Yeah... Remember how I said that I planned on making a microupdate last week focusing on sea antics? That... Didn't quite happen. Instead, I present to you a significantly longer update with the aforementioned sea antics and some exploration of an unexpected next stop in the story.
Last time, we left off with us setting off into the unknown blue yonder. In this update, we will be taking a bit of a scenic detour en route to the Bogu Empire. By trying to shipwreck ourselves at every turn. As you might have remembered from the last update, our lovely ship navigates this word via the D-Pad for movement, and A to put into port. A quick experiment reveals that just as on land, you can use the stylus to drag and maneuver about the seas of Ni no Kuni. The very first thing that we do is try to go as far in one direction on this map as possible. For all you Final Fantasy IV fans, you can't wrap around the world, sadly. Instead, you can only go as far as a wall of rocks allows you to. Well that sucks, oh well, let's check out the western islands before we head east to the Bo-
... And there's random encounters at sea too. Joy. (Though to be expected for anyone who's played a bit of Dragon Quest.) Oliver and company have the "luck" to run into three electric lamprey things with white heads and beards, a yellow frill, and a body and tail that are different shades of green. Fortunately for us, they're pathetic, and Rucci and Taillow can dispatch them in 2 hits combined while taking 1 HP damage from a weak tail slap. A bunch of clobberings later, and we get enough exp to finally send Taillow and Seba over the edge to Levels 20 and 19 respectively. Moving on!
Unfortunately for us, Ni no Kuni seems to disagree with our plans of sailing west (and probably into the claws of some egregiously overleveled baddies). As such, we are forced to turn back at a narrow straight separating an island just south of the main continent we started on from the wall of rocks of convenient navigational impediment. Also, you apparently can't set anchor on some of these islands, they're apparently there just for show. Alright, fine. Let's see how far off course we can get- Oh, ran into a trio of cream and blue shark-manta hybrids. Unlike the eels earlier, these guys actually pack a semi-decent punch. They have some sort of clawing (or is it biting?) attack that hit Oliver for 10 HP in the back row and Taillow for 7 in the same region. Also, they apparently pack quite a punch with those flippers. Oliver the squishy stick got hit for almost 20 HP in the lower left corner by a hard-sounding slap. ... Okay, bludgeoning them into submission is taking too long, let's break out that cane wand. Whelp, ice wasn't the answer, and Rucci and Taillow finished off the last one of these buggers, so we'll have to experiment- FOR SCIENCE! On another group.
As luck would have it, we ran into another group about 30 seconds later. Since using fire magic on sea creatures is stupid, let's try Oliver's 4 MP spell. Wow. 108 HP with a critical hit as opposed to 26. Guess we have a winner here. (And that would probably explain why these things took so long to club into submission, the darn thing's still floating!) The subsequent turn demonstrates that under more normal circumstances, that 4 MP spell of unknown elemental power will do about 80 HP damage. A few attack spams latter, and we've been freed... With... Goldenrods? What on earth are those doing out at sea? Anyways, there's a landmass, let's try to put into port h- Huh? We got a cutscene!
Everyone's on the deck of the boat, Gyro's looking off out to sea, whereas Drippy gets everyone else focused on Captain Chuckles by opening up a conversation. Aaand the weather suddenly takes a nasty turn and the water gets dark. Freaking Drippy out. Maru gives a concerned 'What's wrong?' look, and Gyro seems agitated about... Something out at sea.
And we get treated to a cutscene of our ship being tossed around like a toy in the middle of a nasty storm with waterspouts, and- What IS that?! A golden metallic Sin?!
Back aboard the boat, things have gotten NASTY. There's pouring rain and incessant lightning, and Captain Chucklehead is legitimately freaking out here. Apparently that massive thing in the sky is something called a "Dokuko Eye" or whatever that's supposed to be. ... What does it do? Our captain gives a bit of a startled answer, which appears to make Maru's speech more than a little concerned (even if her sprite doesn't quite match up with it). The captain shouts something, possibly 'We're all going to DIE, girl!', and Maru finally starts to visibly freak out. Oliver gives a good shriek as the scene whites out... And the waters return to their initial cal- Hey wait a minute, why are we passed out on the deck like that?
Oliver picks himself up. Gives a 'What on earth was that?' and Gyro said something in a rather tired-looking Jabbaface. And then gets pissy about something. Captain Chuckles here wasn't impressed by whatever he just said... What did you do, Gyro?! After a little yelling, the captain starts speaking more calmly... Which elicits a question from Oliver in moonspeak... Drippy pipes up with an unimpressed remark... The captain says something about that eye-thing... And Maru seems... Excited about what he just said? What? Gyro for his part seems VERY unthrilled with whatever was just decided, and gives a truly magnificent 'Oh crap, you're all serious?!' expression. There's a little back and forth between Chucklehead and Maru, the former brings up some sort of 5-character red phrase... It apparently matches up with 'great (something I can't read)'s flower fire'... What? Drippy butts in and Chucklehead mentions something about a 'Rizo Island'... Hmm... There's another red phrase... 2 katakana separated by a dot from four others. And another... "Furisoto"... And after a little more talking, Gyro finally looks a bit more calm and less prone to needing a change of garments... And it looks like we're off to Rizo Island? ... Interesting...
... Okay, NOW the game wants us to head west... Stupid fakeouts... But anyhow, let's cast sail and see what happens...
Random encounters here at sea are a bit more frequent than they are on land. So far the cast of marine imagines is more or less the same. Though we ran into some sort of blue and tan seahorse... Dragon... Dolphin... Thing. That could hit pretty hard... And some blue jellyfish(?)-woman things with orange fin-dresses that hit softly, but have an annoying tendency to spam poison attacks that can hit the entire field at once.
Once we get near to Rizo Island, the game takes over for us. The captain gives several text boxes worth of exposition... And... Mentions a single red Kanji? Eh? Oliver and Gyro give some brief responses, and Mr. Chuckles launches back into talking. There's a short back and forth between Oliver and the captain, and then we are freed. For the heck of it, we try to see how far the game will let us overshoot this i- Oh. Another random encounter? And it's got another of those seahorses... They're actually kinda cute... Let's get one!
After one-shotting a manta with it, we appeal with Maru- Oh? Looks like an eel with this thing likes us... Hmm... No reason to pass it up! After a bit of trial and error, we get our eel (now-)friend... Now for the seahorse... Hmm... Well... We know that it has high HP... Let's rough it up a bit first. Because defeat is always the start of a great friendship, you know! ... Hey what do you know? Losing about 90 HP made it decide that it kinda liked us! After a couple rounds of appeal-spamming, we have two new friends, Coulomb the eel-thing (lit. クーロン) and the seahorse, who we were originally going to call 'Phyco', but rendering that in kana is going to be annoying, so let's just go with 'Sorui', which means the same thing anyways (algae). For the purposes of this update, he shall be known as 'Phyco' from this point though The two join at Level 16. Coulomb has 86 HP and 33 MP, with a spread of 35/45/54/44/66 and a Wind resistance. Phyco has 90 HP, 40 MP and a spread of 67/52/41/36/50. ... HEY WAIT A MINUTE, YOU ATE AN ATTACK WITH MORE DAMAGE THAN THAT! He apparently also burns easily. In other news, we're out of party slots for the time being. We'll probably bench Coulomb when we put into port.
... Hold on a second... These two new recruits... Maru... Gyro... Oliver, and their respective Imagines... Kree... Felis... Totoko... Taillow... What the heck happened to Drippy?! He's no longer on the party screen!
About 10 battles later, we reach the northernmost point this boat can go on the western sea, passing an arctic continent to the northwest. Seeing as Oliver's MP is starting to run dangerously low, this is probably a good time to backtrack and put in to port... The trip back is fairly unspectacular, other than Kree finally getting a souped up form at Level 18. He looks more or less the same, except with a more brown beak and head feathers.
We land ashore, on a tropical island with impossibly large seashells. Some easily avoidable flying Imagines and a different-colored version of that one acorn Imagine from the desert as we make our way north to... A hexagonal pyramid? We walk up to it... ... And it's a neon-lit Vegas-style casino? Ni no Kuni is strange... The place looks kinda like the Luxor... Only it's not black and it's got onion-domed gates, and you know. More garish and with two extra sides. There's something in violet lights that I can't make out above "Welcome Casino"...
Gyro gets a bit of a dreamy face coming in. Which prompts Maru to rant at him, presumably telling him to keep his fat fingers off of our money. Drippy and Oliver talk a little, and then we're freed to go in... What's here anyways?
デル · モカール.
- Walking the red and so on. We are an engineer. Talk to you later.
- Follow the next. I was in the casino over to talk with the gyro on the left.
- Continue to follow the red arrow. I see the demons that have haunted the man. New boss at the time.
- Out of the deal. We will be casting and Heart Peace Heart Cure, respectively.
- デル · モカール a casino here. There is also a place to race monsters.
With Details of the casino.
- If we can get 777 Gold Slot Machine drops by the amount of time following a VIP ticket.
1 of ブロンズ チケット a Bronze ticket.
2 シルバー チケット the Silver ticket.
Three times ゴールド チケット a Gold ticket.
5 times プラチナ チケット a Platinum ticket.
- If a Platinum ticket is expected to enter the VIP Room in the Casino of Gold now if you will. I said.
- Before leaving the city. Do not forget to go ahead with the Battle Colloseum tournament Tournament was a monster.
- Out of town, take the red arrow to the right you will see Event.
- Take a boat to come down to the island.
- Walk up to the top to see ボーグ 帝国.
Hmm... Sounds like we've got a fight incoming... Let's save before we head in. Just in case if we can't heal.
Right after the gate is a three-way intersection, with the map telling us to take the north one. There's a couple NPCs here, they'll yack a bit if you can understand moonspeak. Curiously, they seem to be dressed in actual clothes (if 19th-century in appearance) instead of something from a LARP. Being contrarians, let's take the side paths first and see where they go. Heading left takes us to a path that passes an alcove surrounded by warehouses. There's not much here beyond some scenery and a red chest with a slice of pie in it. Let's keep going on the path, then... The path takes us to a series of docks with a bunch of (non-accessible boats). There's 4 NPCs here: 3 are in a cluster to the left, a woman in violet among them has an actual chat sprite... The outlier to the RIGHT is a woman in blue with a sun hat, if you talk to her, she'll launch into a conversation with Oliver... Ask an exasperated-sounding question and make a few exclamations after Oliver's first reply, which startles him a bit. She then lectures us for a bit... And has a cheery face, asking us if we're okay with something... What did I just get myself into anyways? The item get chime plays afterwards... Except I have no idea WHAT we just got... Another short line from her, and we are freed to move. Alright, time to check out the right side...
After a little backtracking, we blow through the courtyard, and walk up to a large three-storied building with a huge onion dome on top of it... And a neon sign saying 'Hotel Catnip'- OH! It's the local inn... And it's going to break my pocket... Let's bench Coulomb here and check this place out for the night, seeing as we've apparently got a fight further down the road of plot relevance. The lobby of the hotel is spacious... And swanky. And makes all of the others we've seen look che- Wait a minute, is that that catboy we saw in the ocean town lurking by the stairs?! Anyhow, the pricing is very much in line with the appearance. A night costs 160 G! But seeing as I'm too cheap to use coffee to restore MP, and not in the mood to backtrack all the way to Little Polynesia, I'll take it.
Continuing in on the direction the game wants us to take, we get lead to a vista of that pyramid with a pair of massive guardian dog statues, and some onion domes in the background, with spotlights going up in the background (only the ones in the foreground'' move, sadly. The next area is a bit of a square with some shops and stalls around it. The local bookstore is here, which has another bluebird man clone with a shop with a gilded 'Ancient Egypt' take on the normal bluebird shop in the upper left. The normal sundries shop is to the lower right, and consists of a stall staffed by Rocket Leader Giovanni a mustached guy with a pipe in a suit and hat. Prices for goods here are more than a little expensive, a 100 HP healing sandwich going for 250 G, and a 30 MP healing cup of joe going for 800 (we have just over 8000 G at the moment). Let's ignore him for now and continue exploring.
There's a flashing NPC... It's some snotty-looking young kid with curls in a lilac suit. He talks a bit, and then Oliver and Drippy chime in. The kid talks some more... And starts to look a bit dismayed... Which startles Oliver quite a bit... After a short line, there's a chime, and the conversation begins anew after Drippy makes an observation. Eventually, we get prompted to break out the stylus and start casting magic... And cast a Heart spell and carry on with our way... There's a northern path, and a eastern path the game wants us to take... So let's check the former out first. Oh, it takes us into that pyramid thing... The place is a large and posh casino staffed by what appear to be clerks wearing animal head masks. Egyptian themeing and all... Hmm... Maybe we should check out the plot-related bit before we go and lose all our G to a slot machine or something.
The next spot has a path that continues east... With something to the north... Wha- A 'battle Colleseum'? What's this? Upon walking in, we get a blurb from an attractive-looking receptionist with a facial veil, who presumably gives us a 'Hey cutie, think you're hot stuff?' spiel. On the lower screen, some sort of guy in a white outfit and cape walks up. And... Wow. That's quite a get up... Guy's got blond hair, monocle over his right eye, and a pinstriped red and white shirt under that cape of his. He brings up some sort of red phrase... "Pasodorariigu"? And drops another, longer red phrase consisting of 10 katakana... And then monologues a bit about how awesome this whole battling thing is and how it works, presumably. Another red phrase... Composed of a mix of Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Yet another red- Oh. So "Pasodora" is some sort of entity? Because this phrase reads as "Pasodora's (something or other)"... Some more talking, two further red phrases in Kanji... And Oliver's talky sprite looks about as confused as I do at the moment... Geez, that's a lot of exposition... 2 Kanji and 3 katakana in red... After Pinstripes gives his yakking a rest, we decide to head off in search of plot before we get totally derailed by these Golden Saucers here.
We find a winding, circuitous path that leads... To a cottage? Interesting... But why are we here again? Oh, and there's an obscured red chest with a jug of coffee in it by a tree along the right side of the path. We knock... And get let into the cottage by some burly guy in blue with shaggy orange hair, a stache, and a beard chomping a cigar. Judging by the scales and stuff lying around, looks like he might be this place's bookkeeper. The group goes up to him... He makes some sort of comment... And Oliver yells a bit at- Oh wait, 'Bogu' popped up in the conversation... This guy has something to do with that empire? Something about that 'Dokuko Eye' gets mentioned... Cigar mentions something about Rizo Island and the eye thing... That pleases Oliver... But... There's apparently some sort of catch... There's a bit of a long explanation, and Oliver's chat sprite looks rather disappointed afterwards... Apparently Oliver's realizing that whatever it is that's keeping us from making our way to the Bogu Empire... It's also keeping us from mom... The rest of the party seems to be getting frustrated with the bookkeeper for some reason... Bookie says something that cheers everyone up... Before apparently tempering his words with something to underscore that while this plot is still rolling, it's not going to be a cakewalk. Some more chatter... And... Bookie brings up something that startles Maru in the middle of a short back and forth... Something about an emperor... I think... Whatever this is, it's REALLY creeping Maru out now. Oliver gives a dismayed question... And it appears everyone's (or at least Oliver and Maru's) bubbles have been burst by our smoking friend's exposition. Gyro gets a bit frustrated and yells at the guy... A few more lines, and we part our ways... And are kicked out of depart the cottage.
Outside, Gyro and Oliver have a short back and forth about what they just heard, Maru chimes in excitedly... And so does Drippy... Who kills Maru's excitement. Gyro seems happy about... Something... And starts heading off. And proceeds to run off, much to Drippy's unamusement. Maru yells at Oliver, presumably 'stop dawdling and get him already, Oliver!' We run along the red arrows... And... Head to the casino again? What? Wait, now Gyro's with us... But didn't he run off ahead of us? And what's going on here anyways?
Everyone in the party seems to be in high spirits... But Oliver seems troubled by something... 'Bogu' pops up a bit... Eventually, Drippy convinces him to unwind a bit... So what do we do now anyways? Huh... Looks like a lot of the people around here have exclamation points over their heads... Let's talk to them all. We try a couple guys by slots on the lower floor... And nothing. Hmm... Let's try the balcony... No one's on the left side, barring Gyro eying some slots... (Which apparently require house tokens to operate and not the G in your back pocket, kinda like a Game Corner). Talking to the guy by the stairs does nothing... And same for the kid by the roulette table... Er... We go back to Maru and she asks us a 'yes' or 'no' question... ... "Yes"?
Everyone meets up again... Gyro seems rather crabby about... Something. Which makes Maru concerned. Gyro rants a bit more, which prompts Drippy and Oliver to pipe up and say 'put a sock in it' or something along those lines. Maru yells at us for something... And then a lookalike of the Battle Stadium's receptionist draws up. And appears to badly startle Gyro and make Maru rather exasperated. There's a back and forth between Gyro and the woman, who then departs, leaving a fuming Maru. Gyro gets a bit spooked, and then fumes right back... While Maru continues to rant... And eventually gets fed up enough to storm off. With Gyro doing likewise shortly afterwards. Geez, this was quite the vacation here... I guess that's our cue to get lost?
Leaving the casino reveals that the game wants us to head south for some reason... And towards the hotel? What? We head into the hotel, find Gyro and Maru there, the latter still more than a little upset. Which gets on the former's nerves. Maru and Gyro get into a shouting match, while we do the morally responsible thing and sit back and eat some popcorn... After a LONG rant between the two, Oliver finally buts in with a "Gyro..." The rant continues on for a bit, and Gyro and Maru both ditch us... Again.
It is at that scene that the game leaves us off with an option to save or not... Let's take it.
Afterwards, we are freed to follow the arrows of plot convenience, which takes us on the path towards the docks... As we set off on the path, the normally cheery background music abruptly dies out as Drippy and Oliver talk about something... And we're cut off by a scream and the sound of the music that usually starts playing pre-boss... Oliver and Drippy are understandably slightly concerned, as that was apparently Maru who screamed. ... What did you two do?! We see that the two are up by the warehouses... Where someone apparently is showing signs of demon possession. Gyro butts in to help give Maru a hand, which she appears genuinely surprised about... And we join suit. Eventually, the possessed NPC collapses and his demon erupts from him in a freaky fireworks show.
Cue the boss music here.
As in other cases, this demon is once again of the vaguely Gruntilda-esque appearance mold. UNLIKE the first two demons we ran into, this one seems to have no problems with flitting around above the ground... Hmm... Let's try our normal "buff, then beat it until it's dead" approach. We use Oliver's 4 MP spell, deal 110 damage that this thing is apparently weak to, get Taillow and Rucci's attack up there... And eat a 26 HP swat on Oliver's end... Ow. Alright, seeing as less than a tenth of the boss' HP bar is drained, let's all out attack in this next round. We deal 59, 171, and 121 HP damage from Taillow, Rucci, and Oliver respectively... And get hit by one of those annoying poison attacks that affects the entire field we saw out at sea. Thanks to the poison, Oliver and Taillow take around 30 HP damage combined and Rucci takes high 20s thanks to the assault (he was the only one who didn't get poisoned). Our next round is damage control. Oliver's healing himself with Taillow administering antidotal herbs and the burden of attack left over to Rucci. Taillow took 20 residual HP from the poison, and the witch-thing threw some sort of homing attack up into the sky that targeted our positions... Guess that's our cue to move around. In our next turn, we break out of our pattern of hugging the back corners and the front middle to leave Oilver in the last back space that wasn't targeted, and shift Rucci to the left to meatshield Taillow in the middle left cell. Our attack pattern is a repeat of last time, dealing around 150 HP damage to the boss, and allowing us to avoid its attack from the last turn. Let's try a different position and have everyone in a row for this next turn and all-out attack again. We deal 82, 152, and 120-ish HP damage in the same order as our last all-out attack, while Taillow took a 30 HP hit. Since the boss is visibly tottering and everyone's above 100 HP, let's do another round of that. Two more swats, and it's all over. We got 1154 EXP and 154 G. Which was enough to make 7 out of 11 party members level up.
After the freakish demon encounter, Gyro begins to rant a bit... But relents after he's thanked by Maru for coming to her aid. Oliver asks if everything's okay, Gyro gives some sort of answer that Maru wasn't fond of... And there they go again. Drippy has his most unamused chatsprite make a return... Wait a minute... Oliver and Drippy are laughing over this? Huh?! Gyro isn't too thrilled, but it seemed to work on Maru... And Gyro follows shortly thereafter in the lightening up department and laughs himself. ... Wait should we really be doing that right in front of the dazed exorcised clerk right here?
We get freed to move about shortly afterwards... It seems like the game wants us to head back to the casino again...? No wait, it's that little cottage thing... Let's stop in front of it and call it an update here, seeing as it's been about 4 hours. Also, Drippy is still absent from the party... Looks like we might not be sending him out into battle for a while. Also, we apparently got 9 more party slots while we weren't looking. Hmm... Actually... Let's see what happens when we fill up that party anyways... Do one of these extra slots fill up? We recruited some sort of leaf-headed mage thing and a teal recolor of those clover medic things that we saw back in the forest dungeon with the massive shrooms. Being oh so creative, we let the game pick names for us. The mage is "Krokorok Korokoro", and the clover is "Haato" (arr har har, because of the heart shaped leaf antennae things)... They both join at Level 15. Korokoro starts with 77 HP, 66 MP, and a spread of 54/46/62/59/50, Haato starts with 81 HP, 70 MP, and a spread of 42/54/67/72/48. And Haato appeared to roll over to the other slots... So what happened to Drippy? Maybe he's only supposed to be around as a party member until you can get your own Imagines? Anyways, let's bench our two new friends
Takeaway Points:
- At sea, you will not see your enemies coming. And some of them can be major drains on HP or MP to take down. On the other hand, at this point in the game, they seem to be providing decent EXP gain (which is why some of our party members had multiple level-ups from the last update). As such, the sea is your playground... Just be sure to sail carefully through it and know when to get out of the water.
- Note that it is not an immediately open playground, the game will still prod you from time to time to go a certain way (though it became more lax about that en route to Rizo Island).
- Drippy eventually stops being able to be sent out onto the field! He does continue to accompany you as a plot fairy in-game, though. Unfortunately, I missed the turning point where he drops out, so it presently remains unclear if he leaves after you recruit enough Imagines, or if it is due to a plot point. As such, try not to go too nuts with giving him equipment in-game.
- As of the moment, we now have enough room for an on-hand party of 21 members. Although it remains unclear if the 9 extra slots are active and receive EXP just as the first nine and 3 on-field members do, or if they're "bench" positions.
- The layout of the island resort:
| Casino | |||||
| Path to Casino | Battle Stadium | ||||
| Item Shop + Bookstore | Path To Cottage -> | Bookkeeper's | |||
| Docks | <- Path to Docks / Warehouse | Plaza with Fountain | Path to Inn -> | Inn | |
| Gate | |||||
- How to defeat the third
chestbursterdemon, TL/DR version: As with the prior demon fights, this one isn't exactly hard. Like the demon we exorcised from Sherry's father, this one has only one form. That said, this boss fight can be very annoying, especially with the tendency to spam poisoning attacks that can potentially hit all three of your party members on the field at once. Heal when appropriate and just keep chipping away at its health. Oh, and watch out for the meteor attack and remember to vacate ALL spots that were targeted lest you take damage. - There is a giant metal thing that lurks the skies above Ni no Kuni's seas. It remains to be seen whether or not
Oliver's fatherthis abomination is something that we'll have to put up with in the future. - Laughter is the best panacea for arguments... Not so much if you're sprawled out after being possessed by a demon.
- Ni no Kuni apparently took a few pointers from Hyrule in Ocarina of Time. There's the technology to exploit electricity and a few places with some rather modern trappings, but a general lack of many things we'd take for granted, especially in the transport department.
- Of course, this could be because the designers for both respective games just like neon.
- It also apparently sees nothing wrong with allowing 11-year old mages to park themselves in front of slot machines, but that's not exactly an uncommon practice in fantasyland.
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 20: 105(/114) HP / 75(/80) MP
- Rucci: Level 23: 169(/170 HP) / 86 MP
- Maru: Level 18: 78(/104) HP / 92 MP*
- G: 6386
- Play Time: 41 hours, 37 minutes, 13 seconds.
Next time, we will play around with the side attractions here a bit before setting off for the Bogu(s) Empire of ominousness. Oh, and apparently I can stop using that machine-translated guide now. Someone finally made an English walkthrough.
