Tales of Vesperia Part #9 - The Quoi Woods

Part 9: The Quoi Woods

If you want to see the battle system in action in some random battles, here's an uncut video of my trip through the Quoi Woods, which also includes the cutscenes linked separately below.

Let's enter the woods!

Watch the cutscene!

...A forest in a place like this can only mean...the Quoi Woods...?

Bingo. You're just full of information, aren't you?

I read in a book once that a curse will fall upon anyone who enters the woods...

Ah, so that must be the "surprise."

...I know. Okay, let's go!

The Quoi Woods is another very simple and straightforward dungeon. There's a few short sidepaths, one of them hidden fairly well near the end, that contain basic treasures as well as some defensive equipment, but apart from that you can just walk straight through.

Skit: The Curse, as Estelle Knows It

Will this forest really get us to the other side of the Hold?

If it doesn't, we'll just come back.

...But what if I get turned into a frog or a snake by the forest's curse?!

If that happens, I'll take care of you.

You'll...take care of me?

Of course I would. Don't worry. I had pet frogs and snakes when I was a kid.

If you got turned into a frog or a snake, Yuri, I wouldn't have any idea what to feed you...

On the way, Yuri learns another arte. He's really getting a lot of those compared to the rest!

Wolf Strike stabs the enemy, then follows up with a backhand punch that knocks the enemy down. I personally don't like knockdown since most attacks can't hit knocked down enemies, but it's good if you need an enemy out of the picture for a few seconds.

I also find an Iron Circlet, which allows me to show off something neat about the menu in this game that I wish more games did. In this case it's fairly obvious, but let's assume for a second that we don't know who could equip this Iron Circlet or if it's actually an upgrade over your current stuff. What are we gonna do? Just open the menu, go to Items, switch over to the "New Items" category...

...select the Circlet...

...and we can see who can equip it and how much it in- or decreases our stats! Let's select Estelle here, and...

...we get brought over to the Equipment menu, with the Iron Circlet highlighted! A very useful feature that can save you a lot of menu navigation time.

Anyway, once we reach the middle of the dungeon we get another scene.

Watch the cutscene!

My feet feel cold all of a sudden... Oh no! Is this the curse?!

What sort of curse is it supposed to be, anyway?

The voices of corpses buried beneath the trees creep up and lure us to our doom...

Oh, brother.

...What's that?

Let's take a break.

I-I'm all right.

Huh? What's this?

A flash of light causes Estelle to collapse.

Estelle!

Yuri lets Estelle rest for a bit and searches for something to eat, finding some fruit.

After a short while, Estelle wakes up.

Ooh...my head feels a little... I'll be fine.

What happened to me...?

You just fell over all of a sudden. Don't you remember?

Perhaps it was the aer that made me dizzy.

Aer. That's sort of like the fuel that powers the blastia, right? I heard that even though we can't see it, it's scattered through the atmosphere.

Yes, that's aer. I read once that dense aer can have negative effects on people.

Hmm. Maybe that's what started the rumor of the curse.

But I can't. If we don't catch up with Flynn soon...

And what if you collapse again, and this time you're out for the whole night?

...You're right. I'm sorry.

Estelle sits down next to Yuri. Yuri offers her one of the fruits he got earlier.

Heh, I suppose we'll never get full trying to eat these.

It's delicious.

Hold on a sec. I can make something simple.

You can cook, Yuri?

I'm not exactly a royal chef. I just have a few recipes I learned growing up.

Aren't you worried at all that Flynn is in danger?

Huh? Does it look that way?

Well...yes.

Honestly, I'm not worried about him. He's always managed to take care of himself.

Actually, it's the guys who are after him I feel sorry for.

What do you mean?

Ever since we were kids, I've never been able to beat Flynn at anything. Swords, racing, whatever. After he'd won, he'd always have the nerve to say, "You all right, Yuri?"

That must be nice... I've never had anyone like that in my life.

You can count yourself lucky.

Well, dinner's ready.

Thank you for the meal.

It wasn't anything special.

I thought it was very tasty. I can't imagine being able to cook anything myself.

It's just like using a sword or magic. You've got to learn it by doing it. You just need to practice with a few recipes. You'll be cooking before you know it.

Practice with recipes?

Here, I'll show you how it's done. Watch.

Ah yes, cooking. A minor mechanic that has been around in Tales games for a while now. Cooking is very simple: You just select the character who cooks, the recipe, and press Cook.

Depending on the character's natural talent and the amount of times he's already cooked the recipe, he's either gonna succeed or fail. A successful serving will give you whatever the recipe is supposed to do, such as a recovery of HP or TP, recovery of a status aliment, or a temporary stat boost for the next battle. A failed serving will just give you a very minor HP/TP recovery.

You can cook once between every battle, and there are two ways to do so: Either from the menu, or directly after the battle.

If you want to cook directly after the battle on the Results screen, you have to set up some shortcuts, of which you can have four.

There's also two ways to get new recipes: Learning them by finding them in towns, or creating off-shoots of your current ones by making a specific character cook a specific recipe a few times. For example, make Estelle cook Sandwich a bunch, and...

...we get the recipe for Rice Ball. The evolutions don't really make sense, to be honest.

That's pretty much all there is to cooking.

Oh, and in case someone wonders what happens when you make Repede cook something:

Yeah.

You're so good at that... I'm not sure I'd be able to get that good at cooking.

Well, it comes more naturally to some people than others. Just because you have a recipe, doesn't mean it'll always turn out like you think.

Really? So you can mess it up...?

Well, you usually taste your food while cooking...but some people don't.

Tasting?

You know, like when cooks taste the food they make?

Well, you're a sheltered little princess who's lived her life in a castle. It's only normal.

Sheltered little princess... I suppose so.

Well, shall we be going?

Skit: Thanking Repede

Repede, when I passed out, you laid down and made the nicest pillow for me. Thank you very much!

...What are you doing?

I'm...um, thanking Repede...

Repede? He's not here...

Huh? Wh-what?

...Maybe he doesn't like me.

Nah, he acts like that with just about everybody.

If we look in the background where we just rested, we can see this guy:

Right now we can't get to it, and it would certainly decimate us even if we could, but keep in mind that it's there.

Skit: Is This the Curse?

We can't seem to find our way through this forest at all.

Oh! Could this be the curse?!

What should we do, Yuri?! There really was a curse after all!

Don't be stupid...

Or...do you not have a good sense of direction?

No, of course I do...I think...

Then maybe it's my fault...?! What should we do...?

They say no medicine can cure a fool, but I wish something could cure a bad sense of direction...

*Whine...*

Once we get to the exit, Repede starts growling.

Watch the cutscene!

Hmm?

A kid jumps out of the bushes and starts spinning in circles with his weapon.

Yuri won't have any of that.

I-I'm warning you! I don't taste very good. You'll get the runs!

Woof!!

Oh my gosh, s-s-somebody h-h-help me--! Aaaah!!

Is this kid for real?

It's all right now.

Oh, brother. This should be interesting.

I'm Yuri. This is Estelle, and you've met Repede already. Anyway, nice to meet you.

And with that, Yuri turns around and starts to leave the forest.

What? Yuri, wait!

(to Karol) My apologies.

Huh? ...Hey, wait up! Where you guys going?!

You guys are here to enter the woods, right? Well then, I'll...

Actually, we've just finished coming through the woods, and we're on our way to Halure.

No way! You guys made it through the cursed woods? Did you guys run into any eggbears?

Do you know what he's talking about, Yuri?

Nope. I don't think we've seen any.

Man... Wonder if I should head back to town, then... They definitely won't like it if I keep them waiting... All right!

I'm not sure you two would make it on your own, but never fear. The star member of the Hunting Blades will be your escort.

What? You guys both have one, too? O-oh yeah? Well how'dya like this?!

Th-that's 'cause I'm gonna fill it up with piles of monsters after this.

Hey, wait! Who said you could just write in there?!

It might hurt your "star member" status if it got out that you broke your sword.

Oh, that? I had to give myself some kinda handicap, or else it wouldn't have been a fair fight.

Yo! Do you guys even know where you're going? Halure's to the north once you get out of the woods.

Obtained Monster Book!
Karol joined the party!

Oh hey, another party member! Karol's the slow, hard-hitting guy of the group, thanks to the pretty big weapons he's using.

Karol comes with one arte and a skill:

The arte is Dragon Upper, which throws enemies into the air.

The skill is Vitality, a Support skill that raises your Max HP by 200 and costs 2 SP to equip. Decent if you have nothing better to spend points on.

The Monster Book he brings with him is a pretty useful tool, as it records the stats, drops and habitats of all enemies we've analyzed using a Magic Lens.