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.
