Flowers sure are pretty, aren’t they?
Huh. I did not expect the dragon battle music to be the dragon battle music from 2020. That opening is pretty good, I gotta say.
Well, that’s one hell of a way to bring in the plot. Very curious to see how things go from here.
That escalated quickly.
The NPC dialogue updates will essentially be text dumps. They will contain very little of my commentary, and are just there for the people that want to know what they have to say.
Oh just a note, the updates are being hosted on a different site now. It’ll make my commentary and such easier to see.
That economy mechanic is very unusual. It’s neat having the bloom having an effect on the world though.
I’m shocked you got an EX skill so early. The offensive EX skills are more useful in the other titles.
That dungeon theme was also remixed for 2020 and it’s one of my favorite dungeon themes in that game.
Oh oops. I got the part about EX not giving a damage boost to EX skills wrong. It does, but most offensive EX skills still get outpaced by other normal skills.
Yeah, to give a comparison on how questionable offensive EX skills are, one of the Fighter’s EX skills deals 150% damage. When they have a few sword skills that deal 165% damage. Meanwhile in VFD, one of the Samurai’s EX skills deals 950% damage, while their strongest non-EX skill deals 600%. So at least they buffed those up after this game.
The war on all of dragonkind begins.
I’m glad that even in the first game 7th Dragon plays fast and loose with what a Dragon is.
Haru, Nila, Dia
Votes so far:
Ark: 9
Haru: 9
Buront: 6
Stella: 4
Edward: 2
Nila: 2
Dia: 2
My Choice: 5
The audience seems to want new people (maybe I should have made the vote which of the old members to keep. 
) though 4th place could go to anyone. Stella is currently holding onto that spot.
VOTING IS CLOSED! Final Results:
Ark: 15
Haru: 14
Buront: 11
Stella: 8
Edward: 5
Nila: 2
Dia: 2
My Choice: 6
Well, looks like the team is going to be Stella, Buront, Ark, and Haru!
Oh, and a bit of mechanics chat. I figured out why the encounter rate in 7th Dragon is ridiculously high.
How this works is that what the game does is set a counter to 100 in every area that you aren’t in a no encounter zone. Every time you take a step, a random number gets subtracted from said counter. Once the counter goes below 0, you get into a battle. On the world map, this ranges from 3 to 5, so you can get into encounters as soon as 21 steps, or as late as 34 steps. So on average, you’re getting into encounters every 27.5 steps, which is really not that large a distance! Oh, but forest tiles take away 5 or 6 instead, so that jumps up to 17 to 21 steps. (average of 19 steps.) Dungeons thankfully lower this to 2 to 3, so it’ll take 34 to 51 steps (Average of 42.5) to get into an encounter. Though certain areas in dungeons are flagged to not subtract anything, so it might take longer for that to happen. The USA patch just halves the amount subtracted from the counter so it takes twice as long to get into a battle.
I also want to give a shout out to SA user Can Of Worms for ripping all the enemy sprites for me! (they look like this when you rip them normally:)
So I had to put them together manually before then. That was a huge pain to do, so I’m grateful for that!
Okay, so let’s take a closer look at the Fighter.
These updates will go over the classes’ skills in more detail, since I won’t looking at every single one of them in the main updates. You might want to check them out because some of the skills are really really questionably designed. 
Or if you just want to see some cute and cool attack animations. That’s fine too.
Also, an important question must be answered.
Or a cow person?
I’m definitely a Dog Person.
Dog person, to the surprise of nobody.
Dog Person all the way
Cow: 8
Dog: 6
Cat: 3
The support for dog was strong here. I even thought it was going to win out for a while since dog and cow were neck and neck for a good while, but a surge of cow votes elsewhere caused cow to win out in the end.
A mountain is climbed and gameplay mechanics continue to get in the way.
Time to take on the 2nd Imperial Dragon!
A little early for an April Fool’s update but I’m very fond of 2020. It might have something to do with the way each of the dungeons look and how the dungeons just existing shows how much the dragons don’t belong in the world. Also the soundtrack is really good imo.
That pun makes me laugh more than it should.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the ailments in this game, here’s a brief rundown.
Ailments are useless and gimmicky in this game, just like in every single JRPG ever made! And anyone who claims otherwise is a crazy person. Their infliction rates are way too low when hitting the things that actually matter since most dragons and bosses are really resistant or outright immune to them.
Oh, you want to know how they actually work? Fiiiiiiiine.
Stun: Targets move last for the current turn. Can’t be inflicted if the target already acted. Really terrible compared to its EO version, where it just straight up caused the target to lose its turn. Almost nothing in the game resists it, because who actually cares that much about going last in the turn!?
Blind: Accuracy is decreased to 50%.
Paralysis: Targets have a 50% chance to not act.
Charm: Targets will only attack their own party and are uncontrollable. So basically, it’s a stronger version of confusion. Only enemies can inflict this.
Confusion: Targets are uncontrollable and have a 50% chance to attack their own allies. Lasts after battle.
Sleep: Targets cannot act and cannot avoid any attacks. Targets will wake up upon being attacked, but will take 50% more damage in the process.
Poison: Targets take a set amount of damage every turn. The damage taken depends on the skill used to inflict it. Lasts after battle.
Bleed: Targets take damage equal to 3% of their max life every turn. It’s basically a worse version of poison since it barely does anything to anyone.
Curse: When afflicted targets attack, they take damage equal to 50% of the damage they deal. It was awful in Etrian Odyssey, and it’s awful here.
Fear: Exactly the same thing as Paralysis. How creative! Oh and Hexers Princesses can use it to control their enemies and command them to do their bidding. Not that they’ll have many opportunities to do that.
Skill Seal: Targets can’t use skills. Too bad most bosses are incredibly resistant or outright immune to it!
Petrify: Targets can’t act whatsoever and it will never wear off on its own. So it’s basically another form of instant death. Though petrified party members can still be attacked and will take half damage. For you deranged weirdos that actually care about synced exp, petrified targets don’t gain exp after the battle.
Masked Pain: This ailment is honestly kind of weird. It’s exclusive to Dagger Rogues. When you inflict it on an enemy, you stop them from feeling pain and places a pain counter on them. Meaning that you can’t inflict anymore ailments on them. Instead, doing so will increase the number on the pain counter by 1. When the ailment wears off, the target takes damage equal to the Rogue’s regular attack times whatever number was on the pain counter when the ailment wore off. It caps out at 15, but good luck getting that to happen considering how resistant dragons and bosses are to ailments! Oh, and a couple of the Rogue’s skills can’t be used until the pain counter reaches a certain amount. But good luck pulling that off unless you really like playing with the RNG!
tl;dr It’s shit, just like all the other ailments!
Death: If you don’t know what this is, I don’t even know what to say to you.