Part 40: Coliseum Time

Okay, so it turns out that the problem wasn't with MeGUI, but rather my footage. Apparently if I reset the PS2 while recording, it desyncs my audio. Lesson learned. As a result, I had to go back and redo some stuff. I'll explain further when we get there.

Skit: Natalia, I'm So Happy For You

: “Natalia, I'm so happy for you!”

: “Me too!”

: “After seventeen years together, petty things like bloodlines shouldn't mean much.”

: “Thank you. I had never thought I would be so happy to be accepted.”

: “You'll have plenty of time to talk things over with the King now.”

: “Yeah. Now that he's accepted Natalia, he's acting more like he did before the war.”

: “Yes... but I doubt we can think of each other as we had before I learned the truth. As Guy said, the coming months and years will be important for us.”

: “Yeah, there's no rush. You'll have plenty of time together.”

: “Especially now that Mohs can't get in the way.”

: “Yes, I think Kimlasca is safe in the King's hands, now.”

: “...I hope so.”

: “Hmm? Guy, did you say something?”

: “No, it's nothing. Let's head for Grand Cokmah.”

This is going to be something of a Frankenstein update. The first half is sidequests, the second half is devoted to a whole different topic.

Yeah you heard me: sidequests. Now that the king doesn't have a warrant out for our heads, we've got some business in Kimlasca.



Like beg Luke's mom for money! If you've forgotten, this is part of the sidequest to get Luke's arte books. Because the game refuses to let me pay for them out of pocket, we have to keep going back to Susanne for more.

: “My, what's happened Luke?”

Also if you were expecting any acknowledgment that she hasn't so much as seen her son since he ran off and blew up a city and sparking global war, you're out of luck.

: “I want to do something for you.”

: “You're such a nice boy, Luke. I'm happy enough just to hear that you feel that way.”

: At this rate, I'm not going to get any money...

: “Mother, I'll massage your shoulders!”

: “My!”

And a fade to black...

: “Thank you, Luke. Let me give you some allowance. I'm sure you need money on your travels.”



: Ugh, it's not enough...

: “Mother, your shoulders are still stiff!”

: “Luke... you've grown up to be such a fine young man...”

...Right.



It also just grabbed my attention for the first time that the Duke and Susanne have separate beds. More subtle commentary about their relationship? It would certainly go a ways to explain the whole mistress thing. I'm playing through this for like the 11th time and I'm still noticing new stuff.

: “I'll give you a little more allowance as a reward.”





: “Madam, surely that is too great an amount for a mere allowance. He needs to learn some self-reliance as well. I think you can give him a little less than that.”

: “You think so? Then, I'm sorry for being strict, but let's make it less.”



Oh look, exactly what we needed to hit our 40,000 gald need.

: “I imagine you'll be leaving soon? Please be careful.”

One more. Back to the castle.





: “What is it, Tear?”

: “What? O-oh, n-nothing...”

: “Heh heh. I know! I bet Tear looked at that maid uniform and thought, 'It's so cute!' or something!”

: “My, really? You should have said something.”



: “W-wait...”

: “Yes, Your Highness. This way, ma'am.”

: “But I...”



: “Um... I...”



: “What? What is it?”

:“Secretary of the Interior Alpine forgot the royal seal somewhere in the castle! You two, hurry and look for it. And don't let anyone in the court hear about it.”

Alpine is the short, fat bloke who tried to poison Luke and Natalia. So he's not only an asshole, but also incompetent as well.

: “Um, um... please don't tell Princess Natalia about this...”

: “I know, we'll keep it a secret. Losing the royal seal is a major problem. I'll help you look for it.”

: “Thank you!”

Tear goes on her search. Eventually...





: “C'mere...”



: “Is that the royal seal in your mouth?! Thank goodness. You found it for us, didn't you? You're a good kitty.”



: “A cat had it.”

: “A cat...? Are you certain?”

: “Yes...”

: “...Hmm... I suppose that's all right, then... well, no, it isn't, but... oh, well. Allow me to grant you a reward... hmm? Have we met somewhere before?”

: “Y-you're probably thinking of someone else. E-excuse me!”





: “You never came back, so we started looking for you.”

: “I'm sorry. There was a cute cat...”

: “A cat? There shouldn't be any cats in the castle...”

: “Really? Perhaps a stray wandered in, then...”

: “Into the castle? I doubt that could happen.”

: “By the way, there seemed to be a rather large commotion inside the castle.”

: “Who knows? Anyway, I”m sorry to keep you waiting. Let's go.”

: “Go? Dressed like that?”

: “Oh...!”

: “My, you must really like it. I'll give it to you, Tear.”

: “...I-I'm sorry...”



I wasn't really planning on showing this sidequest until next update, but the reason why I did so here will become evident soon enough. At any rate, we've finally gotten our first costume! Costume titles, if you can't guess, change the appearance of the character equipped with it.

So yeah, Tear has a maid outfit now. I swear we're not even two minutes off the hook and Baticul's already become center stage for a wacky Japanese comedy.

Okay, okay. On to the main attraction:



: “Looks like a combat tournament...”

: “A combat tournament?! What's that?!”

: “Uh-oh...”

: “...What?”

: “The whole manor worked together to keep it a secret. We figured if Luke knew about it, he'd beg and whine to join in.”

: “I was partner to that deception as well.”

: “I-I'm not that immature!”

: “Oh really?”



Checkmate.

: “This country's combat tournament is famous.”





: “I thought they might not be able to hold it this time, but the war is over and all...”

The game doesn't expect you to come here immediately, so as a result this line sounds like Ingobert ended the war five seconds after we convinced him.

: “Using spectacles of this nature to distract the populace and temporarily ease their fear and discontent is a favorite trick of governments.”

: “...You don't have to describe it like that.”

: “Oh, my apologies.”

So yeah:



It's the coliseum! If you're new to Tales games, the coliseum is a usual standby. You fight either in singles or team matches against progressively more powerful foes, so that you can win money and potentially fabulous prizes.

And fabulous prizes they are indeed! But we'll get to that. I'm not going to be doing team battles just yet (they've quite hard!) but I will be knocking out all of the Singles matches for your amusement!



The singles tournaments work as a series of rounds where you face a new opponent each round. So it's much more like Symphonia's arena than Vesperia's. We have to clear the beginner rounds before we can move on to the real deal, though. Clearing the beginner round with one character opens up the higher level for all other characters as well, so we'll just use Luke to mop up the scrubs.

Beginner Challenge: Luke





: “...Now then, the first step toward legend status begins! Round one, start!”



Our first opponent is “Assassin.” He's fast, but can't really damage you that much. Nothing too difficult.



The thing about Abyss's arena is that it's all about freerun. Why?



Because this is unlike any other Tales arena. You can't use items: period. You have no way to heal yourself, or to recover TP, outside if your own character's abilities. What this means is that the arena is less about dishing out damage, and more about avoiding damage and conserving TP as much as possible. You can also cook between battles, but you have to make it through the battle first!





Oh, and pretty much every opponent, with maybe one exception, can use overlimit. Watch that.



As boring as it is, the best strategy here is to just run away until it wears off.



One down.

: “Victory!! Victoryyyyy!! Are we already seeing an upset?! Fate is cruel, but that is precisely why you must take up the sword and blaze a path! Round two... start!!”

I love this announcer. Pity she isn't voiced.



Round two is a giant enemy crab. He's not too hard, but his reach is difficult to pin down due to his massive claws.



Different characters have different levels of difficulty with the arena. Luke can either have a rather easy time, or a very hard time. This because Luke only has one means of healing himself in battle. If you equip Steel with a green FSC, it will give him a small heal. So long as you've used steel a lot and trained the FSC up to max, Luke won't have a problem. If you didn't do this, or you otherwise weren't aware of the healing effect you can give to Steel, Luke will have problems.



Anyway, back to the crab. He's got all kinds of swipes in all different directions, which make hit and run tactics difficult.



I have a bit of difficulty with this...



But I prevail.

: “And blaze a path our challenger did! This hero will change the course of fate!! In this coliseum where many heroes have been born and many fallen, a new legend is dawning. The crowd has waited for this moment... now! Focus all your attention as fate unfolds!! Be it a happy victory or a bitter defeat, this will be the last battle!! Final round... start!!!”



Our final match is against Coliseum Queen.



The Queen doesn't have much threat in terms of physical attacks: she's very slow and her attacks barely hurt. However, she has some pretty powerful magic to back her up.



Except magic is easy to dodge, so she's pretty easy. Honestly the crab is tougher.



But hey: let's end this with a bang.



Time to put that training to use!













But that's not all.



The party is up watching in the stands. Ion found Luke's display of raw power so metal that he jumped the wall, ran over to Luke's side, and decided to help him out.





By nuking everything!



Good night, Irene.

So yeah let's break it down. The first attack was Luke's mystic arte Radiant Howl. It is a giant fuck-off hyperresonance that he sets off right in your face. Luke actually only has to hit level 30 to get that, but it makes no sense for him to use it until he's finished his training with Tear.

The second attack was Luke's Ion Extension, which is achieved by holding down X after finishing Radiand Howl. Ion comes in, drops a Daathic Nuke, and more or less doubles the damage done by Radiant Howl.

The Ion Extension is unique to the US version, and has several requirements. First, you have to be on a New Game Plus. Second, Ion has to be traveling with the party. Also since it was added in during localization, it's a little... buggy. By which I mean it has a 1 in 5 chance of crashing your game the second you activate it. Oops.



So we've cleared the beginners coliseum.



Next up is advanced. This is the highest singles level, and the one where you get some amazing stuff. I'll run through it with Luke first again, and then the rest of the party. My screenshots are going to be sparse here, so if you're interested in watching me hit-and-run 25 enemies in a row for a solid hour, you can check out the arena videos.

Advanced Challenge: Luke



: “The weak depart and the strong live on, a tightrope of glory and despair! It is known as the advanced level. And who will challenge its heights today...? Luke!!”



From here on, everybody will be facing the same five opponents. The first is Two-Handed Master (subtle Lloyd reference? You decide!)



To Luke, he's a chump. He's fast but leaves lots of openings. Next.





So, the birds. The birds are, without a doubt, the hardest opponent that most of your party has to face. There's a ton of them, they move fast, do decent damage, and they never let the hell up.



Generally, no more than two at a time will attack you, but the second you kill one another will leap into the fray.



It's hard to describe how fast these guys are: just watch the video. You need to have perfect timing, or the birds will gank you hard.



They also have a nasty habit of attacking you while you're trying to focus fire. They have a lot of stagger behind them, too.



Steel is a godsend here.



I eventually get down to the last one, but as you can see from my HP/TP, I'm a little worse for wear.



At least I remembered to set my cooking shortcuts this time.



Next up is Full Plate Warrior. He's essentially the polar opposite of Two Handed Master. He's incredibly slow, but hits like a truck. He also has deceptively long range, so be careful.



As shown. His sideswipe with that massive sword can hit you as you're coming out of freerun.



Really with this guy, it's all about positioning. Each swing has a different area it can hit you as you run away, so you have to take note of the swing and move accordingly at the drop of a hat. Takes a bit of getting used to.



On the plus side, it's very easy to daze him.



Not the easiest fight, but more than doable. Next.



Streontis takes the best of all worlds. He's fast, hits hard, and has a decent reach. He can also combo you.



Now having said that, he's probably Luke's easiest fight. This is because he attacks very quickly, but usually not so far out that Luke can't run away. That means you can basically just hit and run him mindlessly very quickly for maximum effect.



Yeah, not much to say about that guy.



Castle Golem is the final hurdle. He's slow as balls, but has insane reach and hits like a truck.



This makes him particularly dangerous for melee fighters. So I decide to tip the scales.



Aaand...



Get fucked.



For winning the advanced level, you get a title, some gald, and...







Look at this sword. LOOK AT IT.

MUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... er..."

...Ahem.

So yeah, completing the singles matches gives every party member their strongest weapon in the entire game Well except for Jade, who gets his third strongest. It's still insane. The game doesn't expect you to finish the arena this early, but if you can manage it you can break the difficulty over your knee.

Okay, let's run through everybody else.

Advanced Challenge: Guy



Guy has no issues against Two Handed Master...



Predictably he has some trouble against the birds, but he's fast enough to deal. He also has Center, which is like Steel except it heals even more HP, and doesn't need an FSC to get the effect. This makes Guy much better at self-healing.



No problems with Platey either: Guy's so fast he can outrun the insane reach.



This probably qualifies for Guy's hardest fight. Guy moves really fast, but there's a delay between the end of his combo and when he can move again. That delay is slightly longer than Luke's even. The problem is that this guy's whole gimmick is that he counter attacks really fast, so Guy has trouble getting out of the way.



Still a really easy fight, though.



Castle Golem is a scrub.



Guy's sword looks like a giant rubber dildo for some reason. It's certainly not as good looking as Luke's, if only because it's such a vibrant purple.

Advanced Challenge: Jade



Here's where things get interesting.

Jade is the only party member who has no means of self healing. The only way he can heal is by cooking. That means HP preservation is all the more important.



Despite that, Jade doesn't have much of a problem with THM. As long as you drop Thunder Lance, he'll always get sent flying long enough for Jade to back off.



In a bizarre reversal, the birds are Jade's easiest fight. This is because Mystic Cage hits all enemies, and oneshots all the birds.





Same rules apply to the next two as did to THM: basic three hit combo + thunder lance and you've pretty much got the match locked up tight.



Castle Golem is even more pathetic: he's so slow that Jade can actually get off a cast or two before he manages to lumber over to him. Castle Golem is weak to water, so a few splashes and he's done.

It's over, but Jade's victory is a little... different.



: “Oh? I don't believe I've seen that done before...”

: “You're correct! But we received this letter...”



: In the event that a man by the name of Jade wearing a Malkuth military uniform joins the tournament and emerges as champion, you are to present his prize with him dressed in the outfit we have provided. This man, Jade, has terrible fashion sense, and this provision is for the sake of avoiding embarrassment to the Malkuth Forces. You are hereby commanded to ensure that he wears it. Emperor Peony IX, Malkuth Empire.

I fucking love you, Peony.

: “Honestly...”

: “What will you do?”

: “I suppose I don't have a choice. I'll go along with His Majesty's little joke.”







Here's a better look.



Jade's weapon is a halberd. Not bad.

Advanced Challenge: Tear



Next up: Tear. And yes, the only reason I showed you that sidequest instead of saving it for next time was I proceeded to have her fight with the costume on.



At any rate, Tear has in my opinion the hardest time in the arena. Very few opponents give her enough time to cast, so she's relegated to her very weak physical attacks. They have some range to them, but still. Tear is also about as sturdy as tissue paper.



She also, ironically, has problems healing. Not many enemies give her the chance to get heal spells off.



The birds are hard, but you get some breathing room to heal, so it isn't all bad.



Platey is pretty challenging, but I nuke him from orbit.



This guy is, for whatever reason, not that bad. Huh.



This guy is weak to light as well, and is slow enough that Tear can cast. Flash fried.



Tear's weapon is the Blue Crystal Rod, which has shown up in a variety of other Tales Games as well (or at least Vesperia.)

Advanced Challenge: Anise



Anise and Natalia was the next video, but due to massive audio desync I had to toss it out. I replayed through the arena with both of them, however they're both already using their arena prize weapons for sake of brevity. Anise gets the Grand Cross, which looks like... a grand cross.



Anise's only self healing arte is exactly like Luke's: she has to attach a green FSC to her move Lucky, which does the exact same thing as Steel. However because she's the Tank, she gets some nice AD skills that help. One is she gains back a fraction of HP whenever she's hit, and the second that she regains 25% HP and TP every time she downs an enemy. Not too bad.



I'd recommend watch Anise's video for this alone. Normally when activating her mystic arte, Anise will yell “I'm bursting with fonons!” However, if she's in a fight were both Luke and Jade are not present, she say something slightly different.

: “I'll kill you bastards!”





You've already seen Anise's mystic arte. But you haven't seen this!









Dying Moon is almost exactly like Ion's extension. It's only in the NA version, you have to be on a second playthrough, and it has a solid chance of freezing your game. Lovely.



The birds are absolutely no threat to Anise, because of the aforementioned AD skill that heals her every time an enemy is killed.



FPW is a joke.



This guy is a joke.



And Castle Golem is a joke for all the same reasons that he was for Tear and Jade.

Advanced Challenge: Natalia



Finally, we have Natalia. She probably has the easiest time in the arena because all of her attacks are ranged. Since the biggest deal is conserving HP, it's hard to get hit when you're attacking from far away.

Once again, Natalia is already using her special bow, the Celestial Star. It's big and blue.



Natalia can pick the birds off from a distance, and has some time to cast heals here as well.







All these guys are simply too slow to catch up to a girl running around in circles shooting arrows.

Oh, and while I'm at it, let's show off Natalia's mystic arte.











She fires up into the air, raining down a ton of shots followed by a massive explosion of light. It's probably my least favorite mystic arte, next to innocent shine.

So that's the arena. And now I have the most broken weapons in the game, when we're only at about the half way point. Huh.

Next Time: But seriously, didn't we have a peace treaty to get to or something?

No Synopsis