Part 8: Fly Me To The Moon

Update 8: Fly Me To The Moon



Our first leg of the journey to Mystoke starts at this cave, in the far southwest of Aridia. Thanks to Laya's gem, we can get in.



This cave isn't hard to get through, but it's easy to miss a lot of nice treasure if you don't explore thoroughly.



As usual, we run into some new enemies. As you might expect, Fires attack with Foi techniques. They're pretty easy to kill. Clusters also use Foi, and honestly they might as well be the same enemy as Fires because there are no meaningful differences between them.



Head all the way south for a Laser Knife (sell it), then back north. Keep heading west for a Ceramic Bow, which makes Laya's attack power suck slightly less, and a Force Staff, which makes Ryan's attack power rock slightly more.



This Ceramic Crown is a little tricky to find: from where you found the Force Staff, you have to bear southeast and travel halfway across the dungeon. It's worth it, though, since it provides a significant defensive boost for Laya.



Speaking of Laya, her levels have shot right up; she's been gaining about a level for every couple of fights in this dungeon. Her technique grid grows very fast as well, so she quickly becomes a better healer than Mieu.



Anyway, once you've got the Ceramic Crown, head back to the northwest, then southwest to the stairs out of here.



"Brrrr. Are we going to have to fix another weather control tower like my dad did or something?"
"This is the world of Frigidia: current temperature and wind conditions are within expected ranges."



We've emerged from the cave in the far northeast of Frigidia: Mystoke is at the end of that mushroom-shaped peninsula in the middle. To get there, we have to circle all the way around the west side of the world.



Along the way, we meet exciting new monsters! The Titan is an upgraded Giant (and one of the few enemies with a reasonable chance of surviving a hit from one of our melee characters right now); the Bushi hits harder but is easier to kill.



Hackgulls can do quite a lot of damage with Tsu, so when they appear with other enemies it's a good idea to take them out first.



Harpies are just annoying; they like to use Zan, which doesn't do very much damage but makes you wait while the attack animation finishes for each party member.



Blueroots and Pulsars both have long attack animations and can hit your whole party with Tsu. They suck.



Finally, we make it to Mystoke. So, what can we learn from the people here?



"... to reach Mystoke, the Castle of Silence."



"Then journey to Aerone, south of Divisia."

Everyone else in town is just encouraging us to hurry up and visit Mystoke's castle so we can get Laya's Pendant, which is apparently the key to all those Layan palaces we've been coming across throughout the game. First, though, we'll do some shopping.



Layans get all the best stuff: Cille sold the best weapons in the game, and Mystoke sells the best armour. We can just about afford some of this gear, too, so I sell some junk and buy a Royal Vest for Mieu. Now I won't have to worry about buying body armour for her in generation 3.



There are some decent weapons here, too, but I can't afford them because I blew all our money on that vest. Anyway, we're almost at the end of the generation so buying stuff for anyone who isn't Wren or Mieu is kind of a waste.



Here we are at Mystoke Castle. By the way, fuck Mystoke Castle.



It's not that the monsters are so bad. The Tigress is just an upgraded Catwoman...



... and the Rosa can poison you, but isn't otherwise dangerous...



... but the real pain here is the layout of the castle itself. To even reach the dungeon, you have to go in a huge clockwise loop around the whole map, and then follow a long path winding up and down the entire length of the castle.



The dungeon has some more new monsters. Flutters have over 200 HP and decent defense, so they probably won't die in one hit except maybe to Nial. Beastesses can use Zan but are otherwise forgettable.



Once we're in the dungeon, we first have to wind our way up to the stairs north of our starting location.



This, however, only leads us to more stairs going down into another part of the dungeon. From there, we head west, then south.



Don't turn west from here: the western path is a long, long dead end and the only thing down that way is an Antidote. Head east, get the Trimate from the chest and go up the stairs. Once again, you'll be forced to head straight back down into the dungeon, into a room with four sets of stairs. Take the southeastern set, and from there just keep following the path to the end.



And here's what we came here for!



"Cool. So, uh, what do I actually do with this thing?"



"Sister, it is time for you to know the truth. Though Orakio and I have fought for many years, we finally realize that we have been deceived. An evil force from times beyond legend is using us to satisfy its desire for pain and suffering. We are joining forces to fight this ancient evil. In case we never return, I leave you the pendant; you will hear this when you are ready. Goodbye!"
"Hey, you know what would have been good? If either Orakio or Laya had actually thought to tell anyone about the whole 'we were manipulated into fighting by an evil force' thing, instead of just giving us some law about not killing people and then leaving this pendant where nobody would find it for a thousand years."

Anyway, now I'm going to use an Escapipe because I really don't feel like walking out of this dungeon.



Now, we have to walk aaalll the way back to the Layan palace in the northwest corner of Frigidia. What happens if we enter it with Laya's Pendant in our inventory?



"Uh-oh."



"Oh, okay, it's just a teleporter."

Each Layan palace is linked to another palace somewhere else. This basically means that we never have to bother backtracking through the caves connecting the worlds again. The only problem is that there's no way of knowing which palaces are linked to each other except by trial and error.



Right now, we're in the far south of Elysium, on the other side of the lake from Divisia.



Which means that we can now get to this island in the middle of the lake! The town to our east is Aerone, our next destination. That palace in the screenshot is connected to another one on the other side of the lake, so we could also get here by backtracking all the way to Divisia and heading south as per the directions of the woman in Mystoke, but that's a longer route.

So, what do the people of Aerone have to say for themselves?



"... orbit around our homeworld, Alisa III."
"Huh. I guess that explains why Dad was able to move them, but what's all this about Alisa III? My home is Landen."



If we keep going east, we'll enter a secret passage that leads under the town. First, though, let's do some last-minute shopping!



The Force Shield is hilariously useless as a shield, because only Nial can equip it and it gives the same defensive boost as his sword. However, we're buying one anyway because it can be used as an item to cast Res. Between this and the Force Claw, we now have unlimited healing and revival. Make sure to put it in Wren or Mieu's inventory so it carries over to the next generation.



There are lots of nice weapons here too, but I don't really feel like grinding to afford them right now when it'll be so much easier to make money in the next generation.



On to the dungeon we go! Actually it's not really much of a dungeon at all, even though it does have monsters in it. Just head north, pick up a Monomate in a treasure chest that you can't possibly miss...



... and get into that weird little thing to the west!

"Hey, what's this thwhoooooooa"



I got a bad screenshot here, but the spaceship is bursting right out of the town's fountain.

"Wait, stop! How am I supposed to steer it? Am I supposed to steer it?"



"It's a spaceship! But who built it?"

Yeah, this explains a lot, doesn't it? Like why all the "worlds" are so small, why they're all circular with a big stone wall around the outside, and why you can walk through caves to travel between them. I'm not sure how Orakian culture managed to retain the concept of what a spaceship is but forget that the world they're living on is one, but never mind that.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the setting of the previous two Phantasy Star games was not a giant spaceship. In generation 3 we're finally going to find out exactly what the hell is going on here and how it relates to the rest of the series.



Anyway, we're about to land on Dahlia.



"Laya, someone in Aerone told us that before we even left. Weren't you paying attention? And why are you and Wren calling it Satellite all of a sudden anyway?"



Dahlia is infested with monsters; I guess Lune has somehow been making them up here or something. The Secundus is a stronger version of the Primus and can dish out a fair bit of damage with its Zan technique.



And Pinkroots and Cliques are stronger versions of Blueroots and Clusters. We'll start seeing some new monster designs again in the next generation, but for now we're fighting palette swaps.



Dahlia is another easy dungeon. Just follow the path to the south, head up two flights of stairs and then bear northwest.



"How is it that we could see stars through the floor a minute ago and now all we can see is a bunch of machinery?"

Open the chests to pick up a Force Gear for Wren and a Force Crown for Laya, then head west, south, west and north...



Hey, look, it's our old friend Lune!



"Orakio banished us here almost 1,000 years ago. Cryogenics has kept me alive for centuries, waiting for revenge. Now my revenge is at hand!"



It's time to fight Lune! Just like King Cille, he's accompanied by a bunch of monsters. The Murafires and Cliques can dish out a fair bit of damage with their Foi techniques, but they'll all be dead in a round or two.



Hopefully you maxed out either Mieu or Laya's Gires technique (preferably Laya's) before this fight, because Lune likes to hit the party with a powerful Tsu technique. He's also got nearly 2000 HP and ridiculously high defense, so even Nial only hits for about 70 damage: it'll take quite a few rounds of everybody attacking him to bring him down. Wren will probably hit harder than anyone else in this fight if you got him a good single-target gun, since his weapons ignore defense.



"Okay, we're forbidden from killing you by a sacred law that Laya apparently never bothered to tell you about, so here's where you surrender and we figure out where to go from here, I guess."



"Laya's Pendant! You must be Laya's little sister! I have no wish to fight you. The war is ended! I'll recall my armies; at last I am at peace!"
"Wait, what? If I knew it was going to be that easy, we could have introduced ourselves before we fought."



The threat from Lune's monster armies is over.

"Nial, thank you for rescuing my sister. I have been told that you have a tough choice. Both Alair and Laya wish to marry you!"
"How the hell would you know that? You only just found out who Laya is!"



"Great, so I have to either marry some Layan chick I rescued from a dungeon and then never saw again, who happens to be the sister of the man who just tried to wipe out all Orakians, or else marry some other Layan chick who's been on ice for the past thousand years and happens to be the sister of the woman who the Layans were named after in the first place."

So this is where we'd choose who to marry, setting us up to start generation 3. But I'm not going to call a vote on that yet. Instead, I'll be going back to the end of generation 1 and showing you what happens on the path where Rhys marries Maia. There's very little overlap between the two second-generation paths, and this way I can give you all four options for the third generation. See you next update!