Tag Archives: Star Ocean Second Story

Star Ocean The Second Story R – Post 3

Leave a reply

Past Posts

Post 1

Post 2

***** SPOILERS THROUGHOUT POST *****

Rushed Finale

Once you get to Energy Nede the game feels a bit rushed, a not uncommon trait for the end of games. After you get a Psynard to fly you’re given four dungeons to go to to get orbs to power up to face the Wise Men. But these Orbs never actually do anything. I actually forgot why I was getting them while fetching them.

After some plot points to get what you need to hurt the Wise Men they just start throwing them at you. Other games might put one or two of their new antagonists per dungeon but you’ll just start mowing down Wise Men. It just feels like during development they were like, “We just introduced 10 badass antagonists but we need to wrap the game up so start grouping them together and boss rush them out of the way.”

Final Dungeon and Bosses

Zadkiel, Camael, and Raphael

The first few Wise Men fights are four-on-one. This one has three Wise Men come at you and they’re decently tricky. Camael and Raphael use a lot of spells, including the all-hitting spells you have. They can spam them, they can’t be dodged, and it seemed like they couldn’t be disrupted.

Phynal – The final dungeon. I liked the puzzles here. The idea is there are colored switches. In any room you can activate one switch and the other colors are deactivated. The trick is that any colors not in that room aren’t affected. So if you activate yellow, go to a room without yellow and activate red, then red and yellow are both active. It was a lot less tedious than the Field of Wisdom.

Lucifer

The penultimate fight. The boss theme is Incarnation of Devil, a recurring theme through the rest of the series. Lucifer has all-hitting spells and constantly targets units close by with lightning strikes to disrupt combos and whittle away HP. He also has an instant death attack that poor Ashton kept biting it to.

Gabriel

The final boss. As you’d expect he has powerful spells and some new, flashy new ones. For some of his attacks it seems like some sort of angel is holding them back, a hint to the postgame content that reveals more of his true nature. Ultimately, Gabriel is like much of the endgame foes: powerful but not powerful enough to handle an overleveled, overequipped party. Ashton kept biting the dust but Claude kept himself up (and sometime Ashton) with Sword of Life.

Difficulty

Star Ocean Second Story R got a -4.55 on the difficulty spreadsheet. That’s 172nd out of 193, 10th percentile. It’s next to games like TMNT: Hyperstone Heist, Dragon Quest Treasures, and Trials of Mana. That seems a bit low since I did have quite a few losses. But the very forgiving retries and multitude of ways to become way more powerful than the enemies make it fair that it’d be pretty low.

Conclusions

This was a fun game and I see why series fans love it. The specialties system was overwhelming but it became a lot of fun to build up and interacted in a way I haven’t seen in other games. The remake introduced a lot of quality of life improvement and I’ve learned those are great ways to modernize old games. Now I’m wishing for a similar remake of SO3.

***** PLOT SECTION *****

First Assault on the Wise Men

Nall finally breaks it to the crew that Expel has been destroyed. However, there’s hope. Nede has time displacement technology that could be used to transport an intact Expel from before the disaster to the present time, saving it. Unfortunately, it’d take all the power on Energy Nede to do this and the Ten Wise Men have taken over the city of Phynal as their HQ. All the more reason to defeat the Ten Wise Men.

Claude and the Nedian Defense Force attack Phynal. They’re met with three Wise Men. They’re unable to scratch the Wise Men at all. They mock the group, explaining that their shields will block all known forms of weaponry. To further demonstrate their power, they ready a cannon to fire at a spaceship lurking nearby… the Calnus! Claude can only watch as the firepower from the Wise Men wears down the shields on the Calnus until it is destroyed, killing all onboard including Claude’s father. However, with no way to harm the Wise Men the group is forced to retreat.

Truth of Nede

This was a sidequest I found interesting. Chisato, the Nedian reporter that joins the group, points out how strange Nedian history is. It paints a picture of an altruistic galactic government but Chisato knows that there’s always an opposing view to any group. However, there’s no record of anyone that thinks the Nedian Empire wasn’t awesome.

A series of sidequests unlocks records in a computer that tells a different story. Rebellions indeed rose up against the Nedian Empire. Then the Nedians created the Ten Wise Men; they were originally a rebel suppression force before they turned against Nede.

There’s even more to the story but it’s revealed in postgame content and turns the final boss into a superboss so I didn’t trigger it.

Preparations and Rena’s Past

A woman named Dr. Mirage says she can infuse antimatter in the group’s weapons which will allow them to harm the Ten Wise Men. For that she needs them to gather data from the ruins of the Symbological Weapons Laboratory. Not only do they find the data they need but they find out about Rena’s origins.

The lab operated hundreds of millions of years ago during the Nedian Empire. A disaster befell it and it was going to self-destruct. The head of the lab, Rhima, couldn’t get out in time. Her daughter was Rena. In a desperate bid to save Rena she used an experimental time displacement device. The device saved Rena’s life: it transported her millions of years into the future onto Expel.

The Final Assault

With the antimatter weapons the group can now fight the Ten Wise Men. Several attack the other cities on Energy Nede. The heroes begin mowing them down in chunks. I mentioned in my Tactics Ogre posts how refreshing it was for the antagonists to respect and even fear the protagonists. That definitely wasn’t the case here.

Of course, it’s common for antagonists to stay cocky until the end. It just was a bit funnier in this case. These dudes have been together for thousands of millennia and nobody’s ever been able to scratch them. You’d think it would freak them out a bit more when they begin dropping like flies.

Once again the group assaults Phynel. They find the remaining Wise Men and work through them. At the end is Gabriel, their leader. The heroes fight and defeat him. However, he’s already activated the Symbol of Annihilation. This Symbol will destroy the universe by causing the Big Crunch (opposite of Big Bang, makes the universe collapse). The team is prepared with the Symbol of Divinity.

Problem is the Symbol of Divinity isn’t a complete counteraction. The energy still needs to go somewhere. And it will: to Energy Nede! Energy Nede is doomed but Nall was prepared for this. He says its penance for Nede’s past. Damn man, as bad as your empire might have been that was almost a billion years ago; I think the statute of limitations is up on that. Nevertheless, there’s no other way. The only Nedian survivors will be those in your party.

Energy Nede is destroyed. But before it is, it brings Expel back as promised.

Endings

It’s tradition in the SO series to have character-specific endings. And some characters can pair together. This game has Friendship values for each pair of characters that will determine who gets paired up. Here are the endings I got:

Noel – Happily living at a cabin on Expel with a bunch of animals.

Bowman – Back to his pharmacy. His friend Keith comes in, having finished translating the ancient text the team gave to him a third of the way through the game. I completely forgot about that. Keith says it describes some ancient society of gods. Bowman correctly guesses it’s about Nede.

Celine and Ashton – Seemingly a couple, Ashton accompanies Celine clothes shopping. A hapless Ashton tries to please Celine and ends up buying a bunch of clothes.

Claude and Rena – Back in space and Claude is back with the Federation. He’s about to go off on military exercises when Rena reveals she’s pregnant.

Star Ocean The Second Story R – Post 2

1 Reply

Past Post

Post 1

***** SPOILERS THROUGHOUT POST *****

Team Update

I mentioned it a bit last time but I’ve been liking a lot of the earlier moves over the later, flashier moves. A lot of the later moves have long windups. Enemies kept interupting them. Some later moves are good, mainly ones that are a combo themselves.

Bowman – A doctor that takes his jacket off and beats monsters with his hands. Surprisingly no healing. It’s all martial arts with some pharmaceuticals thrown in. He gets a teleport with Neck Snap, a quick attack with Poison Pellets, and Deadly Intersection has four clones converge on the enemy.

Noel – A man working at a conservation. He gets offensive and healing symbology. He’s not as good as the specialists, Celine and Rena. But he’s my second healer so it’s nice to take Rena out sometimes.

Chisato – A reporter with martial artist skills looking to be there for the story, kind of like April O’Neil. Humorously, her weapons are advanced guns but most of her move set is good ‘ole fisticuffs.

The Casters – All the casters got all-hitting spells which would pause the rest of combat to play the animation. They’re flashy and powerful. Celine’s Southern Cross especially did a ton of damage. Since the animations get repetitive the remake allows you to skip them.

Specialties Update

This system is so deep that I still feel like I was figuring it out. But it’s very powerful. After most dungeons I’d return to town and spend time leveling up specialties and creating items. I started figuring out a cycle to use. Start with stuff like Machinery (create tools to support other Specialties), Writing (make books to level up Specialties), and Alchemy (turn Iron into more powerful materials).

Crafting makes Accessories and Blacksmith makes armor. As expected, both of them make really powerful pieces. There’s still loot in dungeons that would make the final equipment lists; my characters had a mix of crafted and dungeon items.

Customization is used to turn weapons into other weapons but it was the most frustrating one to use. I still used it since it was powerful but they made some strange choices. Each character works on their own weapon list so you have to level up Customization on everyone instead of having one or two specialists like for the other skills. The weapon is consumed even if the Customization fails or produces a worse weapon; that’s a big problem for rare weapons. And then some weapons have whole Customization branches to go down so you need to save, go down the branch, then reload to check out the other branch to see which is best.

I forgot about it for much of the game but then there’s Replication. Have a rare piece of armor or an accessory that’s really good and someone else could use it? You can just duplicate it. I put Berserker Rings (put you in permanent rage state, doubling physical damage) on all my fighters. Many endgame pieces were grayed out but they still showed on the menu so I’m not sure if something unlocks duplicating them at some point.

EXP Extravaganza

For most of the game I’ve probably been a bit overleveled. But then I got to a dungeon in the late game where I got confused, wandered around, and fought a bunch of fights while doing so. That really overleveled me. Mobs on the map usually show as purple which means you’re around their strength. From that dungeon on they show as green, meaning you’re overleveled.

Worth pointing out there’s a lot of bonus EXP in this game. Purple mobs that are close together can be fought back-to-back in chain fights. Chain fights not only give the EXP for all the fights but then give a bonus; it’s common for there to be a 50% bonus. Train is a Specialty where the character sacrifices some stats to get an EXP bonus. I turned that on all my characters outside of boss fights, getting as much as another 60% bonus. Humorously, some non-boss fights gave me more trouble than bosses because the stat penalty was that large. There’s a battle Formation you can put on to give another 50% EXP bonus. That’s a lot of bonuses.

A big improvement from what I experienced in SO3 is the bench also gets EXP: 80% of the EXP they would’ve gotten if they were in. In SO3 they got nothing and that was a huge pain. Sounds like the OG SO2 was like that too. But with everyone getting EXP I tried out all my characters. Notable that you can still put Train on your bench even though the penalties mean nothing since they’re not in combat.

I started avoiding fights when the mobs turned green. I also turned on Bodyguard, another Specialty where your non-leader characters will block mobs from getting to your leader and thus starting combat. I didn’t realize that Bodyguard will have your characters destroy green mobs outside of combat. And you still get EXP! Late in the game I was cruising through dungeons in about 5 minutes and still getting levels from them, ensuring I stayed overleveled.

Dungeons and Bosses

Plot-Required Defeats

Anytime an RPG requires you to be defeated it’s always tough to pull off and controversial. The ones in this game were a bit more blatant to me because of how much I was tearing through bosses. Cynne is a boss you need to get down to 25% HP or so before he uses a super move to nuke you. I tore through that 75% like nothing so just strange for him to then win and act like it was an ass-kicking. Later foes take no damage and deal tons out in return. But one foe had only single target attacks. Even when I put the controller down it took him a while to actually win because Rena kept picking everyone back up.

Eluria Tower

The plot up to this point is working up to this tower. Its aesthetic is interesting, starting as a normal medieval tower but then having futuristic cubes overtaking it. To advance you need to find a password which ends up spelling “DEATH”. On the nose but considering the whole continent is almost wiped out it’s accurate. You get revenge on Cynne here.

Psynard

This guy roughed me up a bit. He’s a flying foe so some of my attacks don’t hit it. I wasn’t careful with my melee fighters and the Psynard has a good breath attack. Breath attacks can wreck melee fighters quickly with both damage and status ailments.

Field of Wisdom – I was stuck in this dungeon for a bit and good thing the remake doesn’t have random encounters or this would’ve been very frustrating. It’s a teleport maze but the twist is there’s two colors and only one is on at a time. Go through a yellow teleport and then yellow is turned off while red is on. My memory’s not great so I had to remember where each teleporter was and then try to figure out how to get to a spot with the correct color on. This was one of the dungeons that made my levels skyrocket.

***** PLOT SECTION *****

Confronting the Monster Army

When we left off a monster army had overrun the nation of Ell, where the Sorcery Globe fell. Our heroes are helping the nation of Laucer, the next target. The monster army clashes with Laucer and causes heavy casualties.

While fighting alongside Laucer the group runs into Dias again. Claude finally stops acting so jealous of Dias and the two have an amicable conversation. In general, Claude makes strides as a character over the second half that made him way less annoying to me.

Laucer is working on a giant, symbological cannon called the Laucer Hope. Claude and co. assist the insufferable boy genius, Leon, in getting materials to finish it. They bring it to the front and it unleashes a huge blast. It not only leaves a crater in the middle of the enemy’s march but there are blasts with homing capabilities that come off of it.

With that, Laucer decides to load the cannon onto a ship and sail for Ell to take the fight to the monsters. They are attacked on the way but again fire the Laucer Hope. This time, the monsters emerge unharmed! Claude recognizes an energy shield blocked the blast, something that shouldn’t exist on Expel (though he should also question how they’re able to build the Laucer Hope to begin with).

From there the battle goes poorly. Laucer’s forces are routed and Claude’s team is cast into the ocean.

Incident at Eluria Tower

The team regroups at a refugee camp on Ell. They find out the monsters’ stronghold is at nearby Eluria Tower. Cut off from Laucer and with not much other choice, they decide to storm the Tower.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the group, Claude’s dad, Ronyx, and the Calnus have come into the system to observe strange energy readings. They see Expel and a huge energy mass. They observe that Expel’s orbit has been changed; this is the reason for the earthquakes like the one that destroyed Kurik. This is happening because of the huge energy mass, which is on an imminent collision course with Expel…

As the Calnus is in the area they pick up Claude’s distress signal that he set on his communicator when he first arrived at Expel. They transport Claude onto the Calnus, to the shock and confusion of Claude’s comrades. Claude is distraught that he was transported away when his friends need him.

Ronyx and the Calnus crew explain that Expel is about to be destroyed and forbid Claude from returning. Claude tricks them into sending him back, lying and saying he will return. Once back, Claude throws his communicator away, preventing him from being transported back.

At the top of the tower the group finds the cause of all this: the Ten Wise Men. They have activated devices called Quadratic Keys on Expel to change its orbit to crash into the energy mass. Their goal is to pierce the energy mass to go to the planet shielded within: Energy Nede. Expel was chosen simply because it was the most convenient for their plans. They recognize Claude as an Earthling, revealing to Claude’s friends for the first time that he is not of Expel. But they also reveal Rena is a Nedian.

Claude’s group tries to fight them but are easily defeated. The Ten Wise Men transport away as they planned. On the Calnus, Ronyx can only watch as the energy mass collides into Expel, disintegrating the whole planet…

Ronyx, believing Claude dead, gives a good line here: “I turned my back on a billion people… and my own son.” This bit is a good punch to the player in a lot of ways. First, most NPC’s you’ve interacted with are dead now. This includes Rena’s, Celine’s, and Bowman’s families. I turned down several younger characters that wanted to join the party and had Claude say they were safer at home. Oops, no they weren’t.

The History of Nede

Claude’s group was caught up in the transport beam and also end up on Energy Nede. Only Claude is aware of Expel’s destruction so it’s tough hearing the Expellians talk about telling their loved ones about this new world. They come to the city of Centropolis and meet its mayor, Nall. Nall gives a plot dump to explain what just happened.

Billions of years ago Nede was a full planet. They had such advanced technology that they ruled most of the galaxy, but did so with altruistic intent, like Earth’s current Pangalactic Federation. The Ten Wise Men rose up to try and conquer the galaxy. Their power was such that they almost overcame the whole Nedian military. But the Nedians eventually won. They weren’t able to destroy the Ten Wise Men so they sealed them away in what they thought was an inescapable prison.

After the struggle against the Wise Men, the Nedians realized how terrible their power had become. They destroyed the original Nede. They created Energy Nede and sealed it in the energy mass, effectively cutting themselves off from the rest of the galaxy.

The Nedians also forbid most military research. Now they are no match for the Ten Wise Men. Nall recognizes Claude’s group as their best chance for defeating the Wise Men. Nall assigns the team a list of tasks to prepare them for the upcoming battle, with the fate of the galaxy on the line.

Star Ocean The Second Story R – Post 1

2 Replies

Introduction

This is a remake of Star Ocean The Second Story. The original was an action RPG that came out for the PS1 in 1999. It was the second entry in the Star Ocean series. Over a decade ago I did a couple playthroughs of Star Ocean Till the End of Time, or Star Ocean 3. I liked that game a lot but it’s considered controversial among series fans. I’ve always heard that SO2 was the gem of the series so now with the remake I look forward to experiencing it.

Star Ocean is a sci-fi/fantasy, future of Earth series. In SO3 you got a taste of sci-fi at the beginning then the protagonist gets stranded on a planet with roughly medieval tech and culture. Due to SO’s version of the Prime Directive, the protagonist takes a sword for fights to blend in. So for much of the game you might forget it was sci-fi. SO2 so far has had the same pattern.

Symbology is the magic of the series. The explanation is they’ve found that inscribing certain symbols/runes as tattoos gives the person magic. But it’s largely unexplained and kind of like the Force from Star Wars minus any galaxy-dominant organizations tied to it.

Basic Battle Flow

As an action RPG your characters run to enemies and hit them. Skills and spells have AoE including lines and circles. You can disrupt enemies and they can disrupt you.

Enemies also have shields that can be broken. Some attacks focus on doing shield damage. Broken enemies are stunned for a bit and take more damage: your standard “wail-on-them-now” time.

So far this game has largely been “kick ass or get ass kicked” for me. Most fights I can end with little flair but then I’ll run into a fight (not even necessarily a boss fight) that kills me before I even realize what’s happening. It’s been hard for me to follow the action a lot of the time but I think I’m getting the hang of it.

The Team

Claude

Our main character. A strong swordsman. One of his first skills has been my favorite so far: Meteor Palm. Short range but he gets a bunch of hits in and it costs low MP. He’s also gained a skill called Life Sword which does decent damage and is an AoE heal for allies. I’ve seen “sword strike that heals user” before but healing other allies is new to me. I also gave him the Meteor Ring (+1 hits) which has made even his normal attacks amazing.

Rena

Mainly a healer but she has offensive spells too. She’s the only healer I have yet so it’s either her or items for healing. Her Crush spell drops a giant iron ball on the enemy and Laser Beams spawns a bunch of lasers raining down in a circle.

Celine

Focuses on offensive spellcasting. Laser Beams, throwing fireballs, lightning bolts, the works. Oddly enough when I have trouble she’s often the last alive. The melee folks often go first due to being on the front lines. And even with less defense the AI seems to do a better job of keeping her alive.

Ashton

A dual-swordsman with dragons coming out of his back. He’s like Claude: a strong front-liner. And like Claude, so far I’ve liked his less flashy skills like Cross Slash for shields and Twin Thrust for HP.

Welch

A recurring eccentric woman in the series. She fights with a stick with a hand on it. As a comic relief character her skills are mostly doing weird things with her weapon, like slapping foes or lifting them in the air with it. I’ve struggled to use her so far. I haven’t found a weapon upgrade for her so her damage is lagging and many of her skills have a notable wind-up which leaves her open.

Tons of Skills

Hoo boy this portion is pretty overwhelming at first. There’s something like 18 skills to spend SP on for every character. Stuff like Biology, Eye for Danger, Recipes, and Technology.

These skills combine to form Item Creation Skills (ICs) and Specialties. Customization to improve weapons, Alchemy to change Iron into other materials, Cooking to make food (heal HP/MP), and many more. And then there’s Super Specialties.

And some of these skills help other skills. Like Writing makes books which are consumables to raise skills. Machinery makes tools to enhance the skills.

Anyway, I was overwhelmed when this was first introduced. But over time I’m getting the hang of it. Like most item crafting systems it can lead to powerful stuff. Better equipment, more consummables, music which can restore MP in dungeons, and more. And this remake has UI improvements to help navigate it all.

Product of the Times

Reminder the OG came out in 1999. I grew up with games like this, RPG’s made in the 90’s and 2000’s. Coming to this game new this game sticks out as a product of its time, which I don’t mean as a bad thing.

The male and female lead meet and immediately hit it off. Female lead has a power mysterious in the setting. One of the leads is possibly a prophecized hero. Characters join the group sometimes out of nowhere. An arena plotline.

The afforementioned skill/IC system is another example. Crafting systems were becoming all the rage at the time.

Dungeons and Bosses

Salva Mines

The second dungeon of the game. I really dig the theme here: Rescue Operation. Too bad I don’t think I’ve heard it since. You do go back here as part of Ashton’s recruitment.

Zinae

This was a bird boss in Ashton’s exorcism sidequest. Flying foes are tricky for me. Standard attacks will have the character automatically jump to hit but special skills tend to miss because the character won’t jump for those. Zinae also cast Eruption, a circle AoE fire spell that did so much damage it was a OHKO for any of my units hit by it. It kept casting it on my controlled character and if I didn’t clear out it’d hit him and a nearby ally. I used up all my raising items in this fight and then pulled off the win.

Sacred Grounds of Linga

This area looked good being a cavern with colorful herbs growing around. The goal here was to find a new and unique herb for a doctor. There are several spots to check and most have common herbs but Claude will still declare it’s good enough only for Rena to say she sees that in every store around. The dungeon also had lots of stone bridges and crisscrossing paths which made exploring it all a bit confusing for me.

Enemy Leaders – These are non boss fights but they can sometimes be as tough as a boss fight. One of the enemies is bigger and they have a passive buff/debuff that makes things more difficult for you. It can be an attack buff for all foes, movement debuff for you, you gradually lose HP, etc. And they’re generally tougher versions of a monster around the area. On the flip side, if you Break or KO them then all enemies get Broken too. Thus, I tend to focus Break attacks at the Leader.

***** PLOT SECTION *****

Summary of SO1

The game starts with a summary of SO1. The Pangalactic Federation was in a war against the Lezonians. Ronyx Kenny was part of a team that saved the underdeveloped planet of Roak from a Lezonian plague. Then his team defeated Jie Revorse who had invaded Earth. Ronyx was a party member in SO1. For his efforts Ronyx was promoted to admiral at an unprecedented young age.

Stranded

About 20 years after SO1 Ronyx is still an admiral and his son, Claude, is an ensign. Claude is struggling to escape his father’s shadow and prove himself. They are both stationed on the Calnus. They get a mission to investigate ruins on the planet Milokeenia. They come across a strange device. Claude hot-headedly ignores his father’s warnings and gets too close to it. There is a burst of light and Claude disappears.

Claude wakes up in a forest. He sees a young woman being attacked by a monster. He uses his Phase Gun to defeat it. The young woman introduces herself as Rena and takes Claude to Arlia, her hometown. Claude learns he’s on an underdeveloped planet named Expel. The Federation has its own version of the Prime Directive (called the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact or UP3). Thus, Claude needs to keep a low profile. He proves to be very bad at this.

Claude’s use of the Phase Gun and his strange (for Expel) clothes make several people, including Rena, mistake him for the “Hero of Light.” In a time of need for Expel the Hero of Light is said to come save them wielding a Sword of Light. They believe his Phase Gun is the Sword of Light.

And Expel is indeed in need. A meteorite fell recently and since its falling calamity has struck the planet. Docile animals become ferocious monsters. Horrible quakes have been happening. While nobody knows for sure that it’s because of the meteorite its timing has caused most to believe it’s the issue. Thus, the meteorite has become known as the Sorcery Globe.

Stranded and with his communicator not working, Claude decides he needs to seek out the Sorcery Globe as it’s the only extraterrestrial activity on the planet. Rena decides to help him. She was adopted by her mother, Westa, at a young age. She also has healing symbology which is unique to her. This has left her with many questions about herself and her history and she goes with Claude thinking she will find answers.

Various Calamities

Before Rena goes with Claude she is kidnapped by her childhood friend, Allen. Allen has a strange stone that dramatically changes his behavior, making him into a tyrant. When confronted by Claude the stone transforms him into an ogre. Defeating him breaks the stone and turns Allen back to normal. He apologizes for his behavior.

Claude and Rena visit the port town of Kurik. As they wait for a ship a massive quake and ensuing tidal wave hit the town and destroy it. Now I’m not usually a stickly for voice acting but it was pretty goofy here. In the immediate aftermath of the carnage with people on the high ground looking for lost loved ones Claude and the ship captain have a conversation. Their tones and words would be more fitting if the ship just lost a bunch of cargo than the catastrophe that just happened. Anyway, refugees from Kurik can be seen in the other towns from then on.

Ashton

Ashton’s recruitment is hilariously insane. Claude’s group learns about a two-headed dragon in the Salva Mines. They go to confront it but find another warrior, Ashton, there first. Now the reasonable thing would be to help him. But they decide there’s not enough room despite the passage being as big as any of the other fights you have in the mines. Not content to stand there they begin cheering him on. However, the cheering distracts Ashton and allows the dragon to strike. Instead of biting him there’s a flash of light. When the light clears the two dragon heads are now attached to Ashton’s back.

Ashton is understandably freaked out by this. He demands the group help him exorcise the dragon. The group is weirdly reluctant at first but eventually agree. Rena names the dragon heads Creepy and Weepy. Then the group seems more concerned with Creepy and Weepy than Ashton himself, which baffles him.

Some sidequests show how to exorcise the dragons but also reveals they will die if it happens. Over the course of the sidequests Ashton becomes used to Creepy and Weepy and decides not to go through with the exorcism. Nevertheless, there are times when the two dragons get rambunctious or even argue with each other and Ashton has to deal with two dragon heads on his back swinging around.

Claude, Rena, and Dias

I don’t mind some romance in games but Claude and Rena have been annoying so far. The biggest reason is they spend a lot of time getting jealous and pissy with the other. Seeing the other with someone of the opposite gender usually does it.

Rena has a childhood friend named Dias. Dias is a master swordsman and famous on the first two continents. Claude quickly considers Dias a rival. And every time the subject of Dias comes up Claude turns into an asshole, snapping at everyone, especially Rena.

And for a while Dias comes up often. Claude and Rena will be having a good chat and then she remembers something about Dias and it goes downhill. The other party members will bring up Dias out of nowhere, seemingly unaware of how it affects Claude.

Moving Closer to the Sorcery Globe

Claude and Rena meet a symbologist (basically a mage) named Celine. Celine has them spelunk in the Krosse Caves and they find a mysterious text. They believe it may have something to do with the Sorcery Globe. A famed linguist resides in Linga who may be able to decipher it.

The group goes across the ocean to the kingdom of Laucer where Linga is. In Linga they meet a doctor named Bowman. After a series of tasks Bowman introduces them to the linguist, Keith. Keith agrees to begin translating the text but it’ll take time.

The team also wants to get passage across the ocean to the kingdom of Ell. Ell is where the Sorcery Globe fell. Reports from Ell have gotten worse and worse. Eventually reports are that monsters destroyed the kingdom. After that monsters are on their way to Laucer. Citizens in the capital city are evacuated into the castle and all Laucer’s forces are sent to the Front Line Base to prepare for the assault.