Part 6: I Want To Break Free

Update 6: I Want To Break Free

"You know what? Screw this. I didn't come all this way to rule some Layan kingdom and never see my family again. I'm going home with Lena."


"Let's return home to Landen and Satera."



Soon, a son, Nial, was born to Rhys and Lena. Peace settled over the land as Nial grew up. When Nial was 18, evil once again stirred...



"Queen Lena, monsters have invaded Satera! Your father has died in battle. Please help us!"



"Journey westward and see who is invading Satera. Take Wren and Mieu, but be careful!"



"For 18 years I have longed for the day when I would have my very own killer robots."

At the start of generation 2, Nial comes well-equipped with a Steel Sword and Ceramic Armour, plus the Sapphire and Moon Stone gems from the previous generation. He can't use any techniques, but he's a reasonably sturdy melee fighter who can dish out a lot of damage.

Wren and Mieu keep whatever stats and equipment they had at the end of the previous generation.



In Wren's case, that just so happens to include an Escapipe. I wonder what would happen if we used it right now?



The Escapipe takes you to the entrance of the last dungeon you entered. In this case, that's the dungeon under Cille Castle.



All the monsters have been replaced with Chirpers, so getting through it should be easy enough. Let's see what happens if we get to the end of the castle.



Why, it's King Cille! And there's a palette-swapped Maia behind him. (Nial is a palette-swapped Rhys, and Rhys and Maia use the same palette, you see.)



Anyway, if we talk to him, he fights us just like at the end of the previous generation. We have fewer characters to dish out damage this time, but he's still quite beatable.



"Uh, I'm not Rhys..."

King Cille's dialogue proceeds as normal, but at the end it gives us the marriage options for this generation! (I won't spoil them right now, of course.) Accepting one of them will take us straight to generation 3. That's right, we can make like a recessive trait and skip a generation.

If you do want to skip generation 2 this way, make sure to choose the second marriage option. The first option makes the game unfinishable, because you won't be able to use some plot-essential items that you were supposed to collect during the second generation.

Anyway, skipping a third of the game would defeat the purpose of an LP, so let's load our state back at Landen Castle and have a talk to Nial's parents!



"Cille and Shusoran are Layan lands, of course, but Layans can be found elsewhere as well."
"Please save my homeland, Nial."



Apparently someone named Lune has sent in an army of monsters from the west to attack Satera, and things are looking grim. At this rate, it won't be long before they reach Landen.



At least the townspeople are still cheerful, I guess!



"... that lies beyond a cave far to the south."
"Y'know, knowing where the ruby is would be a lot more useful than knowing where the cave it opens is."



Shops don't change between generations, so towns that sell crap will always sell crap. On the bright side, we still have all our money from the last generation, even if there isn't anything to spend it on.

Well, off we go to Satera.



There are new enemies on the overworld map. Oozes are upgraded Glops, with a fairly strong attack and Foi technique. Warblers can use Gra for about 5 damage to the whole party, and have surprisingly high HP: they can survive one hit from Wren's Ceramic Shot. Enemies give much better rewards than the previous generation: we're earning about 100-200 XP and meseta from every battle.



Satera is just across the river from Landen, past that bridge that wasn't there before.



If we stop by Yaata first, we can learn a little more information about Lune. Apparently there was a man named Lune who served under Laya in the great war a thousand years ago, and this Lune is claiming to be him.



By the time we get to Satera, it's in pretty bad shape.



In particular, it's swarming with Lizrd monsters, which can hit the whole party with Zan techniques, have quite a bit of HP and usually appear in large groups. They're pretty annoying, and we'll be running into them for the next few areas.



"Even now they're pouring out of a southern cave."
"A southern cave, huh? Thanks for the information! I'll just be, uh, running away now. Yes, that's it."



The cave we're looking for is a long way to the south, requiring you to head southwest around the lake and then back to the southeast.



The cave itself is easy enough to get through, although collecting all the treasure requires you to take a bit of a scenic route.



It's also full of Dreidons, the final member of the Eindon/Tsveidon family. If you run into a group like this, you'll be lucky to get out of it without someone being poisoned.



Anyway, head all the way to the south, then west, then all the way to the north, then west again until you get to the Ceramic Ribbon, which is headgear for Mieu. Keep heading west, then south, then east, then south for the Laser Shot, a weapon for Wren. It does about 90 damage but only hits a single enemy, so I prefer to stick with the Ceramic Shot. After that, head south, then west until you reach a set of stairs, then all the way to the north, then east for a Ceramic Shield, which you should probably just sell. From there, just backtrack to the stairs and you're done!



"We have arrived in Elysium. Temperature and humidity are ideal for human habitation."



As always, a new area means new enemies. For some reason, the Biclops is actually a weaker version of the Clops; it only has about 60 HP, so it falls to a single Ceramic Shot. The Nova enemies aren't dangerous (all they have is a Tsu technique that does about 3 damage to the party), but they're incredibly annoying: they have a long attack animation that consists of hopping up and spinning around in the air, and they do it once for every single character they hit with their technique.



Anyway, the only area of interest we can get to right now is this town.



Apparently it's called Divisia, because it has a northern and southern half separated by a castle in the middle. We also learn that Lune and Alair survived this long by spending the last 1,000 years frozen in cryogenic stasis.



"What's Lune's sister doing in an Orakian castle, anyway?"



"Wait, did this 'smart move' come before or after Lune attacked? Because if you're somehow responsible for this war..."



"Oh, is that so? You kidnapped the sister of Laya's greatest general, and you're just now starting to think that it might not have been a good idea?"



Looks like it's time to poke around in the dungeons and see if we can find Alair.



Just one new enemy here. Smashers are much the same as Grinders: weak attacks, high defense, loads of HP.



The eastern entrance to the dungeons just leads to a short path ending in a Trimate...



... while the western entrance is the one we want to take to advance the plot.



The layout of this dungeon is roughly a clockwise spiral, with a short detour near the southeast corner for an Antidote. It's kind of a long walk, but simple enough.



"I guess you must be Alair, then. Can you go do me a favour and tell Lune you just got lost in the woods or something and weren't, y'know, captured by Orakians?"



"My brother Lune needs to be stopped -- he's crazy! I guess 1,000 years of exile has warped him. All he wants is to kill Orakians and cyborgs! I'm going back to try to convince him to stop."



As you might expect, the guards are soiling themselves at the thought of what Lune's going to do to them when he finds out they kidnapped Alair.



"And here I was thinking you might be the only person in this castle with a brain. You just keep believing that, you complete bonehead."



For some reason, the only way to get through the castle to South Divisia is through the dungeons: in fact, through the very room Alair was imprisoned in. How exactly was the king expecting to keep her locked up without cutting off all travel from one end of town to the other?



In South Divisia, we find out about a rebel army, which has apparently been trying to travel to Aridia but need safe passage to Landen first. Maybe if we help them with that, they can help us out against Lune?



While we're here, let's not forget to do some shopping. Laconia is the strongest metal in the Phantasy Star series, and the Laconian Shot is a powerful gun for Wren, doing over 100 damage -- it still only hits a single target, though. We pick up some Ceramic Claws for Mieu, allowing her to hit twice per round for almost as much damage as Nial's Steel Sword on each hit.



There's new armour for everyone too. A "fiblira" is body armour for Layan women: the same kind of equipment was translated as "cape" in Phantasy Star 2 (it was still "fiblira" in the Japanese version).



There's not much else of interest in Divisia, so that's it for today. Next update, we head west and find the rebel cave!