Part 51: Kaga's Notes and Miscellaneous Stuff

Kaga's Notes and Miscellaneous Stuff

So there's a lot of information that can't be easily inferred from the game itself. What happened to most of the generation one characters? What was up with Celice calling Levin Holsety of the Wind at the end there? Well these questions and more are (sort of) answered by series creator and director, Shouzou Kaga.

First of all, as I alluded to earlier, this game was originally supposed to have a third part to it, but due to time (and possibly space) limitations, it ended up being cut from the game. The third part was supposed to be about the children and parents reuniting, though which parents survived depended on your pairings in first generation. Some pre-release notes show that Kaga had planned three general patterns (0, 1, and 2) that would result in different survivors. For example, pattern one had pairings like Aira/Lex and Briggid/Jamka, and all first generation females surviving (or being resurrected), but very few first generation males surviving. Examples of pattern two pairings were Aideen/Jamka, and Aira/Holyn. Oh also, in part three the power of Julia's love saves Julius from Loputousu, and presumably joined the party.

Now, if you were curious about what exactly happened to everyone from generation one, Kaga's notes provide a few "what if?" scenarios for most of the characters in different patterns. These aren't canon per se, but it's something to think about, and it's about the closest we'll get to a solid answer. I'll put which pattern a given scenario was planned to be a part of, so you can see where things overlap and diverge.

Sylvia and Claude (1)

Before the Battle of Barhara, Sylvia fled to Darna and gave birth to Leen. She then abandoned Leen to the care of the people in Darna, leaving to search for Claude. After three years, she reunited with Claude, "who had tragically changed. Sylvia became his eyes and his limbs, watching the changing times and keeping an eye on their children." (I don't really know what this means) Two years after that, she gave birth to Corple. Two years after the end of the game, Sylvia would've reunited with her children, though Claude would've died presumably in the gap between generations.

Lachesis (0)

When Oifey left for Isaac in Chapter 5, Lachesis gave baby Delmud to him. She then went to Northern Thracia to protect Eltshan's wife and Aless, but as the Empire grew, she fled to Fin's location (presumably Lenster) and gave birth to Lachesis. Eight years later, she tried to cross the Yeid desert to reunite with Delmud (as is referenced when Delmud and Nanna meet). After the end of the game, Delmud and Nanna reunited with Lachesis in a Silvail prison camp, where she took care of child-prisoners. Kaga notes that Delmud holds a resemblance to Beowulf, so perhaps Lachesis/Beowulf was a Pattern 0 pairing.

Fury and Levin (1)

Fury escapes with Sety to Silesia to live with Queen Rahna and wait for Levin's return before the Battle of Barhara takes place. Sadly, Levin died in the battle, and word of his death soon reached Silesia. A few months after Barhara, the Empire invaded Silesia. Fury wanted to fight to defend her country, but Rahna persuaded her to escape to Throve instead. In the battle for Silesia, Rahna was killed by imperial troops. Alvis later executed the soldier that killed her, and his commanding officer, then held a funeral for the departed Queen. Months later, Levin miraculously returned to Fury, and not long after that, Fee was born. Five years later, Levin would leave his family for years at a time, returning only for a couple of days every now and then. As alluded to in game, eventually Fury died while Levin was out wandering, and Fee and Sety left in search of their father.

Tiltyu and Azel (1)

Before Chapter 5, Tiltyu and Azel left baby Arthur with Queen Rahna. After defeating Reptor, Tiltyu was mentally shaken, so she and Azel left for Silesia to see their child the day before Sigurd's army returned to Grandbell. Two years later, Tiltyu gave birth to Tinny. By that time, Grandbell's empire extended across the continent, and Alvis was working on trying to create a stable, lasting peace. However, to his dismay, his own brother, Azel, was still trying to raise a rebellion. As such, Alvis was forced to denounce him as a criminal and an enemy of the Empire. Troubled and unsure of what to do, Azel left for Barhara to talk things over with his brother, to try to convince him that what he was doing was wrong. Manfloy could not allow this to happen, and petrified Azel before he could reach Barhara, sealing his unconscious body in a secret basement beneath the royal palace. Ten years later (after the end of the game), Julia was able to use the power of Narga to awaken Azel, who then reunited with Tiltyu and his children. During the gap between generations it seems Tiltyu died at some point as well, possibly tortured to death by Hilda, though Claude sacrificed his own life to resurrect her.

Aideen and Jamka (2)

Pretty much all that's written in Kaga's notes here are things we already know from the game. Aideen left for Isaac with Oifey, Shanan, and the children, where she acted as a mother to the children.

So that's about it for information about what might've happened to the generation one crew. Obviously Sigurd and Deirdre died, Sigurd at Barhara, and Deirdre to Julius' hand years later. Guys like Alec and Noish don't really get much detail, in game or out of game, so you can probably assume they also died at Barhara.

That still leaves us wondering about Celice's final conversation with Levin. Well to fully understand that, it helps to know a bit about the dragon tribe from which the crusaders' powers come from.

In addition to that, in an interview Kaga talks about how Levin's personality begins to change once he gets his hands on Holsety, and that by the time generation two rolls around, it's possible that Levin's own persona has been replaced by Holsety's. There's also some in-game evidence, which I'll go into in a moment, that shows that Levin actually died at Barhara, and was later resurrected by Holsety. This, along with the last few lines of the game, sort of leads me to believe that Holsety, the dragon-god, basically possessed Levin and is in control of him throughout the second half of the game. If anyone's interested in more of this stuff, you can find the full interviews and unabridged notes on serenesforest.net.

Finally, if you wait on the title screen to the game, a demo reel plays that shows some bonus scenes and conversations that expand a bit on some of the major events of the game. Unfortunately, unlocking most of the scenes requires multiple playthroughs of the game, I think requiring ten game completions to get everything, and I can't find a video on youtube of the opening demo, so I can't really show that off. Some of them are things like conversations between two units sparring, like Alec and Noish or Lakche and Skasaha, or a bit of extra dialogue in an event like Lachesis talking to Eltshan in Chapter 3. There are a couple really important scenes though. The demo shows Manfloy actually killing Levin with some dark tome (I forget if it's anything special or just a regular tome). If I recall, Manfloy only had about a 20% hit chance on Levin (all the battles are shown on the regular battle screen), so it really was an unlikely death. Then you see Alvis kill Sigurd with Falaflame (with a pretty good hit chance), and Deirdre ask Alvis if Sigurd was really a bad person . There's also a couple of generation two scenes where you see Deirdre Warp Staff Julia out of Barhara, then see Julius kill Deirdre. If anyone happens to know of or have a recording of the demo, that'd be something cool to show off.

And that's it. I wanna once again thank everyone who read the thread and contributed to it in one way or another. It was a blast to write all this, and I'm glad that so many people enjoyed it!