The Final Fantasy You Never Played (But Wish You Had) [4 Heroes of Light]

I remember trying to play this a few times and not really liking it. Hopefully you can show me what I missed.

For names, I think Ernie, Bert, Betty and Veronica would fit.

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Never got very far into this one. It seemed like a good game, but the difficulty got really weird for me and I got to a part where I needed to do some grinding against a boss. Definitely excited to see what is in store.

I am one of those boring people that always go for default names though, so I can’t offer anything fun here.

Extremely good suggestions, everyone!
These are my favorites thus far:

I’ll be taking screenshots for update 1 tomorrow, so I suppose this is your 24-hour notice for name suggestions. (FWIW, I’m currently leaning toward Beatles since it’s slightly more popular than my other choices, but there’s still 24 hours for something better to come up so that’s hardly set in stone.)

I like this a lot better than my original idea of naming the characters after The Beatles.

That being said, I’m here for the game, so ultimately it doesn’t matter much to me what the names end up being. I do like the idea of one of the ladies being named George, though.

Update #1: (Just Like) Starting Over

Click for update 1!

Just a heads-up, this update is going to be considerably longer than the rest while I get tutorializing out of the way (the next might be the same way).
Anywho, we begin with…

…some logos. Matrix Software also made the DS remakes of FFIII and FFIV, for the curious.


One light becomes four…
(Insert obligatory Picard reference here)


The four lights unite…

…and give us a title screen!
:radio:YouTube link: Main Theme


If you say so, game. I always found this kind of odd considering the other DS FF games didn’t have this problem, but for all I know about DS architecture this could have been a perfectly sensible decision.

First things first, though, is naming our characters:

Hello, hello!


???: … …
???: Paul?

Paul, regrettably, does not have the luxury of a Millennial Fair to go to. The references to classic Square RPGs come early and they come often.

You know what? No. It’s the weekend and I can sleep in if I want.

What we see if we choose “Okay” instead:

This is all your choice changes there; all of a single text box. It will not be the first time.

:woman:: You have to go to the castle and pay your respects to the king!
That sounds like a raw deal for the king. Is he obligated to see every subject when they come of age or what?

:radio:YouTube Link: Horne: Daytime
And here is where we first gain control. If you’ve ever played a JRPG (which I’m assuming you have) the only thing that’s not self-explanatory here is the AP bar on the top screen, which I’ll get to when we first hit combat.
(Also, I forgot to take a screenshot of me pulling up the main menu; just imagine it letting me choose a character in the party and look at either their inventory or abilities.)

A look at the inventory screen. Every character has their own inventory 15 slots to play with, a la Final Fantasy I. It sounds more annoying than it actually is, but it can still be troublesome.
Looking at Paul’s inventory here, we can see that a. all he has is the clothes on his back and b. said clothes still take up a spot despite being equipped. Again, it sounds more annoying than it is but can still be troublesome.

The ability screen, on the other hand, gives us a whole lot of nothing. It’s honestly kind of strange they let you access it at this point but whatever, it’ll be important soon enough.

:woman:: You have to go to the castle and pay your respects to the king!
:woman:: Take the path straight through the back of the town to the castle. And no dilly-dallying on the way.
Obviously, there’s only one course of action: dilly-dally as much as humanly possible.

Starting with our pet bird. He even knows Paul’s name! Man, what a cool bird.

Our first steps outdoors! Something this game does that doesn’t really fit the pseudo-retro aesthetic: the scenery, at least in towns, is absolutely gorgeous. This is easily one of the best-looking games on the DS, at least in my opinion. The crops in the field even have little waves in them as if they were blowing in the wind!
Our effort to put off our responsibilities for as long as we can continues with some NPC chatter:


Magic is illegal, eh? And the castle might have some anyway, eh? Ah well, it’s probably nothing?
Inside the house on the right:

…is a tutorial!
And on the left:

We find our first hidden item! Yes, this game does the thing where you can check the scenery and find invisible items. There are a lot of them, and I probably won’t come close to finding all of them, but they’re always nice to get your hands on. (Especially our Dragon Wing here.)

And another tutorial!
(I won’t be showing every minor NPC dialog in the game, by the way, just here.)

:construction_worker:: At some point, you will want to save your game. Come talk to me when you do.
:construction_worker:: Hm. How about now? Do you want to save your game?

In front of the item shop, we meet our save point, who you might recognize if you’ve played either of the Bravely games. They wouldn’t pick up their item selling capabilities until BD, just a save point here.

If we choose not to continue our game after saving, we are treated to this screen:

:radio:YouTube link: Adventurous Friends
…which we see again upon loading a save game. Not really important, I just thought it was neat.
Going into the item shop:

Gem drops are what this game does in place of encounters just giving money. Gems have uses other than as vendor trash, but we’ll get into that later.


Shopkeep has all the options you expect from a typical JRPG shopkeep.

He sells potions, torches, dragon wings, steel swords, Horne’s Bow, and wood shields. Just the basics; unfortunately, we have no money to spend at the moment.

We’ll see the day and night cycle in action later. There will be points where it’ll need to be nighttime to do some things and, like this guy says, random encounters get somewhat tougher but it honestly doesn’t affect that much.

Inside the inn:

:man:: It’ll cost you 10 gil a night. Sound good?
As the previous NPC tutorialized, the inn fills HP, like you’d expect, but it also fills your entire party’s AP bars. (As before, more on AP when we first hit combat.) Since we have no money, and Paul’s house offers a free rest anyway, we politely decline the offer for now.
:man:: Come back anytime!
Making our way north:

Good thing we already found one for free!

A giant bull monster, you say? Well, I’m sure this won’t be important


Inside the building with the treasure chest on the sign:


The storage shop is… well, it’s a godsend, quite frankly, what with our limited inventory. In addition to the options seen here, when we buy items at a shop we have the option of having them sent to storage instead of a party member’s inventory.

East of the storage shop:

This is alluding to a mechanic we’ll be encountering a bit later.
In the house on the left:

A reference to the gems being useful as more than vendor trash. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

And on the right:

Doubtful!

John, y’say?
:man:: Young Paul, if you’re going to go adventuring, as I suspect you will, this little bottle could be a life saver…
He gives us a potion.
Inside the building with the wi-fi bars:


Needless to say, this… isn’t really doable anymore. You used to be able to fight monsters with other players and get points that can be exchanged for prizes, but Nintendo has since put the kibosh on that.
Moving further north:

Third, stroke the left flank.
Last, tug the tail…
That’s the way to handle sheep!

Interacting with the sheep like this doesn’t do anything, for the record.


Awful big padlock for a windmill, don’t you think?

Finally making our way to the castle. Remember what I said about this game having pretty swanky scenery?


Where does he find the time to even govern if he has to do this for absolutely every citizen ever? Regardless, we make our way into the castle.
:radio:YouTube Link: Royal Palace Melody

Again, I’ll explain this when we see our first battle.
(There’s another soldier I forgot to get a shot of, he mentions something to the effect of the new recruits not really being ready for action.)

At the north end of the room there are no less than three doors with which to continue disobeying our mother’s request to not dawdle. Starting from the left:

Why, I believe this is our first treasure chest! It’s not a particularly interesting one, but what are you gonna do?

…no comment.

Anyway, middle room!

…well obviously this treasure chest is wanted in across three different kingdoms. It’s doing 25 to life. Don’t get to close, it’ll shiv you without a second thought!

Oooh, that’s where the treasure chests on death row must be kept.

Alright, time for the last room on this floor.

That… doesn’t bode well at all.

(I missed my shot of the other chest, it’s another potion)

I suppose we can only put things off for so long.

…except for the fact that there are four other doors off to the side of this room.



:woman:: …Oh, it’s you, Paul. Gracious, you nearly gave me a heart attack.






(She just has the same lines as the other lady.)
No treasure, though, just information. Apparently, the queen is dead and the princess is named George! Hell of a name for a princess!




This sounds like a perfect thing for a random guy from town to take care of!
And, with that, we’ve completely exhausted all forms of dilly-dally available to us. Time to get to business.

:crown:: Ah, is that you, Paul? Good, good, I’m glad you’re here. The Witch of the North has carried my George away!
:crown:: Paul, will you please help your old king?
:crown:: Go to the Witch’s Mansion in the north and see what’s happening. I sent my soldiers, but none have returned.
I mean, the soldier downstairs stated they weren’t ready to see any action yet, I’m not sure what you were expecting.

Again, perfect job for some random kid from town!
If you say no:

Wow, this is so smart of Paul it’s almost out of character.
:crown:: Hmph. Very well. Do as you please.
And the conversation just ends there; if we talk to him again it starts over as if it never even happened. Let’s agree to the job instead:

Again, but thou must.
:crown:: Splendid! I knew I could count on you. Here, this might come in handy…
And he gives us a steel sword.

These caves are surely unrelated to the one the guy in town mentioned that apparently had a bull monster in it. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence they have the same name!

Gear is equipped to characters from their inventory and, as mentioned, continue to take inventory space when equipped.
Not much changes around town after seeing the king, but there are a few things:

A potion from the windmill guy.

A citizen brazenly encouraging us to break the law.

Another citizen just straight-up lying to us. Speaking of which, we should probably let Paul’s ma know what her kid’s off to do.

:woman:: Here. Take this ring with you. It used to belong to your father.
She gives us the Inherited Ring which raises HP by 10.

Paul’s bed is a free rest, which I take the opportunity to use to fill up my AP bar.

:radio:YouTube Link: Walking the Ground
:radio:YouTube Link: Walking the Ground (night)
:radio:YouTube Link: Horne (night)
And we have the world map! The day-night cycle kicks in here (Ocarina of Time style), as well as random encounters. Speaking of:


:radio:YouTube Link: Battle With Demons
(You might recognize this song from Bravely Default, it shows up when you fight nemeses in Norende.)
Our first battle! It’s… a guy with a pumpkin for a head. Hoo… ray?
The orange orbs represent action points, or AP. Actions, as seen above, have their AP cost shown in the upper left corners of their respective buttons. Technically, all actions except boost have some sort of AP cost; however, under normal circumstances all party members have a single AP restored to them at the start of each turn, meaning all AP costs are effectively one less than the game tells you. This means that attack and item, as shown, are basically free.
Boost is essentially your typical JRPG defend command; it has no AP cost so you end the turn with 1 more than you started and is the primary way to get more.
Additionally, AP totals are retained after battle and are fully charged upon resting at an inn.


:radio:YouTube Link: Victory
Paul makes short work of ol’ Jack Lantern.

:radio:YouTube Link: Crisis by a Hair
This is just me pointing out that there’s different music when you have party members at low hp. :V

Our first item drop; it’s a potion. You get to select which party member gets which item when it happens or just have the game do it automatically.


Here we get both our first level up and our first gem drop. As the practical use for gems has not yet been unlocked, I sell this one for some extra cash.

Anyway, off to the northern cave; we have ourselves a witch to kill!

:radio:YouTube Link: Cave of Wraiths
…and it’s pitch black and nigh-impossible to see anything. Luckily, I came prepared.


No problem. Torches aren’t really all that necessary, all things considered, and they take up inventory space, but I figured I’d show them off the first few times.


The world’s most useless guards!
There really isn’t much to the cave, it’s largely a linear path with some short branches containing treasure chests.




Our first fight with multiple opponents. I bring this up because this is where we see one of the game’s more annoying elements: the auto-target. Instead of being able to choose which enemy you attack, it’s all done automatically, and often stupidly. While it’s another thing that sounds worse than it actually is, it can get obnoxious when trying to, say, hit an elemental weakness of one enemy while the auto-target keeps going for another.


Anyway, making our way downstairs…

We see… a thing!
: Woah!

: I guess I’m going to have to help you out. I’ll just boost my AP and conjure up some spells!
John has access to some established-to-be-illegal magic, eh? I’m sure it’s not important.

:radio:YouTube Link: Strong Enemy
Oh, no! It seems the cave with the bull monster and the cave to the witch’s place… were the same cave!
The party starts this fight psyched up. Psych up increases attack power by 50% for a single turn, and if you get it on more than one member at once and they use the same action they perform a linked attack.

I don’t actually do the linked attack here, of course, instead having John boost for a turn.
You’ll notice he comes with two magic spells. You’ll also notice that these spells don’t appear to have an MP cost. That’s because they don’t! MP isn’t a thing in this game, it’s all AP.

Luckily, it seems our new party member comes equipped with the exact thing the boss is weak to. Somehow being lit on fire breaks off one of its horns. Man, I don’t know.

:radio:YouTube Link: A Desperate Situation
Depleting enough of the minotaur’s HP breaks off both its horns and it very literally turns red, as well as giving us a new musical theme. (I couldn’t get a screenshot of it but it starts using an attack that hits both party members at this point.)

But wait, John came equipped with a second magic spell!
…I don’t really have much to say about it, it’s just cure. Here is what Cure looks like in this game!

And soon enough, we have a win.
(Paul got a level and we got some rare gems out of the deal, I forgot to get a shot.)

I mean, if the soldiers never came back, you ain’t wrong about that.
Selecting “okay” gives is this gem:

…and Paul is suddenly an enormous wuss.
: Smart move. Now go straight home and stay out of trouble!
If we talk to John again the conversation just repeats as if it had never happened. If we say no:

John: * shrug * Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

We get a little fanfare and a new party member!

John comes with a sword, shield, some clothes, and the magic books he used in the boss fight (the potions were supplied by me). Pretty well-equipped, all things considered.

Of course, the dungeon isn’t over yet, but this half is mostly the same as the first.

A cute little touch, your party members follow you around.

(this was a phoenix down)

A new weapon!

This is one better attack than the steel sword Paul was using but is slightly less accurate. Paul can keep it for the moment.

And we get a save point, right before the exit to the cave. Let’s save our game and…

We’re off to see the witch!

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Update #2: (Still Just Like) Starting Over

Click for update 2!

Note: Updates won’t be going up in as rapid succession as this, at least on a regular basis; I just wanted to get to a point where we’ve met all four party members and have at least dipped our toe into the job system. Hell, I was almost going to number this 1.5 before it turned out as long as it did. :V


Alrighty then, it’s witch time!

:radio:YouTube Link: The Witch’s Mansion
…and we’re off to one hell of a start.

:guardsman:: Cast s-spells… boost your AP… and use the Menu to recover your h-h-health…

You know, for a nation that outlawed magic they sure are blasé about using it for themselves. Oh well, I’m sure it’s no big deal.
:guardsman:: We knew the danger… Auto Mode is just s-sp easy… Press the X button, and that’s it…
:guardsman:: …Don’t make the same mistake we did. Just remember, touch controls w-won’t work when you’re in Auto Mode…


Ignoring that I never actually knew this was a thing until just now, Auto Mode… well, it’s like the guy says; press the x button, select commands for each character, and they do those commands every turn until you press x again to turn Auto Mode off. It’s handy for easier random encounters, at the very least.

Anyway, it looks like we can head either left or straight ahead…

…but straight ahead is just a locked door. Leftward it is!


We find ourselves in a room with a big ol’ chasm running through the middle. Heading off to the right:

: Reinforcements from Horne, reporting for duty!
:guardsman:: Er, great… but you’re too late… My while unit… wiped out… * sob *
:guardsman:: No one’s left… except… Lady George’s companion Ringo. She might still be alive.
: Sounds bad. We better do something, fast!
: Easy does it. I’m sure they’re still okay. Let’s look for the witch. We find her, we find our hostages…

Through the door to the right…

…a bunch of spooky windows…

…and another cure tome for Paul! Speaking of which:

Paul will need to equip Cure as an ability before he can actually use it. Just select the button in the main menu…


…and equip it as a command.

:guardsman:: Then you can use it any time you need it- as long as you have AP, that is.
I’m only really showing this because I find it amusing how they tutorialize as they lay on the ground dying. :V


The next room is pretty stark beyond the stairs to the next floor…



…while this is just a hallway with a Phoenix Down in.

Going downstairs brings us to the opposite side of the chasm in the second room.

We find a rather conspicuous and suspicious-looking candle, which we light, being at an impasse otherwise.

Fortunately, despite being located in the abode of an apparently malevolent witch, lighting the candle merely provides us with progress.
Unfortunately, we also have to make our way back to the other door manually.

But not before going through this one, which I missed the first time through like an idiot. :V

This brings us to the platform in the entrance room whose stairway was blocked off, netting us a potion…


…and a fight!

Of course, the mimic was only marginally stronger than the random monsters in the mansion and was easily dispatched, scoring us some sweet gear.

Seeking to make John look like less of a douchebag, I equip the armor on him.

Oh, did I never mention equipping armor actually changes your characters’ appearance? It does, which is a neat touch that I’m still kind of bitter they never carried over to Bravely Default.

Getting back on track, we see one of the soldiers being accosted!

…by the same weaksauce bullshit we’ve been running into the entire mansion.


Ringo gives us the most “But Thou Must” choice yet:

: …But wait! You can’t go on alone. You almost died just now.
: I’ts MY fault the princess was kidnapped. It wouldn’t be fair to allow anyone else to get involved.
: We’re already involved. The king sent us when you were late coming back.
: Oh. I’m sorry.
: Look, let’s team up and find the princess together, okay?
: Really? You would do that for me?
If we select “Wait!”, it just skips Paul’s “see ya” line and literally nothing else.

On the plus side, we get our third party member!

She comes with exactly what John came with… including the same magic tomes! What was even the point of outlawing them if they’re just going to be floating around like this, anyway? Ah well, it’s probably nothing to be concerned about.

I provide her with some of our extra restoratives… and, seeing as she’s the actual trained soldier of the group, the armor from earlier.

Anyway, with our little side adventures out of the way, back to the matter at hand.






The rest of the trek is pretty uneventful…

…until we pick this up from a lizardman!

Again, I decide to give it to the actual soldier of the group. It’s +1 attack better than the sword she was using and is wind-elemental!

How our save point friend made it here before we even lit the candle is beyond me but I ain’t complaining.
We enter the next room…

…and find our princess!


…is it too late to leave her here and tell the king she died before we got here?
: Look at the state I’m in! My dress is all dirty, I’m dying of thirst… Where HAVE you been?
: I’m sorry, my Lady! I’m so sorry!

This changes all of a single line.
If we answer “yes”:

And “no:”

But thou must!
: Wh-why, the impudence…!
: Shush, now. You’re upset, and it’s all my fault, Lady George. I take full responsibility.
: As well you should! I’ve had a TERRIBLE day, let me tell you, and I think I’m ready to go home now.

Oh well, at least it’s another body to throw at our enemies.

With that, we have our full party!

The princess comes with a sweet weapon and her own cure tome.
Even the princess has no fucks to give about the laws against magic, goddamn!

I take the liberty of providing her some spare curatives.

Anyway, that’s that. Time to-

…figures.

It was kind of suspicious that we’d spent all this time in the witch’s place without seeing the actual witch, I suppose.
:jack_o_lantern:: I cannot allow you to leave. The princess belongs to me.
: I beg your pardon!?
:jack_o_lantern:: So states the contract, little princess. And we witches do not enter into contracts lightly.



Welp.

For some reason, turning into a monster also changes Louhi’s name to Greaps.

Seeing as we have four party members and start all boss fights with Psych Up status, I take the opportunity to show off the link attack mechanic.
John and Ringo combine their fire spell (exploiting the boss’s weakness while they’re at it)…

…while Paul and George do a combined physical attack.

Greaps is also resistant to wind, so the fancy sword we found for Ringo isn’t going to do her any good; then again, she was better off exploiting that fire weakness anyway.


After awhile, Greaps flies into the air.


This reduces the effectiveness of physical attacks…

…but is no problem for magic. Luckily, the entire party is equipped with cure tomes, so Paul and George were still able to pull their weight while the boss was in the air.

While in flight Greaps is able to hit the entire party with this. It doesn’t hit for much so it’s not really a big deal.


Greaps goes down soon enough.

: Well done, Ringo!
: Lady George, are you unharmed!
: C’mon. Let’s get out of here.

Suddenly, a flash of light!

And… a crystal?


The nature of the crystal is never quite explained; it doesn’t seem to correspond to any element and it’s ambiguous how many there even are, if there’s even more than one.

:radio:YouTube Link: Main Theme
…and right into the opening credits.



(You get the idea; we don’t need to see the entire credits right now.)




:radio:YouTube Link: Guidance of the Crystal
: Er, yes. At least, I think I do…

:mount_fuji:: As the Dark flows from the hidden world within, our would-be savior stands helpless, bereft of power.
:mount_fuji:: O, children of hope!
:mount_fuji:: To thee I grant this gift of Light, upon thy head a crown of might.

And here we have our first job!

:mount_fuji:: With hearts indimitable, heroes stand tall and strong.
:mount_fuji:: Enter the magic circle now, and to safety you shall fly.
:mount_fuji:: Go forth, Heroes of Light, and seek your adventure!

Something the game does on occasion is give you the opportunity to speak to your party members:
: What good is a crown? Well, if you wear it (use the Menu), you’ll be granted new abilities.
Yeah, because it’s the job system. I’ll go over this in a bit.
: Why did the witch take Lady George? Who would agree to a contract with such a person?
A legitimate question! We should probably ask about it at the castle when we get the chance!
: If you want, you can make me the main character that you control.
: Press the X Button to open the Menu. Press the A Button, and then left or right to change characters.
This actually a pretty solid time to do just that, actually, since it gives us a chance to speak to Paul. (I forget to get a screen of it, just imagine me switching my party leader to John then talking to Paul; you can see me do it in the first screen of this post but I end up reloading and leaving Paul in front so I don’t bother to talk about it then.)
: A crown? Does this mean I’ll become even more super powerful?
…ever the conversationalist, Paul.

Anyway, we now have our first crown! All we have to do is go into the crown menu…


…equip our abilities…

…and we’re good!
Normally I’ll be asking the thread about what we should do with new crowns when we get them, but here I take the opportunity to equip everyone with Wayfarer because it is categorically better to have any crown over Freelancer since the crown you have equipped applies multipliers to the stats you’d have as a Freelancer. Additionally, any crown can use any piece of equipment or magic; however, certain crowns are obviously better suited for some things than others. This makes Wayfarer basically Freelancer 2.0, as it has well-balanced growths and equipment.
Speaking of, I’ll be talking briefly about each crown at the bottom of each update they’re introduced in, so that’s where to look if you want that particular bit of information.


Crowns can also be enhanced with gems, but it requires… well, the correct gems, which we currently do not have, so I’ll be talking about that at a more opportune moment.

Anyway, I think I’ve had about enough of the witch’s place.

We should probably tell someone about that contract the witch mentioned!

New Crowns:

Click for new crowns!

Freelancer

(I know it’s not new but it’s the first time we’ve had options so…)

Stat Multipliers:
HP: 1.0
Strength: 1.0
Intellect: 1.0
Spirit: 1.0

Literally the only thing Freelancer has going for it is negation of the penalty for a party wipe, and most of the time you’re better off reloading a save after that happens anyway, meaning Freelancer is pretty much immediately useless upon unlocking your first crown.

Wayfarer

Stat Multipliers:
HP: 1.0
Strength: 1.2
Intellect: 1.2
Spirit: 1.2

Wayfarer is slightly better than Freelancer at everything except recovery magic, hence why I called it Freelancer 2.0. It also boosts the effects of healing items and, most notably, is the only crown with the ability to escape from battle.

3 Likes

I forgot how slowly they give you jobs in this game. They probably don’t have armor show up on your characters in Bravely Default because jobs are just hats in this game while in BD it’s a full on costume change.

This game is very pretty for its resolution, and like many DS games, is actually still super pretty at higher ones:

Images



More at source

This game, I think holds up way better than III and IV for the DS. Which is a shame because those two got PC ports and The 4 Heroes of Light didn’t.

Yeah, I understand why they did what they did and that it was probably the better choice anyway. I never said my bitterness was rational. :v

Oh yeah, 4 Heroes is one of the prettiest games for the DS. I’d love to show it off at a higher resolution myself but that would probably make my computer chug. :confused:
And I’d love a Steam version of this, it’d be an excellent way for more people to experience this game considering it flew under most people’s radar the first time (that’s the main reason I’m doing this LP in the first place, after all) while its own spiritual successors are getting all the acclaim, something I personally think is kind of unfair. A Steam version would also make this LP significantly easier on me, heh.

I just realized I talked about how Freelancer negates the penalty for wiping… without actually explaining what happens when you die in this game. :flushed: I decided I’ll do that now before I forget. Just… just pretend this was part of update 2.


:radio:YouTube Link: Defeat
Dead party members turn into little ghosts. They actually follow you around on the field; it’d be cute if, you know, your party members weren’t dead.


One variety of gem in your possession is chosen at random and cut in half. This makes this one of the few games I can think of where the severity of dying is entirely up to RNG, since how much this hurts you depends entirely on how rare the chosen gem is.
Like I said, if you have at least one Freelancer in your party this what it prevents; also like I said, you’re really better off loading your last save instead of actually using Freelancer.


Finally, you’re returned to the last in-town save point you used.

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With respect to there being only one crystal in this game: Final Fantasy XIV (the bad version) also came out in 2010, and that also had only one crystal. But the excuse there is that the crystal is a goddess and there are more than four heroes of light in the canon of that game, so I don’t know about this one. Maybe we’ll get an explanation later? Probably not, though.

Update #3: Krinjh-worthy

Click for update 3!


Welp, that’s our witch taken care of. Better get our asses back to Horne!

Luckily, we have ourselves a shortcut.

…and we’re greeted with a soldier made out of rock. Disconcerting! Did they install a new statue?

…oh.


The entire town is like this.

…well, not the entire town.


The witch’s “contract” is the only lead we have to go on, at any rate.

Good call, George. To the castle!

…foreboding!

…Goerge, I think I have bad news about your sister. Probably about your dad, too, for that matter.
That said, there is a breathing human present in the throne room:

:guardsman:: I’m sorry to report that Horne has been stricken by an evil curse.

If we say no:
: We can’t just run away and leave the town like this!
: What are you going to do about it? Face it. Horne’s done for. I’m going to Liberte.

: WE don’t have to do anything, but YOU are welcome to do what you like.
: Erm, I hate to impose… but would you please take Lady George with you to Liberte?
: I must stay in Horne, too. I can’t help thinking I’m partly to blame for this.
(Select “Okay” just skips Paul’s “we can’t just run away” line above. But thou must!)

Well, piss.
A mistake this game makes: the party is split. The party spends quite a bit of time split, in fact.
I mentioned that this game has a few flaws that are uncomfortably similar to those in FFXIII, and this is one of them. This game makes up for it somewhat, which we’ll get to further down this update, but it still gets obnoxious jumping around.


: W-will I see you again…?

Party morale appears to be understandably low.

There are a few more of the rescue guys around the town, most of them aren’t particularly interesting.

This one gives us a destination, at least.

:guardsman:: They’re long gone now, or so I hear…

At least somebody has a goal in mind.


This guy has a little more for sale than the original store; we pick up a handful of antidotes…


…and an armor upgrade for Paul. This is the Wayfarer crown’s “official” corresponding armor.

Anyhow, we’d best start making our way to Guera.

It’s hard to see but the desert has a sandstorm effect.

…somehow I don’t think that’s Guera.

As we approach the tower we run into this man!
: My name is Krinjh, and I am one of the last of the Moon Folk.
Paul explains our predicament to Krinjh.
: I see. You seek the magic kingdom of Guera in the hope of lifting the curse that has stricken Horne.
: Then you must go to the Moonlight Tower and collect the moonshards.
: The Tower stands in the northwest of the desert. Come. I shall guide you there.

And this is why the party being split isn’t a particularly horrible deal. Krinjh here is our first guest character!
Guest characters’ crowns cannot be changed. However, this is no problem, as Krinjh comes with his own: the Spell Fencer, 4 Heroes’ iteration on the classic Mystic Knight. This gives him quite the leg up on our own team.

Spell Fencer comes with the Magic Sword ability.

Select Magic Sword, then select a black magic spell…

And now you have that element on your weapon! Basically, it’s the same Mystic Knight we all know and love.

(Krinjh also gets some dialog in town now that he’s in our group…)

Also, on the way here, I finally picked up some emerald gems, so now’s a good time to show of crown enhancement.

Put the gems into the slots they fit…

…and we get a crown level and an ability to go with it.
What this means is that gems function as both vendor trash and the equivalent to Job/Ability Points as they appear in other iterations of the job system. It may not seem like much, but sometimes striking a balance between a reasonable sum of gil and keeping your crowns leveled can be pretty challenging.
(For the record, Escape is a guaranteed escape from battle but costs 2 AP.)

As Krinjh told us, we can’t get to Guera until we’ve completed the tower.





We begin in a large room with a staircase in each corner.

Our best choice is the staircase in the bottom right…


…because it leads us to this. What the description here leaves out is this causes the auto-target to go for farther-away enemies. We give this to Paul as it has the same attack power as the axe he was using but has a better chance of hitting.

Next, upper right.

This leads us to a phoenix down…

…and a hallway that leads to the staircase to the bottom left of the first room.

This leaves us with one stairway left.


There isn’t much to see here.

This room is perfectly symmetrical; we have two staircases to choose from.

Let’s start with the one to the west.


It leads us to this!

This goes to Ringo for now as she has our fire tome.

Now for the other stairway.

Hello there, save point!

And we end with a room with an altar in the middle!

(Although we’ll deal with that after satisfying our own greed. Priorities, y’know.)



: Cool!
: They’re so beautiful.
: We just need to collect them…


You’re right, Paul, this is cool.
The Merkmal is a world map that’s accessed with the Y button.

…although my trip back to Horne to heal shows us it isn’t a complete one at present.

It does, however, allow us access to Guera. If you try to find this place before getting the Merkmal you just end up lost.

:radio:YouTube Link: Magic Kingdom Guera
:radio:YouTube Link: Magic Kingdom Guera (Night)
The shop has new status healing items and Antarctic Winds. We can afford the former, not so much the latter, so I stock up on a few status healers.




Been slacking off on hidden items. Free potion is still nice, though.


Something like half the town is blocked off behind these jars.


The most interesting things here are the magic staff and the earth shields. I pick up one of the former and two of the latter as we’ll need earth resistance soon.



And here we see our first magic shop!

Fire, quake, aero, and cure. Krinjh came with his own aero, so I pick up a quake.

This is a building you can go into but doesn’t look like it at first glance.


What we’ve learned in town so far: Guera is big on the research and use of magic, there’s a monster called the Sand Devil causing trouble, the king has banned water magic for an undisclosed reason, and Krinjh makes Paul feel insecure.



Magic transportation, you say?

Whee!

This room has two branches in addition to the teleporter to the throne room. Heading left first:

Enormous magic power? I want enormous magic power!

The game even explains that you’ll need earth resistance.

Coincidentally, this is the first town you can buy items that heal paralysis.

But…! But…! But… enormous magic power!
Anyway, back to the center room, then the branch to the right:



It’s pretty easy to come to these conclusions on one’s own but I guess it helps to explain it.

The king having recently outlawed water magic sure puts a damper on that, now doesn’t it?

Now to see what the king has to say!

:crown:: I wish I could do something, but my kingdom is suffering under its own monster tribulations.

Well if you hadn’t outlawed the monster’s only weakness this wouldn’t be a problem, now would it?
If w answer no:
: I’m afraid I’m too busy to run around chasing desert monsters! Perhaps someone else could help…
And the conversation just ends right there.
If we answer yes:
: So we just need to fight this monster and the king will help us?
:crown:: Yes. IF you can rid us of that pestilent Sand Devil, we will be very much in your debt.
:crown:: In return, I will do everything in my power to aid you!


Pretty handy, that Merkmal!


Like I said, sounds like the king’s kinda sabotaging himself here.

Don’t enable him, Ringo, Jesus!
Anyway, after all that, I get our party set up:



Ringo is a soldier and Krinjh is a magic swordsman of magic and swords, so I give Paul a magic staff and let him handle casting duty for awhile, at least until we get our hands on a dedicated magic crown.
Anyway, it’s time to set out, so lets head out of town and…

…wait until nighttime?

…and enter the now-unguarded caverns underneath Guera? Quite the odd approach to guarding, they have there, considering nighttime is when people are most likely to try breaking in.

Case in point.

There are entrances to the caverns in both the left and right wings of the castle, they both lead here.



The very first thing we come to is this fork…

…but there isn’t much to see this way.





A branch leads us to treasure…

…that immediately goes onto Ringo.
Just showing this because I like how the axe looks. :V

Making our way further south, we come to another branch.

Going east nets us an ether. Ethers grant three AP; they aren’t super-super useful in this, considering how AP regeneration works, but they can help in certain emergencies.


Back to the previous branch, heading north brings us to this staircase…

…which leads us to some contraband! This is the main reason to do this dungeon, for the record.

There are a few more branches in the dungeon but they don’t lead to anything of interest.



We get a hi-potion as a drop, something fairly rare for this point in the game.

Free phoenix down right before the end of the dungeon.


And we’re back at the very first chest of the caves.

Okay, now it’s time to set out for real, so let’s save our game…

…and get moving!

The Quicksand Castle now shows up to the east on the world map.

Now it’s time to kill us a Sand Devil!

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Update #4: 'Cause We Love You Mister Moonlight
:tw:Warning: Brief, bizarrely out-of-place bit of light sexism near the end :tw:

Click for update 4!


Here’s hoping that Sand Devil is ready to rumble, 'cause we ain’t waiting.


The castle starts with a branch left or right; we start with the left.

This nets us a free phoenix down.

The right branch takes us to yet another branch, this time we head up.



Yet another branch at the center of the room; again, heading left first, netting an ether.

Returning to the center branch and heading north brings us to a staircase.

Upstairs we see this dungeon’s gimmick: quicksand pits!


In this room there are two staircases on the left and right sides; we head up the rightmost staircase first.


Going down a second staircase to the south in the next room brings us to a small room with this pedestal in it.

That’s… that’s not how quicksand works, like, at all. Adding water would make it softer, not harder!
Seriously, this alone gives makes this some of the most unrealistic quicksand in video games.


Casting the spell at the pedestal removes one of the pits at the south end of the first quicksand room.

Giving us a pretty sweet weapon in the process!

It’s a slight step down from the fancy flower axe, but the elemental coverage is worth it.

Anyway, now for the left staircase.


It’s a short walk to another staircase up…

…leading to a room with three more staircases and a pit. For the record the bottom left staircase just leads to a dead end.
There is, obviously, only one proper course of action here.

Whee!

This drops us right in front of this treasure box.
Kind of underwhelming, at least compared to the bow from before, but we’ll have use for this one in a bit.

Anyway, back up to the room we dropped down from. Let’s take the staircase above the pit this time…

…taking us to a room with two rows of pits to our left and right.

More quicksand diving!


This is nice, but doesn’t really do us any good in this dungeon.

Anyway, back in the room dropped down from.


It’s a short trek to a save point.

I equip Krinjh with the knife from before.
Honestly, the best setup would probably to give Krinjh the water tome and have him do Sword Magic with that while Paul and Ringo use the bow and knife, but I’d rather not have him with that in his inventory for reasons we’ll get to in a bit. (I probably should have taken his aero tome from him for the same reason. Hindsight: 20/20)

Anyway, moving forward…

…brings us to quite the pretty face.

: Be careful, Paul, for that is the Sand Devil we seek.
: Ringo, prepare your spells! We must harden the beast with water spells, or we shall never defeat it!
Awful presumptuous of you to assume Ringo is the one casting spells, Krinjh.
Also, more silly water/sand interactions. Again, adding water makes sand softer, not harder!


Time to confront our quarry!

Casting a water spell does exactly what Krinjh said it does, silliness of the whole thing aside. This renders the boss vulnerable to physical attacks.
Also, it needs to be a spell; it’s weak to the water based weapons but they don’t give it the harden effect.

Other than that, the only thing that really stands out about the Sand Devil is Sandstorm, which hits the whole party with earth-elemental damage and randomly blind party members. Luckily, Paul and Ringo have the earth-elemental shields to reduce damage, because otherwise this would make this fight a living hell.
(Blindness isn’t really a huge deal as it just wears off after a few turns.)


It has a fair chunk of HP, but as long as you have the pattern down it’s not a particularly tough boss.

Beating the Sand Devil… turns it into a lady?

: I just wanted to shut you away forever, you and that horrible desert.
: I’m sorry, Ariadne. I always hoped it would be you who killed me, not that king of Guera.

Yeah, I’m with Paul and Ringo on this one. What are you on about, Krinjh?
: But it’s all right now. You don’t have to suffer anymore.
: Your body will return to the sand of the moon, and your soul to its light…



: The source of all magic lies in the land of Arbor. There you will find the key to saving Horne.
So apparently the Sand Devil was Krinjh’s dead girlfriend (who he never mentioned before), and both Krinjh and Ariadne had issues with the king of Guera.
Oh well, I’m sure this will never be important again. At least Krinjh has given us our next destination!

Suddenly, a flash of light!

And the return of the crystal! Or possibly a different crystal that is associated with the last one!
It’s never made particularly clear!





Oh, hell to the yes.

Oh, it’s only beginning now? I mean, I guess, now that we’ve finally got crowns beyond the early-game-jack-of-all-trades, but still.

Krinjh has just up and disappeared.
This is why I didn’t give him the water tome, immediately after the boss fight he’s gone and takes everything he had on him with him, and the water tome can’t be bought in stores right now. (Granted, neither can the water knife, but that’s much more expendable.)


Dammit, Paul, I thought you were done with the whole “Krinjh makes me feel inadequate” subplot!
Hell, you weren’t even useless anyway! You were on water tome duty, we literally couldn’t have beaten the boss without you!

Well, whatever. Stepping on the magic circle takes us out of the dungeon.

So, let’s take a moment to talk about Black Mage and white Mage.
Black Mage just out-and-out lops a single AP from the cost of any black magic spell, reducing turns wasted on boosting drastically.

Magic Mojo is nothing special by comparison, but it’s still nice.
Most importantly, of course, is that Black Mage comes with an intelligence modifier that makes spells drastically more effective than they were with Freelancer or Wayfarer.

White Mage, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, does to white magic AP costs what Black Mage did to black magic.


Healthgiver makes healing magic work on the entire party and you have it right out of the starting gate; I don’t think I even need to explain why this is good.
Both crowns have more abilities to play with as they’re upgraded with gems, I’ll get to that when the time comes. Notably, Black Mage is one of the only crowns that’s practical to upgrade fully.

Anyway, back to Guera. Not much has changed, but there are a few new lines:



So, Krinjh hinted at there being something off about the king of Guera, and that it has something to do with his dead girlfriend becoming the Sand Devil. Now, we’ve beaten the Sand Devil, and there are rumors going around about the king being dead.
Ah well, I’m sure it’s nothing major.


Guess we’d better look into the whole king-being-dead thing.

Sounds like a plan to me, buddy.

Checking into the inn…

…Paul, no. Paul, stop. Don’t split the party even more, Paul.
: If only I had stronger magic and better crowns. Then I could take out all the bad guys myself… Bam! Pow!
Paul, you really, really don’t need to keep the whole inadequacy subplot going. You’re really, definitely fine.

Just then, a kitty walks up to Paul! A smart kitty, too, by the looks of things!
: Cool! So Guera is here… and Arbor is here… Wait! Didn’t Krinjh say something about Arbor?
: I know! I should go to Arbor. They’ll be able to help lift the curse from Horne. I’m going there right now!

Yes! Keep the kitty in our party!

Kitty!

Wait, what? No! I wanted to go adventuring with the kitty!
This is why we can’t have nice things.



:radio:YouTube Link: Liberte
:radio:YouTube Link: Liberte (night)
Oh right, the other half of the party.



… …
I’m… I’m sorry, folks. I got nothing.
This won’t be a particularly common problem, I promise.

: We should be grateful they took us in. At least they gave us a place to stay.
: Are you joking? I’m a VIP! The second princess of the kingdom of Horne!

Man, nuts to that. We’re royalty, let us flaunt it!

If we answer “Okay:”

: I have a bad feeling about all this. I just think it’s best if we lay low for a while.
: But that doesn’t mean I have to stay in this stinky little room the WHOLE time.
: I’m going out, and don’t try to stop me!
While it’s still a “but thou must,” at least there’s completely different dialogue for each choice. Progress!

And now for someone completely different.
NOTE: See my next post for a semi-important poll!

New Crowns:

Click for new crowns!

Black Mage

Stat modifiers:
HP: 1.0
Strength: 0.8
Intellect: 1.6
Spirit: 1.2

It’s the offensive magic class of the game! This is a game where offensive magic is extremely good! The result: Black Mage in this game is extremely good! It reduces AP cost of black magic spells and has abilities to boost their offensive capabilities.
It’s also interesting to note that they’ve replaced the typical pointy wizard hat with a dapper top hat.

White Mage

Stat modifiers:
HP: 1.0
Strength: 0.7
Intellect: 1.3
Spirit: 1.6

About what you’d expect from the healer of the game. Reduces white magic AP costs by 1, the ability to target the entire party with healing spells is nice. Always practical to keep around.

2 Likes

So, now we have our first crowns that aren’t just beginning-of-the-game-jack-of-all-trades. This means that we’ll need to figure out our party layout!
We’re going to be switching between different chunks of the party for awhile. As such, I’ve decided to ask the thread what crowns we should be using after every party switch. (I’ll need to figure something else out when we’ve reached the point where we have a full party but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)
For now, we’re playing as George solo, and since crowns are apparently kept in the same time-and-space defying bag they used in the branched scenario segment of FFVI, she currently has access to the Black Mage and White Mage crowns. As such, I ask you this:
For her solo segment, should George be a Black Mage or a White Mage?
(Poll closing in… I dunno, a few days.)

  • White Mage
  • Black Mage

0 voters

How to instantly turn anyone off from your Let’s Play thread: Be a whiny shit about things you don’t like in the thread title.

No one gives a crap about your psychotic obsession with an entirely different game, and seeing that in the thread title makes me think you think it’s clever to jump on the “other people like this thing, but I’m going to be a delusional loser because I don’t!” bandwagon.

It’s not amusing, it’s not clever, and based on what you claim the creators of another game think (which isn’t true in the slightest), it just tells me this thread is just as likely to be filled with ignorant pompous crap just like the title and opening post.

It’s amazing that both Black and White Mage remain useful for the whole game just because of that AP cost decrease they both have.


And here I was thinking that White Mage actually stood a chance here. Ah well, Black Mage it is!

1 Like

I mean, the options are between “top hat” and “not top hat,” so…

Update #4: Money Can Buy Her Love

Click for update 4!


:radio:YouTube Link: Liberte
We begin our adventure with George in Liberte.

The thread voted on George becoming a black mage, so here we are.

This will not matter as much as I had thought it did.


John doesn’t really have anything new to say.

That being said, it was awful nice of them to let us use the fanciest house.

Takin’ a look around the town, starting from the top.



Art-stealing pirates, you say? Sounds like a lead to me!

It kind of looks like they don’t go anywhere but these stairs do in fact lead to another floor.


:crown:: I want you to think of Liberte as your own country. Feel free to come and go as you please.
I almost want to see the look on this guy’s face when he learns that he said this to another country’s royalty and realizes what that implies.
(I don’t remember if he ever actually learns that or not. :V)




That shop actually has two vendors in it; the most interesting things are the new armors sold by the equipment seller.

The black robe is, obviously, the “official” companion to the Black Mage crown. Fittingly, it is dapper as hell.

A locked lighthouse, you say? Well, I’m sure said lighthouse won’t contain any sort of incredibly tedious optional dungeon or anything like that.


: Why, that’s terrible!
:baby:: Please, can you help me?
From art thieves to kidnappers. That escalated in a hurry!

Downstairs there’s a chest that blocked by a wall unless you’re on the stairs.
The ring is neat but not really useful at present as we have no physical attackers.
(This doesn’t stop me from equipping it on George in a fit of absentmindedness, though. :V)

Well, while we’re here we should probably greet our neighbors.

…neighbors who consist solely of a strange door, apparently. Oh well, nothing important, I’m sure.




:3: Kitty has a house all to himself! :3:


That’s all for the north half of town, now for the south!

That’s… alarming. This is just treated as a normal thing?


:anchor:: We love the ocean, and we love freedom. That’s what piratin’ be all about!

:anchor:: You want to know the secret password? Arr, that I canna tell you!
So Liberte has a fancy magic cop organization but these guys are allowed to just hang around in broad daylight, even though everyone apparently knows they’re thieves and kidnappers?

:guardsman:: Drake would be the first to admit he loves plundering treasure, but I never took him to be the type to kidnap innocents.
I’m pretty sure it’s still you guys’ job to deal with that, though!

Pretty considerate whirlpool to not do any permanent damage.



This is the same inventory as one of the guys in the northern shop; notably, they both sell these fancy, expensive boots.



So… about those whirlpools at night…

Northern half of the town is blocked after dark, eh?


:radio:YouTube Link: Liberte (night)
Well, not if I can help it!

Homeowner Cat has been replaced by a rather large pig.
A pig that is apparently fond of breaking the fourth wall.

In actuality, getting up here when it’s supposed to be blocked off turns the place into a sort of low-key version of the developers’ room from FFIV. It’s not much more than an Easter Egg, but it’s neat, and it’s not available for very long so now’s the best time to get a look at it.

There’s also this kinda spoiler-y hint. We’ll be seeing what she’s talking about later.

The soundtrack is quite nice, at least in my opinion!



Oh man it’s Akihiko Yoshida! I loved your work on Final Fantasy Tactics!
Dude appreciates the simple things in life. (I forget to actually look at the gull, for the record. :V)

What odd place to be tutorializing. Helpful to know, I suppose.

:computer:: Thanks for exploring so far into the game!
I actually didn’t know this place existed until a few days ago, so good job hiding it, I suppose.


:computer:: Let’s create a game together!
And that’s all there is to see up here. Not much, but it’s an interesting little extra.
(We end in the inn here because you need to rest to get past the whirlpool and I forgot we could rest at our house.)

Speaking of the inn, this guy gives us an interesting lead, but we should probably deal with the hostage situation before worrying about treasure.

I guess we should tell John about the situation too, I guess.

Nah, I was just kidding.

Honestly, John may be a prick but I’d probably be annoyed by someone doing this to me.
Anyway, let’s tell the truth:

: …Forget it. We’re foreigners here. It’s none of our business.
: You’re a subject of Horne, aren’t you?
: Er, yeah. So?
: Then you should know I am the second princess of the realm. That means you have to do what I say!
: All right, all right. Just stop shrieking at me, okay?
The lesson here: temper tantrums work.
Granted, she’s not wrong, per se, but it’s not like there’s anyone to enforce Horne’s royal decrees anyway.

We also learn that I grossly misremembered this part of the game. Hahahaha whoops. I’m not even really sure why I thought this was a solo section.
I think it’s because Aire gets cursed at the end of this section while Jusqua doesn’t so I jumped to the conclusion that she’s by herself for all of it.
And I’d already held a poll for what crown George would be using and everything. Just my luck.



Then again, since I’d rather have only one of each crown in our active party at any given time, the only real difference in the poll if I’d actually remembered things correctly would be “should George be a Black Mage while John is White, or the other way around?” and George was voted Black Mage anyway, so John is now our White Mage.


Setting aside my own fumbles, John just so happened to supply us with our destination.



I’m… I’m just gonna pretend you never said that.

Love! Wait, no, courage!

:anchor:: No spies allowed, by order of Cap’n Drake himself!
He says the same thing for either response.
If you remember, one of the pirates back in town (the one that didn’t say anything about not telling you the password) wouldn’t shut up about freedom and how it was the pirate band’s mottow.

That gives us access to our next dungeon.


We are immediately presented with a branch, wherein we head left.

But we knew the password, doesn’t that make us part of the crew?


That’s helpful of you, considering the last guy’s attitude.


At the end of this branch, we find a reasonably okay sum of gil.
…Wait a minute, the captain wasn’t farther along inside at all! Well played, not-actually-helpful pirate. Well played.

Backtracking to the branch and heading right:

At least you have no problem just telling us you’re useless.



…I guess that’s… better than what the guard at the entrance said? I guess?

We’re in the home stretch, but first…

…there’s treasure to be had!


The guard isn’t especially difficult.

He was guarding his own weakness, apparently. We don’t really have a use for this at present, unfortunately.

Just another lizardman.


This, on the other hand, is an improvement for George.


Now that’s a pirate captain if I’ve ever seen one!

:dragon_face:: …For I not be the Captain Drake ye think I am!

Welp.

:radio:YouTube Link: Strong Enemy

This guy isn’t extremely difficult but he has some tricks up his sleeve.
Also, contrary to what the loot on the last floor implies, he is not weak to earth (or any other element, for that matter).

He can hit both party members; it isn’t much on its own, however…

…he can boost his attack with berserk, which can be a problem if it catches you off guard…

…which it promptly does to me.

Dude catching me off guard causes my first real game over (that wasn’t me dying deliberately to show what happens when you die).

Luckily, I’m better prepared the second time.



I just needed to make better use of my resources is all.


This time he goes down without too much trouble.

All that’s left is the staircase ahead of us.

…and a random encounter giving us a surprisingly cool drop, it seems.
This makes it so physical attacks have a chance of inflicting sleep.

Anyway, the next room is bursting at the seams with treasure.




The description here isn’t very clear; what it means is that using the hunting horn automatically starts an encounter, making it handy for grinding.


Not all of it is immediately helpful but it’s a nice haul.

: We came here to save you!
: Well, SHE did. I’m just along for the ride.
:paintbrush:: Thank you! They were forcing me to make more works of art, but I was sick with worry about Apollo.
:paintbrush:: * sigh * I just can’t survive without my boy and a view of the Sea of Liberte.

: He’s fine. He’s looking forward to seeing you back home again.
:woman:: * sigh * That’s a weight off my mind.

:dragon:: …I’m mighty sorry, maties. I caused ye much trouble.
Now that we’ve taken care of the rest of the room, it’s about time we checked out the big, glittering statue in the middle of the room.

: What are you blubbering about?
: B-but look at it!

: Eh? But can’t you see the little flying creature?

:question:: I am in your debt, and the Arbor folk never forget a debt.
Remember that Paul was headed for Arbor at the end of last update.

: Er, I’m George.
:beetle:: It’s a pleasure, George.
: You really need to stop talking to yourself like that. People might get the wrong idea…

“Joins” is kind of a strong term here. Lilibelle isn’t actually a party member who does anything in battle or anything, she just shows up in cutscenes.


:dragon:: Of course I am, ye lily-livered fool! Now take this artist back to his home in Liberte, and be quick about it.
:paintbrush:: I will bid you farewell for now. I don’t know if I can ever repay you, but please visit us when you return to Liberte.
To recap: we’ve learned that the pirates were only kidnapping people because their captain had been replaced with a demon. Nothing to be concerned about, I’m sure.

Time to make our way back to Liberte!

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Update #6: Step Inside Liberte
Advance warning: this update’s dungeon is one of them navigating-the-guts-of-a-giant-critter types. No blood or gore, it’s no more extreme than Lord Jabu Jabu from Ocarina of Time; however, discretion is still advised if you’re disturbed by that sort of thing.

Click for update 6!


It’s about time we made out triumphant return to Liberte!
(After waiting until daytime to have access to the whole town, of course.)

:radio:YouTube Link: Liberte
A few of the townspeople have new things to say.

:guardsman:: I hope you’ll stay in Liberte and help us make the oceans safe for everyone!
Most of it is, in fact, recognition of our heroism.


It’s about damn time we did something with that whirlpool, really.



:dragon:: Fire be yer friend if ye find yerself fighting water-element beasties.
Also note that both party members have water shields equipped, this will be important in a bit.

Huh, guess the cat did have an owner, how about that.


Oh, I’m sure this curse won’t mean anything.




This is +1 to defense and magic defense. It goes on John for keeping-our-healer-alive purposes.

:paintbrush:: You’re going to be the inspiration for my next work of art.





Oh, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that all sorts of bad stuff is suddenly going down everywhere at once; you’re just being paranoid, guy.


I know most of this is pointless but it still feels kind of nice for the townsfolk in a JRPG to actually be grateful for your heroism for once.



Anyway, it’s been a long adventure, this seems like a good time to head back to the house and rest up.

: Yes, but look at what we found. Isn’t the room so much more beautiful now?
: Don’t tell me you want to go hunting for more treasure!
: Why not? We’ve got a lot to do before this place looks as grand as my room back in Horne!
: Ah, whatever. I need to sleep.
This automatically triggers a rest.



:beetle:: Are you all right? You were tossing and turning all night.
: I just can’t relax in this dingy little room. I’m a princess, you know. I’m used to luxury.
: I don’t suppose you know where I can find some nicer things for the room?
:beetle:: Well, er…
:beetle:: I heard there’s great treasure hidden in the bottom of the whirlpool.
:beetle:: Legend says it was reserved for the eyes of artisans who crafted the finest Liberte glasswork…

:beetle:: Yes, but I wouldn’t try finding it if I were you.
: Why not? Let’s go!

: Oh, come on, lazy bones, get out of bed. We’re going treasure hunting!
In other news, the princess is still spoiled and John is still a prick.



Night falls…

.…and it’s time to finally enter the whirlpool!

:radio:YouTube Link: Cave of Wraiths
…and we’re inside something’s guttyworks. Excellent. Just excellent. At least it’s surprisingly well-lit.

(oh god and we don’t even know what orifice we went in from either)

In this first room there are these pools; stepping in them causes negligible damage to your lead character. They’re not really worth worrying about.

In the upper-right corner of the room we have… uh… this thing.


… …
That is not a fucking lever.

We pull down the thing and it apparently alters the giant critter’s anatomy in some way.
Great. Good.

Rare drop from a fish in a random encounter. These add water elemental damage to their wearer’s physical attacks. Given that every monster here is water-based, I pop outside the dungeon to drop these off in storage.

Making our way north after hitting the… uh… “switch.”


After a short walk through the kinda-winding corridor to the north we come to this passage with a pair of… let’s call them flaps at the end. These are the “door” the “switch” from before opened.
I would like to take this moment to point out that, for the entire time we’re here, it is never actually acknowledged that we’re clearly inside something’s guts.

The passage takes us to an encounter.

The encounter is over in a single hit.

We get something that is decidedly quite useful.
This goes on George since John already has the charm from earlier.

Anyway, back to the intersection to take the other route.

That is one inorganic-looking set of stairs for a place like this.



We come across another of these uvula “switches” as we next passageway. This one does not appear to have changed anything.

We pass the “door” on the way and it appears to still be closed.

As an aside, these things can inflict silence; this is why (well, one of the reasons why) one of the NPCs outside tells you to bring Echo Herbs.

From here we can see something resembling progress in the distance…

But on the way there, we run into this!
This is a Metal Flan. As can be ascertained from its name, it is basically a wholesale reference to the Metal Slimes of Dragon Quest fame.

That being said, it goes down with much less trouble than its namesake.


Still, it gives a healthy chunk of EXP and drops a rare gem normally only found on bosses at this point.


Now that that little bit of sidetracking is over, we make our way to the other switch. This time it seems to have actually done something.

Sure enough, the “door” we passed before is now open.

…only to immediately lead to another closed one.

We take the left branch on this intersection first…


…which leads us to another intersection.

Taking the bottom branch first leads us to a spare Echo Herb.

Taking the left branch…


…brings us to a pair of “switches”.

Anyway, back to the intersection at the “door.”

There’s another intersection almost right away, we’ll hit the passage north on our way back.

The next intersection lets us go north, south, and southeast.

The north branch gets us an item that will be helpful elsewhere…

…while the southeast branch takes us to another conspicuously inorganic staircase.


This mimic is also dispatched in a single turn.

This weapon is also going to be useful elsewhere rather than here.

Taking the south branch of the previous intersection…

…leads only to another uvula.

The last “switch” is down the path I said we’d get on the way back.


Luckily, that’s the last door of the dungeon.

A treasure chest sitting in the middle of a pool? Not suspicious in the slightest!

:beetle:: Yes, George, he’s right. We should leave.
: No way, not when we’ve come so far. That treasure is so close I can almost taste it!



:radio:YouTube Link: Strong Enemy
Someone who’s willing to apparently just chill in a place as gross as this is probably someone we want dead anyway, all things considered.

Luckily, it’s weak to fire.


Not-so-luckily, it’s got a fondness for negative status effects.
That said, the only one that’s really a problem is silence and we have Echo Herbs for that.

Not that it matters much anyway; all of its attacks are water-based and both members have water-negating gear equipped.

George even has two, negating this altogether.

It goes down without a hitch.
It can also use a water attack that hits the whole party and has a chance of afflicting status effects; it never actually had a chance to do it here, though.


: Argh, I’ve had enough of this!
: Enough of what?
: You! This partnership is over, princess… From now on, all my adventures are going to be strictly solo!
: I may be a citizen of Horne, but I’m not your personal servant.
: Hmph. Suit yourself. Come on, Lilibelle. It’s just you and me now!
:beetle:: But I… I’m scared…


John has himself a nice healthy facepalm…
: I’m outta here…

…and then splits, leaving us with a solo George party.

Lilibelle seems to be unhappy about the whole situation but I’m sure everything will be fine.

For example, more treasure for us.

…or perhaps not.


George is spouted into the air outside of Liberte…


…and lands in the northern part of town.

In the form of a cat.

Welp, nobody can say George wasn’t warned about this, but goddamn is it a strange form for a curse to take.
: (A tail?)

George is rather understandably freaked out about this.
: (I don’t understand! What’s going on? Someone? Anyone?)
And now we’re wandering around Liberte as a cat, searching for help.

The townspeople are, not surprisingly, unhelpful about the whole thing; they all just say some variation on “You’re a kitty!”

The local wildlife, on the other hand, are now quite chatty. How a cat and seagull are able to speak to each other is not explained.

That said, all the shops and such are happy to provide their services to the cat that’s miraculously able to pay them money.


This also means we can actually talk to the save point’s little buddy here.
:dog2:: I’m the Adventurer’s faithful fox companion. Side by side we travel the world.
:dog2:: I can’t save your game, but I might be able to tell you the latest news and rumors I’ve heard.

Meanwhile, the save point has the same attitude towards cats the shopkeeps do.




The seagulls appear to be a fair bit smarter than the rest of the local wildlife…

…seeing as they know where our house is and all.

Apollo appears to have been pestering John this whole time.
:baby:: Say, mister. Where did your nice lady friend to?
: Who cares? All she ever thinks about is herself anyway.
: I decided to split up from her and go solo. She goes her way, I go mine…
:baby:: …

Unsurprisingly, neither Apollo nor John appear able to recognize us in our altered state.

That said, Lilibelle may have abilities that those two do not.

: You can understand me?
:beetle:: Of course. We Arbor faeries can talk to animals. But it looks like someone has put a hex on you.
: Will I ever be human again?
:beetle:: I don’t know. But maybe if you talked to the queen of Arbor…
: Really? She can help? Lilibelle, you HAVE to take me there, right now!
:beetle:: Okay. But what about John?

(Somehow this line has not one but two typos in it. Nothing major, really, but it amused me nonetheless.)
: He made it quite clear I wasn’t welcome. So I said fine and now I’m going solo.

:beetle:: It will show you how to get to Arbor. First you have to pass through the western mountains into the desert.
A cat? With a map? Crossing a desert? Surely nothing to do with anything we’ve seen before.


For someone as uninterested in stray cats as John he sure is a-okay with her sleeping in the same room.

Anyway, Lilibelle pointed us in a westerly direction.


Worth pointing out is that being a cat has not changed George’s ability in battle in the slightest. She even gets a new catlike victory pose! :3:

With that, we have our destination for next time.