Tales Series

-Frostheim: harbor town of Phandaria. The snow has been sparking Mary's memory, while Rutee thinks the three of them meeting was Destiny (Title Drop, guys?) An injured soldier from Heildeberg aproaches us, tumbling. He reveals the capital was invaded by force. It seems the thief of the Eye of Atamoni has moved from sweet words to the ruler... to putting a cold blade on his neck! Well, its an efficient way. We reach the town plaza and Master Alba comes to talk to us, recognizing Stahn. He says Woodrow and Chelsea are lost in the forest. Ah, and some NPC guy near the shop gives us the Definite Strike book, which seems like a prototype for Vesperia's Fatal Strikes. Leaving the town we see a cadre of soldiers bent of taking Woodrow's life, and his pink haired partner's as a bonus. We defeat them and take Chelsea to a bed for medical care. The older archer reveals important facts, like Greybum killing his father to take Phandaria's royal treasure: Swordian Igtenos! Which makes him the Prince! Stahn is like WHAAAT and Rutee scolds him for being a fool. Anyway, both archers join the party and I am gonna look stupid for saying this, but... Chelsea is right now more survivable than her dear prince, since she has armor but he doesnt. And enemies around here are weak to Pierce, so one of them is useful in the battle team. After doing that, I enter Tilso.

(Last appearance of the Dark Wings... for Act 1? They claim to be mercenaries, and Master Alba asks them to do something useful and fix the broken rooftops. 'Rooftops are important strategic points in guerrilla warfare' he says. LOL. Tell that to the Assassins' order.)

-Tilso forest: Mary's still getting headaches and fragmented memories. Looks like her past is somewhere in Phandaria. While exploring the first road I see a snow roadblock, which Woodrow says can be melted with the Sorcerer Ring he gives us (why so late, game?) Enemies here are the same as in the outside, nothing to write a lot about. Also, no boss! What we find is Cyril, a town at the edge of the forest. Our prince does not want to be seen here, and waits in the outskirts with Chelsea. I soon see why: this town is the base of the rebel army... and one soldier recognizes Mary! They thought she had died! Their captain Dalis comes to check the commotion and almost blurts her name. But he feigns ignorance and takes the soldiers away. An old woman also recognizes Mary, so we are getting somewhere! Supossedly her old house is here, so we go to check. Mary has very vivid flashbacks about this house, and Dalis... almost like they were MARRIED. Fact that she confirms herself! Yes, she was helping the rebels two years ago, Woodrow confirms there was a civil war. After a grueling battle her husband pushed Mary off a cliff to make the royal soldiers pursue him, and thats when she became ammesiac. Why would he pretend not to know her? Maybe Greybum is involved, since he's helping the rebels end what they started. Dalis is heading to Heildeberg, so we are bound to meet him again there. Woodrow wonders why the king hated the Cyril people so much as to wage war... he will make it his life mission. And since I finally could equip him with good armor, he went up like 1000 HP! Time to take him for a spin.

-Heildeberg: a ghost town again. One royal soldier comes to inform us of the castle's status, and we hide to avoid a patrol of rebels... who have the same NPC sprite. Sigh. Woodrow says we should infiltrate through the same route he used to escape: the underground passage. A house in the east of town holds the entrance, and Stahn scouts ahead in case of enemies... and Woodrow's aide Darzen jumps at him! We calm him and ask more questions. I learn that Cyril demanded independence and thats what caused the war. After the others consider the conversation is done, Mary is disheartened at the posibility of having to fight Dalis... and Woodrow still wonders if his father was a good ruler. Dear Prince... being a king involves making choices that your subjects will NOT like. We travel through the passage and fight bats and ghosts, which are weak to Light and spam Sleep. Gems to the rescue! When we get out of the passage and into the castle proper...

Dalis appears! Of course we have to fight him. This guy is a slower but stronger Tiberius, in the sense he hits with his broadsword and causes rocks to shatter around, and the splash damage caused by the rocks can reach your characters on the back. As with any human boss, its very important to not let him sandwich you agaisnt a wall! He resists all elements and is weak to strike artes, so Mary would have been a better choice than Philia... but I guess she would have had a SAD end-of-battle chatter with his husband. Instead, I got complete silence, and THEN she holds him close in the cutscene. Dalis laments having been so hasty in fulfilling his dreams of independence, but will receive punishment in the name of all rebels. Woodrow spares his life for now, and after being happy with the reunion, Mary asks to leave the party and be a good wife. Yes, she goes away for the rest of Act 1, but we must press on.

(this guy was level 39... TEN levels ahead of the random mooks in this dungeon. Man, I dont f*king know anymore.)

The Phandaria castle! Soldiers here are weak to Earth (Leon = good) and resist Fire (Stahn = oops) Also, skeletons that cause Poison. I adjust Philia's spell list and equip gems. The entire first floor is devoid of interesting things (the exit is to the south east, but its blocked) save for a lever mechanism that I must melt with the Sorcerer Ring. Some side rooms and one torch puzzle: lit the same torches that you saw being lit in the previous room. Later, the dungeon changes to a clock tower skin. What is this, Castlevania? The worst part is not the elevator puzzles, its having random mooks assaulting you while trying to figure them out. A huuuuge staircase... and Greybum!

Disc-One Final Boss guys! And the elusive rat has the gall to use Igtenos agaisnt his rightful owner! Weak to Earth and Light, so the game is telling you to use Leon and of course Philia, to put her new spells Ray and Ground Dasher to good use. He summons the Draconis before the battle, and it will be attacking the top of the tower and damaging you too! I spent HOURS (insert Sponge Bob meme here) grinding to level 40 to Rerise one more rank of equipment (and to see how much of a difference level makes... I am always behind bosses!) and found myself learning rank 2 Mystic artes! It was a nice surprise. So I tried to use them on this asshole to use my excess of Dragon gels... but just one is not enough. These are a poor man's Rune bottle! Anyway, most of the battle was me as Philia trying to cast and the Draconis' hits stopping me. LET ME F*KING CAST! Oh wait, Greybum's about to die already. So level does make a difference, as well as the Hit stat. Sigh.

Greybum calls us 'pawns' on his death bed (the tower's hard stone floor, hah) Pawns of who? He tried channeling the Eye of Atamoni's huge energy through Igtenos, but that fried him and left the swordian comatose. Stahn believes that destroying the Eye would do more good than returning it, so everyone tries to attack it... to no visible result. So they take the Draconis to transport it and Leon gets his motion sickness finally revealed. Rutee tries to massage him in a gesture of good will, meanwhile Philia says she has changed thanks to Stahn's charm. SUBTLE. Chelsea interrupts to say they reached Seinegald. Woodrow and the king agree to put the Eye under super strict vigilance, and the latter offers Stahn his dream job of being a knight... but he refuses for now. The world is so big and interesting! He doesnt want to be chained to one country. The Swordians will go on to rest on Seinegald's treasury, and our Idiot Hero says bye to Leon in his careless and overly friendly manner, which irks Leon to no end! LOL. Rutee is a bit north, on a cliff. She is emotionally on low guard and reveals she comes from an orphanage, but quickly passes it off as a joke. She will go back to Cresta, and Stahn arrives back home at last.

While we were getting a Where Are They Now montage of our main heroes, some Organization XIII members are meeting in a damp cave. It seems the boss is male and there are two more males and one female, judging by the voices. HUM. Something is about to happen! Meanwhile, Stahn is loudly snoring in his bed. Lilith comes to wake him, and is forced to use the Aileron's arte 'Wake the Dead'! (which is her smashing her trusty laddle on a pan) Come on lady. We all know you are as blatant a brothercon as Hisui is a sistercon. Grandpa Thomas goes off to work, and his sister requests Stahn to go shopping for today's dinner. I check some cupboards for freebies, and one has 'Something you should not have seen!' (let me guess: female underwear?) And on the basement I discover a bathtub, right next to a window. This is a Naked First Impression waiting to happen. Of course, there is this guy permanently stationed next to the window, so he KNOWS. Namcooo!

-Leanne / Lienea: I explore the place, although there is not much to see. The chief wanted to marry Stahn with her daughter, ooh gossip. While checking the shop, our old friend Bachus offers Stahn his beef loaf (that sounded dirty) remarking that its a present for Lilith... ah, young men barking up the wrong tree. Also typical of rural towns. I meet another old friend, the Wonder Baker! Havent seen her since Legendia. So I go back with the dinner ingredients, and Bachus barges through the door to again insist its a present from him. Man, I know your goal is friggin Lilith Aileron, but dont be so desperate. While our blonde mc sleeps, Leon is visited by the aforementioned Organization XIII members, and smack him around to make him obey before they resort to threatening Marian. Thats when he finally agrees to cooperate. Grrr, blackmailers! Philia visits Stahn's shack, but not to have tea, no... the Eye of Atamoni was stolen again! Dymlos is pretty sure it had to be an inside job, since very few people knew of its hiding place. Stahn feels the Call of Adventure again, but his sister is all ONIICHAN BAKA! and has a tantrum. After she calms down, she confesses she knew this had to happen, because his brother and his big fat heart cant ignore people in trouble. When we are about to leave, some guy gives us the Discovery Book (huh?) and its Dowsing Rod to find scenic points in the world. Whoa, I never knew this feature existed! Our goal is Noischat's harbor, which is due south.

-Noischat: nothing much to see, Stahn suggests going to check on Irene, but Philia informs him that Irene has not been seen in public in quite a while. The arena is open, but no way I am gonna get its important prizes right now. At the harbor area Kongman catches up to us and joins the party! This time for good, I guess. Inside the ship cabin we get a little chat and Stahn wonders why his priestess friend went to recruit him first instead of Leon, since Seinegald is practically next door to Straylize. She says that Leon is missing too, and Kongman scolds the blonde for upsetting her. LOL, today is 'barking up the wrong tree' day. We arrive in Phandaria through Frostheim.

-Frostheim + Heildeberg: Stahn is cold again, but our luchador guy says thats nothing for his mighty muscles! Except his runny nose is not that mighty, hah. Dalis and Mary come greet us, they bumped into our party on their way to the hot springs. Philia explains the current crisis, and it seems we are not gonna get Mary back in the party, but in the end we do! (After Clemente teases her, Philia says shes only married to the Goddess... that would be fine, except those that played Destiny 2 know that the Goddess is an asshole.) I pop a Holy bottle to traverse the snowy plains and reach Heildeberg. Stahn learns that Woodrow became king, and we go get an audience. He explains more of the situation, but the motive is unclear, the perp is misterious and the method was sadly unstoppable regarding the Eye's theft. While he and Darzen take care of something (later I see that the 'something' is Igtenos. PLOTHOLE! In the original Destiny Igtenos was not useable until much later in the plot!) Chelsea wants to talk to Mary in private. She asks if the axe wielder is firmly on the royal side of the independence war. Mary assures her that she is, and applauds her courage. All together, I check the Swordian Devices and the heroes want to also recruit Rutee, the remaining Swordian Master. Stahn reveals she should be in Cresta, east of Darilsheid.

(Some kid by the entrance gets into an argument with Chelsea, saying 'you cant call yourself adult if you still wear polka dot panties'. LOOOL. Leaving aside the fact of HOW that kid got that info, Chelsea retorts that she will still be using the same fashion style 20 years from now. Again, those that have played Destiny 2 can confirm its absolutely true. Man, these references must be done on purpose!)

-Cresta + Darilsheid: Its true that this podunk town was a stone throw away from the capital! And since the monsters are from the earlier parts of the game they pose no problem. The party splits up to look for Rutee, but both Stahn and I as the player know she will be in the orphanage in the hill. Our Idiot Hero feels bad for taking her out of a comfortable life, but Dymlos must act as the 'mission first' guy. The bounty hunter catches them arguing! Rutee says a part of her is happy to be back in action, and she would have been dissapointed with Stahn if he had not at least TRIED to recruit her. After she has a My Friends... and Zoidberg moment with Kongman, we return to the capital.

(Speaking of Kongman: if you go back to Straylize Temple Philia has dialogue with the priest, and he informs the brawler that priestesses CANT marry. So of course he is all 'MY DREAMS, CRUSHED!'. But then, an inopportune apprentice reveals that celibacy is not mandatory after all! Which means there is hope. He just has to defeat the goddess herself to 'release' Philia. Man, that's Kyle's quest, not yours!)

In the audience room in Seinegald Castle, the king and Woodrow exchange some words of lament for the theft of the Eye of Atamoni, and also reveal an unbelievable fact: Leon was seen controlling the Draconis just before the Eye's resting place was assaulted. Even if that info is enough for everyone to put 2 and 2 together, Stahn channels Asbel for a second and outright refuses to think Leon was actually doing such villanious deed when he was the one most focused on Act 1's mission of retrieving it. To make matters worse, Oberon president Hugo has not appeared since the incident and is a suspect too. Our inmediate goal is checking an abandoned Oberon factory to the north, we are tasked with the investigation since the army storming the place would be too obvious of an attack and the rats would flee. On to the harbor!

(one prisoner in the cells under the castle talks about titles, and unlocks a skit portrait viewer in Master Alba's shack. Okay?)

-Oberon secret factory: Stahn has been grumpy since Leon was accused of treachery, but we have a dungeon to go through. There are a bunch of mobile platforms I can jump on and orange cube thingies that reset them to a position. We must do that to open metal gates. After that we go down an elevator to a very much active part of the factory. There are less wolves and green horned beasts here (who cause Weak, ailment that slows down CC recovery. Worrisome, but not as much as Seal.) and more Oberon employees and security robots. I have to jump to and fro in a set of conveyor belts, and the gimmick is that blue ones go slower and let you run past their intended direction. In one of the rooms I discover a memo about numbers and letters and I trust my mnemotechnic rule to memorise it. Of course, the room that needs the password is not far away! But surprisingly, the password is about colors... the room before has a set of lights connected to a screen and its number equivalences, so the key is... 12345! Man! Thats like the most unsafe password EVER! (But what was the memo about then? I check the guide and it says to input 2 passwords in that machine. The other, rearranged as letters, spell 'takara'. As in Takara Tomy? The brand of toys? Mysterious.) The last elevator takes us into a cavern... an underground river. Oh geez. I know where this is going...

LEON! And the Organization XIII! We caught up to them, and the boss reveals himself: to the surprise of no one, its Hugo! So the others... must be the Oberon executives. The president reveals that he manipulated Greybum to steal the Eye of Atamoni, but in the end it ended up in his hands anyway. And controlling monsters is not the worst it can do. Stahn has an Asbel 'FRIENDSSS' moment and tries to reason with the young master. But he seems fixated on stopping us here. Hah, you can buy time all you want, but Hugo's head will be ours! At first he actually hits softly for a boss, and resists strike elements but is only weak to Wind. Guess its time to include Woodrow and control Philia for her delicious Cyclone. When he Turns Red he becomes MUCH more aggresive and combo happy. And spams Mystic artes! He is lower level than when he was playable... but I feel I should have trained more. Half a dozen life bottles were spammed, those 8000 HP were very durable!

After we win, Leon is stubborn and still wants to block us from progressing. But a sudden earthquake makes him reconsider his attitude... the cavern will flood and kill us all! Since he is defeated, the least he can do is take us to the emergency lift and let us live to fight Hugo someday. But it has manual control! At least one person has to stay behind, and he is ready for the sacrifice. The last thing we see him say are his almost Arc Words: I cant stand overly friendly people like you, Stahn! After a cool cutscene, the Earth swordian master is sad for not having been able to save Marian... and Chaltier reaffirms his choice of staying with him till the end. Our Traitor, friends!

(Meanwhile, in Destiny 2... a certain goddess approaches a doomed man... with a bone mask.)

Back with our heroes! Stahn is furious and has to be restrained by Kongman, and Rutee is catatonic because just before the big sacrifice Leon went and revealed Luke, I Am Your Father, ahem, BROTHER. Hugo would be the father. Woodrow is the one with a calm head and points the others to the Draconis parked nearby, and we use it to escape the crumbling factory. After another series of cutscenes, a floating city erupts from the ground and the swordians inform us that its Dycroft, the aerial fortress used by their opponents in the ancient war. It fires some weird beam to the floating rock chunks and anexes them together, creating a sinister rocky web in the sky... Stahn understands Hugo is the one doing it, so in good RPG fashion he is gonna kick his butt and that will magically solve the crisis! He controls Draconis and flies at Dycroft, but its repelled by a barrier. The airships crashes near Darilsheid, and we think the king needs to hear about this.

-Darilsheid: we dont even get to the audience room, because captain Dryden and Reynolds the scientist bump into us in the main street. And before we can start explaining shit, the booming voice of Hugo through the, I guess biggest megaphone in the planet does the explaining for us. He discovered how to unearth the strongest weapon of the Aether wars and plans to use it to rule the surface dwellers as the new king of the Aetherians. Stahn almost breaks his vocal cords shouting at the sky, claiming he will avenge Leon. Suddenly, another bodyless voice is heard, but the swordians recognize it as general Ritora / Raiker's! He speaks throught the Radislowe's comm system, and summons his soldiers and old friends to come meet him. We automatically board the leviathan and reach the undersea lab that was a dungeon 20 hours ago. Raiker's AI uses an hologram to better explain himself, but the bulk of it is: Dycroft's terra forming beam is about 25% complete, so we must go to a hidden temple near Leanne to retrive the 'R key', an ignition key for Radislowe's flying mode. Ok, short and to the point!

(Dont be in a hurry though, I must enter Leanne and talk to Lilith if I want her to travel to Noischat and become the new champion of the arena. Not like I have the power to actually win and recruit her into the party, but the guide said to do it now.)

-Hidden temple: calling this area a dungeon is pretty presumptious of the developer team, since its just three rooms that have no puzzles or otherwise more obstacles than random monsters. No, the gimmick here is that to open each room you need to leave a Swordian master character behind, and you cant leave Stahn behind on the first door to auto complete the dungeon like in the original PSX game. The boss is like five levels ahead of my guys, but since you are forced to fight it with Stahn + 3 muggles, the game is not that harsh on you by making it super difficult. Mary takes the chance to talk to Stahn in private and asks him to comfort Rutee, since she is surely worried and confused. We go back to the entrance and Hugo shoots another terra forming beam at the ground, thickening the Aethersphere. We are running outta time!

Back in Radislowe, we present the R key to Raiker and the party is ready to take off to Dycroft. Of course, it wont be that easy: a dragon intercepts the airship and makes it crash land on the rocky islands. Hugo taunts us by calling us 'idiots that try the same trick twice'. While we are getting our bearings straight, Rutee is stressed at the idea of fighting her father and snaps at Chelsea. As suggested by the redhead amazon, Stahn goes to comfort her and she confesses she is afraid, yes... of being called heartless by the others, since she isnt sad AT ALL by Leon dying or Hugo being a megalomaniac... yet she cant help feeling upset. The blonde idiot thinks that those feelings are indeed a heavy burden, but she must not bear them alone. So they inform the party of her peculiar family and upbringing, and are happy to support her. Raiker lays the plan upon his team: First, secure the Ignasea aeropolis since it has a teleport to reach all others. Then go to the one controlling the guardian dragon and disable it. Lastly, prepare all stations to fire at Dicroft's barrier. Whoa, lots of work.

-Ignasea: new world map! Thankfully the way through the Aethersphere is pretty linear. And monsters are not that annoying. Then you enter the dungeon and... damm! My favorite type of RPG scenery. A maze of teleporters! One where you must switch from a puzzle solving and labyrinth traversing brain to a combo battling one, and back again. Good RPG's put the puzzles in monsterless rooms! *whine* Most of the treasure chests I am forced to leave behind, since I am full of items. Bah! Well, there arent a lot of paths to try at least. At the tail end of the dungeon we see the main teleporter. The swordians explain that the colored light symbolizes the station you will reach by using it, so if we come from Ignasea = blue, our next goal is Deimos = red. I made a good sized paragraph, so next dungeon impressions below!

-Deimos: before we reach the exterior of the station we must solve an energy problem, so it can be considered a new dungeon. This one is made of a central room and about 5 side paths, and one main gimmick: buttons situated on the main platform open and close nearby gates. I just open them all and call it a day! Our targets are small security robots that dont battle, we just take their batteries and gather them on the room in the north path. Suddenly, one rat takes a battery away! Namco, you just didnt know how to lenghten this dungeon, did you?! The pest runs in circles around the main platform, so I must herd it into a place where it cant escape by closing the gates from the start and finally grab the last battery. That was all! (By the way, if you put all Swordian masters on the battle party the end fight banter can be a version of Graces' infamous 'We are... unbeatable!' chat. LOL. (Asbel: 'Oooh, so THEY can coordinate?! You jerks!)

-Cloudius: I will tell you a funny thing. There is no teleport to this place. We must go aaaall the way on foot, crossing the Aethersphere from its eastern most point and into the west. Remember the RPG rule about the Donut World? (East connects to West, North to South?) Well, I didnt for while. Anyway... once I reach the dungeon I can see everything is covered in slippery moss and infested by monstrous plants and bugs. And its another maze of teleporters! The green ones take us to ruins with inscriptions that serve as hints for a future puzzle. They are pretty insistent on having 'a star shining north', 'sun coming from the east', 'moon setting on the west' and 'life flourishing on the south'. And at the end of the dungeon, I finally see some orbs and four sockets disposed in a compass pattern. The 'star' is upstairs and must be placed on the socket bathed by sunlight or it wont work! After that is done, the way opens and a familiar voice stops us...

Baruk! We have not seen him since the Calvalese story arc. He sheds his Organization XIII hood and claims we cant stop Hugo with our morals forged on earthly ideas and faulty justice. Yeah, we know he is playing God and his lackeys are not gonna let us pass. Lets fight already! He transforms into a mutant bug man, resistant to swords and wind/water, but no Penetrate points to worry about today. LEVEL FIFTY!? Good thing I trained my ass off to unlock the next Rerise'd equipment! But I dont have green Lens... sh*t. Time to tough it out. Apparently he can summon bugs into battle, according to the Monster Book... but he never did it to me? What he did was whip us with energy tentacles that could cause Total Stoning Game Over (Jude: I still have nightmares!) When he finally kneels defeated he confesses he was aiding Hugo not because of his idealistic world order, but cuz as descendant of the Losers he despises Seinegaldians. Lets go back to Ignasea...

-Rodeon: the green teleportal takes us to this new dungeon. The swordians give us a history lesson: sky dwellers were not much different than earth dwellers, genetically. They didnt even get to LIVE in the sky, since the war ended in their loss... but their plan was to travel up there and leave the poor and sick behind. The way to achieve that was the Lens technology, that came from a outworldly mineral that fell from space in a meteorite (wait, was it Lavos?) Anyway, today's dungeon is just another maze of teleporters... but it was shorter than usual? Also we learned a new dungeon gimmick: generators that spawn bombs which we must use to break otherwise unpassable steel gates. We are playing Bomberman! Enemies are the usual and not very bothersome, so we leave for Helraios to hopefully revive Igtenos from its coma.

-Helraios: finally some scenery variety! This looks like a laboratory, and true enough the swordians reveal that mutant monstrosities were created here during the war, and they evolved into today's monsters. Some side rooms have a keycard to open the main area. What is this, Resident Evil? There are some conveyor belts and machines that fire at things with a pulse, so we take damage each time we run through. And there are a lot of mandatory places to take damage! Luckily we heal during the numerous random fights. The blue card is on a blue box crossing the belts, and the yellow too. Just before this card, another familiar voice sounds throught the invisible speakers. Its Irene! She wishes we had never reached this point in the plot, and believes Hugo reshaping the world is needed to erase the differences of rich and poor. We still are a bit far from reaching the boss room. More conveyor belts and stuff... and NOW we reach the purple haired lady!

Irene's boss battle! After Stahn manifests dissapointment at his rival in 'making the world better' (because erasing it and starting new is cheating, ma'am!) I take a look at her Monster Book stats. She is much lower level than Baruk, but has 2000 (TWO F*KING THOUSAND!) Defense points!!! She is accompanied by two drones, and they can be resummoned if destroyed. But she has to Cast from Hit Points to do so. So that is her weakness: her pitiful 3000 HP! This is combining Mook Summoner and Metal Slime to a ridiculous degree. And its not like she is gonna be sitting on her ass while you break her toys, she can cast spells! Protect yourself agaisnt Sleep and Paralize and hammer away at the drones. The most dangerous part, and it took me FOUR retries, is when she runs out of HP to summon and releases like six drones at once! The fight becomes an absolute clusterfuck of beams rapid firing at your party. I had to use a couple Hourglasses to give myself some breathing room to recover my HP and reduce their numbers. All while I STILL dont have green Lens to Rerise the latest equipment! Where are they?

When everything is over, Irene is not a good sport and refuses Stahn's mercy, after tumbling away from him she approaches a nearby door and the white screen euphemistically tells us she jumped to her death. While the rest of the heroes tinker with Igtenos to awaken him, Rutee is trying to comfort Stahn in the same way he tried to do so before. When we exit the laboratory we witness the third terra forming beam from Hugo's diabolical machine! There are only a few spots of light reaching the surface now... all life will die! Back in Radislowe, Raiker has finished his barrier dispelling device. Our next goal is to find a vehicle to ascend to Dycroft, we must go to the yellow Josaia teleport.

-Josaia: three guesses. Come on, just three guesses. Can you guess? Right. ANOTHER maze of teleporters. In this house we obey the Euclidean rules of architecture, Hugo! As a funny thing, a skit spawns in the entrance where we can see Philia's super rare Mad Scientist portrait... you know, the one with Gendo Ikari style glasses. This time the path is pretty straightforward: we only need to kill the red monster group to activate the portal to the next floor. Small mercies. No green lens = f*ck grinding here. Lets press on to the Mikhail station.

-Mikhail: wait what? There are evolved Oberon employees that drop GREEN lens! YAAAY THERES HOPE! I could call this place another maze of teleporters, but the real gimmick is the sets of moving platforms that when used all other ones of the same color move too. And the only other way of moving them is pushing switches. Aside from that, this dungeon is soooooo looooong that it has not one but two Save Points in the middle of it. And there are some real brain busters during the process of reaching the airship garage where our desired vehicle awaits.

Another Organization XIII hoodie! That reveals himself as Zane Rembrandt, Hugo's butler and Irene's father. And apparently, Marian's dirty kidnapper too! He doesnt seem to know his daughter is dead, or if he knows, he doesnt care. Same as the purple hair lady, he is gonna use technology to make up for his lack of fighting talent and rides a mech armor to confront us! Whoa, 70k HP is more than double Baruk's HP! And he is only weak to arrows (?) and water. I spent DAYS grinding for green lens to Rerise yet another rank of gear and I dont regret it one bit looking at his level: 58. And thats the lesser problem. Like his daughter before, he can summon drones that suicide bomb on you and will never let you cast magic. Also, he has unavoidable screen covering Frickin' Laser Beams as well as battery missiles that we can only guard agaisnt by being grounded (where we are vulnerable to the aforementioned drones and laser beams) HOW do you beat this guy?

By putting the game on Simple difficulty and making the battle 'hard, but doable' instead of 'I always die when I am about to win'. I had spent way too many tries on this sucker and I am FED UP. (Jade: You are a whack.) Shut up colonel. After finally scrapping a win the butler remembers he had a daughter and repents his actions, saying he obeyed Hugo because she too was in his clutches. We free Marian and she inopportunedly asks for Leon's whereabouts. Stahn gets out of the fix with a white lie and the maid reveals she was hired because of her convenient resemblance with Chris Katrea. We send her to the surface on a escape pod, and we board an airship to attack Dycroft!

(Intermission here. After the cutscene where the party is on top of the airship and do 'Swordian Team: Marble Screw!' we reach the base of the Dycroft dungeon. Inmediately after entering we activate the last teleporter that connects with the Ignasea station. I take the chance to go back to the surface and do sidequests, among them the arguably most important: recruiting Lilith. The first 3 arena courses are cake at this point, and only the one where Stahn's sister replaces Kongman as the champion is more annoying than hard. Use Cure and Recover gems to get over the item restriction (spam Guard + Down to heal and remove ailments) and for the love of Martel DONT try to use a Mystic arte on Lilith! She will auto counter with her own (I almost lost right there!) She has low HP so she wont take much time. And... we are back!)

-Belcrant: if I have to be thankful for one thing in this dungeon is... that its super linear. All upwards! There are energy barriers that must be open by tricking a security drone into firing at certain buttons on the floor. But... If the beam hits you it will trigger a battle so be fast on your feet. The monsters are again mutant plants and bugs, pretty spongy but manageable. And after we hit the Save point...

Ah, the Eye of Atamoni! Ooops, no it isnt. Hugo arrives and explains its only a hologram. He also mocks Leon and his inability to raise his arms at his father. Stahn is pissed at anyone who mocks his dead FRIEND, but the president has another revelation. He takes out a Swordian of his own! The others recognize it as Berselius, the one that was lost after the war. Well, Hugo found it in the depths of the Calvalese continent, so finders keepers! It allows the Bespectacled Bastard to cast Light and Dark spells, and is weak to Water and magic. WHY is it that every recent boss is 1) weak to my healer's element (She is busy healing, you know!) and 2) weak to magic, yet has moves that NEVER let my black mage cast? (Philia you useless broad) After a million years of grinding, I was close enough to his level to give him a serious try. He can warp to any character's front and slash their throat, of cast spells shielded by a barrier that hurts meleers. I used the 'play the healer' strategy and forbade Woodrow from using spells to help pile damage on Hugo along Stahn. And I finally won!

After the grueling battle, Hugo is still eager to fight. How is he so lively? Stahn is the one that just SMELLS there is someone else on the president's wheel. And sure enough, he grabs Berselius and goes Super Saiyan! The new body also has weird clothes that the swordians recognize. Its Miktran, the king of Aetherians! He reveals that using the Eye of Atamoni was the key to store and then transfer his mind to a new body. He had been hiding inside Berselius' core and manipulating Hugo! And to show us how powerful he is, a battle starts where he vaporizes our party with a single spell. To rub salt on the wound he fires the FOURTH terra forming beam and the surface is completely covered... in an eternal night. We need a Big Damm Heroes moment like, now! And the one who does it is... Hugo's remaining brain cells! He stops Miktran from killing Rutee at the last second and dominates him to go over a console and press the button that detaches Belcrant from the rest of Dycroft. But its shaped like a huge honking sword... that stabs into the surface. Fayte's fleet is sailing nearby and manages to catch and save us from drowning. After we rest and recover we all travel to Seinegald to inform the king.

(meanwhile, in Destiny 2... a blonde junior hero couldnt save Karell Berselius because it was a 'canon event'.)

-Darilseid: now the king knows what has happened until now. Reynolds had been working with Raiker in Radislowe, and appears in the audience room to say even the swordian team's lab has fallen. Also, a soldier comes to report that monsters are attacking Cresta. Thats where Rutee has his orphanage! Stahn and the others offer to help of course, and Johnny rejoins the party after more than 20 hours away! Yeah, Johnny, the Prince formerly known as Clown, currently known as Character with the Worst Availabilty Ever! (Flynn: he learned that from me.) Well, I dont have enough lens to upgrade his equipment, so I go straight to Cresta and fight the monster. Ugh, a big fugly spider! But it was a distraction... a soldier arrives to say Darilseid is being attacked, so we travel back and fight some mutants in the streets. Its all taking a toll in our heroes' health... Dymlos is uncharacteristically gloom, like he had given up already. There is NO way to reach Miktran right now but... during our rest at the inn another soldier tells us Reynolds wants to talk. So we go to the castle's lab and he reveals a plan that might work: the Lens Cannon! If we reinforce it with Berselium mineral from Junkland it will have enough power to punch a hole in the aethersphere. And if we train in the newly unearthed Swordian RD Lab we can achieve full synchro with our magic swords (that is why the old swordian masters were strong: they worked with an AI of themselves.) In the audience room we see Dalis, who finally tells some good news: they were repairing the Draconis and now we can use it as Global Airship. Well, lets start fulfilling Reynolds list of goals!

(Just before talking to Reynolds the first time the game finally recognized I had Lilith in the party, so it proceeds to bombard me with a lot of skits involving her. She is cordial with Woodrow, cooks with Mary, dissapoints Kongman cause she doesnt want to inherit his title, wakes her asleep brother AGAIN and... sends death glares at Rutee and Philia. Yeah, we know, brothercon stuff, now calm down lady.)

-Swordian RD lab: actually its not very far from the city, its the huge hole in the center of the Seinegaldian lake. For the first time in forever, the random mooks are annoyingly strong, so its a sign that I was very lucky against Hugo. Most are resistant to fire and spam it, since the path goes through a lava cavern. One of the only two puzzles here involve shooting with the Sorcerer Ring at switches that raise or remove wooden bridges (the north path is the right one, the others only lead to treasure) and the other is a pretty basic 'send lights through mirrors' trial. We reach the actual laboratory area and we must place the swordians in stasis pods. After audibly wailing at the sudden overcharge, the next step is entering the actual pods and be sent to a weird dream world. Stahn is walking through the cloudy path when a blue haired hunk appears with another Dymlos swordian. This is today's boss battle! Dymlos Timber's conscience stored in the pod!

Yeah, another Duel Boss after the mandatory Kongman and the optional Lilith ones. The setup I used in the arena works pretty well. Cure and Blast gems, you will see why later. This is where I learn the lesson of 'working in synchro with your allied AI'. You know, the AI partners dodge like Spiderman and cast like a pissed off Dr Strange, but its the player's duty to equip gems, manually use artes and judiciously consume items (unlike in the arena, they are allowed!) When boss Dymlos Turns Red the AI behaves too defensively, so I take over and keep pressure on him: if you let him cast he will throw an Explosion at you that hurts a lot. After showing some artes that my Stahn still has not learned, I reach Blast Gauge 1 and finish Ghost Dymlos in style: with the rank 3 Blazing Apocalypse! It was a nice surprise. The other swordian masters appear before Stahn, apparently having conquered their own battles. Now that we are fired up, lets go to Calvalese!

-Thrash mountain: the Junkland town is the place where, if you remember, the most sore of the sore Losers of the war lived. They wont even talk to us. Philia is again disgusted at the dirt and the stinky ambience, but does the effort of pushing through. After searching for a while, a nameless dude asks us why we havent given up, and... if we are fighting for Calvalese too. Stahn, friend of all living things, assures him its the case. So the guy reveals that the actual valuable junk is deep in the cave full of toxic fumes, and gives us 3 samples of poison Neutralizer. Our goal is to travel to the innermost deph of the caver, shooting gas fumes with the Sorcerer Ring to thin out the poisonous gas' effect. Enemies are fumes, leeches and mummies, and give a lot of Exp! Good place to grind later. Shortly after reaching the save point we find a room with a blue sparkly rock: the Berselium! But first we must shake off six Ghost Fumes in a regular no-boss battle. Funnily enough, Philia happened to have her rank 3 Mystic arte available, so I could witness her 'angry' MA portrait... the ghosts vanished as fast as they came. Alas, a tiny chunk of Berselium is not enough! At the cavern entrance the rest of townspeople have seen us dirty our hands to save the world, so the least they can do is give away the Berselium they already had stored. That way they finally let go of the past and work together with us to create a good future! Lets go check on Reynolds to see how the Lens Cannon construction is going...

-Darilseid: after giving the Berselium to the technician in charge of the Draconis Reynolds tasks us with gathering many Lens to load into the cannon. We go to Noischat, Heildeberg, Calviola and Terazi to accrue all their reserves and present it to the scientist. We inform the king and then go to the inn to rest, so this is the Night Before the Battle moment. Johhny tells Stahn that he should be more sincere, and Philia of all people looks like she is gonna confess but at the last second asks Stahn to go talk to 'the one who is in his mind all the time' before he loses sight of her. Of course, thats Rutee, who is contemplating her navel near Hugo's mansion. Stahn tells that when this is over, he wants to keep traveling... with her. Rutee says that was a very clumsy pick up line, but wheter she agrees to his plan... that will have to wait until the world goes back to normal. The next morning, Reynolds reveals a terrible fact: the actual weakest point in the Aethersphere is the chunk of land where the Radislowe is encased... the beam will drill it, but the lab will be atomized. With Raiker's AI still inside! Reynolds feels guilty being the hand that will kill his father figure. But we must take the chance his death will give us!

-Dycroft: ah, here it is at last. The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, or as it is known in this version, the Developers Really REALLY Dont Want You to Finish the Game: the Dungeon. It was a roadblock in the original Destiny, and its not better in this remake. Be as close to level 65 as you can and be fully loaded on Holy Bottles. The first part is the most... merciful. Hidden Palace Zone! You must cross the magic mirrors to traverse to places you couldnt, press invisible switches and not be lost on side rooms that only have treasure to distract you. Once you are done with that, you will reach a huge bridge with a pink teleporter smack in the middle. You cant avoid it. It leads to...

Dycroft part 2: aka Crystal Cove Zone. This area reminds me of Hearts' Final Dungeon, Gardenia... rocky crystallized bridges and switches to move platforms. The gimmick here is the suspicious mirrors usually placed in the man-made platforms. If you step in front of them, Shadow Stahn attacks you! He resists strike artes, but is weak to magic and only has four digit HP. Pfff. At some point the party has to split to solve the moving platforms puzzle, and Woodrow will be your second leader. I take Mary with me on the A Team, but what about Lilith? Dont worry, she is GLUED to Stahn's side Lol! (Lilith: I am not letting you outta my sight!) The monsters are getting nastier... you dont want to get caught with the B Team's piddly healer Johnny, so spam those holy bottles. The place looks bigger than it really is, the danger is more on the Checkpoint Starvation and being distracted by side rooms with chests and running out of bottles. When Stahn reaches the last platforms Woodrow rejoins automatically and the game lets you configure your team. This is because inmediately after that you are ambushed by the Shadow Swordian Masters! Believe me, Shadow Philia is priority number one. You dont want to lose and waste the last half hour of your life! After that its Shadow Rutee, and when she dies your partners will have killed or severely injured the last two. Lets press on!

Dycroft part 3: aka Underground Ruins Zone (even though we are in the sky?) Following with the remembrance, this part looks like Legendia's Final Dungeon, or one of them... the first noteworthy thing is the huge towers and their elevators powered up by the Sorcerer Ring. At the central tower there is a mirror puzzle, and the reason there are more floors: we must find four litographs hidden around and put them here, at the basement of the lighthouse tower. Unlike the last area, this one really IS as big as it looks: it has a couple Save points after the tricky parts. Now, when you finally shed light upon the completed litograph, WHERE is the door that just opened? Well, exit the tower you are on and to the left! You will see another elevator, a scene with Miktran and people in pods (Plothole! If the Losers of the War are here how did they have descendants to populate Calvalese?) and the final FINAL save point and warp pad. Now take a breath: you are NOT ready.

Miktran's final battle! Aka the Developers Really REALLY Dont Want You to Finish the Game: the Boss. Lets see the stats of this beauty: level 70, 120k of HP, defenses in the 800 range, resists Light and Dark and is weak to Arrows... and Sound? Not only is Woodrow valuable as always, but is recommended to replace Philia with Johnny, at least his songs have more of a chance to hit the boss. On the battlefield, he can do sword slashes about four characters wide (thats a lot of range!) and fly out of your reach to rain down lasers on you. As well as cast spells protected by a damaging dark aura. To rub salt on the wound, he has FOUR Penetrate Points! Know when to attack and when to get away, the AI cant. If for some reason you defeat him, its not over! Miktran will channel the Eye of Atamoni's energy but not through his Swordian, but his own body. He transforms into a mutant aberration, with an extra 20 levels and 100k HP. He now has one single weakness: fire. There are no tricks here, he is just STRONK. He cant cast spells now, but not like he needs them: he warps around the field throwing PAIN around, and not even two healers and life bottle spam can save you if you are underleveled. One nice point to know is that when he is under 10k HP he can use Melted Earth to utterly destroy you, but if by a miracle your Stahn survives, he will reach Blast Gauge 3 for free! This is the game letting you smack his face before collapsing, with the special Mystic Arte: Zankuu Tenshouken! The Barbatos Killer!

Aaaand its over! Of course, the Final Boss species have a bad habit of being load bearers of their dungeons, and Dycroft starts to crumble. The fortress will come crashing down and push the aethersphere with it, squashing anything below it. The swordians have one last plan to save the planet: destroy the Eye of Atamoni and the whole aethersphere will dissolve before doing any damage. The bad news is... that they must be struck in the Eye and be left there, with their special cores vibrating until the artifact runs out of energy. Stahn doesnt want to leave them, no matter if they are disembodied robot voices, they are people! But it must be done... as they strike the Eye with the weapons the swordian masters give their goodbyes to their artificial partners. This is what stern soldier Dymlos had to say:

Remake Dymlos: The more I helped you, the more you grew on me... everything that led us to this moment... looks like something out of a story. Our meeting... was a Tale of Destiny.

(Geez, what a forced Title Drop! I prefer the original Dymlos' last lines. More or less this...)

Original Dymlos: I lied to you, Stahn... you are not The Chosen One. Irene was right about you, but the world is full of idiots with a kind heart... you merely were the first one I met.

Okay, after that scene we have a one year time skip. Everyone reunites in Stahn's shack in Leanne. They are living peaceful lives at last. The blonde bumpkin is sad that Rutee didnt make it in time, but the others sneeredly disagree as the lens hunter jumps down from the shack roof and on top of him! Of course the girl would be here! And she is gonna force Stahn to keep his promise of being partners in the new journey she is planning. For what purpose, we dont know... but hey, its not the goal that matters. Cue credits!