Part 12: Commentary: Updates 6 - 10

Diddle's Letter



From what I've seen, Meimei simply gives you random fortunes that aren't related to the current quest. This one was quite coincidental all the same.



It took me awhile to realize that you have to actually talk to the Sproutling first before triggering this scene. A bit dumb, but oh well.

I kind of like Miss Yuka here, as she's sympathetic to Capella's dilemma despite being insulted so thoroughly. She's actually rather helpful, and I wouldn't have minded if she actually had more involvement in other quests. As is, she's pretty much only in one more future quest, and a rather minor one at that.



Telling Diddle that Capella read the letter causes Diddle to immediately go into the cave, as opposed to Capella telling him at the entrance of the highway. So honesty saves you a bit of tedious backtracking. I didn't feel like being a jerk, though.



My recording for this fight was screwed up, and I didn't want to redo everything, so there's no video of this fight. Just as well, as it's rather dull and lengthy anyway. Besides, this guy is more of a mini-boss than an actual boss.



These guys will have more quests, so I'll talk more about them in the future, but I like this duo. They're both very close, yet they're completely different people. Capella absolutely loves being a traveling performer, while Diddle's miserable with it. The two are very good friends though and make a great team. I really find the next quest with these two interesting despite it being so odd, but I'll get into that once I get there. Otherwise, this is a pleasant little tale of friendship.



Also, we get the most random reward. It's needed for a future quest, though, and this stuff's a pain to get otherwise, so what the hell.

Monster Corral



I have never really bothered trying to lure eggs with food. All you have to do is keep track of where it's facing and constantly stay behind it until it gets bored, a little "..." bubble appears above its head, and then catch it by surprise.



Monsters have a certain section they fall into. Rabites and Molebears, for instance, are beasts, while Chocobos are Aerial. Each egg falls into one of these categories, but you won't usually know which enemy the egg will become until it hatches. That said, you can attempt to sell the egg and then compare its selling price to find out early if you want, as each monster has a set selling price as an egg. Selling dragon eggs is usually one of the ways people farm for money in this game, for instance.

Eggs mainly appear in former boss rooms, and the same type of egg will always spawn in a set room. So the egg I got from the boss room from Diddle's Letter will always be a reptile egg, though of course it could turn out to be something besides a Lizardon.



You can have a total of five monsters. Any more and you have to sell one. You can let three monsters graze outside, where they will gain levels independently. Not sure what determines how much experience they gain.



You can store up to three food items for a monster to eat. The monster will eat these items every time it gains a level, which means if you really want to micromanage a monster's diet you'll have to visit the feedbox before the monster levels up again.

Though you can feed a monster various meats, they don't really have much effect on monsters. Plants, on the other hand, will increase a monster's stats and help shape its personality. It could be aggressive with other monsters, or it could choose to stay near you (handy if you want to take advantage of its Synchro). Generally it's not that big a deal if you don't bother with feeding it, but it also doesn't really hurt to just stuff its feedbox when you're at home. Not like fruits and veggies have a better use, anyway.

If you don't want to raise them, there's other alternatives. When certain lands reach certain mana levels, it'll unlock a demi-human that can assist you in the pet slot. You'll see them wandering around in a certain section, and they'll even have a bit of dialogue before offering to join, plus you can always go back to recruit them if you ditch them for another pet.

Overall, pets are fun to play with, and there's not really any negatives in having one along. They can take a bit of babying to raise, but it's fun to have a little companion on adventures.

The Flame of Hope



Gato's a pretty beautiful location, consisting of two mountains, a marvelous waterfall, and a scenic temple held up in a most precarious position. And the funny thing is that it's not even close to being one of the best-looking areas in the game. Legend of Mana really has fantastic locales, if nothing else.



Even the first time you visit the temple, the game simply takes a minute to show the place off before letting you run inside.



Boyd's irritable, but damn if he isn't determined to do his job. Though gruff, he doesn't hesitate to ask for our help and then thank us profusely. He's also determined to catch the jewel thief Sandra in order to protect the Jumi, as Sandra is the one killing them off. The Jumi ends up being one of the three big quest lines of this game, though this quest isn't really part of it. We'll see Boyd a few more times in the future.



The game gets into it more later, but basically a Jumi is a person whose life force is inside a jeweled core. They're essentially immortal as long as their core is intact, but if it's damaged bad enough, they die. Rubens is a Jumi and is killed for it. There's a lot more to this, but again, there's a whole quest line where we'll learn a lot more about the Jumi.



Not much else to say, other than that the Sproutling's pretty annoying for this entire quest.

Niccolo's Business Unusual: Part 2



There really is nothing to this quest considering you can skip the dungeon after doing it the first time. You just stand around waiting for something to happen while Niccolo runs around and then talk to a fairy. The fairy isn't even important. Though you deal with faeries a lot in the future, this one has nothing to do with any future events. It's just a silly, simple little quest.

Teatime of Danger



Flowerlings are weird. There's male and female Flowerlings, and though the females look normalish, the males look weird as hell.

Despite the switching gates, this place actually is all one linear path, except weird as hell.



Again, nothing really to talk about other than the novelty of having to save a magical teapot from a blood-sucking succubus, except that Duelle's a dick for not even trying to rescue his friend.

This is a game where a kid with an onion for a head is friends with a magical teapot. I love this game.