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
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. 
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. 
I decided I’ll do that now before I forget. Just… just pretend this was part of update 2.
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:
: 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.
: 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.
YouTube Link: Magic Kingdom Guera
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!
: 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?
: Yes. IF you can rid us of that pestilent Sand Devil, we will be very much in your debt.
: 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
Warning: Brief, bizarrely out-of-place bit of light sexism near the end
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.
YouTube Link: Liberte
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.
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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.
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!
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.
: 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!
: 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.
Kitty has a house all to himself!
That’s all for the north half of town, now for the south!
That’s… alarming. This is just treated as a normal thing?
: We love the ocean, and we love freedom. That’s what piratin’ be all about!
: 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?
: 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?
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.
: 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.
: 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!
: 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!
: …For I not be the Captain Drake ye think I am!
Welp.
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.
: Thank you! They were forcing me to make more works of art, but I was sick with worry about Apollo.
: * 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.
: * sigh * That’s a weight off my mind.
: …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?
: 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.
: 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.
: Of course I am, ye lily-livered fool! Now take this artist back to his home in Liberte, and be quick about it.
: 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.)
YouTube Link: Liberte
A few of the townspeople have new things to say.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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?
: Well, er…
: I heard there’s great treasure hidden in the bottom of the whirlpool.
: Legend says it was reserved for the eyes of artisans who crafted the finest Liberte glasswork…
: 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!
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!
: 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!
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!
: 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.
: I’m the Adventurer’s faithful fox companion. Side by side we travel the world.
: 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.
: 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…
: …
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?
: 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?
: 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!
: 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.
: 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!
With that, we have our destination for next time.
I feel like being Cat makes you hit less hard physically so I was really thankful that I was mageing it up at the time.
I’ll need to look into cat form having actual mechanical effects when I have free time; I’ve always been under the impression that it didn’t really change anything in battle but I guess it would make sense for a literal cat claw to do less damage than a sword.
EDIT: Apparently strength, intellect, and spirit are reduced to 70% when in cat form. The more you know, I guess.
Update #7: I’ve Been Working Like a Cat
Click for update 7!
Time to pass through the desert on our way to Arbor!
YouTube Link: Cave of Wraiths
But first, a short dungeon.
There are some encounters but they’re nothing to write home about.
Well, almost nothing.
So, this boss.
This boss’s thing is that-
…nevermind.
…I mean, she got hit with damage in the high four figures, Lilibelle…
: Unngh…
Luckily, Lilibelle apparently has anti-bear capabilities.
There’s a flash of light, and…
…suddenly it’s Lilibelle dying and George feeling a-okay.
: Lilibelle? LILIBELLE!?
: But why…? Why did you do this for me?
: The Arbor folk… never forget a debt.
: Remember, you saved me once… and now I have saved you.
: Lilibelle!
…oh dear.
Oh, hey, it’s been awhile.
: Beauty beyond reckoning fills this wondrous world.
: Yet that same beauty warps souls and incites war.
: Remember now, there is no beauty greater than life itself.
One of our friends gave her life for us mere minutes ago, but hey, new toys!
We’ll get to the new crowns in a bit.
First and foremost, however, the end of the dungeon is a short walk down the rest of the hallway.
YouTube Link: Walking the Ground
YouTube Link: Walking the Ground (night)
We see a familiar sight.
A very familiar sight.
An incredibly familiar sight.
YouTube Link: Guera
YouTube Link: Guera (night)
Well look at what we have here.
: 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!
: Sorry to ditch you, Ringo, but it’s time I struck out on my own… Huh? Are you coming, too, little one?
And so we see what the map-carrying cat was all about.
Paul will be wearing the bandit crown for a bit for demonstration purposes.
(BTW, there’s no poll for the makeup of this particular party for reasons that will be obvious soon enough.)
The townsfolk don’t exactly have much to talk about.
The critters, however, have tutorializing to do.
Also, cat-form George can fit into places a human cannot.
How did you get in here, lady?
How did Paul, for that matter?
When she said there are shops that open at night, she meant shop, singular.
We’ll get to that, but first…
…we still have places to go.
This will go on Paul but not for long.
Way ahead of you, roof cat!
(This passage is just a red herring, by the way.)
Now for some late night shopping!
After another tutorial pig, of course.
Our first bit of magic higher than tier 1. It’s definitely steep, but we still pick up Cura and Fira after parting with some gems.
With that out of the way, now’s a good time to be looking at our new crowns!
YouTube Link: Battle With Demons
First off, Bandit.
Not surprisingly, Bandit is your typical Final Fantasy thief.
Loads of stealing either nothing useful or nothing at all, as is tradition. Its upgrades make it better at stealing, it can be useful for getting certain pieces of equipment from bosses.
Also, we’ve gotten our hands on Bard:
Bard, too, is largely what you’d expect it to be; ditty here increases damage output for three turns and it unlocks more buffs later.
Anyway, now’s about time to set out for Arbor. (Paul is a Bandit here but won’t stay that way for long.)
Worth pointing out: now that we have the fairy map, pressing the Y button pulls up the entire world map (rather than just the desert around Guera as before).
YouTube Link: Cave of Wraiths
The fairy path has even less to it than the animal burrow.
There’s a few branches that lead to treasure but that’s about it.
(Getting this prompts a change from Bandit to White Mage for Paul, giving us basically the same party setup we’ve had with John.)
Worth pointing out is that there’s a slight-but-noticeable step up in difficulty here.
In particular, batter flies here use some obnoxious status effects.
Not much to mention outside the encounters, though.
It’s a very brief dungeon.
Arbor is, as it turns out, an enormous tree! Who knew?
(It’s also quite possibly the prettiest place in the game, holy hell look at that.)
We don’t make it very far in, however, before Paul is accosted by some vines…
…and transformed into what can only be called a statue made of plant matter.
George, understandably, is quite upset with this turn of events.
…but that’ll be a story for another time.
(This is why I didn’t ask the thread about party setup, incidentally; we’re reunited with Paul for all of a handful of seconds.)
The first thing we see, upon reuniting with John, is another cat wandering into the house.
: You must have been hit with the curse that protects the treasure. Oh well. Serves you right.
…so he comes to the correct conclusion with regards to what happened to George, down to the animal she was cursed to turn into… but not until he’s met the wrong cat.
Bonus points for having met the correct cat before and not caught on at all. Class act, John.
Talking to the cat again:
For whatever reason this cat feels the need to follow us around despite having no real connection to John.
Talking to it a few more times adds it (technically) to our party.
Not much help to be had from most of the townspeople, sadly.
Except for the king, of course.
That said, as we know, we haven’t actually found George at all:
: It’s very likely she was struck by the curse. Have you checked all the animals in town?
That said, now’s probably a reasonable time to humor John about the cat we’ve currently got:
: I see. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do for her in Liberte.
: There is a town in the north called Urbeth. People gather there from all over the world.
: Perhaps someone there can help you? It might be worth the trip.
So, Urbeth to the north, then.
Time to get on the road to Urbeth!
New Crowns
Click for new crowns!
Bandit
Stat Modifiers:
HP: 1.3
Strength: 1.3
Intellect: 1.2
Spirit: 1.1
Typical Final Fantasy thief. It’s useful early on but is outclassed soon enough; that said, it can be a useful way to get new equipment.
Bard
Stat Modifiers:
HP: 1.1
Strength: 1.0
Intellect: 1.3
Spirit: 1.3
Bard is a buff class and is actually fairly impressive at it. Doesn’t quite stay useful right up until the end, but it starts with a full-party attack buff and unlocks more from there.
Note: Crown distribution poll in next post!
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Crown Distribution
As of this update, we currently possess four crowns and have once again swapped parties. Currently we’re playing as John solo, but before long we’ll be picking up an old friend, giving us two party members to distribute crowns to. As such, I would like the thread to assign two crowns each to each party member:
John
- Black Mage
- White Mage
- Bandit
- Bard
0 voters
Upcoming Friend
- Black Mage
- White Mage
- Bandit
- Bard
0 voters
Polls will close in a few days; if there’s any sort of tie breaking needed I’ll figure something out then. :V
And we have our votes!
John will be playing with Black Mage and Bandit while the friend we’ll be picking up will get Bard and White Mage.
Update #8: I Was Wrong Before, NOW I’ve Been Working Like a Cat Dog
Click for update 8!
A few preparations and it’s time to set out for Urbeth!
YouTube Link: Cave of Wraiths
The first thing of note is this intersection.
That is, the first thing of note is how it’s actually a loop and there’s nothing to see to the left.
Most of the Hunting Cave is, in fact, optional. If we wanted we could just head north and leave and we’d be back on the world map.
Really, where’s the fun in that?
Instead, heading downstairs takes us to a little maze of sorts.
A maze that, of course, leads to treasure.
This axe is the only thing here that’s genuinely noteworthy…
…but the free stuff is still always nice.
With the optional stuff out of the way, there’s really not much to see.
YouTube Link: Walking the Ground
YouTube Link: Walking the Ground (night)
Urbeth is to the north, the tower on the end of the peninsula as seen on the map.
YouTube Link: Urbeth
YouTube Link: Urbeth (night)
And here we are!
We arrive in the first town we see without a king.
The merchant lords in question mean the town is divvied into quarters, based on what the shops sell.
This guy is the first I’d ever heard the phrase “hanging out my shingle,” but apparently it’s a real way to say you’re setting up shop. Educational!
That said, I’m sure we’ll never have a chance to open up shop ourselves and even if we did it certainly wouldn’t be a way to shatter the game’s balance into a trillion tiny pieces.
As an aside, we can walk in the canals. It doesn’t really help very much but it’s funny to see.
: It’s hard to believe now, but Urbeth was once a city of faith, where men treasured their souls more than their gold.
What sort of gods this world has/worships is never really explained. The closest thing we’ve seen to divinity is the crystal that gives us crowns, which is pretty vague itself. Maybe they used to worship the crystal?
Anyway, that shop with the hammer sign is actually new!
They upgrade weapons and armor with gems, not unlike upgrading crowns. What exactly this changes can be seen on the top screen.
It’s not really too useful right now, however. There’s a cap on how many upgrades can be done to one piece of equipment so it’s best to use on gear you expect to be using for a long time.
I got lucky and didn’t see any but Hellhounds can be encountered on the way here and have a pretty good chance of kicking your ass if you’re not expecting it.
So… they sell all the best stuff here, you say?
Bombs aren’t actually anywhere in this game so I guess you gotta get pieces of 'em somehow.
Mylion is in charge of the southeast corner of town. The shop here sells gear for White and Black Mages, as in Liberte, but also Bandit and Bard.
Strangely for the quarter of town controlled by the armor seller, we also have the local magic shop here.
However they don’t open until nighttime.
Anyway, let’s have a look at the southwest quarter.
This quarter is dedicated to potions and such; we can buy hi-potions now, as well as more status healers, although at current it’s a bit much for our wallet.
There’s also the conspicuously locked up shop. Must not have anything worthwhile if they’re always closed!
The shop next to bomb fragment tutorial guy plays host to Bylion here.
Yes, Bylion, after the last guy was Mylion. The first thing you’ll notice about the merchant lords is that their names are all horrible puns.
Like, really, really horrible puns. You’ll see what I mean in a bit.
Oddly enough, the other shop had a better selection.
Anyway, next up is the northeast corner:
I… didn’t say anything about evil spirits, guy, but I guess we can keep this in mind.
Let’s save the sorcerer for later, sounds unsavory to me.
We visit the house on the right here, first.
We’re not actually doing so hot right now, gil-wise, but nobody needs to know that. :V
Also, notice the creepy-ass dummy thing in the lower right corner of this screen; we’ve seen it in other buildings too but this is its most prominent appearance yet. If I were a betting man I’d say that’s the doll the guy outside was talking about.
Ah well, probably nothing to worry about.
Again, we’re not exactly affluent at the moment but these people don’t need to know that.
Why? If you ask me, they’re incredibly creepy.
: The leading merchants of each district more or less rule the city, so we call them the Merchant Lords.
: Which reminds me, have you been to Trylion’s accessory shop? Oh, I can’t wait for her newest collection…
Mylion, Bylion, and Trylion. Fuck me.
…Y’know, he ain’t wrong, but he’s also the only person we’ve ever met with an actual problem with this so I’m not inclined to be concerned.
He’s one of the only places in the world that does, in fact!
Luckily for Trylion, the rich seem a-okay with creepy dolls, otherwise that monstrosity in the upper right would be killing the shit out of her business.
She’s not lying, this is all pretty useful stuff.
It’s also very expensive, but them’s the breaks.
Anyway, there’s one last quarter of the city to check out:
We wouldn’t get to help her even if we were better off, sadly.
And this familiar face here we have why we saved this quarter for last.
: I suppose you don’t want me around, do you? I’ll just slow you down, won’t I?
There’s nothing we can do for Ringo right now, either. 
…holy damn is Urbeth not a pleasant place.
I think this may be the first bar we’ve seen in this game, too.
Of course, there’s not much to see in the middle of the day.
The weapon shop here is the biggest building in the town that isn’t the tower.
Apparently to this guy we look like we answer to the name Richie Rich. Must be the Bandit’s face-obscuring mask.
On the plus side, while it’s still a pun, “Thauzand” at least looks like a real name.
The most notable thing here is that apparently encyclopedias count as weapons; surprisingly tough ones at that. Your local library? More lethal than a gun store. Educational!
We were probably supposed to talk to this guy first in this building. Oh well! :V
Welp, that’s a disappointing lack of leads on fixing the princess who isn’t actually with us. I suppose it’s creepy doll sorcerer time. Aw, man…
Oh god it’s even creepier than I thought. Yeah, let’s not.
Yeah, sure, whatever you say, buddy.
Then again, this is the only lead we have at the moment…
Sorcerer: Let me have a look at her…
(Selecting no here is the same as the choice above.)
That is not a small number! That is a big number! Cat un-cursing over, expensive equals very yes!
: Hehehe. I’ll see you again- when you have the money.
Hey, Ringo’s a knight with experiences with douchey magic types, let’s ask her!
Oh, right, John is still very much an enormous prick.
Hey, the weapon shop’s right there, maybe the big guy will make good on what he said about us having problems in town.
Um… if I say yes, will you help me?
In that case, no, we’re here for something else.
: Well, er… why don’t you lend me counter space? Then I can sell some of my stuff.
: You want to open your own shop?
: Hahaha! I like your style. You’ve got chutzpah, that’s for sure.
Oh, fuck to the yes.
Fuck. To. The. Yes.
This may well be one of the most broken things in the entire game.
yeah yeah whatever let me do the thing
There’s not much for me to say right away that the tutorial doesn’t, but things will get more interesting soon enough
We have an over-abundance of phoenix downs at the moment so let’s just put 'em up at their normal price; we still haven’t gotten to the important part anyway.
YouTube Link: Business is Fun
It’s ridiculously broken and has absurdly catchy music.
Still not much to talk about, people just walk in and sometimes buy things. They do this until the timer in the top left has gone all the way from a sun to a moon.
YouTube Link: Victory
We sell everything but that’s to be expected without taking any real risks.
Okay, this line. Pay attention to this line.
This line here? This is where shit gets interesting.
Yes, we’re buying axes a mere handful of feet from where we set up shop.
yeah yeah same rigamarole as before LET ME DO THE THING
Quite the markup, isn’t it? Especially considering we bought them like a foot away.
Still, we’re doing this.
This. This right here. This is what makes this incredibly broken.
While there’s limits, as long as you’re selling based on the trend and only moderately ridiculous instead of obscenely ridiculous in your markup, this minigame is a surefire way to make a whole lotta bank in not a lotta time, absurd economic logic of the whole setup be damned.
what no that’s a terrible idea just let me do the thing
This is actually a viable strategy for getting a certain non-monetary reward from this but that will have to wait.
The pink text on the 5000g group signifies the “hot deal” tag; it means that it’s more likely to sell faster.
…of course, it’s still not a sure thing, since it didn’t help now while I was trying to show it off :V.
By contrast, this time it was the only thing that sold.
When it says that adventuring supplies are in it’s best to just put up one thing and hope for better next time, really.
It’s also possible to just get screwed over by RNG sometimes, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re persistent enough.
Really, that’s enough for you to get the idea. Buy low, sell high, laugh in the face of simple economics, get obscenely rich. Again, it’s kind of fiddly and the RNG doesn’t always necessarily cooperate, but it pretty much annihilates any gil problems you might have with just a degree of persistence.
There’s also a secondary reward to be had should you make 20k in a single game, but that more or less requires selling at a loss and I’d rather have a more comfortable sum of gil to sit on before I start into that.
Worth noting is that, while the timer for the minigame is apparently a day’s worth of sales, the actual day-night cycle doesn’t budge an inch, as per usual in towns. As such, since sometimes magic spells are what people will buy, it’s actually a good idea to wait outside until nighttime so that the magic store is open.
And it is quite the nice magic store, let me tell you. The game (probably) doesn’t really expect you to be able to get Firaga and Waterga at this point, but the minigame can change that handily.
Speaking of nighttime, this is when the bar gains actual patrons.
: But now everyone is so obsessed with money, money, money, that they have no interest in the world above.
The island in question shows up floating in the sky at random; it’s actually snuck into a few of my screenshots already.
Combining this with what the earlier guy said about the tower, there’s a real possibility that the island is home to some gods, which… well, makes sense, all things considered.
Follow your dreams, piano lady. Follow your dreams.
This is tentative, but having more cash for bigger, badder spells makes John quite the killboy.
While I’ve made more than enough on the shop minigame to pay the sorcerer for his nonsense, we should maybe see if the other lords are as willing to help as Thauzand.
I mean, not really.
Then again, the lady drives a hard bargain.
The rings take up inventory space and are useless. This is as simple as talking to all the randos in town until someone willing to buy actually does.
We can technically say no, but…
…honestly the rings are useless otherwise…
…so it’s better just to part with 'em and be done with it.
I don’t know if you can even find this guy during the daytime so here he is in the bar.
And this last rich asshole is on the top floor of the inn.
: Then I must pay you, musn’t I? Here you are…
Not gonna lie, the fact that you even question that fact is kind of a red flag, lady.
This is chump change compared to mini game money but it’s next to no effort at all so I don’t mind too much.
I mean, that’s honestly a terrible idea, but I can humor you for half a second I suppose.
…fair enough, I guess.
Should we refuse outright:
…rich people are such pricks.
There are still two more lords, of course. The correct answer here is, again, to say no.
: Ah, I get it. If you’re not here to spend, you must be here to earn! Am I right?
: …Come to think of it, I just might have a job for you. You see, there’s a Chimera lurking around in the Hunting Caves.
: It’s playing havoc with our supply chain. Do you fancy going to the Hunting Caves and getting rid of it?
: Great. The sooner you finish the job, the better!
And the last of the lords.
: Then you’re looking for a job, perhaps?
: Hm. I do need people to collect materials for me.
: At the moment, we’re very short of Bomb Fragments, the kind that certain local monsters carry.
: I’ll give you a very good price for any you can bring me.
So. A Chimera and bomb fragments, you say?
I wonder what Ringo thinks about odd jobs.
: No you won’t. Come on, you want to help save George, don’t you?
: Th-the princess? Where is she?
Lower-key prickishness is progress, at least.
: …Never mind. If you’re going to help the princess, then I’m coming, too!
To the surprise of no one, hopefully.
This is honestly kind of a dick move of the game. She’ll join up if you talk to her after completing one of the side quests -not the minigame- given by the merchant lords. It’s entirely possible for you to make enough cash with the minigame, use that money to make progress, then get your ass kicked in the next segment because you went forward with a solo Jusqua/John, none the wiser as to how you actually get Yunita/Ringo in your team.
Anyway, more tentative gearing up. I do want to get my Bandit and Bard on, hence the tentativeness of my current setup, but the excellent selection at the magic shop here makes the mage crowns that much more tempting.
: I’ve been cheated and conned by so many people in Urbeth I can’t stand to think about it any more!(sic)
And they do it all so they can buy those weird, creepy dolls.
Pricks.
That we do, John, that we do.
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