Part 22: The Tournament Arc
Chapter 21 The Tournament ArcWhere last we left off, we found out that a Flying Dragon was being offered as a prize in the Phorchoon arena, and we need said dragon to reach the Wind Tower, Ellsworth, where the Aerolith lays in wait.
Now theres no great reel of side content for me to show off before we get there, but there is one thing, and its technically something of a secret.
Wouldnt you know it, we learn it from Kenjiro, who we learned all about the Flying Dragon from.
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The game tells us weve gained access to the Secret Market. Its a location we can find on the map.
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Kenjiro said it was between Mt. Gabel and Darakin, but Id say this is more between Mt. Gabel and Gale Canyon.
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Now Playing Barracks
Gyoushounin no kakure barakku. I believe it means Peddlers Hidden Barracks. Secret Market is a bit of a departure from that, but then again, why the heck would they call this place a Barracks?
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As you can see, its a bunch of Kenjiro lookalikes sitting in tents. Aint no barracks about it.
Anyway, as you might expect, the Secret Market sells all kinds of useful things. It doesnt sell all the useful things in the game, but it sure does sell a lot.
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A bloke called Torajiro, not actually pictured above, sells combination components. All handy, but chief among them is the Earth Dragon Wing. Its not that useful on its own, but you can trade Earth Dragon Wings in Jinga for Sun Faulds. Sun Faulds can then be sold for more money than you paid for the Wings, roughly 20000 more. You will quickly make millions of gold, and thats more than youll ever need to play through the rest of the game. This is Legaias 2s ultimate money trick, coming both when you need it and being very simple to pull off.
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Momojiro, the pink Kenjiro above, sells accessories. Many of them are extremely useful, but the most useful of all is the Tireless Ribbon. To make it, you need to:
-Buy Winged Ribbons and Healing Ribbons.
-Combine Winged Ribbons and Healing Ribbons to make Muscle Ribbons.
-Combine Winged Ribbons and Muscle Ribbons to make Sagely Ribbons.
-Combine Winged Ribbons and Sagely Ribbons to make Tireless Ribbons.
Tireless Ribbons have many useful abilities, but the best one is Max AP. As it says, it sets your AP to maximum forever. Thus, you can use as many Hyper Arts as you want as well as pull off Variable Arts every round. No longer will you have to worry about building AP: just smash the enemy with your greatest attacks!
Of course, it takes a fair bit of investment to actually unlock the Max AP ability, so you wont see it in action for a while yet. But when we finally get, boy will we be hitting the sweet spot.
Now that weve nothing better to do, lets actually get on with the main quest. Phorchoon is our destination.
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We have no real choice but to participate.
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Despite seeming like a choice, youll be forced to go with Lang. This is despite being able to use all characters in the arena at any other time, but youll understand when you see what happens in the ring.
To give an example of the railroading, we will ask the objectively best character, Sharon, to compete in our stead:
Asking Sharon posted:
Sharon, do you want to give it a go?
Hunh???! ME? Well .if I competed, Im sure that I could win. But still Youre scared, arent you? Scared to fail in front of everyone! Thats why youre telling me to do it!
No! NO! Thats not it at all! I just
You just .what?
Er Fine! Ill do it! And Ill win, too!
Good answer! Im sure you can do it. Youve got what it takes, hon!
But Cocky Lang would volunteer himself for this anyway.
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Braujet: Understood. Please stand by in the waiting room.
We are then immediately thrust into the arena battles.
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Now Playing Elegy of Battle
As you can see, it has a neat little display where it gives Langs current nickname. Pro Cook naturally comes from making a lot of dishes using Lang.
Dark Jackal is a totally banal pallet swap that goes down in one round. Moving on.
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Every arena battle awards you a certain amount of recovery for every victory. Here its 80% because we finished Dark Jackal in one go, but it dwindles with every round you take to win. It can go as low as 10%. The coins awarded are of course the casino prize coins. Some events give them per individual win, others pay out at the end.
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Another pallet swap. Dangerous Zone is fast enough to attack first, but not strong enough to last more than a round.
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Wasteland Outlaw lasts two rounds due to Baki-type enemies tending to block hits, but he goes down nonetheless.
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As you can see, the Gaia Blade bites us in the ass here.
For the first time in a long time, we actually use Origin powers to get past a tough enemy.
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Hellhound lasts two rounds, attacks first, and does enough damage to chew off 1000 HP. Theres the faintest whiff of a challenge here.
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Beefcake here takes three rounds to go down, befitting his name.
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I bust out the Hyper Arts for Dark Executioner, misremembering him as the final encounter before a story beat. Not that it matters much in the end, it just means I have to build up AP in the next fight.
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For some reason, these lines are voiced. Click here if youre curious.
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The crowd goes wild for Demetrius and his gleaming teeth.
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Demetrius: Ladies and Gentlemen! A new champion will be crowned tonight before you! Are we ready? Ladiiiiiiiiiieeeees aaaaaaaand Gentlemeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!! I bring you the Tournameeeeent Championshiiiiiiips!
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Demetrius: In the blue corner! The newcomer who has crrrrrrrrushed the competition!! Surely you already know who I am about to introduce .Pro Cook, Lang!
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Cocky Lang is loving this.
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Demetrius: And on the other side is the Tournaments Best, or its Absolute Worst! The fierce savage of the underworld, Gorvaaaaaaaaaaa!!
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.its just the fucking Loghart Crab from The Forest Maze.
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The most important takeaway from these images is you can see Sharon fell over the railing and is now clambering back into the stands.
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So yeah, Gorva. They have no special attacks that the Loghart Crab didnt, just more HP, which makes killing Gorva tedious, but not difficult.
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Demetrius: I know him! You know him!!! Pro Cook, Lang!!
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You see Kazan give a nod of approval, so the only one being a sourpuss here is Ayne.
Demetrius: Thank you, thank you. You are a most gracious audience! And now, for the awards
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If youve been paying attention, you know exactly who this guy is. I wouldnt blame you for forgetting, of course, because the relevant information was seen a while ago and many chapters back. Ill not name him till the time comes.
Also I just want to say his dinky loincloth is really ruining the medieval Darth Vader vibe hes going for.
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Ive played enough RPGs
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to know where this was going.
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Demetrius runs for it, leaving Lang with this evil swordsman.
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You guys know theres no saying no here, right? Cocky Lang wants to take a stab at this guy anyway.
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You know, you could describe this encounter as a duel. Given duelling the MIGHTY Balken was optional, this might be the only duel you have to fight in this saga.
This Black Swordsman can actually be rather tough. He can hit pretty hard, and since youre on your own, you have to have Lang take time to heal when necessary.
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Black Swordsman is scripted to eventually hit you with one of these.
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This guys voice acting is really dinky. From the look of him, youd expect some James Earl Jones material, but what you get is more like Grima Wormtongue. Definitely not what I would have given to him.
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From here on out, hell start using other Hyper Arts, like Thunder Fang here. They dont do anything special, they just hit for varying amounts of damage.
Once you beat this guy down hard enough
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Ah, so his identity is finally revealed!
actually no, we have never seen this blokes face before, so the armour was more of a giveaway.
Click the image below to see the terrible Black Swordsman in action.
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Casual reminder that our friends just stood around while this completely illegal fight took place. Even Demetrius guards tried to stop this.
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Yeah, this is Rauss, first mentioned by Kazan way back on Mt. Gabel, and identified by name as the Black Swordsman standing by Velna after the Zoan Stoara fight.
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Now Playing Evil Desires
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And theyre gone.
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Gone to the Wind Tower, as it were.
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Speaking of Lang, we cut back to him.
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Demetrius: I have served as host for many, many years, but never have I seen such an excited audience! I have a proposal. How about working at Phorchoon regularly? You see, between you and me, the contract fee is quite decent!
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Demetrius: Hm?? To what do you refer, my fair lady?
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Demetrius: Oh! Ohhhh!! Yes, yes! You speak of the prize! I will fetch it immediately!!
Demetrius walks off.
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Notice that between images, the woman in the background left and the man is crying. Sometimes Im struck by the amount of background detail this game has.
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We are now left to wander, with the obvious goal of finding Kazan.
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Hes out on the Blood Hawk.
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So yeah, were shooting laser beams out of our swords now. The anime levels just rose by a lot.
If youre wondering what Waga Itto Nomi means, I think its Bunny Fang Blade.
No, really. When I first tried to get a translation for it, it came out to Drink my rabbit, which was obviously wrong, but Itto can translate to rabbit/bunny. Couple that with the fact that Lang will occasionally shout Bunny Fang Blade when using this Hyper Art, I think that might just be it. Could use some Japanese context if anyone can provide, of course.
EDIT: The user Polsy has provided Japanese context. Turns out this translation is pretty damn wrong.
Polsy posted:
So, it's actually ittou rather than itto. The full name of the school is Tenga Ittou Ryuu in fact but I guess they cut that for brevity (actually checking back Kazan translates this as 'Sky Fang' rather than leaving it as 'Tenga', in earlier dialogue. weird)
In full it's written 我が一刀のみ - most likely 'Just a single stroke of my blade'. As for the voice clip the simplest explanation I can think of is that it's a deliberate joke because trying to reason it through is complicated even if you assume the translator did actually think it was 'itto' (primarily, you're replacing the 'blade' part of the phrase with 'bunny', so where are you getting 'blade' from?)
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What Kazan means here is that while he has shown you the Art, you dont get to use it until a story event.
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The game then cuts to the next day.
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Demetrius: With this, you can rule the skies! We hope you enjoy riding this fine beast! After all, they are very rare, you know!
And with that, we have our Flying Dragon, and the path to Ellsworth, and confrontation with Rauss, lies clear ahead.
But we shall save that for another day.
Join me next time, where we storm Ellsworth, face Rauss and behold the Aerolith.