Part 22: I Hope You Like Menu Screens, Part II

LET'S PLAY STAR OCEAN TWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Chapter 20: I Hope You Like Menu Screens, Part II


I think this screenshot speaks for itself.




Anyway, now that we have the most important guy at Level 100, we can check on a couple things.


We passed by this huge place on our way to Linga. I can't start a Private Action, so obviously there's some kind of story event preventing me from doing so.




The main character you chose says this line, but when you choose Rena, well...


Anyway, this sets the scene for the Tournament of Arms. Perhaps it is an arm-wrestling tournament, but who cares? I don't care if you're the buffest motherfucker in the world, Geese is Level 100.

Anyway, let's check out this town.

Maybe this is how it worked back in 1999, just walk up to a publisher's doorstep and they'll take a look at your manuscript, but holy shit times have changed in 2010 and it is hard as fuck to even just send them a query letter.


Anyway, we're wealthy, so we buy a Seltzer from the neighboring shop just to demo it. This item constantly increases in value, but it's a horrible investment because it ignores Identify All! and Cinderella Glass price modifiers, and you can still only sell it for half the purchase price. So we'll break even once the Seltzer costs 440,000 Fols.


We buy the last set of skills, Sensibility and Combat 3.


Sensibility contains Functionality. Now everyone can learn every Item Creation ability, and we teach Vados how to use Customize.


As you can see, we grinded a few levels on him and he now has a lot of fucking SP, which we spend on Radar, another skill you get from Sensibility 3.

Radar gives you items from a RNG pool.


One such item is Mithril, which we'll need later. Radar is the only way to obtain Mithril on the first disc (excepting one method that comes so late it may as well happen on the second), so if you want some--which you do--you probably want to save-reload until you get at least one with every ten levels of Radar.

Or you could save and reload after EVERY level or Radar, but that's fucking retarded.


makin' more forged medals


Current progress: somewhere above 50%, and we start working on ZeeToo.




Maxing her Radar skill gave us 3 Mithrils. We only need two in the grand scheme of things, so I can use those extras in Blacksmithing or something.


Billy, I just don't really have the motivation right now. Maybe later.


As for ZeeToo, she now has a nice library of powerful spells that we will never use.


I also start working on Dragon Howl. It's a nice anti-air attack that shoots a wall of hitboxes. At first, it shoots out two or three, but fires an extra shot every 100 uses up to a max proficiency of 500, meaning 7 or 8 hits, which is really good for dizzying big flyers.


Anyway, the other great thing about the Lacour Continent is that it's full of item creation components. Hilton sells all the basic precious gems you could want.


I started out trying to make a Fairy Ring with ZeeToo (cuts MP consumption by 1/2), but could only get Emerald Rings.


Then I read on the Internet that ZeeToo can't actually craft them. Only Valvados and Tallgeese can, but the problem is that I already spent all of Geese's SP and I hadn't put any into Metalworking past its first level.


The other problem is that Vados can't get Sense of Design, which tangentially helps in Metalworking. Fortunately, he got Originality and I have the support item for Metalwork (the Soldering Iron), so after unlocking this talent, he started having a decent success rate.




There we go. With the amount of Stamina stat you've got once you're at Level 100 (which determines how much HP/MP you regenerate at the end of a battle), our MP problems are pretty much solved until I get better Accessory alternatives.

Anyway, gaining all these levels has given me access to a few Super Specialty Skills. They are like Item Creation skills, just different, I guess?

One such skill is Come On Bunny.




Yeah this doesn't sound ominous at all.


what the fuck is that

Riding on a Bunny is like riding on a Chocobo in that you don't get any encounters while you're doing it. On the other hand, you can get everywhere very easily by walking in this game, and there are no other uses for this skill unless you like walking on mountains and getting stuck on the geometry and having to reload because you weren't supposed to be able to go there in the first place.


Anyway, we ride the bunny over here. I don't know why, because there are cool monsters to fight along the way, but we did.


This is the Lacour Front. It is vaguely important to the plot, what little of it there is, later on. You can't do Private Actions here, so I'm just taking relationship point hits against Billy by pickpocketing bitches left and right.


You can pickpocket this from the shopkeeper. It's no Battle Suit, but it's strong enough that this is the only way to obtain it on the first disc.


Second-disc defense right there, that.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that earlier in this thread, I mentioned that I'd be talking about how I gained levels with Claude the first time I played this game because I knew he was going to be in the tournament.

Basically I wandered around the Lacour Front, where you can encounter these Salamander monsters. I killed off the rest of my party and fought then one-on-one. Each battle garnered about 6000 EXP or so.

The tradeoff was that they are hideously powerful, have a breath attack that will kill you instantly if your levels are low, and have a high rate of inflicting paralysis.


Anyway, I guess I may as well level up Billy too.


Now that everyone's up to Level 100 and my clock is up to 20 hours, it's time to play around with some more Item Creation.


You get a special item on the second disc that allows you to craft alternate equipment with Blacksmithing. Right now, though, we have an excess of materials, so let's use them.




The Barrier Shield is nice because it's one of the few shields that Vados can equip.


The Hermit's Helm is a rare drop from witch enemies late in Disc 1. This is the only other way I'm aware of that you can obtain it.










As you can see, Blacksmithing has given us that little extra edge we'll need to finish the first disc.

Anyway, let's have a little fun right now.



Combine most any of ZeeToo's weapons with a Mithril, and you get...


Combine this with some Moonite...


(which we happened to get from Billy's Radar)


... and we get ZeeToo's second/third-best weapon in the game. I prefer this to her second-strongest weapon because, while weaker, it periodically restores MP (even though you'll never be using that).



Now that that's out of the way, let's make something else:

No, not that.


That is nice and will be infinitely useful to us much later on, but that's still not what I'm looking for.


Anyway, we finally make another Treasure Chest.


This is interesting, especially because the guy looks kind of like that faggot from SO3, but not what I'm looking for.







That's what we want.


Customize the Scyther with a Damascus, and...

\
Well, this is Vados' best weapon in the normal game.


But you guys are gonna have to wait until next time to see how that works out for us.

Also, based on those last few screenshots, I wish they made a doll of Gyoro and Ururun. No Ashton, just them. They are such sweeties.