All right, update time. Today, we're going to be exploring Elendia and talking to its citizens, because the game won't let me advance until I've done that. Now, the Elendians are honestly one of my least favourite things about this game, if only because they represent a huge amount of wasted potential. You see, they've all got names and unique character designs (to a point). The problem is that their personalities are roughly as memorable as the plot of your average summer blockbuster.
Elendia, unlike all the dungeons which are railroaded to utter extremes, allows you to visit any of its locations whenever you want (except when you aren't there, of course). So, I'll be visiting them in the order they appear on the menu.
First stop: Pixia Residence. Before actually entering the house here, I head into its backyard, where I find a boy and a girl. The girl is named Molan and has a generic little girl personality. The boy is named Gill, and likewise has a generic little boy personality (sample line: "I'm Gill! Fight with me!"). He also has a random stick, which turns out to be a Coral Staff.
I then enter the house itself and meet the parents of the kids outside: Kyle and Mylene. They're happily married in an incredibly stereotypical manner. They both say that there's been no contact with Rosalina Island. Kyle also feels the need to point out that Elendia is where the Sprites live, starting a massive failure on Sting Entertainment's part to properly explain what Riviera and Elendia are supposed to be to the rest of the world.
Anyway, next stop: Hobbit Smithy. This place is home to Chappi the blacksmith, the single coolest person in Elendia. He takes random things you find and turns them into fancy new weapons. For example, he takes my Rusty Sword and hammers all the rust out of it, creating an Iron Sword for me to use (once I get him to take the thing, that is. He has some generic dialogue to get through first. Nothing memorable, really.)
Next up: Crystal Caverns. This area contains two sets of NPCs. First is Ritz, a gnome who supposedly digs up crystals. I say that because he has no tools and is always seen standing around staring into space.
The caverns are also home to the Magic Guild, which is run by a "dryad" named Claude. He'll have a few things for me later, but can be safely ignored for now. I also find a witch named Soala (choice line: "This is the Magic Guild. Here, we study magic."). She'll have some very awesome stuff to hand out later on, so she's worth remembering. It's also possible to meet here assistant, a fairy named NaNa, here, but she shows up randomly and wasn't there this time (and before you ask, all fairy names are like that. It's going to get quite annoying to type in short order, I can tell.)
Anyway, next up is Undine Spring. Outside the actual spring, I meet NoNo again. She makes a highly suggestive and undeniably terrible joke, claims that she heard about Ein from Fia and Lina (presumably she didn't mention the whole "angel of death" thing out of good taste), and gives me a Ribbon. I talk to her again and she tells me that Lina headed to the Elder's house.
Incidentally, this screen also has a "Ground" trigger that does absolutely nothing. I'd like you to remember it, though, and I'd also like to request that any readers who know why keep the reason for this to themselves.
At any rate, time to enter the spring itself. It's home to an Undine (read: mermaid) who can't say anything. There's also a fairy named LuLu, who says that the Undine's name is Meute (yes, that is her real name. As in, her actual birth name. Again with the subtlety, Sting.) LuLu tells me that a Moondrop could be used to restore Meute's voice, which means that I'll find one in the next dungeon. She then tells Ein, in no uncertain terms, to bugger off, and I think I will, because there's nothing else interesting here.
The spring is also home to a pair of bath scenes, but I'm not going to cover them. There's really nothing to say about them, honestly. If you've ever seen any harem anime you already know how they go, but if you haven't, here's a brief summary:
- GIRL A: <Generic bathing-related lines>
- GIRL B: <More generic bathing related lines>
- <Repeat until all characters present have had a chance to say something and thus display their "bathing" portraits>
- SOME GIRL: Ein, what are you doing here?
- EIN: <Generic "It's not what you think!"-type lines>
- SOME OTHER GIRL: Ein's a pervert. *affection loss for all party members present*
There. Now that that's out of the way, on to the next area: Grove of Repose. This place has two screen. The first is home to a "Harpuria" named Rebecca. Rebecca is in the unfortunate situation of having absolutely no personality whatsoever. She does, however, have directions to the Elder's house.
The second screen contains a werecat named Mursya who's slightly better-off than Rebecca personality-wise (though most of her lines are still horribly generic). She does, however, have a verbal tic, and if you guessed that it involves saying "nya" at the end of every single sentence, you're (unfortunately) right.
This screen is also home to Reiche, who is so horrible that he deserves his own paragraph. Reiche is, simply put, a creepy stalker (sample line: "You were picked up off the road? Too bad. Now, if I was the one who picked you up...") He exists to hand out totally useless rewards for doing certain sidequests almost, but not quite, right. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this guy literally had no fans at all.
Anyway, time to get as far away from Reiche as possible. The Elder's house sounds like a good place to go for that.
The Elder's house is where you go to advance the plot after you're done trading stuff in to the Elendians. Upon entering, I find Lina yelling at the elder about how he supposedly cancelled an expedition to Rosalina Island. The elder, Graham, says that it was too dangerous and refuses to elaborate. Fia then enters, and delivers some exposition on how the expedition was intended to find out what happened to the Arcs who live there. Graham claims that it would be better for Elendia (population: 19, including the named fairies and one more NPC who hasn't been introduced yet) to just forget about the Arcs. That last NPC, a winged woman holding a spear named Ladie, tells Lina to calm down.
At this point, Ein walks in. Lina and Fia promptly draft him into siding with them. Graham claims that the village has decided not to send anyone, which is a bit hard when the government of Elendia seems to be an autocracy that he leads. Fia and Lina storm off in rage, and the scene shifts outside. Lina refuses to ignore the Arcs, claiming that she grew up with them (don't expect an actual explanation for this. It only appears in this scene and is promptly ignored.) Fia then decides that they should head out on their own using the hitherto-unmentioned magic circle in the Crystal Caverns. They also tell Ein not to get involved, because he's a guest.
Of course, this is an RPG. Rosalina has "PLOT HERE!" written all over it. Screw not getting involved.
I need to talk to Claude to get to the magic circle (according to the guide I'm using Soala would work to, but she's farther in and I'm lazy). I then leave, and Ein notices the path to said magic circle. After Fia and Lina make it perfectly clear that they're not going to reconsider, Ein decides to tag along and we're off!
Fia and Lina then join the party, and I get their weapons (a Rapier and a Longbow). Unfortunately, this causes me to run into one of the game's dumber ideas: the 14-item inventory limit (technically 15, but Einherjar always takes up one space so it's 14). As such, I'm forced to discard some stuff. Fortunately, the decision's easy: Get rid of anything that has only support effects first, then any redundant healing items, then anything with no Over Skills on it, then start worrying. As such, I toss the Spider Web and the Elixir. It's not like I'll ever use them, after all.
After the party warps out, I get a scene where Ledah is talking to Hector (I thought he couldn't contact anyone on Riviera...). Hector says that Ursula's body is at the center of Riviera, "somewhere in the domain of Yggdrasil." Three guesses whether we'll be visiting Yggdrasil. Hector also talks to himself about his generic evil plans, which involve getting Ursula out of the picture and summoning the Sealed One, whoever or whatever that is. This requires that he get souls to sacrifice, and he's left that job up to a woman named Malice (again: subtlety).
With that, we begin Chapter 2: Pursuit of Truth.
Ein awakened in Elendia, a village in Riviera, only to discover that his memories were gone.
The Sprites of Elendia, fearful of the demons, have taken no action, despite losing contact with the Arcs, guardians of Lacrima Castle.
Fia and Lina, two Sprites who couldn't bear to stand by and wait any longer, have used the village's magic circle without permission to go and investigate Lacrima Castle, taking Ein with them.
However, that'll have to wait for next time, because I'm ending this update here.
