Part 30: Tales of Succession

The delay for this probably (read: definitely) wasn't worth the wait. You can mostly thank Tales of Innocence for that.





Before we actually do things, let's go and refight Dhaos. Don't worry there's a reason for it.

Done? Okay, good.

That thing he yells out at the end of the fight, when he gets put down by Indignation is the exact same thing he exclaims in the original fight against Morrison. It roughly means something along the lines of "this cannot be" or whatever. It's also something that persists throughout the entire series; in any game where Dhaos cameos, if you hit him with an Indignation he'll do the same thing there too.





: Is this what Totis is like in the future?
: This is known as the City of Miguel.
: Miguel...
: This city is named after dad?
: For whatever reason, this area south of Euclid is the only place that Dhaos does not attack. This city is one of the few safe havens left in this world.

That's pretty weird actually; since Dhaos focused solely on places with so much as a strenuous connection to Magitech before it's strange that it'd change to "everwhere but one town."

:Is Venezia still all right?
: Yes. Actually, we'll be going there to secure passage to Alvanista by ship. His Majesty wishes to meet you; there is much to discuss. I'll be going on ahead to Venezia to arrange a ship for us. After you've prepared for the journey, please meet me there. Oh yes, also, please take this with you. This is a world map from this era.



From this point, we have five characters we can use. Unfortunately, we can only use four at a time. Someone's got to warm the bench and it's obvious who that's going to be.



Chester joins back up at the exact same level he was when he left. How annoying. He'll gain full EXP even if he's on the bench, so that's not a problem.

Skit: The Future Aselia



: At first glance, it seems the same as always.
: Except that we can still use magic.
: The City of Miguel, a city named after dad...
: Hey, what's wrong?
: Oh, no, it's nothing.



Grinding is such tiring work, isn't it? A rest might be in order, even though it's not free any more.



: Oh, it's you, Cless...
: Are you still worrying about what Arche said before?
: Well, I guess there's that too.
: But more than anything, it's you I'm worried about.
: You and me, we always trained together, you with your sword, me with my bow.
: But you got swept off to another time, you grew so much stronger. It's like... it's like I've been left behind.



: Say, Cless... do you still have dreams about Totis?
: Yeah...
: I've been coming out here like this every night.
: Whenever I think about the day the village was attacked, I cant sleep.
: So I come here and shoot my bow, trying to escape reality for just a little while...
: Cless, did you know?
: Ami... that kid really liked you...



He gained a fair few levels out of this so he's not as far behind any more!



He's still lagging behind by quite a fair distance though. We'll be able to rectify that shortly, I would hope. More importantly during those 12 levels he gained from the cutscene, he picked up a few new abilities.



Roaring Thunder is the only one he ever needs though, and it's all he'll ever need. Roaring Thunder is hilariously broken and warrants using him over someone else; set it to a shortcut key, hold it down and the enemy will never get a chance to attack ever again. Chester doesn't have that much TP naturally so he could burn through it incredibly quickly by doing that, but you can alleviate it by using both a Moon Crystal and/or the Fairy Ring.

Skit: Old Age Warriors



: In this era, we're senior citizens at nearly age 70.
: We've got nothing on this 170 year old bag though.
: Shut up!
: What's wrong? Half-Elves are long-lived, right?
: My body is long since taking a dirt nap in this era.
: So that makes your current status... a zombie?
: Forget it. Just leave me alone!



Back in Miguel, we can find that Cless' old house has become a school apparently. This raises a few questions though;



This being one of them. The thing with this being a time travel issue is the same as usual though; does he build it because he saw it in the future and to do otherwise would prevent something important happening? Probably best to not think about most things here too much at this point.

Skit: Elven Entendre



: Hey, are you all right? Hang on.
: Leave her be. Trust me.
: Hold on. No matter what, that's going too far.
: Do people with spasms usually grab their heads?
: Well, now that you mention it.
: Ugh, my <<irritation>> is acting up. My head feels like it's going to split open.
: There you go.



Using the inn again, because grinding really takes it out of ya. That and I do need to cook a bunch since we'll be getting a ton of recipes before too long.



: Yeah! Awesome! Awesome!
: That ability is called Swallow Kick.
: Awesome! Awesome! Dad, you're so cool!!
: Is that right?
: Yeah! Dad, show me something even cooler!
: Well, let's see... next is...
: Oh, and what are you two doing in here?
: Mom!



: I see... Were you showing Cless some artes?
: Yeah. Since he'll be learning swordsmanship from now on, I thought I would show him an example, but...
: Dad! I want to see something even cooler!
: ...is what he keeps saying. I guess I got a little caught up in the mood too, huh?
: It's okay. So you're going to train Cless in the sword then?
: Yeah, the sooner he starts, the better. That's the only way to master it. That and...



: Pendant?
: Yes, some day it will be all yours, Cless.
: Sure... but really, I want to see more of dad's awesome moves!
: Mire awesome, huh? Well, I haven't perfect this move yet, but... Here it goes!



This attack is kind of awesome.



It's the only one of it's kind in the game.



There's another that seems like it's the same but it's not.



This one is both reasonably usable and more powerful. Even if it's super situational at best.



It has extremely restrictive requirements and you'll realistically never use it during normal play.



The only time I can think you'd possibly want to really use it is against an optional boss that you can become completely invincible when fighting anyway.



Even then, I'm reticent to say he warrants it.



Everything else either just shrugs it off and will flatout murder you for trying...



Or isn't strong enough to warrant it.



The biggest offender of the prior is what I'd consider possibly the hardest battle in the game period.



It's something we could fight within maybe 40 minutes or so from now, but to do so would be dumb as hell.



It's not the strongest enemy or anything, but I'm sure anyone who's played it will remember how fucking annoying it is because of the conditions of the fight. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves; we won't be seeing that for quite a while.



: Oh... sorry, it's nothing.
: If you say so.
: That move... I saw that technique so many times after that...
: But I wonder if I'd be able to use it now.



This title is pretty cool; we don't need to have it equipped but it's basically the best/most fitting for Cless so I go with it 99% of the time from now.



Once we got it, we gained access to the only Mystic Arte in the game. It's pretty easy to use, but it has a super-massive catch to it. You have to have full HP at any time during the fight and then to drop into critical HP. At that point you can use it exactly once and it will deal a fair bit of damage, assuming that it hits. If you want to use it again, Cless has to reach full HP again. Repeat ad infinitum.

Skit: Cooking Lessons



: Um, that might be a bit difficult...
: You can't? But it sucks always screwing things up, you know?
: Don't think of it like that. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.
: Instead of focusing on what you cannot do, focus on the many things you can.
: Yeah... You're right! I'll do that, thanks!



Collectibles are a bit of a pain at first. They're things that have no immediate value; you can maybe get double digit Gald for them if you're lucky. The entire point of them is to trade them with various NPCs to get other Collectibles. They exist basically to make it even more of a pain to get a complete Collector's Encyclopaedia than it already is.



There's more than one trading line of these things, even. We'll be getting them all because it's a sidequest.

That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Skit: Training Alone



: Hey, what are you doing out here?
: Just what it looks like. At this rate,I really will become dead weight.
: So you're out here training all by yourself?
: Listen, don't you dare say a word to that stupid girl.
: Yeah, I got it.



There's a new recipe in every town at this point, and they're pretty easy to find so picking them up will probably be the first thing we do in all of them. This one's pretty uninteresting though; it just heals as much HP as an Apple Gel.

...Yes, it really took that long to get the ability to cook something as efficient as the most basic healing item.

Skit: The Ultimate Sidekick



: But now things are different! His brave, noble, irreplacable best friend has finally arrived!
: Together, no enemy can hope to stand against them, not even Dhaos himself!
: You know, you can't just narrate your own story.
: Hey, don't worry about it...



To say this costs 20,000 gald it's just an amalgamation of Rising Phoenix and Swallow Kick so it's not even remotely good enough to warrant the price. That's not even a relative thing; it comes way too late to justify that price tag for something we'd potentially be able to use way, way back at the Moria Mines.



A fighting tournament at Euclid? Sounds like something worth checking out. We have to pass that way to get to Venezia anyway, so it's not much of a detour.

Skit: The Same Joke



: I'm going to repeat Dhaos! Dhaos.
: Just kidding! Ahahahaha...
: You know what?
: W, what? You didn't like it?
: Your brains are clearly on the same level.

It's a good thing Chester uses the exact same joke that Cless did earlier, and he does it almost verbatim too. I can explain what it means accurately now!

Yetika posted:

The original joke here was that the Japanese word for 'defeat' (taosu), is nearly identical to 'Dhaos' (daosu). Yyyeah, Japanese word puns are always a pain in the arse to localize.

Well, okay, I'm just quoting someone else who explained what it means but it's the principle that matters!



Apparently the dude that runs this store is supposed to charge you one more than the maximum amount of gald you can carry to get this chest or say something like that or whatever.



I find just moving the statue to be more effective. Nothing's stopping you after all.

Skit: Haute Cuisine



: And you're supposed to be better?
: Hm, me? My cooking is excellent. Don't try to compare it to yours.
: Shut up, it doesn't matter. Everyone has their strength and weaknesses.
: So you're not worried that nobody would ever want to marry you?
: Hmph! It's fine! I'll just find a husband who can cook!

Chester's not that great a cook really. Everyone's better than Arche so that's not saying much. He's about on-par with Cless and neither can compare to Mint or Klaus. Klaus blows away even Mint in some aspects. That makes sense though, since he's nearly 30 and all.



Since we're in town, though, this is a good time to splurge a little and give Chester a new weapon that doesn't suck terribly and some armour too.

For reference, the Composite Bow is the third weakest bow in the game. The second weakest being the Long Selfbow we bought way, way back in the second update. Feel free to go check it's Attack stat to compare if you'd like. That's quite the power jump. Whilst, yes, a few enemies do drop bows in the Past era they're all either Short or Long Selfbows.

Skit: A Selfish Motivation



: Damn it! You'd better watch out! I'm going to be coming for you!!



Out of all the armour upgrades we can pick up, this is the only one that really stands out. It costs an obscene amount of Gald despite only being 7 points of defence higher than the Mithril Mesh (25 as opposed to 18). Somehow this correlates to being 26,000 Gald more expensive. Oh and it reduces damage done by Thunder spells for some reason. You'd expect Dark based on the name, but nope.

Skit: A Natural Detour



: Yeah, it's been so long. Let's do it.
: Yay! Forest, forest!
: Hey hey, you really think we have time for this?
: I would like also like to check on the Yggdrasil.
: Right, right, don't be so stubborn.
: If everyone's like that, there's no helping it.
: But only for a little while...



For some reason, valuables now sell for an obscene amount of gald. I'm not complaining mind, but it's pretty sudden. One minute your random shit is worth 9,000 or so tops. Next thing you know, it's a good 12k minimum.

Skit: Return of Back to Alvanista



: We're going to take another ship, right?
: Hey, speaking of ships, where do we find one?
: Venezia. It's north past Euclid.
: Oh...
: We need to meet up with Harrison there.

We could, yes... or we could put it off and go do various other things first.