Part 28: Snow Chronicles 6: Stocking Up For Winter

Snow Chronicles 6: Stocking Up For Winter


Music: The World of Snow



The Snow Chronicles are back again. You know, I said earlier Monsters/Weapons percentage were a good indication of how far we are into the game but then I forget chapters like these two were those raise fuck all and throw off everything. Also the penultimate chapter being huge because it’s where they stuck 100% of the game’s side quests. So... forget what I said! We’re roughly half way through the game.





Oh-ho-ho! It’s the worst zany anime trope: bad at cooking. Watch out, here comes a scene where a dish is smoking toxic purple clouds of miasma. Oh boy! The brave main character who tried it has keeled over dead. And now EVERYONE ate it at once and are all gagging like mustard gas was just released into the room. Comedy!



One of the end game side quests is a zany misadventure trying to get Cornelius laid. Meanwhile...



Here lies Lilus
He never scored.





“Oh pfft. Another stupid penguin reskin. It doesn’t even have angry eyebrows or an afro or anything.”
“Actually its life is constant agony and suffering. This side quest is to mercy kill it and dig a fist sized kidney stone out of its innards.”



That still doesn’t explain the name “Snecter”. Snecter sounds like some shitty villain of the week robot that Cobra Commander had constructed when he wasn’t really feeling up to taking on GI Joe.





Seriously, wasn’t this thing part of Sundowner’s giant cyborg scissors in Metal Gear Rising?



Look, it’s really, really magical, okay? What more do you want. Sure, it’s lousy with residual radiation from the space rock we forged it from but hey... you’re gonna die at the end of your journey anyway, right? What’s a few extra rads along the way?



Now if you shift the wrong way or are knocked onto your back head from a powerful blow, there is a slight chance of the clock ornaments piercing your brain. A slight chance. But hey... 5% faster ATB gauge!



Not pictured: Any tiny runes. Look, you’re gonna be seeing the knife zoomed out 10x this view 95% of the time until it gets dumped for a new weapon in the next town. We’re not wasting time rendering that texture. We’re having enough trouble rendering the plot.



I have no idea if Levissium is actually an upgrade ore in the game. I didn’t engage with the weapon upgrading component the first time I played uhh... ever. I doubt that’ll change with this LP considering they throw out a new, superior weapon literally every town we reach.



That’s a real fancy spin on the fact some smith fucked up crafting a hammer.



That’s all well and good, Julienne. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to toss that lance in the spectral armory, never to be seen again as soon as we hit the next Weppy & Talli’s stock refresh point.



We’ve gotten a load of Spritnite this chapter, since it’s been a couple since we’ve gotten a chance to turn in our materials. Let’s take a look...



Translation: There’s a big flash of light and then everyone gets hurt. It’s okay. It doesn’t have any knockback like Cyclone, which still remains our bread and butter for trash mobs.



It’s a regen for MP. Which uses a decent chunk of MP to initiate... Considering I’ve used an ether exactly... twice the entire game so far... Not really getting a lot of use out of this one...



Remember when Endir did the sweet sword-jump and ruined Reaper’s day in that one cutscene the first time we fought him? Yeah, we just now can finally do that in-game now.



Setsuna is good for two things: Lightning elemental attacks and healing. This is kind of a half-assed bit of both worlds and particularly useful for neither.



If you want to Blowbeat the SHIT out of some boss, this is your attack of choice. Until everyone runs out of MP in about three turns...



See: Endir’s Magen and its lack of much use.



A buff to Attack Power is useful all. But in this game, you know what is a better buff to attack power in the first place? Benching Setsuna and having a third power hitter.



This gives Setsuna a full party heal like Endir’s Aura. The key use to this one is, like Cure, it can be used in a menu outside of battle to top off everyone’s HP. Otherwise uhh... we’re not remotely high enough in HP to need a full party 500+ HP heal.



Aeterna has only gained a single spritnite in the form of Stop. Which, has its uses I’m sure. If Blowbeat didn’t already do Paralysis and Stun, which for all intents and purposes may as well be Stop.



Nidr, being some amalgamation of Jecht and Auron from Final Fantasy X, can now get his enemies stoned like the former would undoubtedly be into. Debuffs like this will lead to different drops from enemies. But it’s not something you’d go out of you way to do unless going for a specific drop.



Ya know, when you think about it don’t all weapons cut off the enemy’s magical energy flow? Especially when stabbing them in the face or chest with Nidr’s two foot wide sword.



With the two redundant MP regen Techs, Kir brings an actual proper Regen to the table. At no point in RPGs have I ever found a regen spell particularly useful, unless it was to do some debuff fuckery like casting it on the undead or the like. Also, it has the downside of having to actually use Kir in a real battle and ha... that’s a good one.



See now casting a 4 MP spell to gain back 30ish MP from an enemy is a sensible trade-off, unlike casting a 20-24 MP spell to get back... 5-8ish MP every turn for three turns.



Surprise: Julienne is a Dragoon and has Jump. It functions exactly like Jump in Final Fantasy games with dragoons. What? Did you think this game was only digging heavily into Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 with its battle systems? Pfft.



There are no locations this go around because... well we didn’t venture anywhere new. There are, however, a few new story beat notes. Such as...



Yo, don’t eat monsters! It will mess you up! Though this brings up the question as to whether there are normal, edible animals in the world that are edible. It’s the Pokémon agricultural dilemma all over again.



Well, I guess that answers whether the Land of Snow is the entire world or just this world’s shitty northern continent. Look forward to I am Tuna taking place entire in a temperate tropical/desert environment of the Southern Continent of the Land of Sand. Coming in Fall 2018!





...It’s kind of sad they pretty much omitted nothing from that boiled down to nothing plot summary. It really was that basic and nothing. Oh well. Maybe more will transpire in Chapter 8: Past Secrets. I mean it’s got secrets right in the name. Those tend to be surprising. Usually...






Video: The Techs So Far