Part 2: Toxa Episode 1 Chapter 1 - Druid Girl

Toxa Chapter 1 Episode 1
MUSIC: Revelation
This short track plays at the start of every chapter


Last time, we learned that this game is very wordy. So I don't know about you, but I'm craving some action. Unfortunately for you and I, the game has more to say.

MUSIC:IT*S MISSING So the track playing here isn't on the youtube playlist, and I don't actually know the name of the track. Which means I will have to learn how to record the audio as it plays from the game and upload it myself.... Which will happen, later. If ever.





The Shrines is the religion of Rebus. I can't remember what it entails specifically. We'll learn more about being a member of the Shrines, from Lacryma's story.
The World Tree, isn't a single tree, but actually a kind of trees. Which is used to make the most powerful kind of Kartia.
In that sense I guess it was used to be illegal to grow world trees as having power run rampant throughout the world would be bad for any government.
Ofcourse, owning World Tree Kartia isn't illegal itself, much like it's not illegal to own god devouring swords, or fantasy nukes.

MUSIC:IT*S MISSING


We join our hero, Toxa as he is viciously attacking a woman. I'm joking they're just sparring. No "Oh no I don't fight girls" white knight, fedora crap here. Which is refreshing really.



Vigilance is to Rebus, as the police is to us. Except with more magic.


"Why don't you quit being a security guard and join the Knights of Idorus?
"I'm still not sure what I want to do. I want to stay as a Free Knight until I find my true purpose in life."
"You're very thoughtful... I'm impressed..." You know, Duran's face kind of reminds me of Front Mission 1 for some reason
"We are talking about a life time commitment here..."


"Oh are you creating it? Thanks, I'll take coffee.


The sound of a mug being filled is heard
I'm a terrible LP'er and missed the Kartia animation. Anyways they actually made the sprites hold mugs.

"Wow! It tastes great!"
"It's the one we had before we came here. It's 3 days old. The aroma may have become weak, but I bet it still tastes good."
Now this line is very confusing to me. Since Alana just used Kartia to create this coffee, then how can it be 3 days old?
"You remember the taste? You really have good memory!"
"I'm just peculiar about some things. And you Duran?"
Duran kind of get the silent protagonist treatment here, where Toxa answers for him
"Barley tea!? That's definitedly you!"





So that is how Kartia looks like when it's being cast. Note that since it was Barley tea, the color is green. Toxa's 3 day old coffee was blue.


"I'm a dancer! I'm not from a prestigious family. Actually, far from it.
But that certainly didn't stop you from joining fantasy police. Well that is stretching it. They're more like the official vigilante group and less drug busting, CSI investigators.
"When I go back to my village, I'll be the son of a merchant." A jrpg protagonist, whose parents aren't dead? *squints at the game box* Are you trying to trick me game?


Well her real goal is to become like Lacryma, who is looked up to by a few members of Vigilance


So Raguruzet is leading a rebellion while also trying to create Eden. Busy fellow.

"You mean, You're the only guard around here, Toxa?"
"Yes. Until the revolt in Nordia ends."
"Duran, why don't you gather some Shrine Warriors?"
"I'll give it a try... But I can't promise anything."
"Oh, I can handle it by myself. You just saw my skills, didn't you? Besides, it's not like there is any immediate danger..."
I'm not sure if Toxa is being a terrible guard. I mean he certainly has a point. But the point of guards is to fight off unexpected attackers and invaders. For the expected assault, you want the army. On the other hand Toxa could quite feasibly do the next mission alone.
"You do have a point there."
"Then we'll be leaving."
"Hey, since you guys are not that far from here, come and visit me anytime."



MUSIC: IT*S MISSING AGAIN THATS 3 DIFFERENT TRACKS SHEESH

"What happened, Miss?"
"This girl has been attacked! I think she's a Druid!"
"Have thieves broken into the estate!?"
"That's what I said! You're a guard aren't you!"
"I see! Miss Ele, take me to the place where you saw these thieves!"






Back to the road

"Leave her alone, Garum. By the way, have you noticed anything unusual?
"I know. It seems we're close to the fortress. I thought this area looked familiar... Hey! Who the hell are they?"
"You're quite slow aren't you..?"

MUSIC:Lively Knight Ha! Finally a track I can link to!

"Let the girl go!"
"Kidnapping a Druid is a serious crime!" As opposed to just kidnapping regular people, Duran? I see how it is.


The Idorus Knight she is talking about is obviously, Toxa. Although he actually isn't an Idorus Knight, but a Free Knight
"What do we do, boss?"
"I'll take care of them. You guys take Mona to the fortress."
Oh shit you guys, we are gonna face off against a boss on our first mission? WHAT DO WE DO? WE ARE ONLY LEVEL 1!
"Hey! Wait!"


Not shown, Garum creating a Phantom


It would be more accurate to say it's a Common type Miles phantom.


Toxa doesn't need a 2 hour long tutorial. He pulls a Cloud here and he is the tutorial.



"Look! He is going to create something!



"There is no use in getting angry at the enemy! If they send out a Doll Phantom, then just counter it with a Common Phantom!"
Alana takes out a Kartia and creates a Common Miles Phantom
"Here you go! The natural enemy of the Doll Type... Common type Phantom Miles!"


I want to point out that the game is cheating here. A character you control can summon a total of 6 phantoms. Misty cannot summon Phantoms, which is why he summoned them for her.
Phantoms also have to be near the character that summoned them. The last part doesn't translate into gameplay in the middle of a battle,
but if a character who can summon phantoms doesn't participate in a battle, that persons phantoms won't be there either.
Not only does Garum summon more phantoms than you can, but he doesnt even need to be in the battle they are in.

Oh and he made the mistake of only creating, Common and Doll Phantoms. Misty won't be able to counter my Common Phantoms. What a digital dummy.


OH MAN YOU GUYS, I THINK THE BOSS IS SERIOUS. WE ARE SO SCREWD
"Hey! You're the bad guys here..." I guess Ele is refering to the line Misty says, is typically a hero line? Maybe it's just something lost in translation?

"Toxa... I want to ask that thief something.
"You want to know about the Druid girl, right?




Alright, into some proper gameplay, and boy oh boy do I have words for you. But first. Remember back in Update: 0 when Ele was bluffing with using Kartia? Well...

Before I explain everything. take a look at Ele's Max Kartia Combo stat. Why yes that is quite a mouthful. Without getting into all the dirty gritty details just yet.
Just know that a 2 card combo, is either the lowest or second lowest value in the game.
That's like being the worst knife juggler in the world and threatening people with throwing knives.
Anyways let's take a look at Toxa's stat screen as he is our main character.

Alright so. Notice how Toxa and Ele have the same number of HP? See that's because every unit in the game has 100 hp. Nothing increases this stat.
Attack is hurty points.
Hit Ratio is how well you hit with your pointy bits.
Defense is your hurt less points. The exact formula is a bit arcane to me, just know that it is quite possible to have high enough defense to not take damage from an attack.
Speed is the real tricky one here. It's actually your evasion stat. The formula is (Hit Ratio - Speed) = Chance to hit
The Elemental values are the various defenses against that type of elemental damage. The formula is (Fire Damage - Fire Defense) = Fire Damage Done
Equip rank is pretty easy to understand. The rank determines what kind of equipment you can equip. Higher rank = better weapons and armor. How effective a unit can be is largely affected by Equip rank.
So on paper, Toxa is a physical power house who can do magic decently well, but is vulnerable to magic. Specifically Fire Magic.
While Ele is weaker than a pasty nerd, but will evade attacks somewhat frequently and can take a better magical beating. But she is terrible at magic. However it's key to notice that Ele also has the lowest equip rank in the game. This will become an issue.


Alana seems to be a mixture of both Ele and Toxa. She has a middle ground attack, speed, between Ele and Toxa. She has Ele's elemental defence, but the lowest defence of them both, she is however missing a piece of equipment. BUT SHE HAS A KARTIA COMBO OF 4!!!!!
Oh and she has a decent equip rank too I guess.
This is what makes her the most important character in your party.

Duran starts out with terrible equipment for his equip rank. Don't let his stats fool you, he is as much a powerhouse as Toxa is. The real difference between Toxa and him, is that he has better elemental defence, and cannot summon Phantoms.



These are our phantoms. As you'll note they have the same stats, except elemental defence. When using Kartia on Phantoms (Or anyone really] It's important to look at their defences and find the lowest value element and use that. All phantoms are created equally. Unless you do a hidden technique... Okey it's not hidden. But we'll talk about that a little bit later and ties into the Kartia Combo stat.


This is the enemy Doll Miles. It has 1 point higher defence, but 1 point lower speed than our phantoms. But the game isn't actually cheating. It's because they are equipped with 1 more piece of equipment that our phantoms.


And this is Misty. She has a beefy defence on the same scale as Toxa's. Well she is wearing Stone armor just like he is. But while Toxa is wielding a Stone Sword. Misty is wielding a Stone Knife. She, like Toxa is weak to fire.
Anyways let's get this show on the road.


So on my first turn, I move my human character up behind my phantoms and then wait. I let the enemy come to me.
Normally I wouldn't do this, but I want to give my human characters xp, before my Phantom ones for... reasons you'll see later.
The first reason I can tell you right now. If a human is defeated on your team, it's game over man. GAME OVER. Thankfully this game doesn't have instant death spells.
Unlike a certain other Final Fantasy game that pulled this sort of crap. (looking at you Pro Menu Navigator 13). So you'll want to beef up your guys as much as possible.
I could completely trivialise this mission, but for LP purposes and the fact that it isn't trivialised already, I won't.

Anyways my phantom goes down to 88hp. Now why is that? Well for 2 reasons.
1. It was a Doll attacking a Common. Commons are strong against Dolls.
2. It was attacking with an Axe. Axes get a damage reduction if you attack on even ground. and even less if you attack from below. It'll do full damage from above.


My phantom counters for 62 damage. It would have done more if it was wielding a sword.
Spears are opposite to axes. They deal full damage from below, but least from above.
Another factor is that it wasn't a full health! Having lower health reduces a units attack damage.
This is the number 1 reason why a good defense is the best offence.

My 2nd Turn

I have my phantom kill the enemy phantom here, to cut a hole in the wall for my human character to pass through. All the enemy phantoms in the wall is sitting at 38-39 hp. So killing them will be easy. Even for Ele.


As you can see here, the terrain penalty can be quite severe. remember Toxa has 8 attack compared to a phantoms 2. He, like all humans don't get a damage bonus to phantoms of various types.
Swords deal the most damage on even terrain. I ofcourse don't attack here. Instead I'll attack another phantom from even terrain.



See how the hp bars look like they can fit together? That's because upon initiating combat, they come flying in from both sides of the screen, clashing into each other and then land in each corner.
Right now, an attack results in 10xp and a kill 37xp. Misty ofcourse gives more since she is the boss and a tougher opponent



For a phantom with 28hp left, doing 7 damage is alot. Ele's low damage here is because of the terrain.


I clean the last 2 phantoms up with my own phantoms and move the rest up to form a wall.

The enemy doesnt move this turn

My 3rd turn



I attack two of Misty's personal guard phantoms and move the rest of my guys up. Next turn I'm gonna take some damage. But Misty is still gonna lose.

Misty's 3rd turn

She takes out the two phantoms that attacked her, and her phantoms break formation.

My 4th turn

Toxa, Duran, and Alana, score a kill each. In the wish to expediate things, I attack a Doll Phantom with a Shadow Phantom. Hoping it would weaken it enough for Ele.


The 10 damage my Shadow, did wasn't quite enough. And Ele's damage here is kind of larger than before. What gives? Well..


IT*S TIME TO BREAK OUT SOME CARDS. Well okey. A card. There are 9 categories here, but only 4 elements in the game. Waddafak?
Fire, Water, Wind and Earth respectively on the list, has a category for single tile castings and larger area castings. The very last category is Medicine. That is healing Kartia (Which is actually a subset of Water).


The Kartia spell I'm casting is Ice. The Doll phantoms lowest elemental was water after all. As hinted by the hit ratio, Kartia can miss. Though I don't remember ever seeing it happen.
It has an effective range of 1-2 meaning Ele has to be withing 2 squares of the target..
Lastly and most importantly is the Mix option next to the OK button.

Spell you see, doesn't just consist of a single card.
Well in this case Ice does. But you can use more cards on the same spell, making it stronger or change it in some way.
Most of the time you'll just increase it's damage by a small amount and the spell named to +1. Like Ice +1.
Ice +1 deals 64 damage as opposed to Ice which deals 60.You can also raise the range or even the hit area, depending on the combination of cards used. This is also what the Kartia Combo stat means.
Ele can use two Kartia cards at once. In this case she can at best cast Ice +1. She uses one of her card capacity to cast the basic Ice spell and another card capacity to use another Kartia card to enhance the Ice spell to +1.
There is a downside to this. If you look at the bottom of the screen you can see. Silk, Mithril and World Tree. These numbers is exactly how much Kartia of each type we have. Right now I can cast any combination of 50 Fire, Ice, Thunder or Quake spells. But only 25 Fire +1, Ice +1 etc etc. 2 single unenhanced Ice spells, will deal more damage then a single Ice +1. Kartia is also shared between your characters. Oh and Kartia is used to both create phantoms and cast spells.
Some times a specific Kartia card will add +2 or +3 to a spell for the cost of a single card. Like the cards Stone and Hard will result in Quake +2 as opposed to Quake +1. Which you'd get if you combined Stone with Just.
For now we only have access to Silk cards. Mithril and World Tree cards will ofcourse be much stronger, but those cards are also obtained in less quantities.

Ele fails to kill the phantom with the spell and I missed capturing the spell. Misty does nothing on her next turn.


Ele assasinates the last phantom

Now... I don't know about you, but I feel it's time for some disco. You might even say a Disco Inferno



Duran and Toxa, both uses Fire on Misty, making her extra crispy. Toxa gets the kill, but doesnt level up. He sits at 97xp


"Are we going to chase after the enemy?"
"Of course! We have to save the girl!"
"No, let's go back for now."
"Why!? She might get killed!"
"If they wanted her dead, she would be dead by now, right?"
"Seems like you are the only one with any brains here."
"We need to get more Kartia. Toxa, let's go back first"
"Okey..."



MUSIC:Shout of Victory

Took 5 turns. I could do it in 4, but I'd have to give up some xp. I defeated everyone resulting in 11 kills and I lost 3 phantoms. They could be saved, I just didn't care to. For LP reasons you see.


As a reward for our endeavour, we get 40 silk Kartia and two new Texts. Texts are very important to grab as they allow you to cast better spells. Among other things. But We'll see that next update.

Episode 1 Chapter 1 Epilogue
Theres more? I spent over 4 hours on this already! Halp! Save me! Well we are nearing the end of this Episode/Chaper. The... show... must go... on

MUSIC:Attractive Legend






"You have to calm down!"
"Yeah, but..."
"First of all, tell us your name."






"My name is Misty... Misty Rouge."
"Rouge... Where have I heard that name before?"
Count Shinon "Rouge... Rouge... Hmm... Oh my god! Are you the daughter of the Rouge family?""
"Do you know the name, my Lord?"


"I never knew that."
"That's a horrible story..."
Count Shinon "The daughter whose family was killed by thieves is now a thief herself... What a sad story..."



Yes... quite. I'm sorry? I didn't pay attention. Because I'm much more excited about what comes next.


YES The save screen! From the intro to the end of the first missions epilogue, there isn't a single oppertunity to save. Oh and the LP has already hit over 40000 characters. Well to be fair that's also counting the OP. Still. So many words.
The Archives, let you watch any scene you've seen so far. Very useful to me.
The Arena is an optional fighting arena for items and Kartia.
I won't be showing them off but I will be doing them. In the Arena you fight increasingly more difficult challenges with only Toxa at his current level on your save, and some phantoms given to you.
Thats why it's important to level up Toxa and keep his equipment up to date. Arenas give you items and Kartia. I think it was something like 40 Silk 5-ish Mithril and 1 World Tree.
I could cast a World Tree Spell! In the second mission of the game! Or rather I could if I had any Texts for it. The item I got, I'll go over in depth in the next update.

NEXT TIME: Episode 2 Chapter 2? Or is it Episode 1 Chapter 2? This game is kind of inconsistent with these things. Either way, We will be seeing more to Toxa and his friends.