of unique attacks per class are on pages 39, 40 and details of the spells are on 46 and 47. Honestly there's probably more but the manual is pretty dense so I haven't gone through the translations page by page.
It's not as detailed as Secret of Mana manual's step by step walkthrough of the first few hours of the game but it's there! I forget if it's in the collection of Mana, don't have time to check my Switch right now.
There are 48 spells in this game? And items for every single one of them?
So, for fun, I decided to test what all the stats do, exactly.
Strength: Controls how much damage physical attacks do. Pretty straightforward. The primary stat for physical fighters, such as my party members.
Dexterity: Controls hit rate and evasion. A bit of an iffy stat, as while evading attacks is nice, there are lots of dangerous attacks that can't be evaded, like special moves, thrown weapons, and most importantly, magical spells. Physical fighters still need a decent amount of it to not miss too frequently, but it's definitely less important than Strength and the next stat.
Stamina: Controls defense, HP and physical damage reduction. Every character gets a bit of HP on leveling up, and most of their defense comes from their armor, but the physical damage reduction does add up, and gaining three defensive stats at once is quite the good deal. Everyone wants a decent bit of this.
Intelligence: Controls magic damage and defense. Obviously most important to spellcasters, but from my testing, getting a bit of it for magic damage reduction isn't a bad idea either, provided you don't screw up the physical and defensive stats too much in the process.
Spirit: Controls how much spells heal. Most important to healers, and people using poto oils, as they actually cast a multitarget healing spell.
Luck: Bit of an oddball stat. I couldn't figure out what it did, but per the patch notes, it influences the odds of chests being trapped, chest trap wheels having less traps on them, critical hit rate, critical damage bonus, and denying enemies counter attacks. Either way, doesn't sound important, but a few points every now and then couldn't hurt.
So all of the stats are decently important, but for my team Strength, Dexterity and Stamina clearly win out, with some marginal investments in Intelligence to not die to magic spells, Spirit to make poto oils more effective, and Luck to get some neat oddball effects every so often. Sounds like a plan!
I will be returning to our scheduled programming soon, with a new LP post. Just wanted to have a look.
Strength: Controls how much damage physical attacks do. Pretty straightforward. The primary stat for physical fighters, such as my party members.
Dexterity: Controls hit rate and evasion. A bit of an iffy stat, as while evading attacks is nice, there are lots of dangerous attacks that can't be evaded, like special moves, thrown weapons, and most importantly, magical spells. Physical fighters still need a decent amount of it to not miss too frequently, but it's definitely less important than Strength and the next stat.
Stamina: Controls defense, HP and physical damage reduction. Every character gets a bit of HP on leveling up, and most of their defense comes from their armor, but the physical damage reduction does add up, and gaining three defensive stats at once is quite the good deal. Everyone wants a decent bit of this.
Intelligence: Controls magic damage and defense. Obviously most important to spellcasters, but from my testing, getting a bit of it for magic damage reduction isn't a bad idea either, provided you don't screw up the physical and defensive stats too much in the process.
Spirit: Controls how much spells heal. Most important to healers, and people using poto oils, as they actually cast a multitarget healing spell.
Luck: Bit of an oddball stat. I couldn't figure out what it did, but per the patch notes, it influences the odds of chests being trapped, chest trap wheels having less traps on them, critical hit rate, critical damage bonus, and denying enemies counter attacks. Either way, doesn't sound important, but a few points every now and then couldn't hurt.
So all of the stats are decently important, but for my team Strength, Dexterity and Stamina clearly win out, with some marginal investments in Intelligence to not die to magic spells, Spirit to make poto oils more effective, and Luck to get some neat oddball effects every so often. Sounds like a plan!
I will be returning to our scheduled programming soon, with a new LP post. Just wanted to have a look.
Alright! That's the stuff that lets you make an informed decision!
Not like it is remotely possible to have access to all those spells at one time. Nice that there are items to compensate for if you really miss not having the dart ability.
It's funny when you never put any points into luck, and opening any given chest is a grueling ordeal to the point that you just start ignoring the "treasure".
Regarding boss counters, I don't know if it is a "glitch" rectified by the patch, but my impression on my Trials playthroughs has been that there are bosses that counter particular attacks (like when you inevitably use your deathblow during the fight) or actions, and they counter 100% of the time. Always thought it was simple if/then boss programming. Interesting to learn that that can be influenced by luck.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Plus the special attacks! This game has a LOT going on.
I love Secret of Mana and it's in my list of top video games, but SD3 is always in the top 3 of the list. It has a more interesting story, more interesting characters, a world that feels really connected to each other and the art is such a stunning upgrade. The gradual sunrise/sunset cycle is especially pretty, although I'm having trouble finding a video that shows it.
I try going for the Moon elemental stone next, but the way ahead is blocked! Ah well.
So the party heads to the desert, and runs into the town Hawkeye looted in the intro, which is an amusing bookend. Aside from its vaguely Middle Eastern looks, there's not a whole lot going on here though. The gear is exactly the same as the stuff sold in the snow hamlet, the townsfolk have little to say, and they are fairly well stocked after a trip to Beiser via Palo, which is actually quite quick with the turtle around.
The desert's enemy draw is fairly unspectacular too - mostly these rhinos who just waddle around slowly and sometimes thrust weakly. From time to time, the deadly birds from the tropical island show up to spice things up, but they're actually pretty reasonable now; while their moves can still do lots of damage, the party has far more offense to put them down before they get out of hand.
Hawkeye learns his first ranged move, which is an unremarkable direct damage spell. It does decent damage, and is cheap, but takes a bit too long to cast. Riesz also learns her first debuff, which lowers accuracy and evasion. Meh. The real prize is her second special attack, which hits everything on screen for pretty solid damage, making clearing encounters that much faster.
Up ahead, they run into Isabella and her cronies dragging Jessica! Hawkeye calls out to her, Isabella slaps her, and then sics her ninjas on us! They put up a good fight, and force the party to burn a few revives and healing items, but this time they're better equipped, and easily weather their assault. Hawk has a brief moment of grief over killing his former teammates, and they move on, pursuing Isabella's footsteps.
This leads them into the fire cavern, which looks pretty cool, especially when the fire pit below is visible. The enemies are decidedly unimpressive however, the tomatomen dies before it can get any spell off, the fire lizards, while in possession of a deadly breath, are easily stunlocked, the evil ninjas die pretty quickly, and the duck soldiers are pretty unremarkable melee attackers. Most of the cave is also locked out to them, as big bursts of fire knock them back whenever they attempt to take certain passages.
Eventually, they come across Isabella holding an unconscious Jessica over a bridge. She threatens to toss her overboard, but Neko sneakily attacks her, making her beat a swift retreat! They then pick Jessica up, and find that she no longer has the cursed amulet on, but the curse has wrecked her body and mind, leaving her little more than a shell. Neko carries her back to an oasis town, and they push forward to the fire stone.
There, Isabella reveals that she was planning to use Jessica's life to activate the fire stone, but the party had foiled her plan. However, she then channeled her ninjas' souls for the spell, activating it anyway! Hmm, so...anyone's soul works for activating them? It doesn't require the caster's life? If so, the world is well and truly screwed lol, the bad guys have an endless supply of henchmen they could use as sacrificial pawns.
In light of this, the fairy urges them to hurry, and, as is customary, the related spirit shows up and readily joins them. They have a brief pit stop in the oasis town nearby, which also holds decent, if slightly overpriced, helm and accessory upgrades. Riesz also learns how to debuff enemy defense, which is slightly more interesting than her previous spell.
Their business being done, the party leaves the desert continent and explores the oceans. On the way, they encounter this rather ominous small island, whose one single pathway is decorated by goddess statues. While its purpose isn't clear, I get the sense that it'd become important later, once I pulled a flag of some sort. Their next stop is an eternally moonlit town populated by beastmen, who are nothing like the warlike beastmen sent on invasions. They are, in fact, downright friendly, and oppose the king's decision to invade human towns. They also sell some powerful, though expensive weapon and armor upgrades.
The moonlit forest has the party square off against fully fledged beastmen for the first time, and they're kind of underwhelming. They only do any serious damage to Hawkeye, and that's not really an issue with the consumables on hand. Further, Kevin constantly transforms into his wolf form for the fights here, giving them some nice extra power.
They run into the scene of a recently concluded battle - the beastmen king easily dispatched the Altenan expedition force that had been sent to scout the moonlit continent and possibly activate the moon stone. A clown like figure gobbles up one of their souls, and collects the other for use in a stone activation ritual! Kevin accuses him of misleading him, and the clown mocks him for being gullible. He then paralyzes him with his magic, and almost kills him off, but Hawkeye and Riesz step in and stop him! Then, the beast king walks in, and decides to fight the party, as he has a score to settle with Kevin!
He does hit pretty hard, at least with his special moves, but being a physical attacker, he's not very hard to beat. Especially since the team can easily keep him stunlocked.
After his defeat, he has a little heart to heart with Kevin, where he admits to being jealous of his training and strength. Kevin is remarkably forgiving, and wishes for Ludgar's health and safety. Then, the moon spirit, Luna, shows up and joins the party. Kevin asks her to help Ludgar, but Luna regretfully answers that she can't do much, and then turns him into a baby, saying that all she can do is give him a new life to sate his wish and help him tide over his jealousy. He walks off into the woods, they talk a little about the beastmen's way of rearing chidren, and quickly check up on the moon stone. Which, amazingly, hasn't been activated.
That said, they had their misgivings about the clown, and couldn't rest easy knowing he, too, was working for someone trying to activate the elemental stones. With three villains hunting for the portal, they had their task cut out for them. They spent little time getting to the last elemental stone, whose path was now easily opened by Luna.
They unexpectedly run into Charlotte! She's here because she's looking for a cure to her grandad's sickness. They ask her for directions to the nearest village, but she refuses, taunts them, and leaves. One encounter later, though, and she completely changes her tune, revealing the secret of the forest in exchange for clearing a path ahead for her. The secret is fairly simple; at night, certain flowers turn red to indicate the passage leading to the village.
The forest's enemies seem fairly unremarkable, consisting mainly of physical attackers. They did have a few tricks up their sleeves, like debuffing the party's hitrate, putting them to sleep, and buffing their own strength. In particular, the spearbees were quite dangerous, as once they buffed themselves they could hit the party members for nearly half their health! Thankfully, the path to the village wasn't too long, and they got there without untoward incident.
The village's inhabitants were elves, however, and they were even more racist than the elven norm, being really eager to avoid the party! So much so, that they even deny selling anything to them. Thankfully, the fairy gets their elder to see sense, and then Charlotte busts in, asking him to help her grandfather. He gravely mused that it was perhaps the curse of Charlotte's parents coming back to haunt them. It turns out, her mother was an elf, and both he and her grandfather had opposed their marriage on racial grounds, and on fear of them living shorter lives. The elder eventually gave in, but the couple died shortly after bearing Charlotte, and the elder sealed his village away from humans to avoid any such tragic relationships developing in the future, allegedly.
Then they get to business - the elder unfortunately can't heal Charlotte's grandfather as Mana is quite depleted, but he can help the team get to the wood stone. It's in a forest north of their forest, and can be accessed with Luna's magic. The elves also open up and let the party partake of their wares. Unfortunately, those are quite expensive, so all they do is buy their best spear and restock on consumables.
They travel back through the woods, unblock the path to the northern woods, and proceed until they find a hostile, oversized plant! On the way, Hawkeye learns how to alter the forms of enemies, and Riesz how to debuff their attack. Her debuffs were actually starting to become useful tools, especially against enemies with unusually high defense or strong attacks. They even worked against bosses, like this one! At first, it seemed to only rely on summoning enemies. But then it started pulling out sleep and poison spells, and being a huge nuisance. At one point, it even put up a barrier that deflected their attacks!
Halfway through, it grows a fierce head. It also starts debuffing their magic defense, which makes its spells sting hard! Particularly since it starts using multitarget moves! But, thankfully, the party was up to the task, and soon turned it into chopped leaves! The plant spirit, Dryad, shows up and joins the party after being given a pep talk. For some reason, it has a crippling lack of self confidence, and thinks it won't be much help, but well, it's one of the eight parts needed for the fairy's portal, so it needed to get over itself! The fairy then tells the party to get to Oblivisle, the island where all the world's energies converge, and which acts like a portal between this world and the heavenly gardens. They shall naturally try and open the portal with their spirits there.
I shall be doing that next time, as this session has gone long enough, but I shall leave you with a delightful image:
Hawkeye's form altering spell is AWESOME!!!
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I made two videos demonstrating this, as I do really enjoy the effect myself, and think more people should be able to appreciate it. Here:
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Awesome thank you! I had never noticed that the interior lights turn on gradually, that's a neat touch.
i don't think i knew about this but i appreciate deeply that this is similar to how agility works in xanadu. also unlimited saga lockpicking
Everything that's been said about this makes me think that the game could have an additional mechanic like FF2/Saga for increasing stats. Is there anything like that in the remake?
This spritework is quite lovely. I like it.
So Kevin has going through the process of becoming part man and part beast and uses that form to kick dudes?
I'm not sure exactly what that monster was transformed into but I see it also likes kicking dudes (and dudettes).
Hawkeye's form altering spell is AWESOME!!!