SEVEN WONDERS #3 - Flying Island
Oct. 2nd, 2016 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marchionessofmustacheSo, we have finally gotten to our third wonder filling up a complete party of seven. There are still more characters we can recruit, but at least now there are no empty slots in the party. More of the story seemed to unfold, and we got to go to the festival of Regina Leone, which is kind of a big thing (but wasn't terribly interesting in Ruby's story as it seemed almost optional.
We also get to recruit another of my fav characters (OK, I really like most of the characters in this game) and visit one of my favorite Wonders. (... OK, I like most of the wonders, too...)
So, let's start from the beginning. There are some more minor spoilers as we go, then marked more major spoilers at the end. Also, this entry may seem long, but so much of it is just screenshots I thought were pretty so most of the length is from that.
I don't know why I feel like I need to show this screen every time. We go back to the house and select another Wonder, which takes us to Vaftom, one of the most important places in the unsaga world.
Vaftom is probably the most heavily populated city we'll ever come to, and it's founding is related to the festival. Basically, long ago, Iskandar had "conquered" the world. It's... not entirely explained what "conquered" means, but it sounds like he more expanded the frontier in legends, but... considering Lilean and Petran tribes are pretty much shoved to the edges of the world and stay mostly in hiding, Chapas are restricted to their tiny village, and Anubito people seem nearly extinct and bent on revenge, I'm going to assume he's a "hero" akin to "heroes" like Christopher Columbus.
When Iskandar died, Lord Dixon returned his body to the Isle of Elve to bury him, and was proclaimed guardian of all the lands. When Dixon died and was buried next to Iskandar, Dixon's wife Regina Leone went up to the mountain behind the mausoleum and lit a fire. People were so moved by the fire that they turned it into an eternal flame, and it started to draw visitors. They started to have a festival of sorts, that was very chaotic and lasted days. There were so many regular visitors to the isle and festival that a town started to form on the isle, which eventually became Vaftom. The people were so unruly that an expansion of the Knights of Iskandar were stationed to keep order.
One of the commanders of the knights finally brought order to the festival and named it after Dixon's late wife, and it became a three-day festival that ends with a ceremonial lighting of fires on the mountainside to send off the deceased of the year. The knights are still stationed in Vaftom's temple, and this is where Jeanne Maure is from.
(This is the only story in the game's manual... is the story of the founding of Vaftom and the festival LOL)
I've found that the best way to see the art of the inns is to go to talk to people and hover over the 'exit' option. This is the least obtrusive I could get. Here's the Strelitzia Inn in Vaftom. Pretty busy-looking, compared to the other small-town types of places we've seen so far.
In the center of Vaftom is Iskandar Plaza. This is where the now-regulated festival takes place. The first two days are full of street vendors and live entertainment, from bards to fire dancers.
Usually in each character's story, you're required to visit the festival to continue to the game. I was still able to select the Flying Island adventure even without visiting the Plaza, but... I wanted to go because you get a fun cutscene. All seven main characters visit the festival during their story, and you usually see interactions between them. So all their stories must take place during the same time frame, though none of them could canonically happen with one another because they all contain contradictions to each other.
Anyway, we find Ruby has actually opened a fortunetelling stall at the festival! It seems like her. "Look at all these shmucks, an easy way to make some gold..." I can hear her saying that to Hiro. And Hiro fruitlessly trying to convince her it's a bad idea. Who knows what the heck everyone else was doing at this point, though. But yeah there's no actual explanation you just see her at the booth XD
Armic wanders by her booth and she says she gets a reading from him that today will be his most fortunate day in twelve years or something, but as she's babbling, he just wanders off. Then fireworks go off and music starts, and Ruby is entranced.
Floats, confetti, everything XD The big evening festivities have begun.
Ruby just abandons her stall and runs to the nearest stranger she sees and is like "HEY LET'S DANCE." It happens to be Mythe. You can actually recruit Mythe into your party, so I thought he was an interesting choice. He seems very distracted, though.
They dance a bit, but then Mythe is too caught up in whatever he was thinking about and just wanders off. Ruby's having a tough time making friends tonight hahaha.
She's a bit annoyed.
The last part of the cutscene is the same for every character's festival FMV. It's the lighting of the fires on the mountain. People lay flowers at the edges of the streets in memory of the people they have lost.
The decaying mausoleum where Iskandar and Lord Dixon are buried. (BTW, the inside is some super convoluted maze)
I think this is some kind of tent/tarp thing between the mausoleum and the plaza. Honestly I thought it was a book the first time I saw this. I still don't really get what it is lol. The flower depicted on whatever it is, though, is a Strelitzia, which is the flower symbolic of Iskandar (and is the flower used in the game logo, and the flower behind the menu during adventures). Actually, speaking of, all seven main characters have a symbolic flower. Ruby's is a narcissus:
When on an adventure map, the 'background' image behind everything is a watercolor painting of a narcissus by Tomomi Kobayashi. She loves flowers so the idea to have every character represented with a flower was probably her idea. On her official site, you can find a ton of flower paintings she has done, along with some character concept art (mostly Saga), and... a bunch of FF7 slash doujin. Not kidding, she's a huge Cloud x Sephi fan.
Sorry for the tangent; here's the lighting of the fires! I don't know why they made all the people these weird blue silhouettes, but I actually think it's kinda neat looking, especially when they have the defined characters standing among them.
Ruby enjoys the sight of the fires. Most characters just have a 'staring' moment here. Laura gets a little bit more, which I really like a lot.
The fires are lit in these shapes. The middle is again a strelitzia, the left looks like a phoenix or something, and who knows what the right it. This is probably explained somewhere. There's actually some official source that even gives the names of the two moons. I forget where, though.
If you try to go to the plaza before or after the festival, you just get a close-up of the art.
Anyway, now that the festival is over, we're off to Flying Island! I don't know why it's called Flying Island. I forget. Or maybe I never knew. But it's in the water. It's surrounded by storms but the island itself has calm weather.
Instead of a crowd of strange people, this time we're met by this big boy. This is Roy, Judy's brother. He loves food almost as much as Quina Quen, and sadly most characters treat him pretty poorly because he's fat.
But Roy is actually pretty badass. The game has a hidden "weight" system, though it's never actually referred to as 'weight' in the game. Roy's 'weight' is the lowest of all characters. There are other "strange" things about the weight system, like the fact that weapons you craft yourself have a weight of 0. So my theory is that rather than "weight," it's better to look at this as an 'encumbrance' stat. Weapons you make yourself are custom-tailed to you, so they do not encumber you. And there are plenty of other characters with strange 'weight' classes, too (like Sapphire seems very 'heavy.') And so I think that this stat is rather the restriction that your own body places on you, and Roy's is low because he is extremely nimble and athletic despite being fat. And it's proven throughout the game that he is very athletic. He runs very fast, all of his attack animations are pretty wild (he does flips and stuff and can master martial arts really well), and gets out of situations other people would never be able to, because he's not only athletic but very stealthy. His body is no encumbrance to him at all.
Ruby, surprised by his arrival (I'm assuming he's soaking wet at this point), learns that he swam all the way here.
And of course, Ruby has to make a shot at his weight. A lot of characters do this lol. Judy even calls him an embarrassment -_-;
Ruby tells him she'll let him ride back to shore with her after they conquer the Wonder, and Roy agrees to help her out as long as she feeds him.
Roy constantly talks about food. In a way, this is kind of annoying because they made the fat kid obsessed with food. But then again, every character in this game is obsessed with one thing and just talks about that, like Anzan with Defense, Musol with beauty, Kong Ming with tactics, Thomas with being a daddy (<3), etc. So rather I think they just picked a bunch of things for people to be obsessed with and designed characters around that, and decided that the food-obsessed character should be fat if all he does is eat all the time, but he's still strong and powerful and capable and the most athletic character in the game, and a main character, so that's good.
So we head out to the island. Flying Island has some of the best area paintings in the game. They almost look like photographs sometimes.
Now that we're on an adventure, we can check out Roy's stats. Skill 3, Magic 3, Spirit 5, and other than Earth all elements are 2 with Fire even being 3! Roy is a really good all-around character with a ton of potential. Other than maybe a big HP-damage dealer or someone who just casts Boulder over and over, you can build him into whatever you want and he'll do pretty well. He also has 20LP so he can hold up very well in a fight.
Yeah, even his art he is carrying bread. He actually has bread on him in battle, too, I think lol. Anyway, he starts with three Iron Body panels which which boost his defenses a lot, and IMO are a symbol that his body is an asset, not a hindrance. He also has Eavesdrop and Locksmith since he is quite stealthy canonically. Though it's implied he learned these skills by becoming very good at sneaking midnight snacks.
Roy, coming from pretty much the most powerful magical family alive, comes with some magic already learned. I know I said it's super rare for characters to come with magic and now everyone is coming with magic, so I guess I was either wrong about that or all the characters with magic happen to be the ones you get in Ruby's scenario lol.
The important one here is Armor Blessing, which is a must-have. It can effectively double a character's defenses.
Here's another cool painting. I took a lot of caps just for this reason lol.
Another. doesn't that look photographic?!
The battle environment is really cool, too. I love the buildings in the background.
Anyway, about the Wonder adventure itself. After taking a few steps, you'll notice there's a big hole to the southeast. Basically, the island is a kind of donut shape with this giant gap in the middle. There are also three large towers on the southwest, southeast, and northeast sides of the gap. We're currently on the northwest side (obviously, since the gap is to the southeast).
The map itself comprises four areas, one for each of the four corners. They're roughly a big loop, but there's a lot of little twisty passages to explore. It's pretty easy to get through, though, and you shouldn't have any trouble with getting lost. The monsters here are pretty docile, some birds and bugs and stuff. The solution is also very simple. Overall, this is a very easy Wonder. Actually, I'd say it's by far the easiest.
Since I already know what to do, I'm not going to go toward the hole, but rather continue around west and then south to get to the southwest map. Here's one of the 'gate' paintings that are on the spaces that connect the different map areas.
Now that we're here, let's take a moment to talk about character position, since we finally have a full party. Character position just affects two things: the order all the little circles are on the menu, I guess so you could keep characters who work together to open chests near each other for convenience?; and which characters appear on the battlefield at the beginning of a battle. There are no back-attacks or anything like that, so no action will occur with the characters that appear when battle begins. But what is more important is what happens with the characters who don't appear. When battle starts, the characters who aren't on the field will count as having rested outside of battle for one turn. Basically, you get a free heal to the characters at the end of the list. This recovers a bit of HP (based on their recovery rate) and a chance to shed negative ailments if they have any.
In story adventures where you have unlimited turns and can rest outside of battle as much as you want, this isn't too big of a deal. But when you're in a subadventure and are worrying about a turn limit, this can be very helpful. If you keep your characters who take the most damage in the end of the order, you don't have to spend as many turns resting (or no turns resting) to make sure they're ready for the next battle. Characters like Anzan, who are good for tanking up-front and have great HP recovery, are great ideas to put in the back of the character order.
It's overall a pretty minor thing, but if you're wanting to maximize your strategy and especially on adventures with a tight turn limit, this can really be a relief to know about. I don't think the game ever tells you this and it might not even be in the manual lol.
There's also no running from battles in this game, so if you're getting in back-to-back battles, you'll have no time to rest, either. Resting is also your primary method of recovering HP over the course of an adventure. So sneaking in free rests where you need them most is a helpful mechanic to know about.
Anyway, almost immediately into the adventure, I've already found the Tetra Force. I guess the game assumes you'll be curious about the gap and head toward it first, and then upon learning you can't do anything there yet, continue heading east and end up at this part of the loop last. Oops.
I decided to save and develop the panel here. Bad idea. Because I had hardly done anything, I got a bunch of low-level, random panels. I had to downgrade half the party's stats because the new panels were worse than all the ones I already had.
There are also these random basins about the island. You're just... able to walk through them?
There are some places where you can swim, though. Basically, throughout the game you'll run into water or obstacles that block your path. Basically, as long as this 'object' exists, you can't move to the space that it is blocking. If you use the Swimming or Obstacle Crossing abilities, you can 'pass' the obstacle, which just removes it from the game/map. Then you can just move freely to the space it was blocking as if it was never there. It's kind of weird when you think of it mechanically like that, but basically you're just rolling a check to see if your characters are able to traverse that difficult terrain, and then once you prove you are, you don't have to roll anymore.
The only weird thing about it is that since they function as objects placed on spaces, they're always in pairs. So if there's two spots to the left and right of each other, and the space between them is "blocked" by water, there will be a "water" object on both spaces. So if you're on the right, and use Swimming on the water that's on that space, you'll then be able to freely move from the right space to the left space as many times as you want. But the left space will still have a water hazard object on it, so to go from the left space to the right space, you'll get the message that your path is blocked by water, and you'll have to clear the water object in order to go left to right, even though you can still go right to left.
This is a theme throughout this adventure, as pretty much there's a bunch of random dead ends blocked by water or boulders, so you'll be overcoming the hazards, traversing to the dead ends, then walking right back and having to overcome them again. Since you only go each direction once, it just seems like you have to overcome the obstacle every time you reach it... but that's not actually the case. There are maps where overcoming hazards give you shortcuts, so you could theoretically walk all the way back around and continue to pass through freely from one direction to the other, but not in reverse.
Anyway, silly as it sounds, it's not particularly noticeable because you'll usually only go through one way (shortcut), or go in and come back out the same way (blocked dead end), so it never feels like something strange is going on, because you're only performing a check once per direction anyway without really noticing that you can go back over without a check.
Anyway, I spent too much time explaining that and it probably didn't make too much sense anyway.
The dead ends behind the hazards here tend to have high-level treasures, so it's good to check them out. Generally hazards will either block treasure like that, or block turn-saving shortcuts. As far as I know, only one adventure actually requires you to overcome a hazard to clear it, and it is possible that I just didn't find the intended path to that adventure, or there's an alternate solution. But since it's possible to just not have these skills at any time, you're rather rewarded for having and using them rather than punished for not having them.
I learned that you can get a better view of the area paintings by bringing up the status screen. It gets rid of the little title thing the blocks part of the top of the painting.
Another painting that looks almost real. Sorry that I'm mostly just talking paintings and mechanics -- not much happens in this adventure. It's really simple and easy.
Paintinggggssss
Eventually you will come to these huge levers that are part of the three towers you noticed before. There are vines hanging down from the levers, and you can use them to pull the levers down.
Upon pulling a lever down, a giant pulley thing hanging into the gap in the center of the island will pull something closer to the top. The first time, you can't really see it, but it just says 'it appears to be something enormous.'
Paintings :)
I got a magic tablet from a treasure slime :D
When Iskandar fails a skill reel (he's my swimmer/obstacle climber). He says "No one's perfect." Whenever he says it, I can't help but think of this song lolololol.
Basically, you just continue around the island loop, hunting treasures and looking for the towers. If you're thorough, you shouldn't have any trouble finding the towers. For some reason, though, I used to always miss the southwest one somehow and end back around at the beginning with only two of the levers pulled. I don't know how because the maps are pretty simple.
The third lever reveals that what you've actually been doing is operating an elevator.
Before getting to the end, Sapphire finished learning Meditate and has moved on to Thunderbringer. This is a pretty powerful spell, though maybe not as great as Holy Seal. But since it has the thunder attribute, it's good against Aquans and monsters that are weak to that, and probably will work much better than Holy Seal against those types. Also notice that this tablet has access to Seal of the Abyss, the forbidden magic that the lich boss from Starship Anchor was using.
I can actually open magic locks now. They're somewhat rare, but when a chest is locked with magic, you need to use either Bubble Blow, Fire Arrows, or Boulder on them. And you have to actually know the spell -- you can't just use a familiar. And just like in battle, you have to be equipped with an item with the elemental arts on it to use it. You select the item (which will be in black like this) and then it will bring up the abilities you can use from it... you have to find one of the three spells above, and choose it. Then you'll have to roll a reel to see if you unlock it. It even uses one durability of the item for each roll you do...
I did it this once because it had some good money or something, but generally if there's a magic lock in this playthrough, I'm just ignoring it unless it's big money and there are no traps. It's not worth the item durability since I can't repair my weapons.
Unique painting for the final space next to the gap, where you can see the pulley. You can only reach the elevator cage from the northwest area where you first saw the gap, as there's a little landing thing leading out to it. I think it's amazing that someone went through the work of painting so many detailed landscapes and stuff like this, for them to be used while you're standing on one space in the game for like... a couple seconds.
I really wonder if there is an artbook with all of these? I've seen one with all the town and inn paintings that also has some characters and stuff but I didn't see any of the environments in it like this. I don't actually know what all contents the books have and there are several artbooks and guides and stuff for this game (Japanese only. There's also a manga and a novel!)
Here's the cage. Of course we're getting in. It's gotta be safe, right?
When I first read this the first time I played this adventure, I thought the thing was like plummeting by gravity into the pit. But after it says this, it actually shows the animation and it moves downward like a normal elevator.
There's no map or anything for the bottom of the pit. You just... are in a watery area and fight one of the elder dragons.
There's not much to say about this fight because it's really easy. It has many abilities that can hit everyone in your party, including one that can also stun anyone it hits at the same time. Most of the time it just bites you. It's not very threatening. It doesn't have a lot of HP so you'll start damaging its LP right away, and then it's LP isn't too scary (like 12 or something, but you'll be dealing damage early and fast).
Its attacks can be powerful (here it's doing 3 and 2 LP damage to Ruby and Sapphire respectively), but honestly you can defeat it so quickly it doesn't really matter. Sapphire got kinda close to dying but it's because she was on the field almost every turn and her LP is so low to start with.
Tail Lash is the thing that will hit everyone with a chance to stun. In theory, since he can hit everyone who is on the field, it would seem better to send out less characters per round so he doesn't hit as many, but if you have two characters out and both get stunned, you just wasted a whole turn doing nothing and taking damage. And he's not strong enough to really be considered a threat, unless you're not very good at dealing LP damage yet. Sapphire and Iskandar are really my only LP-damagers at this point, but they're still more than enough.
Once you defeat him, you get this little message, and like always, immediately on the panel select screen. (When I say immediately, I just mean there's no fanfare or anything. The screen does fade out at least lol). And we're still at the top of the elevator. It doesn't even show you coming back up. From a mechanical standpoint, you never actually left this space anyway.
After finishing this Wonder, Jeanne Maure shows up and sees Ruby with the Tetra Force, and asks if she could have it.
Ruby says she needs it, but Jeanne (with a voiced line!) says she's willing to die for the Tetra Forces.
Ruby says "You want it that bad?" and then decides to give it to her. Even though Iskandar told her she needed them before... So now Jeanne has two and Ruby has one.
After the adventure I went shopping and found a Diamond Ring in the shops! I really wasn't comfortable spending the money on it, though. My market rank is getting pretty good now, though! I figure since most of my characters will be filled up with magic stuff, this just isn't worth the price. Most accessories have a defense of 1, but Diamond Ring has defense of 2. More importantly, it unleashes the NullParalysis ability, which makes the character wearing it immune to paralysis. So next time I'm able to visit Nakle Lines as a subquest (and have access to the blacksmith), I'm making seven Diamond Rings for my party :P
I got a couple good weapons while shopping, but I didn't get a large quantity of weapons since there weren't many in the shops in general. It's good to have strong ones but for this challenge I need an abundance of weapons, too...
The following is probably the most spoilery part of this post. This game's story isn't really about any kind of linear tale, but we learn some big stuff about the major characters in this story at this point. If you don't want spoilers, stop reading now.
The entire conversation is in the screencaps on facebook, but I won't post every single line here.
So, upon returning to the house to select another Wonder, the old lady decides to "tease" Ruby and Sapphire.
She asks them if they've resolved their problems yet. Sapphire says she still can't figure out why she is afraid of seeing her own death. The old lady suggests, rather, that her problem is that she's happy she was able to see it. She says, "When you die as you have foreseen, I can hear your shouts of victory." Essentially, she's saying that Sapphire has become so conceited about her own abilities that she will rejoice in her own death just because it proves how great of a fortuneteller she is. She may act humble on the outside, but secretly her sin is her pride, and that pride has now clouded her ability to read, since it requires a clear mind.
Then she changes the focus to Ruby.
Ruby claims she's not afraid of anything, and is confident she'll conquer the wonders. The old woman tells her that she still won't live up to her sister, though. Ruby says she may not now, but she'll continue to practice and learn --
The old lady cuts her off and delivers her a harsh dose of Ruby's actual thought. After a pause, Ruby becomes very upset, saying she knows she'll never be as good as Sapphire and there's nothing she can do about it.
It seems like Ruby is actually afraid after all. But what she's really afraid of is losing her closeness with her sister. After that, Ruby runs off and Sapphire walks after her, leaving Iskandar and the old woman alone in the house.
Iskandar asked if it was rough being the bad guy, and the woman said that they needed to hear the truth. I'd hardly say she was 'teasing' them if she honestly believed what she said to be true.
Iskandar makes a comment about the way the old lady used to be when she was young, and the old lady essentially rolls her eyes at the comment, since he couldn't have possibly known her when she was young. But apparently, he did, and he even saved her life. Which either means Iskandar ages ridiculously well, or he is the Iskandar of legend who supposedly became a god.
The old lady just dismisses him as a weirdo and the scene ends, bringing us to the ever-familiar Wonders menu. I'll be taking on Two Moons temple next, which can be easy, but has some optional bosses which can really ramp up its overall difficulty. Deities' Table is my least favorite BY FAR, and then Undercity Pharos is just a confusing mess that I'm still very unfamiliar with, so I'm saving those two for last (I'll probably do Deities' Table after Two Moons, because that would be so anticlimactic to do as the final of the six Wonders...)
We also get to recruit another of my fav characters (OK, I really like most of the characters in this game) and visit one of my favorite Wonders. (... OK, I like most of the wonders, too...)
So, let's start from the beginning. There are some more minor spoilers as we go, then marked more major spoilers at the end. Also, this entry may seem long, but so much of it is just screenshots I thought were pretty so most of the length is from that.
I don't know why I feel like I need to show this screen every time. We go back to the house and select another Wonder, which takes us to Vaftom, one of the most important places in the unsaga world.
Vaftom is probably the most heavily populated city we'll ever come to, and it's founding is related to the festival. Basically, long ago, Iskandar had "conquered" the world. It's... not entirely explained what "conquered" means, but it sounds like he more expanded the frontier in legends, but... considering Lilean and Petran tribes are pretty much shoved to the edges of the world and stay mostly in hiding, Chapas are restricted to their tiny village, and Anubito people seem nearly extinct and bent on revenge, I'm going to assume he's a "hero" akin to "heroes" like Christopher Columbus.
When Iskandar died, Lord Dixon returned his body to the Isle of Elve to bury him, and was proclaimed guardian of all the lands. When Dixon died and was buried next to Iskandar, Dixon's wife Regina Leone went up to the mountain behind the mausoleum and lit a fire. People were so moved by the fire that they turned it into an eternal flame, and it started to draw visitors. They started to have a festival of sorts, that was very chaotic and lasted days. There were so many regular visitors to the isle and festival that a town started to form on the isle, which eventually became Vaftom. The people were so unruly that an expansion of the Knights of Iskandar were stationed to keep order.
One of the commanders of the knights finally brought order to the festival and named it after Dixon's late wife, and it became a three-day festival that ends with a ceremonial lighting of fires on the mountainside to send off the deceased of the year. The knights are still stationed in Vaftom's temple, and this is where Jeanne Maure is from.
(This is the only story in the game's manual... is the story of the founding of Vaftom and the festival LOL)
I've found that the best way to see the art of the inns is to go to talk to people and hover over the 'exit' option. This is the least obtrusive I could get. Here's the Strelitzia Inn in Vaftom. Pretty busy-looking, compared to the other small-town types of places we've seen so far.
In the center of Vaftom is Iskandar Plaza. This is where the now-regulated festival takes place. The first two days are full of street vendors and live entertainment, from bards to fire dancers.
Usually in each character's story, you're required to visit the festival to continue to the game. I was still able to select the Flying Island adventure even without visiting the Plaza, but... I wanted to go because you get a fun cutscene. All seven main characters visit the festival during their story, and you usually see interactions between them. So all their stories must take place during the same time frame, though none of them could canonically happen with one another because they all contain contradictions to each other.
Anyway, we find Ruby has actually opened a fortunetelling stall at the festival! It seems like her. "Look at all these shmucks, an easy way to make some gold..." I can hear her saying that to Hiro. And Hiro fruitlessly trying to convince her it's a bad idea. Who knows what the heck everyone else was doing at this point, though. But yeah there's no actual explanation you just see her at the booth XD
Armic wanders by her booth and she says she gets a reading from him that today will be his most fortunate day in twelve years or something, but as she's babbling, he just wanders off. Then fireworks go off and music starts, and Ruby is entranced.
Floats, confetti, everything XD The big evening festivities have begun.
Ruby just abandons her stall and runs to the nearest stranger she sees and is like "HEY LET'S DANCE." It happens to be Mythe. You can actually recruit Mythe into your party, so I thought he was an interesting choice. He seems very distracted, though.
They dance a bit, but then Mythe is too caught up in whatever he was thinking about and just wanders off. Ruby's having a tough time making friends tonight hahaha.
She's a bit annoyed.
The last part of the cutscene is the same for every character's festival FMV. It's the lighting of the fires on the mountain. People lay flowers at the edges of the streets in memory of the people they have lost.
The decaying mausoleum where Iskandar and Lord Dixon are buried. (BTW, the inside is some super convoluted maze)
I think this is some kind of tent/tarp thing between the mausoleum and the plaza. Honestly I thought it was a book the first time I saw this. I still don't really get what it is lol. The flower depicted on whatever it is, though, is a Strelitzia, which is the flower symbolic of Iskandar (and is the flower used in the game logo, and the flower behind the menu during adventures). Actually, speaking of, all seven main characters have a symbolic flower. Ruby's is a narcissus:
When on an adventure map, the 'background' image behind everything is a watercolor painting of a narcissus by Tomomi Kobayashi. She loves flowers so the idea to have every character represented with a flower was probably her idea. On her official site, you can find a ton of flower paintings she has done, along with some character concept art (mostly Saga), and... a bunch of FF7 slash doujin. Not kidding, she's a huge Cloud x Sephi fan.
Sorry for the tangent; here's the lighting of the fires! I don't know why they made all the people these weird blue silhouettes, but I actually think it's kinda neat looking, especially when they have the defined characters standing among them.
Ruby enjoys the sight of the fires. Most characters just have a 'staring' moment here. Laura gets a little bit more, which I really like a lot.
The fires are lit in these shapes. The middle is again a strelitzia, the left looks like a phoenix or something, and who knows what the right it. This is probably explained somewhere. There's actually some official source that even gives the names of the two moons. I forget where, though.
If you try to go to the plaza before or after the festival, you just get a close-up of the art.
Anyway, now that the festival is over, we're off to Flying Island! I don't know why it's called Flying Island. I forget. Or maybe I never knew. But it's in the water. It's surrounded by storms but the island itself has calm weather.
Instead of a crowd of strange people, this time we're met by this big boy. This is Roy, Judy's brother. He loves food almost as much as Quina Quen, and sadly most characters treat him pretty poorly because he's fat.
But Roy is actually pretty badass. The game has a hidden "weight" system, though it's never actually referred to as 'weight' in the game. Roy's 'weight' is the lowest of all characters. There are other "strange" things about the weight system, like the fact that weapons you craft yourself have a weight of 0. So my theory is that rather than "weight," it's better to look at this as an 'encumbrance' stat. Weapons you make yourself are custom-tailed to you, so they do not encumber you. And there are plenty of other characters with strange 'weight' classes, too (like Sapphire seems very 'heavy.') And so I think that this stat is rather the restriction that your own body places on you, and Roy's is low because he is extremely nimble and athletic despite being fat. And it's proven throughout the game that he is very athletic. He runs very fast, all of his attack animations are pretty wild (he does flips and stuff and can master martial arts really well), and gets out of situations other people would never be able to, because he's not only athletic but very stealthy. His body is no encumbrance to him at all.
Ruby, surprised by his arrival (I'm assuming he's soaking wet at this point), learns that he swam all the way here.
And of course, Ruby has to make a shot at his weight. A lot of characters do this lol. Judy even calls him an embarrassment -_-;
Ruby tells him she'll let him ride back to shore with her after they conquer the Wonder, and Roy agrees to help her out as long as she feeds him.
Roy constantly talks about food. In a way, this is kind of annoying because they made the fat kid obsessed with food. But then again, every character in this game is obsessed with one thing and just talks about that, like Anzan with Defense, Musol with beauty, Kong Ming with tactics, Thomas with being a daddy (<3), etc. So rather I think they just picked a bunch of things for people to be obsessed with and designed characters around that, and decided that the food-obsessed character should be fat if all he does is eat all the time, but he's still strong and powerful and capable and the most athletic character in the game, and a main character, so that's good.
So we head out to the island. Flying Island has some of the best area paintings in the game. They almost look like photographs sometimes.
Now that we're on an adventure, we can check out Roy's stats. Skill 3, Magic 3, Spirit 5, and other than Earth all elements are 2 with Fire even being 3! Roy is a really good all-around character with a ton of potential. Other than maybe a big HP-damage dealer or someone who just casts Boulder over and over, you can build him into whatever you want and he'll do pretty well. He also has 20LP so he can hold up very well in a fight.
Yeah, even his art he is carrying bread. He actually has bread on him in battle, too, I think lol. Anyway, he starts with three Iron Body panels which which boost his defenses a lot, and IMO are a symbol that his body is an asset, not a hindrance. He also has Eavesdrop and Locksmith since he is quite stealthy canonically. Though it's implied he learned these skills by becoming very good at sneaking midnight snacks.
Roy, coming from pretty much the most powerful magical family alive, comes with some magic already learned. I know I said it's super rare for characters to come with magic and now everyone is coming with magic, so I guess I was either wrong about that or all the characters with magic happen to be the ones you get in Ruby's scenario lol.
The important one here is Armor Blessing, which is a must-have. It can effectively double a character's defenses.
Here's another cool painting. I took a lot of caps just for this reason lol.
Another. doesn't that look photographic?!
The battle environment is really cool, too. I love the buildings in the background.
Anyway, about the Wonder adventure itself. After taking a few steps, you'll notice there's a big hole to the southeast. Basically, the island is a kind of donut shape with this giant gap in the middle. There are also three large towers on the southwest, southeast, and northeast sides of the gap. We're currently on the northwest side (obviously, since the gap is to the southeast).
The map itself comprises four areas, one for each of the four corners. They're roughly a big loop, but there's a lot of little twisty passages to explore. It's pretty easy to get through, though, and you shouldn't have any trouble with getting lost. The monsters here are pretty docile, some birds and bugs and stuff. The solution is also very simple. Overall, this is a very easy Wonder. Actually, I'd say it's by far the easiest.
Since I already know what to do, I'm not going to go toward the hole, but rather continue around west and then south to get to the southwest map. Here's one of the 'gate' paintings that are on the spaces that connect the different map areas.
Now that we're here, let's take a moment to talk about character position, since we finally have a full party. Character position just affects two things: the order all the little circles are on the menu, I guess so you could keep characters who work together to open chests near each other for convenience?; and which characters appear on the battlefield at the beginning of a battle. There are no back-attacks or anything like that, so no action will occur with the characters that appear when battle begins. But what is more important is what happens with the characters who don't appear. When battle starts, the characters who aren't on the field will count as having rested outside of battle for one turn. Basically, you get a free heal to the characters at the end of the list. This recovers a bit of HP (based on their recovery rate) and a chance to shed negative ailments if they have any.
In story adventures where you have unlimited turns and can rest outside of battle as much as you want, this isn't too big of a deal. But when you're in a subadventure and are worrying about a turn limit, this can be very helpful. If you keep your characters who take the most damage in the end of the order, you don't have to spend as many turns resting (or no turns resting) to make sure they're ready for the next battle. Characters like Anzan, who are good for tanking up-front and have great HP recovery, are great ideas to put in the back of the character order.
It's overall a pretty minor thing, but if you're wanting to maximize your strategy and especially on adventures with a tight turn limit, this can really be a relief to know about. I don't think the game ever tells you this and it might not even be in the manual lol.
There's also no running from battles in this game, so if you're getting in back-to-back battles, you'll have no time to rest, either. Resting is also your primary method of recovering HP over the course of an adventure. So sneaking in free rests where you need them most is a helpful mechanic to know about.
Anyway, almost immediately into the adventure, I've already found the Tetra Force. I guess the game assumes you'll be curious about the gap and head toward it first, and then upon learning you can't do anything there yet, continue heading east and end up at this part of the loop last. Oops.
I decided to save and develop the panel here. Bad idea. Because I had hardly done anything, I got a bunch of low-level, random panels. I had to downgrade half the party's stats because the new panels were worse than all the ones I already had.
There are also these random basins about the island. You're just... able to walk through them?
There are some places where you can swim, though. Basically, throughout the game you'll run into water or obstacles that block your path. Basically, as long as this 'object' exists, you can't move to the space that it is blocking. If you use the Swimming or Obstacle Crossing abilities, you can 'pass' the obstacle, which just removes it from the game/map. Then you can just move freely to the space it was blocking as if it was never there. It's kind of weird when you think of it mechanically like that, but basically you're just rolling a check to see if your characters are able to traverse that difficult terrain, and then once you prove you are, you don't have to roll anymore.
The only weird thing about it is that since they function as objects placed on spaces, they're always in pairs. So if there's two spots to the left and right of each other, and the space between them is "blocked" by water, there will be a "water" object on both spaces. So if you're on the right, and use Swimming on the water that's on that space, you'll then be able to freely move from the right space to the left space as many times as you want. But the left space will still have a water hazard object on it, so to go from the left space to the right space, you'll get the message that your path is blocked by water, and you'll have to clear the water object in order to go left to right, even though you can still go right to left.
This is a theme throughout this adventure, as pretty much there's a bunch of random dead ends blocked by water or boulders, so you'll be overcoming the hazards, traversing to the dead ends, then walking right back and having to overcome them again. Since you only go each direction once, it just seems like you have to overcome the obstacle every time you reach it... but that's not actually the case. There are maps where overcoming hazards give you shortcuts, so you could theoretically walk all the way back around and continue to pass through freely from one direction to the other, but not in reverse.
Anyway, silly as it sounds, it's not particularly noticeable because you'll usually only go through one way (shortcut), or go in and come back out the same way (blocked dead end), so it never feels like something strange is going on, because you're only performing a check once per direction anyway without really noticing that you can go back over without a check.
Anyway, I spent too much time explaining that and it probably didn't make too much sense anyway.
The dead ends behind the hazards here tend to have high-level treasures, so it's good to check them out. Generally hazards will either block treasure like that, or block turn-saving shortcuts. As far as I know, only one adventure actually requires you to overcome a hazard to clear it, and it is possible that I just didn't find the intended path to that adventure, or there's an alternate solution. But since it's possible to just not have these skills at any time, you're rather rewarded for having and using them rather than punished for not having them.
I learned that you can get a better view of the area paintings by bringing up the status screen. It gets rid of the little title thing the blocks part of the top of the painting.
Another painting that looks almost real. Sorry that I'm mostly just talking paintings and mechanics -- not much happens in this adventure. It's really simple and easy.
Paintinggggssss
Eventually you will come to these huge levers that are part of the three towers you noticed before. There are vines hanging down from the levers, and you can use them to pull the levers down.
Upon pulling a lever down, a giant pulley thing hanging into the gap in the center of the island will pull something closer to the top. The first time, you can't really see it, but it just says 'it appears to be something enormous.'
Paintings :)
I got a magic tablet from a treasure slime :D
When Iskandar fails a skill reel (he's my swimmer/obstacle climber). He says "No one's perfect." Whenever he says it, I can't help but think of this song lolololol.
Basically, you just continue around the island loop, hunting treasures and looking for the towers. If you're thorough, you shouldn't have any trouble finding the towers. For some reason, though, I used to always miss the southwest one somehow and end back around at the beginning with only two of the levers pulled. I don't know how because the maps are pretty simple.
The third lever reveals that what you've actually been doing is operating an elevator.
Before getting to the end, Sapphire finished learning Meditate and has moved on to Thunderbringer. This is a pretty powerful spell, though maybe not as great as Holy Seal. But since it has the thunder attribute, it's good against Aquans and monsters that are weak to that, and probably will work much better than Holy Seal against those types. Also notice that this tablet has access to Seal of the Abyss, the forbidden magic that the lich boss from Starship Anchor was using.
I can actually open magic locks now. They're somewhat rare, but when a chest is locked with magic, you need to use either Bubble Blow, Fire Arrows, or Boulder on them. And you have to actually know the spell -- you can't just use a familiar. And just like in battle, you have to be equipped with an item with the elemental arts on it to use it. You select the item (which will be in black like this) and then it will bring up the abilities you can use from it... you have to find one of the three spells above, and choose it. Then you'll have to roll a reel to see if you unlock it. It even uses one durability of the item for each roll you do...
I did it this once because it had some good money or something, but generally if there's a magic lock in this playthrough, I'm just ignoring it unless it's big money and there are no traps. It's not worth the item durability since I can't repair my weapons.
Unique painting for the final space next to the gap, where you can see the pulley. You can only reach the elevator cage from the northwest area where you first saw the gap, as there's a little landing thing leading out to it. I think it's amazing that someone went through the work of painting so many detailed landscapes and stuff like this, for them to be used while you're standing on one space in the game for like... a couple seconds.
I really wonder if there is an artbook with all of these? I've seen one with all the town and inn paintings that also has some characters and stuff but I didn't see any of the environments in it like this. I don't actually know what all contents the books have and there are several artbooks and guides and stuff for this game (Japanese only. There's also a manga and a novel!)
Here's the cage. Of course we're getting in. It's gotta be safe, right?
When I first read this the first time I played this adventure, I thought the thing was like plummeting by gravity into the pit. But after it says this, it actually shows the animation and it moves downward like a normal elevator.
There's no map or anything for the bottom of the pit. You just... are in a watery area and fight one of the elder dragons.
There's not much to say about this fight because it's really easy. It has many abilities that can hit everyone in your party, including one that can also stun anyone it hits at the same time. Most of the time it just bites you. It's not very threatening. It doesn't have a lot of HP so you'll start damaging its LP right away, and then it's LP isn't too scary (like 12 or something, but you'll be dealing damage early and fast).
Its attacks can be powerful (here it's doing 3 and 2 LP damage to Ruby and Sapphire respectively), but honestly you can defeat it so quickly it doesn't really matter. Sapphire got kinda close to dying but it's because she was on the field almost every turn and her LP is so low to start with.
Tail Lash is the thing that will hit everyone with a chance to stun. In theory, since he can hit everyone who is on the field, it would seem better to send out less characters per round so he doesn't hit as many, but if you have two characters out and both get stunned, you just wasted a whole turn doing nothing and taking damage. And he's not strong enough to really be considered a threat, unless you're not very good at dealing LP damage yet. Sapphire and Iskandar are really my only LP-damagers at this point, but they're still more than enough.
Once you defeat him, you get this little message, and like always, immediately on the panel select screen. (When I say immediately, I just mean there's no fanfare or anything. The screen does fade out at least lol). And we're still at the top of the elevator. It doesn't even show you coming back up. From a mechanical standpoint, you never actually left this space anyway.
After finishing this Wonder, Jeanne Maure shows up and sees Ruby with the Tetra Force, and asks if she could have it.
Ruby says she needs it, but Jeanne (with a voiced line!) says she's willing to die for the Tetra Forces.
Ruby says "You want it that bad?" and then decides to give it to her. Even though Iskandar told her she needed them before... So now Jeanne has two and Ruby has one.
After the adventure I went shopping and found a Diamond Ring in the shops! I really wasn't comfortable spending the money on it, though. My market rank is getting pretty good now, though! I figure since most of my characters will be filled up with magic stuff, this just isn't worth the price. Most accessories have a defense of 1, but Diamond Ring has defense of 2. More importantly, it unleashes the NullParalysis ability, which makes the character wearing it immune to paralysis. So next time I'm able to visit Nakle Lines as a subquest (and have access to the blacksmith), I'm making seven Diamond Rings for my party :P
I got a couple good weapons while shopping, but I didn't get a large quantity of weapons since there weren't many in the shops in general. It's good to have strong ones but for this challenge I need an abundance of weapons, too...
The following is probably the most spoilery part of this post. This game's story isn't really about any kind of linear tale, but we learn some big stuff about the major characters in this story at this point. If you don't want spoilers, stop reading now.
The entire conversation is in the screencaps on facebook, but I won't post every single line here.
So, upon returning to the house to select another Wonder, the old lady decides to "tease" Ruby and Sapphire.
She asks them if they've resolved their problems yet. Sapphire says she still can't figure out why she is afraid of seeing her own death. The old lady suggests, rather, that her problem is that she's happy she was able to see it. She says, "When you die as you have foreseen, I can hear your shouts of victory." Essentially, she's saying that Sapphire has become so conceited about her own abilities that she will rejoice in her own death just because it proves how great of a fortuneteller she is. She may act humble on the outside, but secretly her sin is her pride, and that pride has now clouded her ability to read, since it requires a clear mind.
Then she changes the focus to Ruby.
Ruby claims she's not afraid of anything, and is confident she'll conquer the wonders. The old woman tells her that she still won't live up to her sister, though. Ruby says she may not now, but she'll continue to practice and learn --
The old lady cuts her off and delivers her a harsh dose of Ruby's actual thought. After a pause, Ruby becomes very upset, saying she knows she'll never be as good as Sapphire and there's nothing she can do about it.
It seems like Ruby is actually afraid after all. But what she's really afraid of is losing her closeness with her sister. After that, Ruby runs off and Sapphire walks after her, leaving Iskandar and the old woman alone in the house.
Iskandar asked if it was rough being the bad guy, and the woman said that they needed to hear the truth. I'd hardly say she was 'teasing' them if she honestly believed what she said to be true.
Iskandar makes a comment about the way the old lady used to be when she was young, and the old lady essentially rolls her eyes at the comment, since he couldn't have possibly known her when she was young. But apparently, he did, and he even saved her life. Which either means Iskandar ages ridiculously well, or he is the Iskandar of legend who supposedly became a god.
The old lady just dismisses him as a weirdo and the scene ends, bringing us to the ever-familiar Wonders menu. I'll be taking on Two Moons temple next, which can be easy, but has some optional bosses which can really ramp up its overall difficulty. Deities' Table is my least favorite BY FAR, and then Undercity Pharos is just a confusing mess that I'm still very unfamiliar with, so I'm saving those two for last (I'll probably do Deities' Table after Two Moons, because that would be so anticlimactic to do as the final of the six Wonders...)
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Date: 2016-10-05 02:48 pm (UTC)I think showing the screen helps hype us for our oncoming adventure heh heh.
I like the background for the festival. One thing I loved about Romancing is how detailed and expansive the backstory was for the world. It seems like that’s a trend which continues in Usaga.
The cutscene looks gorgeous. I wonder if this whole thing plays out the same if Mythe is in your party at this point? Or does he only join after this cutscene? Also, I’m pretty sure Ruby only tried to dance with him because she thought he was a beautiful woman. We know she’s got a thing for
all womentaller, dark skinned beauties.I love that all the characters have a symbolic flower. I also really dig Ruby’s art! I haven’t been the biggest fan of her design TBH, but she looks so adorable (and dare I say, strikingly more mature looking??) in that art. Oh wow, and the fact the artist does Cloud/Sephiroth doujin makes me laugh and like her all the more. That’s crazy awesome haha.
The ‘shadow people’ effect was prob to conserve on animation and cut corners, but it’s done in the best way possible by making it really stylistic. Because of the way they juxtapose the non-descript people with the very detailed protagonists makes them stand out all the more. It’s pretty cool IMO.
Buuuttt Ruby staring at the fire is kinda creepy IMO. She’s got this really dead look in her eyes. Brrr.
*waves* Hello, Roy. Let’s be friends. I mean, I doubt you’ll ever compare to the amazingness which is Grace, but that’s okay. We can’t all be SABAMF 24/7.
Dude, Ruby. It’s rude to talk about someone’s weight like that. You don’t even know that man. Damn.
You make a good point about Roy, but I agree that the whole “it’s funny cuz hes a fatty fatty two-by-four can’t-fit-in-the-kitchen-door mcfatterson from the land of lard” shtick to be incredibly tired.
Glad to know he’s got such good battle potential. And the stuff about his sneakiness is nice too. It sounds like there’s more to him than the obligatory fat joke. This makes me happy.
Basically, the island is a kind of donut shape
…Is this a stealth fat joke?
No running from battles, huh? So I guess something like Grace’s Diplomat skill is the only way to avoid combat when you’re on the verge of death? Heh.
Your explanation of the hazards actually made a good bit of sense.
Oh nifty! Is Seal of the Abyss as useful when used by the player as it was by Lichitung?
The portraits are really well done. I agree that it’s pretty amazing someone drew such a lovely BG only for it to appear for a few seconds haha. I’ve heard about the novel (and I want to readddd ittt). I think I read somewhere that Ruby was the main protagonist of the novel, but I have absolutely no way to verify that.
I thought the thing was like plummeting by gravity into the pit
That’s the impression I was under as well. The game was a little deceptive haha.
The elder dragon dude looks awesome, but compared to the last boss he was pretty lame hahah.
Ahhhhh Ruby. Stop giving away mystic artifacts to cute girls!! You’re going to need those!!
She may act humble on the outside, but secretly her sin is her pride, and that pride has now clouded her ability to read, since it requires a clear mind.
That’s actually really awesome. I love that Sapphire is given some depth (and it’s even better that it’s a ‘flaw’) and helps her feel more like a fully realized person. I like the bond between the sisters too, even if we don’t see it in a lot of detail.
Iskandar of legend who supposedly became a god.
Yeah, probably that one.
(edited to fix my terrible html mistakes)
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Date: 2016-10-05 04:40 pm (UTC)The cutscenes are indeed super pretty to watch. I'm curious if the cutscene is different, too, but I'm like 90% sure it's not. It seems vague enough to work either way. You get Mythe by going to the Undercity Pharos Wonder, and can see the festival by selecting the Flying Island Wonder, so you can do the festival before or after recruiting him. I would say Mythe probably isn't interested in a kid like Ruby but his entire story is about how he's so obsessed over the beauty of a 14-year-old that he quits his job and goes on an adventure to learn more about her.
When you first said haven't been a big fan of "her design" I thought you mean Tomomi Kobayashi's art/character design and I was like D:!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I think you meant Ruby herself, right? XD I think her personality really made me love her a lot -- the intro quests with her doing the fake fortunetelling and just being like "whatever, we'll just MAKE things work!" was really cool. So I've grown to think she's really cute in general. I actually like her like ... star-shaped midrift-window thing on her outfit, and I like her hair. Her weird giant hula-hoop-linked sash thing and awkward headband-tiara-whatever thing are kinda... strange looking, but I don't mind XD
I actually just went to Kobayashi's official site (http://kobayashitomomi.com/portfolio.html) just now and it seems she's taken down her doujins (at least from her site) and even her SaGa stuff and turned it into a like... more professional-looking portfolio. You'd think she'd want to keep the SaGa art at least as part of the portfolio...? But it seems like she's getting really into other stuff recently. Makes sense, since mostly she just was contracted for SaGa and then they didn't realeast a game for like almost 15 years (unsaga was the last new game, though she did do a small set of 8 illustrations for Minstrel Song, and this game came out in 2002). Though she did do illustrations and character design for Imperial SaGa and SaGa SCARLET GRACE? But it seems the themes she's going for in her personal art is not fantasy/game-like stuff, so... She also got rid of all her flower illustrations (though flowers are still a big theme in her work), like she used to have an entire gallery of just flowers. I was going off memory of her site from a couple years ago when I described it in the entry, so... XD
Oh yeah it probably was actually to conserve on animation cost haha but I think it's really cool looking :)
Yeah, I always feel so mixed about Roy because it's like "powerful, athletic, playable fat character! .......... who's a constant running fat joke" X_X I can enjoy him by focusing on the positives but I still wish there wasn't so much of the 'haha fat' stuff. I'm even fine with him carrying bread around honestly (uh but probably because I love bread and if I was on a an adventure like this I'd be carrying around tons of bread too. I actually have a loaf of Italian bread in the pantry that is solely just for pulled out and snacking on right now XD
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Date: 2016-10-05 04:40 pm (UTC)Yeah, Seal of the Abyss can be pretty useful :) Big damage and can Blackout monsters. What's nice about Blackout is that for monsters, it's the same as KO'ing them :D So it's insta-kill magic that also does lots of damage whether it insta-kills or not. I actually just realized I have no idea what forbidden magic's power is based on...? You have no elemental skill for it, so maybe just it goes on pure magic? I also don't think there's any "forbidden support" abilities on equipment so you can't boost it that way. But forbidden magic generally just has huge base power anyway so I guess it's not as needed.
Yup, Ruby is the main protag of the novel! I honestly don't know much more about it than that, though. I think she's also the protag of the manga??? I think there's two volumes of the manga and one is about her. IDK. It's weird because the game pushes Laura as the prominent main character and scenario? The guidebook has a like short story in it but I haven't even read it yet because reading Japanese fiction is ... a lot of work. The structure is weird and I'm still not used to it, and there's a lot of dictionary work because of the kanji and stuff. So it's not all that enjoyable since there's a struggle to just read it XD I've read some JP novels before but it took forever and was more frustrating than fun, even though the stories were good.
Yeah, the Elder Dragon is so tame compared to the first two Wonder's bosses XD I guess I played them in kind of an anti-climactic order XD Two Moons should be pretty interesting, and Undercity. Deities Table is a snoozefest though.
LMAO YEAH I love how like Iskandar is like "These are of grave importance" and then like a couple quests later and she's like OKAY JEANNE HERE YA GO XDDDD They're not for sharing!!
And yeah I really like/appreciate that development of Sapphire. I've played past this but I only remembered the Ruby-freaks-out part of that scene really so I totally forgot that aspect of Sapphire :O I'm surprised how much I forget of this story O_o