Part 22: Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers


Since we now have a new base, the girls will mill around the house while not being in your party. Most of them do not have anything interesting to say, but Fina and Latyss do.


Fina will quickly cook you a meal, that heals all Hp&Mp. But it only works if she isn't in your party.

Let's check on Latyss..

Neeeeerd

Well okay, maybe those books are interesting?

Oh, that's something not nerdy at all!

"...Hmm....Maybe I should get more level-ups."

Kinda weird, since my Ryle is definitely ahead of the curve. But no worries, I'll get that skill at the end of this update. I also forgot to capture something here. The mirror in the top left of the house, is actually a good shield that you can pick up. But you can also buy it, and I did before remembering that it's there. The little scene for it is also not interesting, so fuck it.


Here you can see the rest of the gang and Flare. But they really don't have anything interesting to say.

Okay, there is a bit of content to find before we enter the castle, so let's finish that first. I pick Caris, Fina and Orubia for my current party.

First, we go back into the house..


"I swear there's something around here...I can smell it!"

"There!!"



"So mom hide the money in here! I can have some extra money for travel expenses!"

Remember kids, stealing from your parents is really cool!


Woops!

"Wh-What is it? Mom...(Eek~ Bad omen~)"

"Fina..."darling"?.."

"I put 2000 Gold into that chest inside, now I can't find them. Have you seen it?"

I guess she knows because of her super-powers?

"Eek! *gulp* "


Of course, Ryle will do the right thing.

"Lady Flare, please listen to me. Although what Fina did was wrong, please understand she did it for us. We shouldn't let her steal in the first place."

"So could you forgive Fina, and punish me instead?"

"Ryle..."

"...Ok then, I'll let her go this time and you can use that money for traveling."

"Thank you very much ma'am. I'll make sure the money is spent for good use."

"Fina. You should thank Ryle this time."

"Um...yes I will."

"Thanks Ryle. I shouldn't have lay my hands on mom's allowance..."

"You helped us so much back in Factoria, and didn't get any proper reward..."

"Because of me you didn't even get recognized for your courageous deeds."

"Oh you didn't have to say that. Anyone with rightous mind would have done the same."

"I'm glad you would think it that way."

This conversation should have ended after Fina's thanks to Ryle, but that would imply good writing, so nope! But we have the money, Fina gets two points of love, and all is well.


Polsy pointed out, that Fina does have a reaction after you have settled into Flare's house. Interacting with this will give you a look into the story of Fina's parents, and how Flare defeated CHAOS. This part is a bit long, so I'm not going to include it in this update. I'll make a separate update for it in a day or two, so that the people who don't care can skip it easily.

Okay, let's explore the area around Flare's house for a bit.

This is the only new enemy type I encountered here, and it's just an upgrade of the yellow spiders we saw in the early stages of the game.


West from Flare's house, is Landers Market.


This town is mainly a market, but there are a few things that you can discover here.

Let's start with shopping!

There are a few neat shields and armor pieces here, and I upgrade the whole gang. The Crystal Shield is actually the one that was used as a mirror in Flare's house, jfyi. The Dark Sabre is for Caris, but it's weaker than the wind-sword she is using. I got it from the Vp quest line, so it's going to stay good for a while.


This is a pretty neat item, and I equip most of the girls with it. A flat 20% chance to resist a bunch of effects is nothing to scoff at.

Let's hit the bar




"But I don't see one!?"

"Sometimes she has to perform overseas, so I'm looking forward to her return *smile*"


A few people talk about the missing bunny girl. This sure is a quest, but it will pop up later.

I also happen to know, that there is a scene for Orubia in this town.


"Umm..you are~"

"Let me introduce myself." *handed a small card*

" "Idol Records Human Resource Dept." Scout Agent Mr. Mantarrow?"

"Please call me Tarrow!"

"Then you better correct your name on your business card."

"Oh, it's none of your business pal!"

"(...!!)"

"So what is your name?"

"Orubia A-Aquary~"

"(You naive girl! Don't simply tell him just because he asked!)"

"Straight to the topic! Would you wanna become the next teenage sensation? A popular idol!"

"Ehhhhh~! But I don't know!"

"You gonna be a HUGE star! And you'll be surrounded by men 100 times better than the guy NEXT you!! I guarantee it! I'm sure you don't want a fashion-sense zero loser like him hanging around you ALL the time, right? *wink* Someone as cute as you does not deserve a total muscle brain like him...I feel so sad for you *frown*"


Ryle has the proper reaction towards Mr. Jerkface.

"(This SOB! My Togahzan will shut his mouth alright!)"

"Now you've gone too far! Please watch out what you're saying!"

"Huh?"

"Maybe that's true for other girls, but to me he is a very important friend since my childhood."

Only true friends can compliment and insult you at the same time

"Orubia..."

"I appreciate your wonderful offer, but I don't want to become an idol. I am very sorry."

"You can't just give up so easily! After you become the star, everybody will worship you like a goddess!"

"I like myself right now. Please don't waste your energy."

"Tsk! *snaps finger* Oh well, even if I force you now, it won't last long..But remember it's the opportunity of lifetime!"

"I won't regret. Thank you for understanding!"


Leaving aside how a pop-star would actually work in this world, I think that Idol business is a real thing in Japan, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that they are crazy about young female pop-stars.

"Whew~That was close..."

"Are you sure about this? He wasn't lying about your chance of success, you know?"

"So you still think I am dragging everyone behind?"


The second response, is the right choice here.

"What are you talking about!? Calm down, you were out of control back there."

"I wanted you to refuse the offer~"

"I can't be with you all the time you know! Sometimes you have to make the choice by yourself when I am not around. They'll take advantage of you if you don't look out for yourself! Like back there."

"Mm...I will."

"Actually I didn't back you up to see if you were really determined about this mission."

"You mean?"

"Sooner or later you will face the tough choices, and I really want to know if you're up to the task."

"Dear Ryle..."

"And I was glad to hear you saying that I am an important person to you."

"Ah...."

"To be honest, I wanted to see you as an idol with all that daring outfits Hehe.."

Joke or random perv-moment? You decide!

"You always act that way..."

"Huh?"

"And still dumb..."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing~"

"Don't worry Dear Ryle. You can count on me."

Att 22 >>> 25

Around here, you can also find a scene for Fina. But it's kinda weird because it does not behave like all the other scenes so far.




"Kyaaaaa!"


Ka-pow!

"Argggggggggg!!"

"What you think you're doing!? Old pervert-!!"

"I....I have few years left and how could you treat an elder like this!"

"How dare you to say that after violating the symbol of my innocence! You shall live only 5 seconds!"

"Noooo!!"

And that's it. It's just weird to me that this scene has no effect or real ending, as you can just repeat it over and over by talking to the grandpa.

We are done with Landers Market for now, and while there is another town in the area, it also deals with Flare's backstory so I'll include it in the next update. It's time to tackle that castle, and this town has a sweet segway for me.


This lady is on the top floor of the Inn, and the item she mentions can actually be found in the castle. But sadly, she does not react to you finding it.


Apparently, she's also schizophrenic because there is nobody else in this room.





The door is blocked, and both paths will lead to the same destination. However, you can only take the right path if you have Latyss in your party. There is a wind barrier there, and only she can dispel it. There is nothing special on that path, so it's just something that is there.

Also

There are magical traps around. And Orubia did a stellar job again, and disabled none of them.

The left path leads up to the second floor...

..and to a chest.




This is a pretty great weapon for Orubia, and also brings some good stat boosts.


The animation is also

Speaking of animations, did I ever show the animation for Latyss' staff that she got during the elven-tri? I don't think so, so here it is anyway.


The opposition in here, is mostly made up from enemies that we have already seen. Nothing really dangerous, and the few new encounters also don't pose much of a threat.


The Witch can shoot darkness clouds at you, and the Robber is a melee guy that likes to flee.


Those guys probably have some magic, but refused to use it against me. However, they will recover 50Hp at the start of every round, which makes them a bit annoying to fight.


I also want to point out that Orubia learned this skill on the way. It'll raise people with a bit of Hp, and it will actually become very important really soon.

Okay, the path we took earlier leads to the only interesting thing on the second floor - the throne room.

However, it's totally empty! And figuring out how you can advance is a bit tricky.


There is a hidden staircase behind this curtain.


Down we go...


..and find a savepoint. Ya'll know what that means, right?



"I better "SAVE" before going any further."

Yeah, you better do. I'm not joking, the following boss fight can be hard as fuck.



"Mm!? Something's coming!!"


Say hello to the Dark Crimson - optional boss and king of assholes

Okay, real-talk. I made this fight harder on myself by letting you guys choose the party. And I'm also fighting him much earlier than I should. You're meant to tackle him past Lv20, while Ryle is at 18, and the girls are like 15 or something. I mostly did this because the previous bosses have been pretty underwhelming so far, and I wanted to show you something challenging. Don't get me wrong, he's still tough at later levels, but a more experienced party is better at tanking some of his regular hits. Well, let's just see how this plays out...

On his first round, the Crimson spits fire at my party...

..and kills Latyss. Now, I made a small mistake and didn't heal up before fighting him, but Latyss is just really weak against his fire. Like, he's almost able to kill her every time he uses that attack. For comparison, Caris will resist most of the damage, and the others take a fair bit of damage. But Latyss is just hosed in this fight, even with defense buffs from other members. Orubia was almost on constant healing/raising duty

The Crimson also has regeneration at the start of his round.

I got pretty annoyed by the word "some" here. Since he has a ton of Hp, it's hard to say how much he recovers, and if you even make any progress over that.


Things really don't go in my favor at all. See, a big problem is that the Crimson is faster than any of my members, and if he decides to use his fire two times in a row, Orubia will die before being able to heal. I also don't do great damage to him. Ryle's tiger move clocks in at 200-250, Orubia and Latyss can do something like 50-70, but Caris' fire skills are completely useless. Her melee attack is also kinda crap against the Crimson, so I had her throw items at her friends for most of the fight.

The fire is already kinda bullshit, but I haven't even begun to show why the Crimson is such an asshole. He has many more dick moves up his sleeve.


His regular melee attack hits twice in a row, so multiply that damage by two.


He can also leech health from you.


How about toxic fumes that hurt and maybe poison everyone?


Latyss has a group skill for poison, but things are still damn tough.

And here is the major dick move the Crimson has..

A group attack that has a chance to instantly kill any of your party members


This move is pretty awful, and now you can understand why Orubia's new raise skill became so damn important. Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to beat this boss without it. I also didn't plan on getting it, so yay for Orubia and me being lucky. I never thought that I'd be happy about having Orubia around

This fight was long, and obviously hard. I came real close to being defeated a few times, and actually pondered to start over and prepare a bit more. But I figured that would be boring, so I endured this asshole to the bitter end.





You also get 10Vp for beating him, and all the girls gain two attraction points.

The major reward for fighting him early, is the big chunk of Xp.

Everyone shot up by like four levels, except for Orubia. Why? Well you see, the Crimson used the Death Blast in his last round and only killed Orubia. And dead characters do not gain Xp at the end of a fight. I was pretty mad about that, but not mad enough to replay the fight. Even in his last moments, he managed to be an asshole

But let's not mope about this, because now is treasure time!


This is a book for Ryle, but he needs more level-ups before he can read it.


This will teach a very strong group attack to a girl of your choice. But here is the thing, the attribute of the skill is "Ancient". This is the attribute that Fina and Flare use for their super moves, and quite useful in the late stages of the game. So I'm going to stash that book for a while, and think about who to use it on later. Maybe I'll make a vote for it? We'll see.


And this is why we came here, the Triumph Grail!

As the description says, you can feed it VPs and then items will come out of it. Let's see what we can make..


Three different spell books.


Some sweet armor pieces.


A ring, stat booster, and love potions. This is actually how I'll be unlocking all of the endings. I'll just drug the girls to move all of them past their thresholds.

I invest some points, and create a copy of each spell book.


For five Vp, this teaches the skill to transfer your Mp to another person. I don't find that to be useful, so I'm not going to make more copies.


This also costs five Vp, and teaches a personal barrier that resists Holy, Dark, and Ancient damage. Very good for the later stages of the game, and I'll teach it to all of the girls.


And this spell costs eight Vp, and heals your group from all bad effects while also restoring a bit of Hp. Pretty good, but Latyss also has something similar, so I'm not sure if I need more copies.

Well, that's basically it for this time, but remember that book Ryle couldn't read at the beginning of this update?


He can do it now!


This skill reduces attack&defense of a single target. So yay?