SomeColorMage unleashes Let's Play Golden Sun!

Hi guys, girls and anything else that happens to be reading this. I'm Some Color Mage, as I hope you can see, and I've decided to make my first attempt at a Let's Play.

Or Live Blog. Whatever.

Anyway, I've decided to go with one of my favourite games, Golden Sun. This GBA game was one of the first RPGs I ever played, and between the fun battle system and epic music, I was hooked.

But enough about me, let's get started!

(DING!) CAMELOT

Yeah, Camelot made this game. Camelot is a breakaway from Sega who made the Shining Force series, and then became affiliated with Nintendo, making all those Mario Golf and Tennis games. And this and its two sequels, The Lost Age and Dark Dawn.

One start screen later, and I'm prompted to name my character. As I really want to get this opening out of the way, I'm just going with the default. Say hello to Isaac people!

Isaac, wake up!

Oh great, what is probably the oldest RPG cliche ever.

...Or not. We're in the middle of a storm, at night, and a giant boulder is about to fall on us, so Isaac's mum, Dora, is trying to rush us to safety.

As we hop out of bed, Dora tells us we forgot something, and summons a giant white glove to grab Isaac's tunic.

Dora: Have you got everything you need?

And we are presented with our first yes/no question. These almost never have a bearing on the plot, you're gonna end up doing the same thing regardless of what you pick. Let's just say yes. Isaac just nods, and Dora goes on about the value of life or something.

And as we try to leave, we meet Isaac's father, Kyle.

Kyle: Isaac, Dora, hurry! The Boulder could fall at any second!

Yeah, I think this was already established.

We finally get outside. Kyle and Dora decide they have to help everyone else in this village, and Isaac has to go by himself to the plaza, which is south of our house. And with that, we finally get control. Attempting to head south, however, causes the path to be blocked by a huge rock. North it is, then.

North of our house, we encounter another kid. This one's called Garet, and he's trying to pull a huge chest of belongings behind him. Naturally, the chest isn't budging.

Garet: Issac, what do you want? I'm trying to save my things!

We have to talk him out of moving his stuff. He happily obliges when he realises he'll probably die otherwise.

Garet joined your party.

Yay.

We cross the bridge to the north, over a river cutting the town in two. Then...

Ahhh! The Boulder! It's falling!

Crap. The boulder starts tumbling down, only to be stopped by some people with these auras around them causing the boulder to like stop in mid air while flashing many colours. Oh, and the town's called Vale. And we get told to move it.

Naturally, heading south causes another big rock to block our path. So we have to go around.

While going around, an injured guy informs us to watch out for monsters, then asks us if he's gonna die. If we say no, he just stands up as if nothing happened. o_O

Further along, we encounter our first monster, a Vermin. This is accompanied by a spinning camera introducing the battle scene. There is a LOT of camera spinning in this game. We are given the first strike and kick the Vermin's arse. We can't do much in battles other than attack yet, so I'll save the battle system for another post.

Another battle, this time it's a Bat. This time as we attack, there's a close up on Isaac as he attacks, his knife glowing blue. That's a critical hit, and OHKOs the poor Bat.

Another battle, two Wild Mushrooms. Just as pathetic.

(Actually, all the monsters in the opening are classified as weak, which seriously Nerfs their stats.)

As we approach the south half of the town...

Oh no! My brother!

Looks like some kid, Felix, fell into the river and now Kyle, Dora, Felix's parents and Felix's sister Jenna are trying to get him out. Those weird auras and giant white gloves are called Psynergy. And everyone seems to have run out, so we're tasked with going to the plaza and finding help.

Wait a second, we were already heading to the plaza! We've had to go the long way around Vale to get here in the first place and now we have to come back here. And we have no choice. Damn this railroading.

Another battle later (no new enemies) and we're at the plaza. We say that we came to find help, and we are given a guy who just recharged all his Psynergy at the big, purple rock in the middle of the plaza. We escort him and Jenna back to where Felix is.

Dora: You're just in time.

Jenna: Then my brother is still...

Dora: Felix is all right. He's hanging in there. Come down here, so we can save Felix!

And as we come down, the boulder falls, taking Felix, Kyle and Felix's parents with it. Crap.

Well only one thing to do now, back to the plaza. On the way, Isaac overhears two people.

Blue Guy: Only the two of us survived...

Red Lady: How could we have anticipated Sol Sanctum would unleash such fury?

I have no idea what they're on about. Isaac overhears a few more lines when...

Garet: Isaac! Wait!

Damn it Garet! These two decide we have to forget everything Isaac heard. By nearly killing him. These two, referred to as Mystery Woman and Mystery Man, defeat us in one round. One attack, make that, as the woman acts first, does something called Mad Blast and deals about 150 more damage than our max HP. Then they just hop away.

And we see the Golden Sun logo, ending the prologue. I'm gonna cut it off there, and we'll continue in a day or two. See you then.

EDIT: Had to fix some formatting.
EDIT AGAIN: More formatting fix. I'm the first to admit I'm a Wikipedia Syntaxer.

edited 4th Nov '10 5:22:41 PM by SomeColorMage

I have a lot of fondness for this game, despite the atrocious dialogue scenes that go on and on and on and on...

I'll be following this thread with interest.

Yeah, I never said I like the plot. The basic plot line is good, but when you have people like Kraden giving endless exposition... Ugh. The Lost Age is definitely worse with this though, again probably because of Kraden.

New post later today. Probably.

edited 4th Nov '10 1:40:57 PM by SomeColorMage

Hi there! Where we left off, Isaac and Garet were beaten to near death by two oddly coloured people.

Three years later...

We start off seeing Jenna walk up into the northern area of town, up to Isaac's house.

Dora: Isaac! Haven't you finished mending the roof yet?

Well, at least Isaac's survived. Jenna keeps walking up to Garet's house... where Garet is busy crushing flowers by making one of those white glove Psynergy things move a big log over them. Jenna inquires about 3 years ago. Garet says something, but then decides to completely dodge Jenna's questions.

Of course, we don't really care about that. Isaac, Garet and Jenna need to go see Kraden. Isaac, however is still fixing the roof by... using Psynergy to move the hay, or straw, or something, into the holes. Dora goes up on the roof to observe the fixes, followed by Jenna and Garet. More questions about 3 years ago. Apparently, Isaac, Garet and Jenna are going to Mt. Aleph with Kraden.

Wait, Mt. Aleph? That's the mountain that tried to kill you all with a giant boulder! Are you guys nuts!? And Dora blows it off as them playing games. These people are nuts.

Jenna: No, it's part of our studies!

Dora: Ah, yes... Alchemy.

Hmm... Alchemy is the foundation of Psynergy, and the biggest source is Mt. Aleph, apparently. Dora contemplates if Alchemy is a good thing. Not gonna stop us though.

Dora, in a fit of anger, accidentally falls off the roof. Garet goes to save her, only to fall through the roof. Dora gets back on the roof, and Garet gets out of the hole he made, only to fall through the roof again. Dora decides it's better for us to go before there's no roof left.

Garet and Jenna joined your party.

Well, we have a new feature added to gameplay, Psynergy. Throughout the game, you get various spells related to the four elements; Venus (Earth), Mars (Fire), Jupiter (Wind) and Mercury (Water). For now, the spells you get are the element of the character, but we can change that. Isaac is Venus, and Garet and Jenna are Mars.

Psynergy can be used to hit things in battle and alter the surroundings out of battle. All spells cost PP, which regenerates as we walk around or find one of those purple rock things.

We're back in control now, and as this is an RPG, that means we now have a licence to be a kleptomaniac. I go around Vale getting small amounts of money and weak items I'll never use, but can sell for a small profit.

Kraden's house is in the western part of town, and we have to go via the northern entrance into the area, because the other one's blocked by a group of puppies. Stupidest Broken Bridge ever.

Those red and blue people are back, and we overhear them again. Something about the secrets of Sol Sanctum again.

Blue Guy: The elders of Vale must not permit anyone to enter it, not even Kraden.

Red Lady: Kraden... Can we use him?

Blue Guy: Hmm... His knowledge is no meager thing. ...We can use him.

Crap, they spotted us again. Garet accuses them of sneaking around and doing things. They realise that Kraden blew them off because we were coming, and Blue Guy asks if we are really important. We say yes.

... HE BELIEVED US???

OK, that is totally unexpected. They tell us their names, the blue guy is Saturos, and the red lady is Menardi. You may now place your bets on how many times I'll misspell their names.

We go up to Kraden's house.

Kraden: Just who were they? They already know too much about Sol Sanctum...

We come to the conclusion that those two are thieves, and have to go to Sol Sanctum. Unfortunately, we are stopped by some priest guy. So we wait until he looks behind a building and run for it.

Sol Sanctum has new enemies, but they're all classified as weak, so we can ignore them for now.

This place has a lot of jumping puzzles. We can jump one tile at a time, and we'll need to navigate a lot of jumping mazes in this game.

Trying out the battle Psynergy, Jenna and Garet have Flare, which sets things on fire, but Isaac can only physically attack and heal right now.

For damage dealing purposes, most Psynergy has a base power, multiplied by the attackers elemental power divided by 100, multiplied by 100 divided by the defenders elemental resistance. The better spells derive their power from your Attack stat.

In the second jumping puzzle, we have to go down one route, grab a jewel, and put it in a Minotaur head to open a new path. Exciting.

We reach what is apparently the end of the Sanctum, but Kraden complains that there is nothing representing Sol. So we just move a statue out of the way to find a secret passage. And a maze.

Isaac reaches level 2, and learns his first attack Psynergy, Quake.

We encounter a room filled with statues we can't reach. This is where field Psynergy comes in. We use Move to push the statues out of the way with the psychic glove hands. You can set two of these spells to L and R to use as shortcuts, BTW.

Another maze. Yawn.

At the end however, we encounter a crest of the sun. This is what Saturos and Menardi were talking about apparently. There's also a moon crest. Kraden decides to puzzle it out down here, while Isaac, Garet and Jenna continue on.

Upstairs, there are the same crests, but surrounded by statues. Moving one of the statues near the moon crest triggers a trap, so we're told to do something else.

So we move the statues near the sun crest, THEN the moon crest. This swaps the position of the two crests and opens a portal downstairs.

The portal leads to a water filled cave. Kraden starts talking about the ocean, then notices the statues in the cave. Specifically what's in them.

The Elemental Stars. The sources of the four elements themselves. The most powerful things in the world. And Kraden tasks Isaac and Garet to take them. This can't end well.

We get the Venus, Mercury and Jupiter Stars. But then Saturos, Menardi and a guy in a green mask show up. And they're holding Jenna and Kraden hostage in exchange for the stars. To prove that they won't hurt anyone, they tell the green guy to remove his mask. It's Felix! I guess he survived having a rock fall on his head while drowning in a river.

We accept their terms. Garet starts to jump over to them, when another guy teleports in. This one's called Alex. He takes the Stars and then makes us grab the Mars Star, despite the fact that he could teleport over there and appears to be able to FLY. What a dick.

We take the Mars Star, but then the entire place apocalypses on us. And then a giant rock with an eyeball shows up.

Garet: That rock... It's floating... Do you know what it is Isaac?

(Isaac: Yes)

Garet: Yeah, I know it's a rock, stupid!

It's The Wise One, the protector of the world (The world's called Weyard, by the way).

The arseholes leave with Jenna and Kraden, on the logic that we will have to go after them then. Isaac and Garet, on the other hand, hide behind the statue that had the Mars Star in it.

Garet: Well, this turned out badly, wouldn't you say?

Understatement of the year, man.

Garet starts to leave, but Isaac is paralysed with fear over how The Wise One just floated over to them. He's a nice guy, er, rock, though. He's just trying to stop the eruption of Mt. Aleph. He can't, but informs us the elemental Djinn are being unleashed across the world, does something to the Mars Star, says something about the dangers of alchemy, tells us that the four lighthouses must not be lit, and teleports us out. We use another field Psynergy, Retreat, to take us to the exit of Sol Sanctum.

The people of Vale see us leave Mt. Aleph, ask us what we were doing, and where are Jenna and Kraden. We're in trouble.

So we explain what happened, by miming the entire thing. The elder of Vale Sanctum, starts getting visions from The Wise One. The eruption will happen, but Vale will be safe. More importantly, Isaac and Garet must go out, and stop the lighting of the lighthouses. We get asked if we want to do it. Of course we accept. The Wise One shows up.

TWO: You two are quite brave to accept this quest. I will be watching you. Choose your destiny wisely, young ones.

(The only way to get a game over in the entire series is to say no to this. If your party gets wiped out, you just return to the last town you were in that had a sanctum.)

The next day, we get kicked out of town after being given the Catch Beads. The Catch Beads, when equipped, allow you to grab nuts off trees. Seriously, that's the only real use for this spell.

I quickly go back to Vale to upgrade my weapons from Short Swords to Long Swords and get the best armour. And I'll leave it there.

Oh, and I may as well post my stats.

Isaac: Lv 2 Squire HP:49 PP:20 Attack:38 Defence:26 Agility:17 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 2 Guard HP:53 PP:18 Attack:32 Defence:28 Agility:9 Luck:2

...Yeah, Garet is really, really slow.

See you later.

EDIT: Noticed some formatting I needed to fix. I know my edit times look a bit back and forth, and that's because I'm reading this thing several times for errors.

edited 5th Nov '10 1:46:40 AM by SomeColorMage

Weird...I've noticed that there's no "magic Wisdom stat" for the results you just posted. How, then, is Psynergy strength determined?

Each element has two stats, one for attack (Elemental Power) and one for defence (Elemental Resistance). These stats can realistically range between 50 (half damage if on attack, double if on defence) and 200 (double damage if on attack, half if on defence). The thing is, these are very hard to make significant changes to, so I don't really want to post all 8 of these stats every update.

The starting values of the characters we have so far:

Isaac:
Venus: 104 Power, 114 Resist
Mercury: 78 Power, 88 Resist
Mars: 76 Power, 86 Resist
Jupiter: 77 Power, 87 Resist

Garet:
Venus: 76 Power, 86 Resist
Mercury: 77 Power, 87 Resist
Mars: 104 Power, 114 Resist
Jupiter: 78 Power, 88 Resist

Jenna had the same Power/Resist as Garet.

Oh, okay. It's been several years since I last played Golden Sun, so I needed a memor job. Thanks.

Hi guys! I was bored, so I decide I'd do the next part now. Don't expect updates this frequently in the future, though; longer areas = longer to write.

Anyway, we left our heroes last time being kicked out of Vale. So now we're on the world map. Pressing R here gets a nice detailed map of the world, or the parts we can visit anyway. We're gonna start by heading south.

And we encounter this brown... thing. It notices that we are mighty warriors. And Adepts (people who can use Psynergy) too. The thing's name is Flint, and he's a Venus Djinni. He explains that he wants to find his friends and he can make us really powerful. He asks to join us. We should accept, but it's funnier to say no. Observe:

Flint: What do you think? Will you take me with you?

(Isaac: No)

Flint: Come on! I promise you won't regret it! Please take me with you!

(Isaac: No)

Flint: Pleeeease! I'll never let you down. Can't I go with you?

(Isaac: No)

Flint: No, I'm serious! I'll never, ever disappoint you. Please!!!

(Isaac: No)

Flint: PLEASE take me with you! Please! I'm begging!

(Isaac: No)

Flint: Please!

(Isaac: No)

Flint: Take me with you!

(Isaac: No)

Flint: Meanie! I don't care what you say! I'm coming along with you!

Flint, the Venus Djinni, is now Isaac's ally!

Admittedly, Echo's joining scene in The Lost Age is funnier.

Anyway, Flint gives us a tutorial on how to use Djinn. First you equip them on a character. They give that character a stat boost (Some HP, 5 in that element's Power and Resistance, and some other stats). Then you use them, giving you a special effect in combat. They take their stat boost with them. You can then call on the used Djinn and summon them. Summons base their damage as if they were a standard Psynergy attack, but also deal damage based on the targets HP. You then have to wait a few turns before the Djinn return to you, giving you back their stat boost.

The only summon we have right now is Venus. Venus costs 1 Venus Djinn and has 30 power plus 3% of the targets HP in Venus damage, then raises the users Venus Power by 10 until the end of the battle.

Djinn also have another effect: Depending on the mix of elements between Djinn and the Adept, they may change your class. This changes the Psynergy you can use.

Anyway, Flint gives (before class multipliers) 8 HP, 4 PP and 3 Attack. When used in battle, he does a Venus attack at 160% the user's Attack power.

For now, he's going to Garet, because Garet's base class is one of the worst in the series. This changes Garet's class to Brute; HP, Attack and Agility go up, Defence and Luck go down, and the Mars elemental Flare is replaced by the Venus elemental Growth.

We now start to encounter enemies of decent strength, but random enemies are nothing to really mention unless they have a good item drop. The interesting stuff is all in the bosses, to be honest.

Southeast from Vale, we encounter Vault. As we try to enter the town, a series of wagons emerge. The caravan, led by Master Hammet, consider the area too dangerous and decide to go back to their home in Kalay. Except the bridge is out. Apparently, they also left someone called Ivan behind. He has strange powers, and was left behind so he could find Hammet's lost rod.

As the eruption of Mt. Aleph is spewing giant Psynergy Stones at them, they decide to defy all logic and go to Lunpa, the town of thieves. Let's follow them, Vault can wait.

...Or not. Lunpa's closed to visitors. All we can do is Catch a Nut. Nuts are really good, they heal 200 HP. Back to Vault then.

A convieniently placed NPC informs us that the continent we are on is called Angara. I guess that's useful.

We find a Mint in town. This gives us a permanent Agility boost to who uses it. I let Garet use it, as the class change still leaves him 7 Agility below Isaac.

In the shops, I can trade my Long Swords for Battle Axes, but I'm a bit short of money. Grind time!

(There won't be a lot of grinding in this playthrough, and even then, only for money, not levels.)

Isaac learns Earthquake at level 4.

Also, how can a zombie 'nimbly' dodge a blow? It's a frickin' zombie!

Now that I'm all set up, let's go around the town. There's been a lot of thefts, apparently.

Stop looking at me like that.

The mayor has that Ivan kid in his house. Let's go talk to him. He decides to read Isaac's mind and figures out he has similar powers to us, and that it's called Psynergy. He then asks for our help in finding Hammet's rod. Also, if an Adept holds hands with Ivan, they can both read someone's mind. Ivan says that nobody else could tell if Mind Read was being used, and the three determine that only Adepts can see Psynergy being used.

Ivan joined your party.

Ivan is a Jupiter Adept. He joins at level 4 with Whirlwind, Mind Read and Ray. As for his elements, Jupiter is strongest, followed by Mars, Venus and Mercury (They follow the same number pattern that is used for Isaac and Garet). We can't actually fight using him, however, as he can't leave Vault without the rod.

Hmm, there are shady people in the inn. Let's harass them!

One of them: What do you want?

The other one: It looks like that weird kid is with them!

Nobody likes Ivan, do they? Anyway, these guys refuse to let us near them, so we decide to split up and trap them. It plays the minigame music during this for some reason. We catch one of them, and Ivan reveals them to be the theives. All the stuff they've stolen is in the inn somewhere.

There's a hole in the roof. Let's start there. What do you know? That's where it is! The thieves show up and insult us a bit. They then tell us that Hammet was kidnapped by the theives of Lunpa. Gasp! I thought they were gonna give him ice cream! Apparently, the town Lunpa has gone downhill since Dodonpa, the grandson of the founder, Lunpa the noble thief, took charge and started doing evil stuff.

They use this as a reason to let them go. We say no, because that's the stupidest reason ever. So they try to kill us.

The Bandit is the first boss in the game, but he's really easy. Why? Because he's a non-Adept and thus is weak to all 4 elements. We make short work of him. We get a Bandit's Sword for winning, which is our first Artifact Weapon.

Artifact Weapons are pretty strong. When Artifact Weapons would normally critical, there is a chance the weapon will unleash. An unleash is a powerful attack that increases damage done and attaches an element to an attack. And they completely wreck the balance of the game later on. But that's something for later. The Bandit's Sword reduces damage to 90%, but has a chance of doubling damage from there, and converts it to Jupiter.

Ivan decides he must go to Lunpa, but not before both getting Hammet's rod back, and reading Isaac's mind to figure out what they will be doing. The mayor and a few other people come in to retrieve the treasure. However, the thieves are still trying to justify their actions.

Thief: Hey, you're the ones who left all your doors open! You were practically begging us to—-OUCH!

Yeah, one of the guys who came in kicked him.

With everything retrieved, and the thieves arrested, everyone goes their different ways. The mayor asks us to visit him later, and when we do, he gives us a Water of Life! This is a rare revival item. It'll probably be useful later.

And so, we must head towards the next town. See you later.

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 5 Squire HP:75 PP:28 Attack:61 Defence:31 Agility:30 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 5 Brute HP:81 PP:25 Attack:66 Defence:27 Agility:31 Luck:1

EDIT: Expanded on our first summon a bit.

edited 4th Nov '10 7:47:39 PM by SomeColorMage

I've written up four updates in about 24 hours. I can't help it!

This instalment, we're heading further east. This takes us to a place called Goma Cave. After some typical move pillars and walk on them gameplay, we encounter a log that just won't move. It's covered in ivy or something.

But then Ivan shows up! He casts Whirlwind to remove the ivy for us. He's also decided that trying to get into Lunpa is pointless and wants to come with us! Yay!

Anyway, we give Ivan the Bandit's Sword because he's too weak for those big axes, and head back to Vale. There's a Power Bread that'll increase our HP hidden behind a bush there. It goes to Ivan. He needs it.

Back to Goma Cave then. Inside the cavern, the easy exit path appears to have been covered in a land slide. Crap. That means we have to go the long way. On the way, we see a weird red thing. A Djinn? Some guy near it says it ran away from him in a fight. Let's see if we can get to the red thing.

Isaac learnt Spire at level 6. We'll be able to change his class soon, but probably won't as Brute is kinda a step down from Squire.

The path here has no intersections or odd turns, so I can't really say much.

The monsters here introduce it to stat changing spells. Impair lowers the targets Defence.

Dead end. We have to Move a huge log to create another path and follow that. Hey, it takes us right to the Djinn! He's not exactly happy to see us, though, and challenges us to a fight.

He goes down pretty easily with some Psynergy spam, and Garet hits level 6, learning Blast.

Weird thing about Blast, there are two spells with the same name. One is the lowest level of the Blast series, and the other the lowest level of the Nova series (which appears to have been Retconned to Starburst in Dark Dawn). I'm pretty sure this is the Blast Blast, if you understand me.

The Mars Djinni Forge joined Isaac.

No way, you're going to Ivan. Forge gives 10 HP, 2 Attack, 2 Agility and 2 Luck, and using it increases our party's Attack by 25%.

It also gives us the Mars Summon. It costs 1 Mars Djinn, has 30 power plus 3% of the targets HP in Mars damage, and increases the users Mars Power by 10.

The guy below us decides to compliment our powers and tells us to look for more of these things.

Like I said, this is going to Ivan for now. He goes from his default, Wind Seer, to Pilgrim (Jupiter). Everything but PP and Agility goes up, those two take a minor hit. His basic attack Psynergy is replaced by Slash, which I think is more powerful, but hits less targets.

On our way out, we have to push another log out of the way. This creates a shortcut for if we ever have to go through this place again.

And we're out on the other side! I'm leaving it there. Short, I know, but I'm only doing one dungeon an update. Bye!

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 6 Squire HP:84 PP:30 Attack:66 Defence:33 Agility:35 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 6 Brute HP:89 PP:27 Attack:70 Defence:29 Agility:35 Luck:1

Ivan: Lv 5 Pilgrim (Jupiter) HP:72 PP:50 Attack:36 Defence:32 Agility:39 Luck:7

edited 5th Nov '10 12:40:45 AM by SomeColorMage

After this instalment, we should have at least one of Venus, Mars and Jupiter Djinn each, so I'd like some suggestions to what class setups you'd like to see. Just give me the elemental combinations you want and I'll see what I can do.And no saying all mono-elemental classes. Those are really boring.

So where we? Oh right, we left Goma Cave, so we are just outside the town of Bilibin. There's an odd tree at the entrance that supposedly looks like a man. Let's try Mind Read...

Help me... Somebody...

Woah. According to the villagers, that tree was a guy who offended a sacred tree or something. Also, there's a lighthouse to the north in Imil, which we'll probably be going to sometime in the future.

While stealing finding things around town, we find a Hard Nut. It boosts Defence. It goes to Garet, as oddly, he has the lowest at the moment.

There's a big statue in the middle of town, and we can move it to reveal a passageway. Ooh! A Jupiter Djinn! But there's another statue in the way. So we walk on top of the village, and find a bush that we can Whirlwind away to find another entrance, where we can get around the statue by using Move.

The Jupiter Djinni Gust joined Isaac.

Gust gives us 9 HP, 2 Attack and 2 Agility. It performs a Jupiter attack at Attack + 10 power and may hit for double damage.

We also get the Jupiter Summon. 30 Jupiter power and 3% of the targets Max HP, for 1 Jupiter Djinn and raises Jupiter Power by 10.

As Isaac is the only one without a Djinn so far, he gets this one for now, changing his class to Apprentice. His HP, PP, Attack and Agility go up, his Luck goes down. His Venus attacks and Cure are replaced with Gaia and Delude (which is a status ailment spell, therefore horrible).

But it gets rid of Cure, so I need some retooling. Isaac gets Forge, making him a Brute (I know I said Squire is better, but this is hopefully temporary), Garet gets Gust, making him a Page (similar to Apprentice, also giving him the best Defence, meaning I kinda wasted that Hard Nut), and Ivan gets Flint and becomes a Seer, which is a nice class and gives him Cure.

Now let's head to the shops. HOLY CRAP! The stuff here is expensive. I've got a lot of money grinding to do. (In theory, we're supposed to come back for the best stuff here after the next set of areas. In practice, that's BS.)

Ivan learned Flash Bolt at level 6. Garet learned Volcano at level 8. While I am gaining quite a few levels here, the experience output is really low, and grinding for levels is not needed. The extra levels will help for a later boss though.

As I don't want to grind for the Broadswords (1000 gold a piece where battles give upwards of 50), I sell the Water of Life. The game plays fair at this point (nowhere near annoying status effects and instant kill moves yet), so I don't need it. It gives 2250 gold.

After getting all of that stuff, I head to the big mansion at the north side of town. They're looking for mighty warriors to save them from that sacred trees curse. So we offer ourselves. Apparently, nobody else is applying for the job. We decide to look around the manor. Hmm... This wardrobe in the bedroom looks interesting...

Isaac peeked into the wardrobe...

There's a silk negligee.

Isaac! Put that back!

Aww. I wonder what the stats on that thing are.

Anyway, we go see the for some reason Scottish Lord McCoy. Apparently not knowing we tried to take his wife's negligee, he immediately decides to deride us for being two 17 year olds and a 14 year old. But we can save Kolima, whatever that is. So he gives us the key to the barricade to the east. But then...

McCoy: Even with the key, such wee lads as yerselves'll never reach Kolima.

More attempts to convince him results in him just taking back the key. What an arse. The captain of the guard escorts us out, but lets a key detail slip.

Captain: That barricade... You may not need a key.

So let's go to the barricade! Needless to say, the thing is so shoddily built, we can just Move part of it out of the way. There is also a tower of humans turned trees, which is just plain silly.

I'm gonna leave it there, because that took really long to write and I want some setup ideas for Kolima. Until then, bye!

Stats:

Issac: Lv 9 Brute HP:109 PP:32 Attack:106 Defence:52 Agility:50 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 8 Page HP:106 PP:49 Attack:90 Defence:58 Agility:50 Luck:1

Ivan: Lv 8 Seer HP:90 PP:72 Attack:60 Defence:41 Agility:47 Luck:4

Djinn: 1 Venus, 1 Mars, 1 Jupiter

EDIT: Forgot that McCoy would accidentally be a Wiki Word.

edited 5th Nov '10 4:24:05 PM by SomeColorMage

Looks like you're giving us a fair amount of information without overloading us with details, which is a wonderful balance. Seems like you're enjoying yourself as well, which is the key to a successful LB. And hey, that Hard Nut may indeed be worth it once you have to go through another class change.

As for class set-ups, three's not a lot to go with, but at least it's enough for your party members to each have one to work with. I'd say that your current class choices seem adequate enough...well, except for Issac, as I agree on your sentiments towards status effects. Next Djinn you find, give it to our wonderful lead, and leave the other two as-is.

I gave Garet the Hard Nut because I was perplexed over how low his Defence was. He's supposed to be the Mighty Glacier of the party; slow but really hard to take down with physicals. The stats he had though, just made no sense for him. Probably the class was messing with his base stats a bit too much.

Also, yeah, we can't do much with classes right now. It opens up a lot more when we get our next party member, as we'll then get access to all 4 elements.

I'll begin writing up the next part in a few hours, just wanna see if anyone else wants to pitch ideas.

edited 5th Nov '10 8:39:39 PM by SomeColorMage

Okay readers, this time we're going to be going through the Kolima region.

Now before I begin, there is a little bit of Sequence Breaking we can do here. Instead of going east through the barricade we went through at the end of the last post, we could have gone north, to the Imil region. This leads us to getting our fourth party member early, but ends in a boss much harder than the one we're going up against hopefully by the end of this update.

Also, just to clarify, I may change my Djinn setup before bosses. I don't want my strategies to be stuffed up by bad class choices and some combinations may not make full use of my Djinn. (Giving everyone the same element, for example, is a bad idea.)

On the way to Kolima we go on a small detour to find a pair of Turtle Boots. It gives us a small Defence boost in exchange for halving Agility. I'm not gonna use them right now, but I may have a use for them later.

As we enter Kolima, it seems that everyone's been turned into trees. As we try to puzzle out why, we notice sparkly stuff everywhere. And then something attacks us and paralyses us. A wave of the sparkly stuff approaches us. Realising that this must have been what happened to everyone else, we come to the conclusion that we are utterly screwed.

Wait, WHAT?

These giant blue bubbles, appear around us and shield us from the sparkly stuff. Ivan thinks it was our Psynergy acting subconsciously. Garet then likens it to critical hits.

Garet: I think it's like when we strike critical hits in battle. We can't control it, but it's there when we need it.

Then explain the one Isaac got before you two learnt Psynergy. And they're not there when you need them, they're (pseudo-)random.

Because the thing that attacked us is a giant arse, it attacks us with the sparkly stuff again. It's that sacred tree, Tret, doing it because people have been logging the forest. And he's dying. And when he and the other sacred tree, Laurel die, they're taking all the humans turned tree with them. Laurel asks us to reawaken Tret's good personality so he can undo this stupid revenge plot.

So let's head to Kolima Forest, but not before grabbing some stuff. First we get an Apple, an Attack booster. It goes to Ivan.

Then, we go into the basement of a house here to recruit another Djinn. Granite is a Venus Djinn that gives 9 HP, 2 Defence, 2 Agility and 1 Luck. In battle, it halves the damage the party takes for the whole turn. (It has priority so it always goes first)

We also get access to the Ramses Summon. For 2 Venus Djinn, it attacks with 60 Venus power plus 6% of the opponents HP, and raises the users Venus power by 30. And it's a pyramid that punches the target in the face. That's gotta count for something.

On Endark's advice, Granite is going to Isaac for now, but I will probably change the setup later, especially as we get one more Djinn before the boss and having two of the same element on a character gets a better class than what we have available now.

The Kolima Forest is full of annoying log rolling puzzles, but still fairly linear.

Garet learns Weaken at level 9. Unlike status ailment spells, statistic changing spells can be very useful. Especially Weaken, as it lowers Resistance.

A nice thing about dungeons is that in rooms with complex puzzles, the encounter rate is low or zero. It makes it easier to keep track of things.

Now this next puzzle is interesting. The logs are floating in an artificial lake. We can trip a floodgate switch to empty the lake and move the logs, then refill the lake. We move the logs around to get a Fur Coat, clothes which up Mercury Resist by 20. We give it to Ivan.

Some more log rolling later, and we're at Tret and Laurel. Laurel tells us we are too late, and trying to talk to Tret results in his bad half taking over. So we have to go inside him to beat the crap out of his bad half.

This dungeon, which is called Tret Tree, is filled with spider webs with leaves on them. Jumping on a leaf breaks the leaf, and jumping on a broken leaf breaks the web, and drops us down a few floors. There are also outdoor segments where we have to search under the leaves for a vine to take us up a floor.

We find our first Ring, the Healing Ring. Rings give us an ability that we would usually have to spend PP for, but can break if overused. The Healing Ring restores 70 HP.

We encounter Trolls here, one of the few enemies I consider notable as they regenerate 10 HP a turn.

Near the top of Tret, we take a small detour to find a Jupiter Djinn. This one decides to fight us. However, it's weak to Venus, and both Isaac and Ivan have Growth. Too easy.

The Jupiter Djinni Breeze joined Garet.

Breeze gives 12 HP, 5 PP, 2 Defence and 1 Luck. When used, he ups the party's Resistance by 40 in all elements.

We also gain access to the Atlanta Summon. She costs 2 Jupiter Djinn, and attacks at 60 Jupiter Power, plus 6% of the targets HP and increases the users Jupiter Power by 30. Graphically, she just floats in the air and shoots tons of arrows at the target.

Now that we have all the Djinn before the boss and are nearly at him, it's time to set up. Both Jupiter Djinn go to Isaac, making him an Illusionist (Venus). Garet gets Forge, making him a Guard again (I know I hate the class, but it's useful here), and Ivan gets both Venus Djinn, making him a Diviner (Jupiter).

On the top floor, I have to break a large spider web right in the middle. This drops us on the bottom floor, right in front of Tret's face. He's angry to say the least.

Tret: You! You hoped to find my kindly self? Fools! You should never have come here, and now, you shall never leave! Your powers protected you in the forest, but now you are in the heart of my power! Here, you will all become trees, and you'll wither with the rest of us!

Unfortunately, Isaac has no voice to Shut Up, Hannibal! with, so we resort to attacking him. Tret can use a lot of Venus attacks, and can put s to sleep. He is weak to Mars, so Garet pulls a lot of damage here. Isaac and Ivan use their strongest attacks, and Ivan heals when we need it. 6 rounds to put him out of his misery.

Smashing his evil self causes the good Tret to wake up. He decides that he should just die now, but we ask him to fix Kolima. However, his power no longer reaches Kolima, so we need to heal him before he dies.

We Mind Read Laurel and find out we could heal Tret with the water from Mercury Lighthouse, but it's dried up. So that's our next task. See you then.

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 10 Illusionist (Venus) HP:153 PP:71 Attack:111 Defence:68 Agility:65 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 9 Guard HP:126 PP:35 Attack:86 Defense:66 Agility:32 Luck:4

Ivan: Lv 9 Diviner (Jupiter) HP:127 PP:84 Attack:75 Defence:56 Agility:58 Luck:5

Djinn: 2 Venus, 1 Mars, 2 Jupiter

Garet's stats are low compared to the other two because not only does the Guard class series suck, the others have 2 Djinn, putting them in a class 1 tier higher than him.

I'm one of those very boring people who always uses the "natural" all-elemental classes for everyone (all Venus Djinn go to Isaac, Mars goes to Garet, and so forth — with any inconvenient extra unset), so I won't be able to advise you on this point.

I could probably do mono-elemental, and I will consider it with enough suggestions, but multi-elemental classes give more versatility. The only bad thing I can think of with multiple elements is no Ragnarok.

I always just used mono-element as well, but I'm not suggesting you do that; I'm not really familiar with the ins and outs of what classes are good, so I'm both interested in seeing what you come up with and completely useless in terms of giving suggestions.

Yeah, same here. The game is easy enough that I never bothered with learning anything about the classes system, but it's interesting to see how it matters (especially so well explained).

Well, my laptop decided to crash and take the update I just started working on with it. Son of a—Anyway, it'll be a little while until next update, especially if this thing keeps crashing, because if that happens I'll have to move my emulator and everything onto the family computer.

Okay, that didn't take as long as I thought it would.

Hmm, I wonder if that crash was because I'm shoving all of my commentary into the one text file. Just in case, I've started to split them up.

But enough about me, we've got to get to Imil!

First, I'm swapping Isaac and Garet's Djinn, as I think Brute and Illusionist (Mars) is a bit better than Illusionist (Venus) and Guard.

Next we go back to Bilibin, offload some stuff we don't want, and head north. I also get a Witch's Wand for Ivan in the shop, as I forgot to check the Artifacts section last time we were here. I also remember to use the inn, which I forgot to last time.

North of Bilibin is the Bilibin Cave. We could go straight in, but there is a secret entrance we can get to by using Growth. And from this entrance, we get an Elven Rapier. The Elven Rapier always deals damage as Jupiter, unlike a lot of other early Artifacts, which only have elemental Unleashes.

Ivan learns Cure Well at level 10.

Part of the way into the cave, we encounter a lot of puddles and ice pillars. We can't do anything with them yet, but we can move a torch to melt away one of the pillars and get us a Vial, which is a good healing item.

And that's also the end of the cave. We still have a long path to walk though to get to Imil. It's twisty, and turny and snowy. The rivers here even look frozen.

We encounter Oozes here, which can divide and create another Ooze. Needless to say, the battle against 4 Oozes is the most frustrating thing so far.

And we're at Imil. This may have been a short update, but the next one will be long. Very, very long.

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 10 Brute HP:117 PP:35 Attack:111 Defence:54 Agility:55 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 10 Illusionist (Mars) HP:160 PP:67 Attack:108 Defence:70 Agility:65 Luck:2

Ivan: Lv 10 Diviner (Jupiter) HP:135 PP:89 Attack:94 Defence:57 Agility:63 Luck:5

Djinn: 2 Venus, 1 Mars, 2 Jupiter. We'll have 2 of all 4 elements at the end of the next update.

all I remember about the classes is that once you have all the Djinn, you need a ninja and a samurai.

Agreed. The best setup tends to be all tri-elemental classes.

Hi guys! In this instalment, we are going to visit one of the more important dungeons of the game: the Mercury Lighthouse. But first, we should look around the nearby village of Imil.

Lots of people in town are sick. We can't even use the shops. However, we do find some Lucky Pepper. It raises Luck. We give it to Garet.

A bit of inquiry into this illness tells us that there is a healer called Mia in the town. You know in place as cold as this, you may want more than one healer. Just saying.

There's a river in the middle of town. It's frozen over, and we can't control what direction we go in. With a bit of creative sliding, we go into a cave with a new Djinn!

The Mars Djinni Fever joined Isaac.

Fever gives us 8 HP, 3 Attack and 2 Agility. It can be used for an attack at Attack+30 Mars Power and can inflict Delusion (Blind). Djinn inflict statuses at a better rate than Psynergy.

We also get a new Summon, Kirin. For 2 Mars Djinn, it attacks at 60 Mars Power plus 6% of the targets HP, and increases the users Mars Power by 30. It looks like some... thing slamming into the enemy.

We give it to Isaac for now, upping him to the Brute's second tier class, Ruffian.

...Wow, even the Sanctum priest is sick, there's a little kid in charge. They tell us Mia went to the house near the entrance and, lo, there she is.

Mia: How are you felling?

Old Man: Cough... Cough...

Old Lady: He's been coughing for quite a while, now...

Mia: You'll feel better soon.

And she casts some Psynergy on the old man. Looks like we've found another Adept. Then we see a flash of light. The lighthouse? Well, Mia seems to think so, and thinks it was Alex. How does she know Alex? Let's follow her, but first we swipe a bottle from the old couple. They won't need it.

We find Mia at the entrance to the lighthouse. She's trying to get in, but a statue is in the way. We Move it for her. She saw the hand, so we explain to her about Psynergy. She doesn't realise her power, Ply, was a form of Psynergy. She refers to it as a power from the Mercury Clan, which Garet likens to Vale. Mia opens the door to the lighthouse, and we follow her.

...And her path is blocked by a monster. We kill it for her, but not before encountering the most blatant translation error in the game. You see, pretty much any time something should say breath, it says blessing instead. So the Lizard Man here breathes on us with his Water Blessing. -_-

Mia thanks us and runs off again... only to be stuck behind another statue. We Move it, and she realises we should work together.

Mia joined your party.

Mia is our Mercury Adept, and is a healer for the most part. She also comes with Fizz, a Mercury Djinn that gives 9 HP, 4 PP and 3 Defence. It can be used to restore 60% of the targets HP.

We also have access to the Mercury Summon. For 1 Mercury Djinn, it attacks for 30 Mercury Power plus 3% of the targets HP, and increases the users Mercury Power by 10.

Of course, I decide to shuffle the classes around. Garet and Ivan remain the same, but Isaac is given Fizz, making him a Swordsman (Venus) and Mia gets the two Mars Djinn, making her a Wanderer (Mercury). Both are pretty good classes.

There are lots of waterfalls in here, we will need to walk through them at some points.

There are two main types of puzzles here. The first are pipe mazes, where we have to reroute water to open paths. For solving the first one, we get a Psy Crystal, which refills an Adept's PP when used.

A few rooms later and we are on front of a goddess statue.

He who honours the heart of the goddess shall stand at the centre of all, like a swan in the centre of a rippling pond.

By casting Ply on the statue, we unlock the second type of puzzle. When we stand on certain tiles, we can jump on water. We only have three jumps until we sink though. The new path we can take from this leads us to a Mimic! Mimics are harder than normal enemies disguised as chests on the field, and give a rare item when defeated. During the battle, Mia regenerates PP at the end of her turn. That's a special feature of Lighthouses, Adepts of the same element get 4 PP at the end of turn. We get a Water of Life after killing the Mimic.

Hmm, this path was a dead end but we get some Psynergy Armour, which boosts our Max PP, out of it. We give it to Isaac.

Let's go the other way then.

Isaac learns Cutting Edge at level 11. This is our first Psynergy that determines its power by modifying the users Attack stat. These are really useful.

Another pipe puzzle. We have to reroute the water here to fill up a previous room, so the jumping tiles in that room will work.

On the way upstairs, there's a button we need to put a statue on to open a door, but there's no statue. Further upstairs, there's anothe pipe puzzle. We need to manipulate the water into pushing a statue into a hole that'll make it fall on the button.

We encounter a pipeline we have to fix. It creates a jet of water so powerful, it pushes part of a wall away. OK, Camelot? There's creative puzzles, and then there's just plain defilement of logic. Guess which one this falls under.

Behind a waterfall in the next room, we find a Mercury Djinn that wants to fight us. It's weak to fire. Too easy.

Garet hits level 11 and learns Astral Blast, another spell based on the Attack stat, from it.

The Mercury Djinni Sleet joined Isaac.

Sleet gives 12 HP, 3 Attack and 1 Luck. It is used in battle to attack a target at Attack+30 Mercury Power and reduces the targets Attack by 25%

We also get the Nereid Summon. for 2 Mercury Djinn, she attacks for 60 Mercury Power plus 6% of the targets HP and increases the users Mercury Power by 30. Graphically, she just shows up on a turtle and creates a blast of water under the enemy.

We give this to Isaac, making him a Defender (Venus). In particular, he gets Ply from this, so we can have 2 healers and still have Mia on Mars Djinn (They take away Ply from her).

We get Poisoned for the first time. No big, it's Venom that's the dangerous poison status. Hell, neither of them are too dangerous, as we can heal it for 2 PP!

And we're at the end. There's a waterfall with a rainbow on it.

He who honours the goddess of rainbows shall be guided to the heavens upon wings of fluid grace.

We have to cast Ply on the waterfall to make it flow upwards and take us to the Mercury Lighthouse Aerie. Isaac nearly drowns on the way up, but the other 3 are just fine.

However, when we get to the top, the lighthouse has already been lit! Crap. We now have to explain the entire situation to Mia.

Jenna: Isaac! Garet!

Hey, the villain party is here! Except Alex and Saturos. We announce our intentions.

Menardi: Let's take care of them now, before they can do any harm!

Saturos: Menardi... Wait!

He was hiding behind the Lighthouse beacon! Which is floating in midair! How the hell did he pull that off!?

Menardi: Oh, Saturos! They want to...

Saturos: I heard everything. They were lucky to survive the eruption of Mt. Aleph. You have endured so much, and now you want to throw your lives away? Fine. If that is your wish, prepare to have it granted.

Menardi: Saturos... Are you going to fight them alone?

Saturos: Menardi, I can't expect you to leave our hostages alone and help me, can I?

Menardi: Umm... That's true...

Saturos: Besides, I want to see how much their powers have developed.

Menardi: Are you sure about this, Saturos?

Saturos: Leave me be! Head for the next lighthouse—-now!

So Menardi, Felix, Jenna and Kraden leave.

Kraden: Isaac! Garet! Don't die!

Thanks for the help.

Saturos banters a bit more, and goes to attack us when he starts feeling weak from the lighthouse. But he decides to fight anyway.

So, Saturos is one hard son of a bitch. He hits hard and has some strong Mars attacks, but is really weak to Mercury. Thankfully, he can only act once a turn. Garet lowers his Resistance while the others go all out. 7 rounds finishes him, surprisingly.

This battle is accompanied by one of the best songs in the series. It is in all three games, despite the fact Saturos is only in this one. It's that good.

Garet: Isaac, we got him!

Yes, yes we did.

Saturos: Who would have thought that Mercury Lighthouse held such great power? If only my Psynergy had been at its full power...

Hey, it's your blunder, man.

Then Alex shows up (also hiding behind the beacon), explains that the Lighthouses weaken their opposing element, and stalls for time so Saturos can recover. Damn, back to square one. But it turns out Alex is from the Mercury Clan, so that explains why Mia knows him.

The two teleport away from us. But we ask for the Elemental Stars...

Saturos: Ha! Too bad. Menardi has them! You'll have to ask her!

Damn. They leave, and so do we. On the plus side, the fountain outside has refilled, so we can get some of it's healing waters in the bottle we took earlier. So we'll be heading back to Tret next time.

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 11 Defender (Venus) HP:168 PP:77 Attack:117 Defence:87 Agility:52 Luck:4

Garet: Lv 11 Illusionist (Mars) HP:170 PP:71 Attack:111 Defence:71 Agility:70 Luck:4

Ivan: Lv 11 Diviner (Jupiter) HP:143 PP:95 Attack:97 Defence:58 Agility:68 Luck:5

Mia: Lv 11 Wanderer (Mercury) HP:138 PP:78 Attack:84 Defence:61 Agility:67 Luck:8

Djinn: 2 Venus, 2 Mars, 2 Jupiter, 2 Mercury

Wait, why wasn't Garet weakened by the beacon?

edited 6th Nov '10 9:09:24 PM by SomeColorMage

After all these years I finally realized during a recent playthrough that I could make the Saturos battle a lot easier on myself by making Garet a Swordsman, giving him access to the Mercury Psynergy Cutting Edge, and farming a handful of Crystal Powders from the lighthouse's monsters.

That's what I get for being another one of those boring people who only use the base mono-elemental classes. I should try switching things up for the three game.

edited 7th Nov '10 3:29:57 PM by ComicX6

Jupiter works well too, due to the confusing Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system. It's just a matter of taste.

Also, next part will probably be tonight my time, I'm busy today.

EDIT: Sorry, won't be able to do anything tonight.

edited 8th Nov '10 1:15:54 AM by SomeColorMage

Hi guys, last time, we nearly killed Saturos only for Alex to distract us out of it. Now we've gotta heal that tree we nearly killed a few updates ago. My, we try to kill a lot of things, don't we?

First, we get a few upgrades from the now open Imil shops. I should point out that every so often, we are being given Game Tickets for making purchases. We can use these later on.

There hasn't been many suggestions for classes, so I guess I'll do my own thing. Isaac gets the Mars Djinn, making him a Ruffian (at this point Mars/Venus combinations are better than pure Venus), Garet gets the Mercury Djinn, making him a Defender (Mars), Ivan keeps the Venus Djinn, so he's still a Diviner (Jupiter), and Mia gets the Jupiter Djinn, making her an Elder. Now for the long path back to Kolima Forest.

Isaac learns Mad Growth at level 12.

At Bilibin Barricade, that tower of 3 trees has fallen over, and one of them's in the river. Oh no! We move it out of the river, and it mentally thanks us. One of the trees kinda implies it was Saturos and Menardi who did this. Geez, not only are those two dicks, they're petty dicks.

After solving all the log puzzles in Kolima Forest again, we find ourselves in front of Tret. We use the Hermes Water on him. It heals the entire forest, and Tret undoes the curse for us! He tells us how he got this power.

Tret: It only started when those strange gemstones fell from the sky.

Was this our fault? Whoops. It turns out all the monsters we were fighting was a result of this. Laurel tells us there is an evil forest south of here. Unlike this forest, which is somewhat angry. On the way out, I get an encounter ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE EXIT. Bloody hell.

We go back to the Barricade, to see those three trees turned back into people! It turns out we saved the one woman of the three, and she wants to reward us...

Jill gave Isaac a special gift.

Isaac got a Hard Nut.

Hehe, Hard Nut. And because Isaac's inventory was full...

Isaac gave a Hard Nut to Garet.

Ivan gets the Defence boost. He needs it.

Anyway, we go back to Bilibin.

Guard: You're the ones who broke the curse, aren't you?

(Isaac: Yes)

Guard: You're under arrest!

Crap.

So we have to see McCoy now. Wait a sec, he wants to reward us, and just arrested us so we had to take it! That is an... odd way to get someone to take a gift. We get to pick from 4 chests. I pick the one with a Water of Life in it (the one on the right, for those who want to know).

I sell the bottle that had the Hermes Water in it, as it has the same effect as a Potion (full HP recovery), which we'll find a lot of, and then head to Kolima again. Now that the shops there are open, they have some better weapons and armour for Isaac and Garet. None of the Artifact Weapons so far have been Longswords or Axes, which heavilty overpower the Light Blades we have been getting so they're still on common equipment.

I also noticed that when you sell something to an Armour shop in a European themed town, they say "Thank you much." Another translation blunder.

We can now cross the river to the south, as the drawbridge operator is no longer a tree. We continue on to what looks like a temple. And I'll leave it there for now. See you next time.

Stats:

Isaac: Lv 12 Ruffian HP:169 PP:60 Attack:146 Defence:76 Agility:70 Luck:3

Garet: Lv 12 Defender (Mars) HP:180 PP:65 Attack:129 Defence:93 Agility:55 Luck:6

Ivan: Lv 11 Diviner (Jupiter) HP:143 PP:106 Attack:97 Defence:70 Agility:68 Luck:5

Mia: Lv 11 Elder HP:116 PP:109 Attack:85 Defence:73 Agility:70 Luck:7

Djinn: 2 Venus, 2 Mars, 2 Jupiter, 2 Mercury

edited 8th Nov '10 6:55:13 PM by SomeColorMage