Thanks for the lift!

I was tired today so I only played for a short while. Mostly what I did was just travel far out of my way to talk to some guy who ditched his broken hovercraft some where, then travel back to where he left it and claim it for myself. At least now the world map opens up a little more.

Oh hai monsters

Well after much tracking across country (and lava) and back (twice due to the "fly" spell), I finally recovered the robot needed to fly the ship. so my group can now travel to any of the 3 available worlds now.

The combat in this game is kinda odd.
Right off the random encounters don't jump at you with a big screen transition or music sting like in FF or DQ, the screen just quickly fades to black and the battle music starts up as it fades into the fight. Also there can be 2 monsters for each arty member, so a full party can encounter up to 8 of any monster at a time. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that you can't pick which of those 8 the party attacks each turn, so most times there will be 8 monsters with low health still attacking because the party dosen't take them out one at a time to lower their numbers.
After the battle there is always a chest left over and you are given the option to open it, most games just give you the loot after a fight but here you are given the choice since some times the chests are booby trapped. So when the party is low on health I have to decline all chests I get just in case they explode and do more damage than the monster I just killed.

One thing at least is that the monster are quite well drawn and colorful (for an 8 bit game) and some even have detailed attack animation (like a sand worm coming up and striking) . At least though I'm at a point I think that I don't need to grind any more for a while.

You cost me a shortcake, so let's go!

Got farther in PS after more grinding for money. The arty took a rocket to the second planet where we bribed the governor with the short cake to get a letter of recommendation for our next party member. After descending down into a cave in the desert the group finally comes across the mage and handing over the letter he agrees to join the party. The it's back to the first world for a side quest to get a new weapon for the talking cat. Lastly the group had to travel though the sewers to a distant land and break a rocket scientist out of jail. The scientist agrees to build us our own ship for 1,200$, but now we need to track down a robot to pilot it.

On a side note, I expanded my PSP collection a little more (nearly doubled actually). I got a 2nd hand copy of Megaman Powered Up for 10$ (not available on PSN and super hard to find new), a new copy of Final Fantasy Tactics for 19$ (also not available on PSN, just the original PSX version is), Disgaea 2 for 20$ (PSN sale) and Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? for 10$ (PSN sale)

How much for a short cake?!

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is a odd case. Normally I would finish a game to the end or get all the achievements, but I already have all 1000 achievements and the title is actually nearly 50 games. So i'm going to treat it like the Metroid Prime trilogy and counts as I finsh the RPGs on the disc. This will include:

-Phantasy Star
-Phantasy Star II
-Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
-Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
-Shining in the Darkness
-Shining Force
-Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing
-Beyond Oasis
-Fatal Labyrinth

Since these are mostly low end 16 bit titles I'm not expecting too much length to them (except for the later phantasy Star titles) but due to the volume I'll be sticking to walk-throughs closely so I don't waste any time. If I figured correctly it might take up to 45 days to get through them all!

For Phantasy Star I got about 1/4 of the way through, but most of the time was unforgiving grinding. Right off the bat monster can kill you instantly if you're not careful, thank goodness for the save state feature! Story wise, Some evil group had killed the main character's brother and she seeks revenge, she first goes off to another planet and get a talking cat as a party member, and then thaws out a warrior that was turned to stone. The last thing I did today was venture deep into a vampire filled dungeon to buy some 1000$ cupcakes.

It's an odd game so far...

Well that's thirty-eight down...

After climbing up to near the top of the castle, the group is stopped one last time by that crazy assassin that keeps attacking Yuri. How did he even get up there? After a frustrating fight were the Party had to hold back half the time for the secret achievement (which I managed to get when he has a fraction off health left), the party killed him off for good. Then it was only a matter of getting up to the top of the highest point and knocking so sense into the guy trying to kill all the humans.

The first half of the battle was rather easy, but his second from (like all good RPG villains) was as tough as nails. Since this was the last fight of the game I didn't need to hold back on the healing items and boy did we need it with his attack that reduces everyone to 1Hp. In the end we manage to beat him in spectacular fashion (required for the last secret achievement), and with him knocked out on the floor the gang starts the process to destroy the world eater. The power from all the magic in the world is not quite enough so, so the guy who's butt we just kicked lends a hand with the help of his magic controlling sword. All the power then takes the from of a giant (near planet size) glowing feather that cuts the world eater in half. With the world saved the spirits go about healing the world as the credits start. During the credits pencil sketches show what happens with all the characters as they adapt to the new world, the art style reminds me a lot of Castle of Cagliostro.

At 33 days this is the longest to finish a game so far, beating out the last longest (also a Tales title) by nearly a week. But there's no rest for my 360 yet since tomorrow it's on to Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.

Have at you!

So after the distraction of the cultural festival, the party returned to the refugee camp, to find that it was now a quickly developing little town! How long was playing poker!?

The leaders got together and agreed on the plan, even though it will be hard to love with out magic any more it beats the alternative. Also it turns out that the guy who use to help us is using that big castle that flew up into the sky to drain the life out of everyone in the world to power a weapon to kill the world eater. So not only does the group have to take out a giant world eater but also a crazy guy trying to kill every human.

But before all that Flynn and Yuri had to settle their differences with a friendly duel. The tricky thing is that to get the secret achievement I need to get Flynn to use all of his powers in the fight, but I could not get him to do his super move. After doing the fight 5 times and looking up on line for help, I finally discover that Yuri has his own super move and I just needed to do that to trigger Flynn's, and then he used it 4 more times that match...

So after that unnecessarily long series of fights, the party took off for the flying castle, but it was such a maze that I only got to the second save point before calling it a night.

Getting a little culture

The first order of business is to tell the leader of the guilds (the grandson of the former leader) and the leader of the arena (second in command of the former leader) to meet at the refugee camp. That way representatives from the guilds, the knights, the independents, and the empire (Flynn is bringing the prince) will be in one place to talk the plan out.

Talking to the two groups went surprising quick and on the way back I noticed somethign odd. Ever since I got the boat I noticed there was a odd island in the top left of the map that looked like it had a modern building under water in the middle of it, and now the water was gone. The building turned out to be a Japanese high school populated with small cow girls and beetle boys, and they were having a cultural festival. If that wasn't surreal enough, the gymnasium was filled with items and mini-games, including:

- A new side quest for Rita
- Capsule machines that gave rare items
- A 16-bit bullet hell side scroller arcade game
- A way of viewing past cut scenes and conversations
- Background music selection.
- A play where Yuri, Estelle, Karol, and Rita got new costumes and items
- A poker game to win more chips (needed for most things there)
- A prize table to exchange chips for rare items.

The poker game was really addictive and I spent a long time building up over a million chips. The game was basically a single hand of poker that you can bet up to 500 chips at a time, but then if you get more than a pair you can double your winnings with a game of high or low cards over and over. With a bit of luck i was able to at times turn 1000 chips into 128000 by getting 8 high low cards right in a row. several times though a sure bet of the next card being lower than an ace would be ruined by a joker showing up...

So after having fun and wasting too much time there I saved and called it a night.

No, it happened during the flood!

Well I was wrong on both counts, the air spirit was neither on a mountain or the flying city, oddly enough it was at the bottom of a canyon. After walking all the way down the cliff, the party finally find the talking monster and it turns out to be the dragon that was hanging around the guy who keeps helping us. The dragon explains though that the guy who keeps helping us has a plan that involves killing every person on the plant in order to get rind of the world eater. The dragon agrees that if the party is strong enough to defeat her, she will become a spirit and help them. After a surprisingly tough battle the party wins and gains the last spirit, they then agree to go to a near by town to plan what to do next.

While in town Rita gets a bunch of supplies to make a sort of spirit bomb, to fuse together the power of the 4 spirits. Then there is a earthquake as a giant fortress bursts out of a mountain and flies into the air, and also Flynn's second in command tells the party that Flynn is trapped protecting some civilians from monsters and needs their help. So the group goes off to help Flynn and try out the spirit bomb on the monsters as a test drive. Yuri and Flynn go off on their own into the monsters and after a fight against 20 monsters in a row they deploy the bomb.

The bomb takes out all the monsters but Rita tell them they would need something 1000 times more powerful to destroy the world eater. Yuri decides that they should try using all the magic orbs in the world to boost the power, but first they need to bring the world leaders together to agree on somethign so drastic.

2 more down

Well after exploring around some more in the crystal caves, beating another epic monster along the way, I found the talking monster of the earth, and it's the same one that I fought in that ruined city. When I found it though it was in the middle of a fight against the hunting guild, and was sucking u way to much magical power while trying to stay alive, making it go mad. so the group had to kill it and then turned it into the earth spirit Gnome.

Net stop was the desert, when the party go there the fire bird was already almost dying froum wound recived while attackign the new island that sprang up earlier. So he allowed himself to be turned into a spirt too and the group gains Iffrit.

Tomorrow it's off to find the last spirit.

So get two more guys and then it'll be an even fight

The first order of business apparently after getting the first spirit is to save the arena city from monsters spawned from the world eating thing. I'm not sure how the gange found out about it sine I had no idea (may be a line of dialogue I missed), but fortunately it said in the log book that the town was under attack. The monsters were two of the same kind that attacked the group just as they were leaving the desert, apparently it was vision from the first time the world eater attacked. The first time I fought a thin g like this it was a tough battle, but that was about 30 levels ago and even with two this time it was a piece of cake. After the fight the group find out that the other spirits can be found with the fir bird in the desert, a new crystal island, and... I forget. the last one is the air spirit so it's most likely in the mountains or around the floating city.

The first stop was the crystal island, since it was close, but I only got to the first save point before calling it a night.

Splishy Splashy Water Coloured Queen

well after Yuri left his apartment, he bumed into Estelle lad by Repede and she healed his wounds up the rest of the way. Then they went around collecting up the rest of the party and talking about how relived they are to see Yuri in various ways. Since this is the first time the arty was together after a big event I checked out the onsen again and sure enough it was open. The downside is that it cos 300,000$ and only needed a short cut-scene. After that the group followed up on Rita's new plan of making the magic in the air solid so it would be stable. the process consisted of a simple rhythm game and the end result was surprisingly truing one of those big crystals into a being (I'm betting like a summon). So now with Undine controlling all water magic for us, we just need to track down crystals (or make them from talking monsters) for the three other elements. The down side is that the big word destroying thing in the sky is getting bigger.

Did I do that?

I didn't have much time to play today, basically just did one boss fight. The commander was actually just on the other side of the door I last saved at, so it was a straight trip to the fight. After getting beat up, the commander used his last bit of strength to unleash the power of the island, expecting it to give him control of the world, but the power was actually a barrier keeping locked up the ancient giant planet destroying force which is now lose. For his reward, the gigantic crystal that was powering the barrier fell down on top of the commander, and in the crash Yuri was separated from the rest of the party. Then the second in command of Flynn's knights ran up and stabbed Yuri in the gut with a dagger (since Flynn acted less like a Knight when Yuri was around), causing him to fall off the top of the island tower. Fortunately that guy who keeps saving them showed u once again and carried Yuri back to the capital to heal, and then I saved.

The reason I didn't have much time was because I finally broke down and bought a used PSP today. The prospect of getting a bunch of Atlus games (like P3P) for half price on PSN won me over. Not only are the games cheaper than second hand but at least some of the money goes to Atlus, unlike used games where the store pockets all the money. The PSP, like the PS3, does a whole bunch of things extra besides playing games, but it also has the same problem of very few good games. Aside from the 5 Atlus games I bought, there is only a dozen other PSP games have been released in the past 5 years that I'm interested in getting (almost all from Xseed, NIS, or squenix), compare this to the over 30 games each I already bought for Wii and 360.

The down side is that I now have to finish SMT: Strange journey, Etrian Odyssey III, Dragon Quest IX, Persona 1, Persona 3 portable, Crimson Gem Saga, Knights in the Nightmare, and Yggdra Union, all in half hour chunks each day on the way to work...

The bigger they are...

Cleared out the second area of the island, mostly just navigating more water level puzzles, and finished of another epic monster as a sort of mid-boss. This epic monster was a lot easier than most of the previous ones since since all it had going for it was that it was super durable, but it was slow and had a limited attack range so aver a long dull battle we wore it down before it even killed any one once.

Third stage tomorrow, I hope the commander makes an appearance soon.

Heart attack

Well I finally went to that new island, and after some puzzle solving to change the water level I made it to the mid-boss. It was the weirdo who was pretending to be the archaeology guild guy before, and just out of nowhere he changeless us to a fight, 4 against 1. Half way through the fight he reveals that he has a magic orb keeping him alive like Raven, making him near immortal, but after all the fighting he sent too much power and he dies. It's kind of odd since his two lackeys were there the whole time but he chose to fight alone, even the game characters point this out.

Tomorrow it's off to more exploring of the island.

hoy, small fry!

Didn't get much done today, traveling around to the towns a second time only netted me another box sliding puzzle and an add on to my ship that lets me retrieve items from the ocean (giving it a wind waker feel).

Tomorrow I'll finally visit the new island.

1st rule of RPGs

since visiting the new island was talked so much as "the final confrontation where they will end things once and for all" I figured this would be my last chance to go around for any extra dialogue or side quests. So I spent my time today just talking to everyone I could in every town I could, and it turned up quite a lot of things.

-rabbit side quest and bunny ears for Estelle
-fell weapons side quest
-progression on the guild side quest
-progression on the marking side quest
-several new titles
-several new abilities
-a new wearable item for Estelle
-a new recipe
-box moving mini games

And that was just going around to all the towns once, tomorrow I'll do another lap and see what the things today unlocked. One thign though is that with all these thigns I am finding I get the impression that there was a lot more that I missed since it only occurred at certain places at certain points of the game. If i didn't have 33 other games to finish I would definitely play this game all over again with a walk-through so I would miss nothing.

All together again

While crossing the ice flows the party got trapped by some big fish monster that used the magic in the air to weaken the group, Yuri just had enough time to toss Karol aside and tell him to run for cover. Deciding not to leave the group, Karol attacks the monster head on and manages to knock out it's control of the magic, allowing the rest of the group to catch up. After that fight Karol passes out form the cold and the effort of fighting the fish alone and has to be carried to the next town to recover.

They hear at the next town that the commander is using Estelle's power to fill the capital with toxic levels of magic, and also no one from the poor district Yuri came from as been seen among the refugies (but all the rich folk were helped by the Flynn's knights). So Yuri leaves during the knight to try and fix things himself, but the rest of the team have long since caught on to his "lone wolf" act and quickly catch u with him (whacking him when they do for is stupidity). The capital is over run with giant plants and monster, making the poor district inaccessible, so they make their way into the palace. After a series of odd puzzles they manage to get to the top of the palace where the commander and Estelle are, and then they had to fight a mind controlled Estelle... twice... ouch.

During the fights though the commander has enough time to use all the dense magic in the air to shoot a giant magic beam into the ocean, which causes an island to rise that has a gigantic magic crystal on top of it. He then teleports away before explaining what he wants to do with it. After the fight Estelle finally returns to normal and the team has all ti's members back, and the whale-dragon is better so they can now go anywhere again! The team then decides to head straight for the new island and face off against the commander, but I had other ideas to use the new found freedom. I flew around and took out two more epic monster (including the one I couldn't get before on the mountain), visited the onsen (they were open, but the baths were closed for now), beat the 50 monster match in the arena (not yet ready for the 80), and looked around for some more side quests (none so far) before saving for the day.

Ah, it's good to have a healer again, I was getting tired of having to constaly pump healing items into everyone every battle. The only down side is that the secret achievement when battling Estelle needed some item that you only get in a cut-scene only if you visit a particular inn at a certain point in the game, which I didn't... So this is the first of the secret fight achievements that I was not able to get...

Raven cleans up nice.

So the explosion out side was some how connected to using a 1000 year old telepotert for the first time (it's never explained), and now Estelle and Raven are missing. The party tracks the transporter signal to that odd town they woke up in after passing out in the desert, only now there is no town. It looks like the town has been abandoned for a long time and been reclaimed by the desert, did the party time skip or somethign when it visited there? They also see there the guy who kept saving them, but he then leave on a dragon. Before they can look around much the head of all the knights shows up and basically says that he's the big bad that's been after the crystals, manipulating the corrupt nobles, making artificial orbs, and kidnapped Estelle. He then leaves Flynn to finish off the party, since all the knights have to follow him. Flynn admits that he knew the guy was behind it all but thought the reasons were right (though he didn't know what they were) but now he sees the his commander is just insane, and allows Yuri to run off and save Estelle.

They find the commander and Estelle (trapped in a magic bubble) in an old temple, and he is using Estelle as a weapon. While chasing after them they meet up again with the guy who keeps saving them, and he give them a magic sword that can dispel the magic in the air (it's also the symbol of the emperor). They catch up with the the commander just after he had killed another talking monster for it's crystal. Having lost control of the knights Flynn leads, he then orders the leader of the group of knights who keep trying to arrest Yuri to finish the job. It turns out that Knight is none other than Raven! Raven has been a double agent all along, establishing himself into the guilds and then keeping an eye on the party. Now he has his hair cut, mostly clean shaven and wearing fancy gold armor. The party has to fight him, and after they win it's revealed that 10 years ago Raven died in the war against the talking monsters, but the commander used an artificial magic orb to bring him back to life, so Raven had to do what he said or else the orb would be taken away. The commander, not wanting to take any chances, tried to blow up the temple with the giant walking fortress before finding out the result of the battle. Raven uses the power of his orb to hold up the ceiling long enough for the others to escape and remains inside as the place collapses.

The party chases after the giant waling fortress with the whale dragon as it walks across the ocean, and manages to find a small section of it to land on that isn't trying to kill them. Turns out that the section is clear because Raven not only managed to get out of the collapsing temple but also get to the fortress before a freaking flying whale! Also he's back to his old appearance, even with longer hair and stubble some how. After a lot of fight and some odd puzzle solving, the party make it's way to the control room, only to find that crazy assassin again! After the 4th time fighting the guy the controls are damaged and the giant main cannon is on overload. When the party can't slow it down in time, Flynn shows up with half the royal navy and manages to push the fortress enough so that the cannon misses the capital and just blows up a big chunk of the landscape.

The Party then gets back on the whale dragon and races after Estelle and the commander, who have now reached the capital. In a great anime cut-scene the Yuri tries to jump off the dragon-whale to reach Estelle, but the commander uses Estelle's power to blast him back. Then right after Estelle pleads for the others to kill her to stop the commander, he uses her at full force and blasts away the dragon. They all crash land and are injured, including the dragon who has to fly off to heal for a while, and then limp back to the port town to recover. Due to the huge hole in the land the cannon caused there is no direct way to to get to the capital, and flying is now not an option either. So I save the game just when the party has to travel across the northern ice flows to reach the capital from the back.

exposition and explosions

After taking care of the remaining magic cannons the the knights clear off, allowing the party to reveal the way to the hidden city. I first thought it would be some kind of mountain fortress or forest village, but I never expected it to be a giant floating city inside of a huge flying jellyfish monster! The group use the whale dragon to fly up to the city, and after talking to the elder they get a huge bunch of back story.

First off it seems that all the magic orbs are made from the large crystals that the talking monsters leave behind when they die. Basically the monsters absorb the small amount magic in the air during their life, and then when they die all that magic crystallizes into the crystals, then the elf-like people found that if they break down the crystals they can be utilized as basic magical batteries. To give these batteries function they embed a magical formula into them to basically instruct the magic as to what task it's to do. One of these formulas though dosen't need the stored magic of the orbs but can directly use the small amount of magic in the air around it, and it is this formula that is on the artificial orbs and give Estelle her healing magic. The down side of this is that the planet tries to produce more magic to make up for the amount used, if too much is taken out of the air the planet will flood the air with magic to compensate, making it toxic. To make things worse, some kind of giant magic eating monster is said to be attracted to high concentrations of magic and will eat the planet if the amount gets too high.

So hearing that using her magic can lead to the destruction of the whole world, Estelle kinda flips out and runs off. A short time later there is an explosion somewhere off screen and I saved the game before investigating it tomorrow.

Also there was another epic monster, but it was 20 levels higher than my group, so after losing several times I figured I would get it later aver I had gained some levels.

INCOMING!

To track down more information on the destructive artificial orbs, the gang try to locate the hidden city of the elf-like people Judith belongs to (she was from the city that was destroyed in the war, so she doesn't know). They get a lead that they have to use a magic bell on a particular mountain range and that would reveal the path to the city, but when they find the mountain that also find that an army of knights have set up some kind of huge magical cannons along the mountain for some reason. So the group are curently making their way along the mountain trying to avoid being blasted into dust by the cannons.

Deal with it.

Well I sent most of the time just redoing the grinding I lost yesterday. This time I would save every time I return to town to stock up on healing items. Along the way I finally get enough of the ink ingredient to make sunglasses for Yuri and Karol, but they don't look all that good and since they are solid black they block their eyes during dialogue. I was hoping they would look as good as Estelle's glasses I made, they fit her so well that it's odd seeing her without them now.

That was a waste of time

Went to see the giant talking fire-bird, and got some exlination as to why it wanted Estelle. Turns out that her healing magic, which comes from herself and not an orb, is the same kind as used in the orbs Judith has been destroying. So whenever she uses her magic all the magical energy gets sucked out of the air, and left unchecked it could bleed the planet dry. So the bird wants to kill Estelle, but Yuri convinces it to let them find a way to balance the magic power first, and then if it looks like it's going to go out of control any ways they will kill Estell themselves. So now Estelle's plot is directly linked to finding out about the artifical orbs and the fate of her and the world are at stake.

After these revelations I decided to do a bit of grinding, to get ready for whatever was ahead. I killed tons of monsters, gained several levels and abilities, and even took part in the 30 VS 1 fight in the arena. Then One group of monsters killed my party and I had not saved since before talking to the bird...

So a quick visit to the bird later I saved and went to bed, gaining all of 5 minutes in game time.

Sightseeing

With no leads on the artificial orbs, the only plot point left is Estelle wanting to meet with the giant talking fire bird, and I didn't have much interest in doing that just yet. So I used my new found freedom of movment to explore all over the world and pick up a few side quests. Some quests of note was the option of now being assigned quests by the guilds, Repede marking his territory all around the world, and an odd cow person (named Kaow) who trades your items with an ant-lion person...

One interesting thing I found was a building in the middle of a forest. What made this place stand out was that the trees around it were cleared out in the Japanese onsen symbol ♨. So, while it was currently inaccessible, I expect some bathhouse hi-jinks some where along the way!

Tomorrow I'll finally pay the old fire-bird a visit.

Dragon whale!

Do avoid having to go back to the guild city and tell it's head that is close friend is dead and it's kinda our fault, I decided to sail around a bit and expand the map more once the boat was fixed. Eventually though I ran out of open ocean and had to bite the bullet. Turns out that the reason Karol's old hunting guild was there was because the grandson of the head of the guild city got the false information that a giant monster was attacking the head of the arena guild. So not knowing that the head of the arena guild WAS a huge monster, he brought a band of monster hating psychos to her doorstep, resulting in the injuries that lead to her death (by way of our party).

The people of the arena city did not take the death of their leader well and tried to start an all out war with the guild city. So the head of the guild city took responsibility of his grandson's actions, since he was the leader, and committed sepiku (literally) to prevent the war with Yuri giving the final blow. So Yuri is now responsible for the death of the leaders of 4 places, the port town, the desert village, the arena city, and the guild city, and he's the hero of the game!

Now the remaining bit of unpleasantness is tracking down Judith and have her explain why she keeps blowing up orbs and broke the guild's laws. The group find her in the remains of a huge war that happened 10 years ago between the empire and the giant talking monsters. Judith explains that the people (elf-like being like her) in that place had made artificial magic orbs that were so powerful that they drained all the magical energy around them. Seeing this as a serious threat to the planet the talking monsters attacked the city, not knowing why the monsters attacked the empire attacked back and started the war. Some how the orbs (or the secret to make them) survived the battle and began popping up around the world, so Judith (who survived the war thanks to her dragon) and her dragon began going after the remaining orbs to protect the earth and finish what the talking monsters started.

After hearing all this the group accepts her back, calling her stupid for not trying to explain earlier, and now have a new quest to find out how these dangerous orbs are getting into circulation. Conveniently to help with this, Judith's dragon evolves like a pokemon into a huge flying dragon-like whale, that can pick up their ship carry them any where in the world. So the first thing I did was fly all over the place unlocking the last areas of the map, then saving for the night.

From bad to worse...

Well the town they woke up in happens to be the mysterious one written about in the ghost ship note, and then they start askign around abotu the box they find the one that it was intended for. The thing is that the note was written over 1000 years ago, but the people there say the ship has been gone for only 3 years. The box is opened and it's revealed to hold a big crystal, so they take it to the hose of the village mage, but they only find there the guy that randomly saves them now and then. The guy then takes his sword and causes the crysal to evaporate, making this whole quest oddly pointless. With nothing else to do the group heads back through the desert planning to head back to the arena city to finally deliver the letter, but while passing though the small town at the edge of the desert they started off from they find that the noble who was shipping people off into the desert was up to his tricks again. Knowing that the noble is above the law and will continue sending people to their death in the desert, Yuri sneaks out at night and indirectly kills him by luring him into a quick sand trap.

The next day they go to leave but they find that Flynn's knights have blocked off passage through the cave system they went though before to prevent any one from getting to the arena city. The gang manage to sneak through the caves and make it back to the arena city in them to deliver the letter on the new moon, and it's revealed that the head of the arena guild is another of the ancient talking creatures, like the one that Estelle has been trying to find. Before they could get many answers though Karol's old guild shows up determined to kill the being. The creature stays to take care of the leader while the party goes off to take care of the rest of the guild, and after a few fights the creature shows up again hurt. Estelle goes to use her magic to heal it, but it reacts strangely to the magic and goes mad, so the party then has to kill it. Once it's dead it turns into the same kind of giant crystal as was in the box from the ghost ship and Flynn's knights how up to arrest everyone just as Estelle picks it up. The arty manages to escape, but are stopped at the docks by Flynn, who outs Yuri to the rest of the team as the murder of the two corrupt nobles. Yuri asks why Flynn is taking over the arena city and acting like the bullies he's supposed to be stopping. This gives Flynn a pause for thought and the party escape to the boat as he thinks about his actions.

While on the boat the giant crystal reacts to the magic orb that powers the engines and puts it into turbo, causing the boat to blast past the knight's blockade. Seeing the orb go crazy Judith reverts back to her old habits and destroys it, revelaing herslef to the rest of the party as the dragon rider, she then flies off on her dragon. So the party is one short, dead in the water, know that Yuri lied about Judith and killed to people in cold blood, and everyone but Raven has somethign to be depressed about. So I saved there and Yuri will have a lot to answer for tomorrow.

Once more with feeling!

The group trudged through the desert until they came across another of the epic monster, and after a couple tried defeated it. then they found a couple of the adults that were taken off into the desert, but they were ambushed by this weird ghostly floating blob thing. After defeating the thing though they all felt weak and fainted in the desert, a short time later though Yuri woke up to find him and the others at an Inn. I saved here so I'll find out what happened tomorrow.

Even though it was basically just 2 boss fights I had to do them over and over again, for different reasons. During the epic monster fight my party kept dying off. So after a couple of tries I dragged them all the way back across the desert (leveling up along the way) and bought every useful armor and weapon I could from the shop, also stocking up on healing items. Then I went back across the desert and tried fighting the monster a couple more times before finally beating it.

With the boss monster (which Judith said is not a monster) it was more a problem that it was too easy. The first time I fought it the party killed it so quickly that I couldn't get the secret quest achievement, breaking the orb that it uses to heal it's self, so I had to restart from the last save. Then next time I tried using Judith to fight the monster since she has more jump attacks that could get the orb, but she was too different to control than Yuri and the party died while I was trying to get use to her. The third time though I used Yuri's one jumping attack over and over and was able to break the orb before killing the monster! Then I realized that I never scanned the monster for the monster book side quest, and had to restart and do that all over again, the firth time everything went right and that's when I saved.

Hot enough for you?

The group make it to a small town in the desert and find out that the mayor has kidnapped most of the adults in the village and is using them to search for the same talking monster that Estelle is after, so now the party has to not only find this monster but also save the civilians. While in the desert everyone suffers from the heat, except for some reason Raven has more life and energy than ever before. Normally he's complaining that he's tired and old (when he's only 35), but in the desert he's running around and doing back flips, is he part reptile? They finally find an oasis to take a break at and I saved there.

Not so tough...

So the group chase the archaeology guild guy into the cave system and while exploring around I came across one of the legendary huge monsters, which there is a side quest and achievement for defeating them. After a long hard fight where nearly all my characters died (some did actually) I finally beat the creature and got a boat load of experience and money for it, I may have been under leveled for it, and won for shear luck and brute force. Shortly after that battle there was a restoring save point and then the group finally caught op with the guy who took the box. Turns out though he was actual the right hand man of the evil knight from a couple cities back, I should have released it sooner since the archaeologist name was the bad guy's name backwards, but he runs away and the team is left with fighting a boss monster. After that the cave opened out to the desert they were all heading to and I saved there.

The boss fight was actually rather tricky since the monster turns into a dozen bats and there is an achievement for killing the leader bat first, so while everyone was attacking the leader bat the rest of the bats were picking them off one by one until I had to retry the fight when everyone died. The second time I managed to kill the leader bat first, but all of the fighters except Estelle (who had heal magic) so I had to gradually kill off the remaining bats while keeping her alive with jellies since the bats didn't give her enough time to revive or heal any one. In the end I managed to beat enough of the bats to revive the other party members and they made quick work of the rest.

Boxing

When the group went to deliver the letter they were told that the leader of the arena guild only sees people on the new moon. Is she like some kind of reverse werewolf that is only human when the moon is farthest from full? So with some time to kill the gang takes on a job from the head of the archaeology guild, who says some one is trying to take over the city by building up popularity in the Colosseum. So Yuri takes part in several simple fights, until it's revealed that the current champion is Flynn and they have both been set up. Before they can sort thigns out that crazy assasin from the start of the game shows up again an we have to fight him. during the battle all the arena monsters get loose and the assassin escapes in the confusion, also the guy from the archaeology guild runs off with the box from the ghost ship. So after backtracking a bit we catch up with him at the entrance to a large cave, and I saved at the save point there just in case.

3 hour tour

Well after exploring the ghost ship a bit with two parties (the back u team was really unprepared for that) everyone meets u again and they find a small box and a note that it's to be delivered to a town they never heard of to ward off monsters. Once they decide to deliver the books all the spooky goings on stop and they are able to leave. Since this is the first time I was able to explore the world map in relative freedom, I spent most of the time uncovering all the areas I could to get a better idea of the scale and shape of the world. Unfortunately I got too close to my destination and the story progression took over. Currently the gang is in a coliseum town and Raven has to deliver a letter to the head of the place (and Judith is u to her orb smashing tricks again).

I'm betting the group will have to take part in an arena fight before too long, too bad Presea is not around this time...