Part 28: Arts, Cooking and Secrets, oh my!

Chapter 27 – Arts, Cooking and Secrets, oh my!

This chapter is mostly just me detailing all the side stuff I couldn’t find a good place for in any other. But there are some interesting bits to see nonetheless.

Let’s start with what will probably excite people the most: Art Exhibitions! We’ve seen most of the character’s normal Arts, but there’s many Hyper Arts, Variable Arts, and Mystic Arts I’ve yet to show off. I’ll go through them character by character.

Lang

Click here to see Lang’s full exhibition: Arts, Origin and all.

Lang doesn’t have a great deal we haven’t seen, but here’s some highlights:




Sky Fang is learned by using Roaring Fang, which comes from Raging Fang. Thunder Sky is learned from Divine Bolt.

Funny that the “Sky Fang School” has a technique called Sky Fang, but it’s neither the “Final Art” nor the best one they have.

Maya

Click here to see Maya’s full exhibition.

We stopped using Maya a long time ago, so we only ever saw one of her Hyper Arts. Most of them are just different elemental blasts and not all that interesting.



Her best Hyper Art is this one. It’s learned from a scroll dropped by Velna. It’s Dark elemental in nature, so its usefulness in Demiurge Tower is limited.



This is her Type-B Variable Art, Shockwave. Forget Kazan, Maya’s firing a goddamn Kamehameha here.






Maya’s Mystic Art, Forbidden Rite, has her smash the enemy with magic and then heal the party completely. Very useful, considering Mystic Arts normally leave you vulnerable. Although, it could also be annoying if you were counting on others to use their Mystic Arts after.

Kazan

Click here to see Kazan’s full exhibition.

We stopped using Kazan to use Ayne, so there’s plenty for him we never used either.



This is where he went full DBZ. This levels into an attack called “Ultimate Fury”, but it’s basically the same with one extra step.



Kazan’s Type-B Variable Art is some DBZ shit too. A pity you can’t use both Type-Bs at once, or Maya and Kazan could do a dual Kamehameha.






Kazan’s Mystic Art sees him thrown into the air on a rock, and then he punches the rock onto his enemy. Not gonna lie, it’s pretty cool.

Sharon

Click here to see Sharon’s full exhibition.

We’ve gotten to know Sharon’s Arts rather well, but there’s some you haven’t seen.



Skylord is developed from Lord of Eden.



And Detonating Rose comes from Windmill Rose. This one’s basically her best Hyper Art.







Sharon’s Mystic Art, Apokolips, has her use her sword as a lightning rod for Arrode. It’s a bit underwhelming, because she doesn’t actually attack herself, and the explosion is less impressive than Arrode’s Thunderbolt Bow.

Ayne

Click here to see Ayne’s full exhibition.

Ayne doesn’t have much in the way of new attacks, but he has a few.



Power Blade can only be obtained from an optional treasure in Demiurge Tower.



And Axe Crush is gained from using Power Blade.

That’s it for Arts. Now we move on to some less exciting stuff.

Cooking

Cooking in Legaia 2 is perhaps a nice metaphor for much of the game: it’s strangely in depth, with there being 60 total recipes to be found, but you will never need to use most of them. I only ever used Kazan Curry, Heavenly Beef, and Atomic Heat. Its nuts how so much effort went into something that most people would barely pay any attention to.

Going through every damn recipe would be an enormous chore and I doubt anyone would be that interested. So I’ll just pick out some related highlights.

We get this when Ayne proves his love of sweet things.

“Ayne, you like sweet things, don’t you?”

“Sweet things?”

“Yeah. Whenever you eat chocolate or cake or stuff like that, you get this smile on your face.”

“I smile….?”

“Yes, you do. You look pretty nice when you’re eating sweets. You mean you can’t tell when you’re smiling…?”

“So, I smile, do I…?”

Ayne gets the “Sweet tooth” nickname from this.

We get this one after Sharon does some cooking.

“Sharon, you sure are a good cook!”

“Ha ha ha! That’s what my henchmen tell me, too! If you can appreciate dishes like that, you must be from Tanza, too.”

“Yeah! You can tell, huh? I was born and raised in Tanza!”

“So was I! What a coincidence! Hand me that bottle! I’ll pour you a drink.”

“You will? Thanks. Why don’t you have a drink, too? Here!”

(Whoa…Master sure does drink a lot these days…)

I presume this convo was meant to be from well before the end game.

Here if the follow up to Ayne’s offer to cook for the party.



Cocky Lang is nice to allies, as usual.

“Oh, it was really good.”

“Really? I’m glad.”

(Don’t tell him that! What if it just came out all right by chance this time?)

(Yeah! That’s right! Think before you speak next time!)

“What are you talking about so quietly?”

And that’s that.

We get this one after making Pasta Carbonara with Maya.

“What is that pasta that you made the other day called, Maya?”

“Pasta Carbonara. Why?”

“Uh, Well…I’d kinda like to have it again…”

“Really? I’m happy to hear that!”

“Lang! I can make pasta, too!!”

“You mean your soba noodles?”

“Shaddup! It’s an authentic pasta, a recipe I learned from my dad!”

Sharon learns the “Pirate Pasta” recipe from this.

After cooking 15 times with Sharon and Maya (earning the nicknames “Sakura Chef” and “Traveling Chef” respectively), each one gets a cut scene in Kravia where they learn a recipe. We start with Maya.



Keiji: “Yes. The white wine gets rid of the fishy smell of the clams. How about it? Smells good, doesn’t it! Then all you have to do is boil it down, pour it over the pasta, and it’s ready! Pretty simple, huh?”

“Maya, what are you learning?”

“It’s pasta. It’s called…’Bolo…gnese,’ I think it was. You use white wine!”

Keiji: “She’s got talent, this girl! She’ll make a good wife someday!”

“Really? Do you think so?”

Maya gets the nickname “Good Wife”. Hmm. And of course, we learn the “Bolognese” recipe.

Next up is Sharon.



Keiji: “The trick is to use low heat. If you try to rush it and the heat is too high, it’ll come out all wrong!”

“What a pain! I never should’ve asked!”

“Sharon, what are you doing?”

“Keiji is teaching me a little something.”

Keiji: “She’s not much of a cook, but she might be pretty good at barking in the customers! What do you say? I’d pay you well.”

“Grr! You’ve got to be kidding!! But, hey! If you paid me 100,000 G a day, maybe I’d think about it…”

Keiji: “Forget that! We’d go bankrupt!”

Sharon learns the “Clam Chowder” recipe here.

Our last cooking related point of interest is learning recipes via special items from Monjiro in Nohl.



There’s no hint this is a thing, so you just have to get one of these items and happen to talk to Monjiro after. There’s 4 items that do this:

-The Creepy Mushroom in the screenshot, obtained on Drokonia from a chest, but you can also trade for it in Jinga. This teaches us “Sick Shroom Soup”.
-Slime Gelure, traded for in Jinga. It teaches us “Muddy Soup”.
-Suspicious Meat, also from Jinga. It teaches “Rotten Steak”.
-Huge Eyeball, also Jinga, teaches “Eyeball Stew”.

The gimmick with these recipes is they decrease one stat by a huge amount and another increases by a huge amount. This can push certain stats beyond what you would get from, say, Atomic Heat. But I don’t think you’d ever really need these, and Atomic Heat’s all round stat boosts are more useful.

Now we have one last thing to touch on.

Secrets

We already know a few secret things about the game, but there’s still more to find. Surprisingly more, really.

First up is a secret location found via the pirates at Darek’s Haunt. We start by talking to Dupon and Yahn.



“With what?”

Yahn: “In a nut shell…We’d like you to join the crew!”

Dupon: “I don’t mean forever….It’s just that we’re helping you now and it’s not making us any money. I figure the least you can do is help us out for a little while once you’ve completed your mission.”

We get to choose our response. Even if it wasn’t integral to the secret, Cocky Lang would say yes.

“Sure, I’ll help. You’re helping me now. If you think I can help…It’s the least I can do.”

Yahn: “That’s great, Lang!”

Dupon: “You know, for a young kid, you’ve got a pretty good sense of duty. It probably won’ be for some time, but take good care of the Captain…Here, take this. That bandana used to belong to Alphis. It’s supposed to show the location of a buried treasure. We haven’t been able to find it, but you…I have a feeling you might have better luck. Here, take it.”

We get the “Star Bandana”. On its own, it’s not good for much, but there’s someone we can show it to. Sharon? No, but you’re close…



Hanson: “Edward the 8th’s treasure…In the continent’s navel!”




“Um…Yeah, I think that’s what he said.”

“That can only mean one place! Gordinar Island! That must be where the treasure’s buried!”

We can now go to Gordinar Island.





Basically, it’s a wee cove full of treasure. It’s a bit disappointing, honestly. There’s no Heaven’s Secret here, and the only genuinely useful item is the “Invincibility Pill”, which gives temporary invincibility during a fight. You’d think with all the optional dialogue in this game, Sharon might have something to say about her father’s secret treasure isle, but no.

Now, if we were to earn the “Blacksmith” nickname by combining a bunch of armour type items, and then talk to Monjiro in Nohl, he’d let us know the location of another secret: The Ultimate Armor Shop.




The shop sells some decent stuff, but nothing you can buy can beat the equipment you combine for, especially that gotten with Heaven’s Secrets.



Speaking of, this bloke will sell us one for 1 million gold. A significant price, but we have infinite money now.

Now, if we were to get the “Weaponsmith” nickname and talk to Kenjiro, he clues us in on the Supreme Weapon Shop.



Again, it’s handy, but combining is where it’s at.



Just like the armour shop, they have a Heaven’s Secret here too, for the same price.

And that brings this chapter to an end. There are no more secrets or titbits to cover (that I’m aware of). Therefore there is only one thing left to do.

We must complete the game and bring this LP to a close.

Join me next time, where we finally confront Avalon fight for the fate of Legaia.