In update 20, we left off at the foot of a sunny and cheery Valley Town. Now... Let's figure out what sort of sin against nature's camping in this town nowadays. Hmm... This map looks kinda convoluted... Are we able to go into all these houses or something? There's enemy encounters here, so don't get too careless. Then again, they're the same Imagines you've been whaling on all the way up the hill, so they might not be all that challenging to you to begin with. Despite what all those doors might suggest, it doesn't seem like you can skulk about the ruins of this place.
There's a fork in the path right after the save point. The right fork leads to a dead end through a plaza cut off by some fallen planks and stuff with a red chest on the other side (though raises the question of why we aren't just climbing over them or burning them with Fireball). The left one takes you down an alleyw- Oh, apparently Kree's type of Imagine (his current form) can be found here. So if you didn't recruit a little shield velociraptor back in Mordor, you can do so here. (Wonder why they like these dreary, dark environments so much.) WAIT A MINUTE, KREE CAN DO THAT?! Apparently his type of Imagine has a "draw attacks" type move that gets you to waste your actions whaling on it for less effective hits, which is annoying when you're trying to one-shot the green eel buddy that's alongside it. Following the alleyway takes you up a flight of stairs that puts you on the rooftops of this once-lively town, there's a red chest in an alcove along the stairs with some sort of mask in it, be sure to nab it. Another encounter pits us up against a purple and white thing ringed by blue will-o-wisps... Looks kinda like a Castform, except about 100% creepier. It's apparently fragile, though will take reduced damage from normal attacks (got it down in 3 attacks including Rucci's multislash over 2 rounds).
The path along the rooftops is kinda linear, though there's a detour that would have been easy to miss were it not for the map that'll take you to a red chest with a fang following the plank bridge (you'll know when you see it). Oh, also Phyco turned into a tealer, bigger finned, and somewhat less derpy looking seahorse-plesiosaur thing Imagine. You'll come to some stairs that will take you back to ground level, heading to the left takes you past a dried-up well and- Oh hey, it's that chest in the plaza from earlier! Opening it gets you a sword. Going right takes you to a fork in the road, taking the right fork takes you down a path that ends with a MP crystal... And a door... Wonder what's behind it? Oh, it's a shortcut up to an otherwise detached part of the town (so like a teleport pad, except less flashy). Hrm... Maybe we should check out the left fork before we go further. It's another dead end... With a red chest, a HP crystal... And... A blue chest... Crud, how's this opening magic work again? Oh right, it's the question mark and slash... Anyhow, the red chest has some sort of green bottle, and the blue one has an axe to grind, which will presumably be useful on characters that can hit like a Mack truck (though this would have been nicer to find out before the trip rightwards towards the plot).
Back on the rooftops, we press on rightwards... There's an alcove heading down after the first plank bridge that leads to a purple chest... But old sticky here isn't powerful enough to force it open. (No idea how to soup her up, either.) Past the second plank bridge, you get taken to a save point and a place to shuffle Imagines if your current crew is sorely underleveled and all your heavy-hitters are benched. Let's save and heal here before pressing on. There's a cutscene of a clearing with a whole bunch of jack-o-lanterns... A bunch of will-o-wisps coming out of them and congregating at a tomb... And then a thing that looks kinda like a demonic blue-and-white candelabra ghost appears and shoots a whirl of blue fire at you. (Think like a Chandelure gijinka... Only with a different color scheme and the artist missed the memo that it was supposed to look like a human and not a demonic hag.)
And that's our cue that- LET'S FIGHT A BOSS!
Hrm... Let's scout around with Oliver's magic from the back and set Rucci up for this turn in the front row... And figure out what on earth Kree's 12 MP spell does. OH, so Kree's 12 MP spell is that "Draw Attacks" trick... Handy! Also, Oliver's 6 MP spell did 103 damage... Let's see if the 4 MP spell gives more damage / MP before we stick with it, though. In the next round, we do all out attack from Rucci and Kree and use the 4 MP spell for 151, 49, and 73 damage respectively... And learn that staying in the front row with Rucci and Kree isn't going to work after Rucci loses 100 HP in one blow and Kree getting knocked down to 1/3 health thanks to a "hit all" blast of blue fire. So let's move heal Kree this round with Oliver, attack with Rucci from the middle, and have Kree cover Rucci with a sandvich sandwich of healing. We get 121 HP damage out and max our Rucci's health and get Kree back over 100 HP... And eat a 23 HP swat with Oliver. Let's try all-out attack this turn, and lick Oliver's wounds in the next. We get out 121, 42, and 95 damage respectively... And get hit by a purple blast that hit the entire field again... Great... Rucci's down to 40 HP, Oliver's down to 22, and the only one of us who looks remotely healthy right now is Rucci... And we're only 1/3 the way through this fight... Alright, time to play "healer" again while Rucci does the token attacking. We get 131 HP damage out that turn, max out Oliver's HP, and get Rucci up to 84 HP after getting a 8 HP swat right before Oliver's turn (which would have been VERY bad news if this thing had used one of it's "hit all" moves). Hrmm... Let's be more conservative this round... Oliver can play White Mage for Kree while he and Rucci attack. The next turn has a repeat of that blue flame attack. Rucci has a 52 HP haircut (that one movement cell made a MASSIVE difference), while Oliver ate 20 HP and Kree 39, also Rucci's attack boost is gone. Let's spend this next round setting up and healing, and have Kree draw attacks to see if we can dodge those "hit all" attacks that this candelabra seems so fond of. Whelp, it worked as planned, Rucci ate all of 8 HP in that round. Alright, back to attacking while Oliver serves as the team medic. We get 170 HP damage out... And that thing uses its purple dark wave attack again... Which hits us all for around 60-70 HP damage... And Oliver has some sort of skull status ailment... Uh... Let's have Oliver and Kree heal each other while Rucci handles attack. We make the att- Aw crap, so THAT'S what that thing does! It keeps you from healing! Mercifully, the boss decided to use a melee attack on Oliver for 20-ish damage, leaving him hanging by a 24 HP thread... Wonderful. Erm... Let's have Kree heal since that status ailment's gone and go on the offensive with Rucci and Oliver. We deal around 240 damage between the two of them, get Rucci down to 57 health thanks to that horrid blue flame attack... But hey, on the bright side, at least we got the boss to less than 25% HP! Er... Let's go with a sandwich for Rucci from Oliver... Another attack from our resident blue swordsman... And have Kree attempt to be a distraction / whipping boy. Hmm... 35 HP left... And if that dark wave happens NOW, Kree would have all of like 10 or 20 HP left... Hmm... Let's have Kree distract while Oliver and Rucci go on all-out-offense duty. Another round, another 220-230 HP off this boss... To Kree's 8... Looks like we have a winner here. Let's repeat it and see how long our luck holds ou- Oh wait, Rucci's no longer got that attack boost... Hmm... Well... Let's see if that 32 MP (apparently water element) spell is useful at all... Okay, moral of the story: Water is apparently a waste of MP on hellfire, and "Hey look, a distraction!" doesn't really work on preventing field-wide attacks. Uh... Let's bench Kree and throw out a last-minute- Crap, I hit the auto-battle button. Fortunately, the candelabra from hell was weak enough to be picked off by melee attacks from Rucci and Kree plus one of Oliver's 6 MP spells. (Also, Kree dodged the boss' attempt to whallop him.) After a short animation of Candlejack staggering and collapsing to the ground extinguished, we get 2658 Exp and 201 G for our trouble. Which causes Felis, Taillow, Rucci, and Kree to level up. (Considering how PAINFUL that battle was, I am okay with this.)
After a cut back to the overworld, we see those blue will-o-wisps floating around... Wait, so what did we accomplish here again aside from almost dying horribly? The will-o-wisps are flocking to a tombstone... And cause a small light on it to glow blue. Gyro for his part seems to be surprised at whatever just happened. We get lead down into a mausoleum... And find... An empty coffin (and there's a red chest in the lower right corner). Which freaks Maru out quite a bit. Gyro beckons Oliver over to the coffin, while Maru gives a line that likely amounts to "Hey! Is this really a good idea?!" Drippy appears to have his reservations, too... While Gyro seems to not be in the mood to hear it... There's an orange scrawl on the wall behind... Is that SUPPOSED to be there? There's some talking about it between Maru and Gyro... With the latter getting kinda upset about whatever that thing is (I swear, I should take a shot whenever Maru looks pissed off in this game). We head back out... And a teleportation thingy appears... Along with a thing asking if we want to save. Yes, yes I do. After backtracking to heal, we run up to check out that red chest (it's some sort of purple perfume jar with a hawk-like stopper). Hmm... This would probably be a good time to cut things off and call it an update...
Takeaway Points:
- There seems to be some sort of tie between the creepy ghost town and the abandoned crypt... As for what, I haven't the slightest clue. My current theory is on a sparkly vampire.
- Considering how I was informed about the nature of Heart Peace / Cure since the last update, I guess it would merit going back over the English guide and reading over stuff that I've already seen. To see just how laughable my stabs at guessing the plot were.
- Defeating the Hell Candelabra, TL:DR version: BE ABLE TO HEAL! This was hands-down the most HP-intensive (and outright difficult) battle I have experienced in-game so far (oh, so THAT was the catch for picking the form of Rucci with superior stats >_>). If you've been chintzy with those 10 sandwiches of healing you got back from the casino town, this would be the place to use em, seeing as 2 attacks don't appear to be reliably dodgeable (and are the two most PAINFUL attacks to boot). Buffs are your friend here, if you have someone who can raise defense and you know it, consider giving them a place on the field. Pick your Imagines carefully, while Rucci was serviceable in this battle, it was largely due to his monstrous HP stat and high attack. If you have a fire-weak Imagine on the field, be sure they can pull their weight! Attempting to draw attacks works great... Unless if Candle Jack uses one of his two field moves, in which case everyone's in for a work of pain. Also, we figured out what that skull status effect that we kept missing during the demon fights, and boy is it nasty. It keeps you from being able to heal with items (wasn't able to check if it also applied to spells). If you have an Imagine fall prey to this, seriously consider switching them out. Otherwise, if OLIVER gets the status effect... ... Actually, now that I bring that up, I never have checked if you can move Oliver off of the field or not. Guess that's worth an experiment next time. Anyhow, just make sure to keep chipping away at the boss, and as long as you stay out of the front row and WATCH YOUR HEALTH LIKE A HAWK, you should be able to pull through.
- Ni no Kuni is kinda like Pokemon with regards to its mons. If you miss them early in the game, odds are you'll be able to get them later on in stronger form.
- It remains to be seen whether or not they also scale in terms of difficulty to recruit with power.
- Studio Ghibli's animators and the VA team went on strike for this update. Possibly because there's only so much you can fit into 512 MB of DS cart space as opposed to a 25 GB Blu-Ray.
- You ever get to that point in the game where you realize that you don't know what half of your party members' abilities do? ... Yeah... I think that's my cue to find a save point and farm weak Imagines to figure out who can do what in this party.
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 22: 123 HP / 82 MP
- Rucci: Level 26: 195 HP / 100 MP
- Kree: Level 24: 135 HP / 72 MP *
- G: 7719.
- Play Time: 50 hours, 45 minutes, 49 seconds.
The next update will in all likelihood deviate from the theoretical once-a-fortnight updating schedule due to a school project and paper coming due next week. (Ew.) And will likely be a novelty update with less in the way of story progression and more general screwing around, any particular suggestions for topics of exploration are appreciated. Also, I will make it a point to give that English guide a good once-over all the way up to the hell candelabra for purposes of understanding what's going on behind the moonspeak.
