Part 5: Lin

Update 05: Lin

Welcome back. Last time we were involved in a train crash, encountered a powerful war genic and met Nina, our newest party member.

Music: Waste Shaft





As soon as the cutscene ends we get a message telling us about a new powerup. Remember the burning aura that gave Ryu super speed last update?





Now we can deploy that at will by holding down R2.



D-Dashing is super useful, at least for the time being. It doubles your movement speed and any enemy you run into while it’s active will be rammed aside without starting a battle.





We can also check out our newest party member. Nina is the archetypical squishy mage, with low HP and poor strength but high magic and good agility. She begins at Lv. 1, but it’s not hard to get her up to speed even without using Party XP.



Nina only has one skill right now, a fire spell called G-Flare. We’re about to start encountering enemies again, so I’ll get a chance to show it off soon.







As we exit the room the game gives us a brief shakedown of Nina’s abilities. If she’s in the lead and you press R2 she’ll draw in any nearby items for easier collection.



Immediately ahead are two Worker Ant enemies and a crate.





I could just D-Dash past these guys, but Worker Ants are an interesting enemy and I need to show off Nina’s abilities.





Worker Ants aren’t too tough in terms of defence. Ryu can kill one with a single combo.





Any Worker Ants left alive after the first turn will shift to ‘attack mode’ and gain access to Multi Attack, a powerful ability that hits twice. This can be very dangerous if one of them manages to sneak up on Nina.





Thankfully Nina survives by the skin of her teeth and we get to see what G-Flare can do.



G-Flare isn’t an area of effect spell, but rather a magic rune that can be placed on the battlefield. As soon as you select it a cylindrical wireframe appears to note the rune’s deployment area. This wireframe can be moved around in pretty much any direction the player wants, but the further from Nina it is the more AP it costs to cast.







One pretty neat visual detail is that Nina’s staff, Pyromania, is actually a battered old welding torch.



This burning rune will remain on the battlefield until either an enemy runs into it or the player has Nina manually dispel it. This spell and others like it can be used to box enemies in, cut off avenues of retreat or simply as hazards that Ryu can kick enemies into.



You can also stack runes on top of one another, although not a 100% overlay. A total of three runes can exist at once.







The AI is not the sharpest tool in the shed and will happily run right into these runes nine times out of ten.







Nina gains a level, and the treasure key materialises. However, before we grab it you may notice some suspicious-looking objects hanging from the ceiling.



These guys are Bind Spiders, and like Hychees they enjoy dropping on Ryu’s head. Unlike Hychees however these guys are a real threat.



Bind Spiders have only one attack, Shadowstitch. It deals low damage, but nearly always inflicts the Bind status effect.



Bind sucks. Any character hit by it is frozen in place. You can still attack, but if there aren’t any enemies nearby and you don’t have a dose of Footloose or Multivitamins you’re pretty much stuck twiddling your thumbs until it wears off. Which can be an absolute killer since Bind lasts for three turns.



As such, now is an excellent time to equip the Bind Gear we identified earlier. It’ll lower our movement range a bit, but that’s nothing compared to how bad Bind can be.



Bind Spiders are fairly tough, having over 200 HP and reasonable defence. They are very weak to fire however.







Three overlapping G-Flare runes are more than enough to kill one.



Without their gimmick the Bind Spiders go down pretty quickly, with Nina earning another level from their defeat.



The defeated enemies leave behind a great many items, giving me a chance to show off Nina’s field ability.





Press R2 and Nina will raise her staff and magically vacuum up any nearby items, making them easier to collect. Not the most impressive power, but useful to have if there are a lot of scattered items around, or if an item happens to fall out of bounds somehow. Our spoils this time are four Footloose, two Junk (vendor trash), a Fresh Meat and the treasure key.



We can go back to the treasure box and unlock it to find an unidentified shield. I also take the time to offload all the vendor trash and other crap we don’t need, pushing our total zenny to 360.



Moving on we come to another intersection.



The door directly ahead leads to a large stockpile full of item boxes. The spoils are 100 zenny, a Footloose, two sticks of Dynamite, and a Fresh Meat.







The other path leads to a very narrow corridor. It looks empty, but running down it is a bad idea.





There’s a corner, and right around it are four Bind Spiders just waiting to drop down and ruin Ryu’s day.









Climbing the ladder takes us to another narrow corridor, although this one doesn’t have any enemies lying in ambush.





This room contains three boxes carrying a combined total of 30 Party XP and 240 zenny.





The northern doorway leads to this little blocked off nook. The boxes here contain 460 zenny and yet another hunk of Fresh Meat.



Going through the southern door meanwhile triggers a fairly long cutscene.







As Ryu and Nina walk into the room, a mysterious figure lies in wait. She reaches for her gun…





But Ryu hears her cock it!









The screen goes black, and a gunshot echoes through the room.









: You can’t help her. Go, and leave her with me.

: What?



: She is the only hope we have of saving this rotten world!



: I don’t deal with criminals!

: Admirable, for a Ranger. It’s too bad you don’t realise…



:…what you can see with your eyes.

The masked gunwoman cocks her revolver again.



:…you’d be happier not knowing. Forget me, and forget you ever met a girl with wings.





Nina stands up, but she doesn’t go to the woman.

Music: First Determination



Instead, she runs back to Ryu.







Nina shakes her head and hugs Ryu even tighter. After a few seconds, the masked woman puts her gun down.



: Let’s work together, at least until we leave EndSector.







The Trinity agent unmasks herself to prove her sincerity.

:…I’m Lin.







After Nina gives her approval, Ryu lets Lin help him up.

: Let’s go, Ranger.





Lin joins us! And she brings another five item slots with her! It’s too early to celebrate though, since another cutscene swiftly follows…

Music: Ranger HQ





: I see…



It’s hard to show, but Bosch is actually trembling here.



: I barely made it out alive!

:…



: You should have secured it before coming back here.



:…it couldn’t have survived!

: The brass don’t like excuses, Bosch.







: Understood?





Well, that was ominous! It looks like Ryu and his old companions at Ranger HQ are now on a collision course. This certainly doesn’t bode well for the future.

Music: Waste Shaft





Back in the waste shaft we can see that Lin has joined our party.



Unlike Nina Lin joins us at Lv. 10. She has a good spread of stats and fights with a pistol, giving her good range.





Stepping into the next room brings up a hint screen giving us more information about Lin’s abilities. I’ll be showing off how her skills work very soon.





The end of the corridor here seems empty, but there’s an enemy marker on the minimap.



Sure enough, an enemy’s HP bar appears if you walk up to the end and wait a few seconds.



Attacking it reveals an enemy type that any fan of the Breath of Fire series will recognise.



Meet the Goo Element, Dragon Quarter’s take on the classic Eye Goo enemy. We could have met one earlier in the game, but wound up encountering a Death Cow in its place.



Goo Elements are less sturdy than Bind Spiders, but they pack more of a punch and can be very dangerous if you get careless.







Case in point. Their main form of attack, Expand, is both hilarious and deadly. Whatever you do, don’t bunch your party up when you encounter one.





With that said, now is an excellent time to show off Lin’s basic skills. Her sole Lv. 1 attack, ‘Hey, Hey!’, isn’t too impressive by itself, but it can add special effects to future skills in a chain. In fact, most of Lin’s utility revolves around the large number of special combos she can string together.



Her first Lv. 2 skill, ‘Stay Here!’, has an attack power of 110% and can reduce an enemy’s movement, although in this case the Goo Element resisted it.





Lin’s second and for the time being final Lv. 2 skill is ‘Outta My Way’, a basic attack similar to Ryu’s kick that knocks the enemy back.



Right now Lin’s potential is somewhat limited due to her poor moveset. She also has a poorer hit rate than Ryu and Nina, which isn't helped by the fact that a lot of her guns carry an accuracy penalty for some bizarre reason. However, she's the only character who can reliably inflict status effects and will eventually gain some very powerful skills in the mid to late game.



One interesting quirk of Goo Elements is that they always drop a weapon of the same type that killed them, which in this instance is a gun for Lin.





The next room contains several item crates nestled in with the trash.



In this case however, what looks like trash is not guaranteed to be.



This clever guy is a Hermit, a deceptive enemy that masquerades as part of the background junk.





Hermits attack by whacking whoever's closest with their ramshackle shells. They hit pretty hard for regular enemies and are effectively immune to physical attacks.





Like a lot of enemies in this area however they are super weak to fire. A single G-Flare rune is enough to kill one.



On death the Hermit drops Jolt, a new spell for Nina.



Jolt is a direct damage area of effect spell. Useful to have if runes aren’t practical.



The next room is the ladder room, with another dead Duke slumped nearby. This seems like a good place to pause, so I'll be ending the update here. Until next time.

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Bonus Art: Lin


Bonus Art: Ryu and Lin Standoff