Part 8: Two Sewers for the Price of One
Chapter 7 - Two Sewers for the Price of OneWhere we last left off, we had finally departed from Mt. Gabel, with Lang having awakened his Origin.
Our goal now is to go to Darakin, find out where the Aqualith/Sacred Azure Stone is, and return it to Nohl.
But first! (How many times will I type this in this LP?)


We head back to the Forest Maze. Kazan will bitch at us the entire time were here about how were supposed to be going to Darakin, but nothing comes of it.

The most common encounters here are with Voorsts and Bean Guns.
Voorsts are pretty standard enemies. They can attack, they can attack the entire group, and they can use a howl that stuns.
Bean Guns act by, you guessed it, shooting beans. But not in the way youre thinking

The beans they fire are completely new enemies. They attack regularly, but they cannot be harmed by anything short of Origin attacks at this point. Fortunately, we got exactly that before coming here.

Hilgigas represent a trend in enemies who will get stronger after you damage them.

They waste a turn to do this, however, so it only helps if they can act faster than you.
Now, on our own entirely, even with Kazan on board, we would have a little trouble with these enemies, if only because they act rather quickly. With the power of Kazan Curry, however, we not only act faster due to raised agility, but also hit harder.
Also, Kazans Origin attack at this point can annihilate groups of enemies easily. When we encounter Bean Guns and Voorsts, one attack from Deva puts them down. Galea can K.O. the Beans due to a type advantage (yes, this game has those too), but struggles with the Voorsts. Two rounds from a Curry boosted Kazan and Lang is enough to defeat Hilgigasi.
The thing is, youre not meant to be here, as per Kazans constant nagging, so all these enemies are tougher than what we would find if we preceded normally. Thus, we can level up a lot faster and trivialise the next few dungeons. We take Lang from level 15 to level 21 just grinding in the Forest Maze.
But eventually, one must get on with the game.
We havent taken Kazan to Nohl yet, have we? Lets take him to Nohl.







Its funny that Kazan is still such a non-believer when not only does he have a super powerful spirit inside him, but hes standing in a whole village full of people who would tell him the Aqualith was legit.




Kazan earns the Boogey Man title because hes so ugly he scares small children.

Galvan has surprisingly little to say this time. Its for the best, of course, considering hed just say something stupid and/or sexist.

Talking to Maya gives us yet another stark reminder that this town is dying while we piss about on side quests and grinding.



We get to offer to help. It would be stupid to refuse, as Nancys about to give us a new cooking recipe.



The scene fades to black while they make the balls. Probably because they didnt want to animate the cooking prep, but I wouldnt put it past an anime game to make this some kind of sexual euphemism.





We learn the Rice Ball recipe and get a Working Lunch.
Theres nothing else worth seeing in Nohl now, so we get on with the plot.

Our task is to find out how to reach the Aqualith. Obviously its in the castle, but


Guard: Did you come to see the castle? Apparently, theyre on emergency alert. Im sorry, but you cant go in.
Guard: Ever since the Bishop found the Sacred Azure Stone, the castles been this way. I wonder what theyre doing in there?

So yeah, we need to get into the castle some other way.
Theres a trail of clues left by NPCs, in particular Joe, the information guy, but I know exactly where Im going and how to get there.
First, remember how I mentioned that Veska lady was plot critical?

Her decision to throw away her old noble crest is the only reason the party get to proceed. Hurray for conveniences!
Having this emblem now means that everyone in the asshole district thinks were nobility and is all like OOOH youre worth BROWNOSING!

Most importantly, it gives us access to this hotel, which this lady describes as smelling of a sewer
But before we proceed, theres a few things we can grab.

This chef gives us a magazine that teaches cooking recipes. It teaches one to every character we have. This includes characters we get later on, if we re-use it when we have them.

If we go back to Sabrinas inn, her husband is now selling food. If we eat these dishes, Lang uses his latent abilities as a cooking prodigy to instantly learn how to recreate them.

Oh, but it was, Leon.
Now, let us proceed with the plot.

This guy gives way to our literal status symbol.

We find the sewer entrance in one of the hotels lower class rooms. We dont even need to rent the room to find it, and good thing too, because this hotel charges 10000 gold for the most basic rooms.

Now Playing Setting of Glory
(That must be sarcasm in the song name, right?)
Gesuidou, exactly as translated. Its just a plain old sewer with no special features.
And that is the big problem with this section. Like so many banal sewer levels before it, Legaia 2s sewer level is plain, drab, tedious, ho-hum, and every other mediocre descriptive word I can use.
The gist of this dungeon involves finding keys like this.

We use Galea to destroy the crates and knock it down to our level.
Once we have the key, we unlock the corresponding sluice gate room.

We pull the lever, it drains part of the sewers, then we can proceed. Theres three sluice gates, this read one, a blue one, and a yellow one. Each one needs a key.
The rub is you have to find these keys while poking around this bland, featureless maze of a dungeon, all the while dealing with random encounters which can throw off your sense of direction. This can be annoying enough as an adult, but as a kid? I heavily relied upon a walkthrough to get out when I first played this.

You get this Old Map to help you out. As far as I can tell, the circles on the map are where the keys are, and of course the coloured marks are the sluice gates. If youre an impatient child like I was, you probably didnt take the time to figure it out.
Now lets talk encounters.

On the right, we have a generic skeleton. On the left, some kind of sewer abomination.

Bone Warriors can use an attack that basically makes you play a short minigame. You have to press the buttons that light up, and if you do it well, you can minimize the damage the attack does. Play badly, and it will do a lot more. They can also use an attack that causes spellbind, a status that prevents the use of Arts.
The Netherkinds can cause the berserk status, but I kill them far too quickly to have them actually try it.

Here we encounter Jelly Melts and an Evil Fly.
Evil Flys can poison you or cause paralysis. Other than that, theyre the weakest enemies here.
Jelly Melts are the most annoying. Theyre the worst example of Legaia 2s directional attacks, as only downward strikes hit them. If youve got a combo that youre comfortable with, prepare to have to redo it, because most of it will probably miss. To top it all off, they have a passive skill that halves normal attacks, meaning you typically need to hit them a bit to kill them.
Oh and they can split in two, so thats fun.
The kicker here is that none of these encounters are difficult. Even if I hadnt grinded for levels in the Forest Maze, I could still effortlessly kill most enemies using Kazan Curry and Origin attacks. All the encounters are just distractions as you wander around looking for the keys you need to proceed.

For some reason, theres these glowing moss patches that Rivas can interact with. I dont know what their function is. I even tried looking it up.
We find a camping site, which lets us sit down for a chat.

You fucking said it, Lang!

Please! Please let me!


Sometimes I dont even need to invent dialogue for Cocky Lang.







This item we pick up teaches Kazan his own Hyper Art, Fists of Rage. I wont make a video for it, as youll be seeing plenty of it in videos to come.
Anyway, we eventually arrive at the end of the dungeon.

Alright, Doplin, here we come!

Wait a minute
So yeah, the end of the sewers is not coming out in Doplins castle.

We have to have Galea knock down this wall to proceed. This leads us to

Another fucking underground tunnel dungeon!
Now Playing Forgotten Inheritance
The Kanji come out to something like Underground Ruins. Kabel is not mentioned, but frankly its more descriptive and relevant to the nature of these ruins.
Weve heard Kabel mentioned somewhere, havent we? In relation to someone?
Funnily enough, the Kabel Ruins are almost less colourful than the sewers. The floors are gray and the walls are beige. But at least theres some actual puzzles to solve.

In this room, there are 4 mossy pedestals, 3 glowing, 1 unlit. The plaque calls on us to either light the last one or snuff out the rest. The former is simpler, of course.

Here we have a palette swap from Gale Canyon. These ones can be rather dangerous, since their most frequent attack can stun.

Alongside enemies from the sewers we just cleared, we encounter an even more recent palette swap. Zurvlai dont even have any attacks that Galdukes didnt.

We will find Adventurers Logs through the ruins that tell us how to solve puzzles.
This one explains that we have to spell out FISH on the pedestals in this room.

Each pedestal corresponds with a letter, and we have to light them up in order to spell Fish, so F->I->S->H.

This one calls on us to light the nearest two pedestals and snuff out the furthest two.

We reach another campsite, strategically placed outside a door. Any RPG veteran knows what this means. We can also do chatting here.

Theyre discussing the Adventurers Logs.


Once were done preparing, we head into the next room.




Maya collapses to her knees, hugging herself.







Someone is heard entering the chamber at this point.
Now Playing Evil Desires

Ah, if it isnt our favourite Fuhrer-Bishop-King!


This also means we wont be encountering Marienne. Thank all thats holy.











We saw that creature by her side when we were held in the castle.










Doplin looks to Velna, who nods.








It occurs to me now that, assuming Doplin wasnt too careful in acquiring their co-operation, the heroes could totally just lie and say theyd work for him, get into the castle, and then turn on him there, presumably with Slogar gone.
But we basically just get to pick our flavour of refusal here.












Maya is present on the field for this fight, but she will not participate. She sits in the same position as before we began.


We can totally take it on our own though, right?

Of course not.
The only genuine boss fights so far have been Gather Crab, Elfin, and the MIGHTY Balken. Gold Eyes, Elliott and Marienne (technically) and the Morg were all basically glorified cut scenes. With the addition of Slogar, the majority of bosses thus far have had some kind of unbeatable segment.

Origins have no affect too. Pure embodiment of power, everyone.


Interestingly, Galeas line is not voiced. This is the case in Japanese too. Either they just didnt care to, or this is confirmation Origins speak explicitly via psychic communication.



The rest of the fight just involves waiting. Slogars attacks hit hard, but not so hard you cant comfortably heal with items.










Now the actual boss fight begins. However, as before, Slogar doesnt really hit hard enough to make you worry. You just gotta hit him till hes dead, and its not that hard to manage.
Click the image below to watch Slogar get his ass beat.

(The video got a bit choppy at points due to the limits of my computer. It may not be very noticeable, but I apologise in advance)




Now Playing Your Voice

Maya gets up without responding.









Translation: Maya might have gotten her voice back, but she wont be useful in a fight for a while!





We are now free to proceed. But Ill just throw in this one camp conversation we can have immediately after the boss











And there I shall leave it.
Join me next time, where we finish the Kabel Ruins, storm Doplin Castle at dawn, and finally find the Aqualith.