Part 27: Bartholomew will be missed.
Last time we caught the Evil Guardian and restored Rudy's arm through the power of Love. Now he has a super badass upgrade to Lock-On and this game is basically going to be a joke until I hit bonus content. All that's left is to go back to Filgaia and see what Emma's got in store for us.
Currently under an Amber alert for
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But first, since Rudy has Radar, I can use him to start looking random barrels again, including yet another Alter Part. Seriously, once you get the Alter Scope, you find these all over the place now. Fortunately, they are still useful.
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In addition, a cave in Sinner's Studio contains a few boxes that are hiding this chest. You need to blow up the boxes with Rudy, and then Radar there to find the Secret Tools. This item will serve a use later on.
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Meanwhile, in the Forest Prison, there are a lot more of these, but they are all Duplicator chests. Of the two chests here, the one on the right contains a Crest Graph so I grab that at least. Still hoarding the Duplicators until I know I have enough for the rest of these chests in the game. You need a lot.
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Lafleur: If it was not for his knowledge of alchemy, we could not have driven out the demons during the Great Demon War 1,000 years ago.
Everyone has new lines to say, including some for Rudy now. This one is relatively significant, as if you remember that Fulcani appeared in the Ruins of Memory, so his name is the key to the loot within.
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At Tarjon Village, there is a cave underneath the waterfall (when isn't there a cave there?) and there are three chests to Radar up. You have to use Hanpan to reach them though. Just PS Gaia Stop, Water Break and Blue Circlet, each Lv. 2.
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And there are still more chests at the Holy Wood Mound. These contain Witch: Ep. 7, a LVL Apple, and PS Windbreaker, Ice Break and Olive Branch; each one Lv. 2 again. These are a bitch to get because you have to deal with the cliffs, so you have to make at least three trips from the top of the staircase down to get all of them.
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She then walks away to return to the Garden. Good. I missed farming Force Carrots.
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Once we leave the Holy Wood Mound, we get hit with a cutscene that paces itself. So it's. Really. Sloooooooowww.... Gets on your nerves when you have to redo and update four times because of recording issues that popped up each time. By this point, when these cutscenes popped up, I would get on the Archives on my other monitor and start reading random SSLPs until the cutscene was done.
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Looks like Jane and Magdalen were waiting for us.
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Jack kinda waves back, the rest just ignore her.
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Not quite the response she wanted.
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Jane runs over, and slides on the dirt with her heel and stops right in front of Cecilia.
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Rudy jumps up and down on his good foot in pain, but because he's a Silent Protagonist, he can't scream in pain. Sorry boy, it was part of the contract.
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Hanpan shakes his head in disbelief, and then Jack nods in agreement with Hanpan. They don't buy it.
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This scene is a bit weird. Everyone's walking forward, but Jane's walking backwards so she can still talk to the group And it's still auto-paced.
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Thank you Captain Obvious.
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...I'm pretty sure I put Asgard on an island far away from Adlehyde. I guess they could reach it with the Sweet Candy, but that Golem would crush the boat with it's weight, and there is no way Asgard would go with them, he only listens to Cecilia.
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Nice view...but I'm not sure where this is supposed to be, or that forest from the previous scene. And if we're supposed to be close to Aldehyde, how the hell did we get here? There's an entire ocean to cross to get to Aldehyde from Holy Wood Mound!
Note: Also, for the next twenty images...they got stretched for some unknown reason. I really have no idea why this happened.
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The test flight is not going well....
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There's an oddity with these two lines of the Captain. Remember how I said the game paces these text-boxes, so you can't close them early? Well...these only stay on screen for a fraction of a second, so you can't really read them. Fortunately, because I recorded these before hand, I can!
Anyway, back to the peanut gallery...
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Wow, the party just got filled with heartless bastards that don't care for---aw, who the hell am I kidding. It's Captain Bartholomew. No one cares about him.
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Looks like it's report first. Also, finally free of auto-paced cutscenes! These let me pace it so it doesn't take forever!
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This makes me wonder how Emma feels about Rudy. On one hand, she was also a student of Zepet, and Rudy was his "grandson", so maybe she acts like an aunt to Rudy? Unlike Jane, Cecilia and Mariel, I'm pretty sure she isn't involved in Rudy's love triangle; or at least she doesn't act like it.
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Looks like Anje brought soup for everyone!
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Nope, it's just the Layline Observer again, from Cecilia's prologue.
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I'm pretty sure such a thing is impossible, but then again, this is a Western-Sci-fi-Fantasy JRPG, nothing makes sense.
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device is complete. But first, I need you to get me the 'Gemini Circuit'.
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So much for being blindfolded... also, we're back to auto-pacing.
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Haha, I love Emma. "I'm not going to wait for approval, the world is at stake here! Now get out of my way! For Science!
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That's our flying machine? It doesn't look aerodynamic at all... and what the hell kind of studies have they been doing in the Sea of Wind Epitaph? The front looks like an old World War 2 plane, the swept back wings weren't thought of until I think around the time the B-2 Bombers came around, and you've got spinning blades which makes me think of a helicopter, but then you have a jet engine as well. What the entry way reminds me of a blimp. The hell is this monstrosity?
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Emma, it's a bit early for a phoenix metaphor...
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Peyton: Our boss, Emma, loves to make us work no matter what!
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Huh, it actually flies. And it looks like the wings extend forward once it's powered up, so it doesn't quite have the swept back wings. From this angle, this actually looks a bit like a proper aircraft. Who needs the Wright Brothers when we have Emma!
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I have a lot of mixed feelings over this song. In the original game, the flying theme was one of my favorites because of the flute and the fast pace, it really gave the sensation like you were soaring above the clouds like a bird. This song...as you can tell, it got turned metal. It takes away from the miracle of flight...but I cannot deny that this arrangement is still pretty awesome. It's just awesome in a much different way.
Anyway, flying with this thing is actually rather fun, since it's rather fast, although you can't go over mountains yet with it...which are everywhere. It's not that big of a problem though, since you can still reach a lot of areas with it. For now, I'm using it to reach the Ruins of Memory, which is a safe walking distance from Aldehyde. But I'm flying. WEEEE!
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Entering Fulcani into the system opens up this door, leading to three chests containing 2000 Gella, Monster Egg, and a Migrant Seal. Now what's the Monster Egg? I'll save that for the post-game content. It has a bonus boss in it.
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But wait! There's more! Entering Keeper, Fulcani's alias, opens up a hidden passage in the wall! This one leads to Ambrosia, 5000 Gella, and a Crest Graph. Not as exciting, but the Crest Graph is still very nice.
Speaking of which, the first thing I do is go back to Adlehyde to learn some more spells.
I sell the LVL Apple to scrounge up enough money to get another Bullets upgrade for Rudy, so he's now got 12 of them. The 10 Alter Parts I have go to give Gatling Raid five more shots, which I'll need now that I can use it with Rinse & Repeat thanks to Lock-On Active. I can only shove two more upgrades on Rudy's ARM now. If I want to give him more bullets, I'll have to destroy the 4 upgrades to ATK. The "Reset Upgrade to Default" option only affects one of the five possible upgrades at a time, not all five at once, so I won't lose my upgrades in Bullets when that happens.
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Mariel had 21 Force Carrots to give us, which I gave right back to her, along with a lot of other stuff. All of those go to 0, although I still keep 3 Revive Fruits at all times just in case. Not done with Force Carrots quite yet, but I get the feeling I'm getting very close. Probably move to Small Flowers next, since I can't really steal those, and Small Flowers will take a long time.
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Fun note: The Sweet Candy has been moved out at sea, so we can't use it at all right now. I guess Bartholomew's alright after all.
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The highlighted red dot is Gemini's Corpse, which you can reach by going south from the Photosphere, because that's the only way in there that isn't surrounded by mountains. The red dot in the black area way to the south is Pandemonium.
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Gathering many small powers will be a big dream.
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The song here is from Wild ARMs 2, which had a lot of names without much flavor. Since Gemini's Corpse looks like a set of ruins right out of Indiana Jones, I figure this song is appropriate.
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Pretty early in the dungeon, you get put in a fork in the path, one going ahead, the other to the side. This is actually that side passage, which takes down some cliffs we can't climb back on. Despite what it looks like, this is the correct way forward.
Also, back to normal sized pictures.
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Because you get the Grenade this way. The Grenade is Rudy's fourth tool.
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When you throw it, it creates a very slow moving grenade While the grenade is moving, Rudy is free to move around; and you have to. When it hits something, the grenade creates a bomb sized explosion (and functions like a bomb in most cases). The crystal orb thing the grenade is going to activate doesn't stay active very long, but when it is it turns the cliff into a staircase we can walk up. The goal here is to throw, run, and hope you make it in time. A surprisingly challenging puzzle for the very first use of this tool in the game, but now you basically know everything about it so it works..
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This is why you needed to go down to the side first, otherwise you wouldn't be able to hit these.
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The enemies here aren't too challenging, but can be annoying. Devonnova is exactly what it looks like: a giant turtle with the DEF of a giant turtle. In fact, it starts with Increased DEF and RES at the start of battle, but Cancel will remove it. Or you can not remove it and nearly kill it with Acute Angle. That works too.
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Fiends aren't that tough with low defense so Rudy and Jack can pummel it pretty easily, but it likes using Tsohanoai's Solar Wind. The Fiend also likes using its basic attack as a counter attack a lot, and occasionally summons minions which didn't happen this run. And then there's HP Buster, which decreases Max HP, as if the character fell in battle and wasn't revived.
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This is Tsohanoai's Solar Wind, which deals Fire and Wind damage at the same time. I'm not sure if it deals more damage this way, but if you have Breaks for both, the damage will still go down. It's Downloadable, so I might see how it works with Emma later. Looks pretty cool though.
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A mere roadblock telling you to pull out the Gloves again.
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What the hell is this? There's a statue up ahead that we can examine...best check it out too.
My desire is the power of Evil. Offer me the power that I desire. Do you want to make an offering?
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The candles then light up, and the pit opens allowing us to jump down and move ahead. What was the offering?
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All of Jack, Cecilias
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Also, all these bullets for Gatling Raid make it useful outside of boss battles too! That's not the only thing it's trivializing!
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Like I said, Love Charm recovers MP based on Cecilia's Level. She's about Lv. 41-ish here, so she gets about 41% back, plus one for smacking someone over the head with her staff.
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Gatling Raid the other and...huh? That's an unusually large difference in damage there. What the hell? I thought Gatling Raid was supposed to only count the enemy's DEF once? I hit the Fiend with 12 bullets and the Demonova with 11 Bullets. It's the same battle so Luck shouldn't have changed at all. Both had Lock-On...this is odd. Maybe it does count defense multiple times per shot?
Devonova's got 320 DEF to Fiend's 81. With 12 Bullets, that's almost a 3000 change in damage...yet I'm missing another 1000 damage somewhere. I really have no idea, but now I realize just how much influence the enemies Defense has on Gatling Raid: A lot. I should probably invest in Chop-Chop again.
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At the bottom of the pit is a platform you can use with the Jump Boots to get back up, so it's not a one-way dungeon.
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These crystal orb thingies also lower staircases...but if you're going down that doesn't matter at all. This room should have been reversed.
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Do you want to make an offering?
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There are three of these offering statues in the room, and this time they suck away half your HP and half your VIT...per statue. Ouch.
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You know, despite how much I hated getting all those Potion Berries from the Rat Monkeys way back when...I'm actually using the damn things quite often. RNG has a sense of humor I guess. Fuck it anyway.
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The Grenade explosion seems larger than a bombs, actually, because there are a number of puzzles involving aiming just right to activate multiple orbs at once. When all four are open, you can proceed on to the loot room! It contains Lucky Card, Gella Card, Gimel Coin, 2 Mimics (+2 Duplicators) guarding a PS Initiative and best of all, Cartridge Gun Claymore.
Gun Claymore is Rudy's (second) best single-target Cartridge. It doesn't affect his Reaction or Accuracy, and has an awesome Tech Constant of 5. Remember that the normal shot has 2 and the Boosted Shell has 3. Unfortunately Gun Claymore only starts with one bullet, and you need three alter parts to improve it. It may get an extra shot or two, depending on how I'm feeling with my Alter Parts later on. Probably not though.
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But it certainly looks pretty.
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You know what this means. GERONIMO!!!
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At the bottom of the pit is an elevator that brings you up to the top. A useless trap, but it's amusing. It might mean more if jumping down a pit actually, you know, hurt the player instead of sending them back to the entrance of the room with no penalty.
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The giant chest up there is our prize. You have to destroy the four orbs surrounding it to lower the chest so you can open it.
There is a giant treasure chest. Is the Gemini Circuit inside?
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Nope. Playing the boss theme here...been a long time since I got to play it, surprisingly, what with all the Quarter Knights and Golems we've fought since Sea of Wind Epitaph.
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These are the Zukauba, an annoying boss that loves to use the Inject Poison attack. Problem is, their Attack is really low, so only Cecilia takes damage from Inject Poison (doesn't help she started the battle with low HP due to no VIT). Their chance of inflicting Poison though is relatively high, so you wanna take out all eight fast. They are also weak to all elements, but you do not want to hit them with an elemental attack, because then they'll counter attack the entire party with that same element, and their Magic is rather high.
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The best way I've seen is to use Blade Pulse twice, to lower their HP a bit (they only have 2900 each).
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And then finish them off with Ice Crystal. They can't counterattack the killing move, and if you hit multiple enemies with an elemental attack, only one of them can actually counter attack anyway. As a whole, they drop 20000 EXP, 4800 Gella, a single PS Resist Up 3 and 8 Ice Gems because I'm awesome. Everyone also gets large EXP Bonus Rates with this battle, Jack and Rudy getting 1.6x, with Cecilia getting 2.6x for killing them all.
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We then get warped out...this entire dungeon kinda feels a bit like filler as there wasn't that much interesting.
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A soldier suddenly runs in.
Gaf: I have an update from the Sweet Candy! They are on their way back after acquiring the second part of the Gemini Circuit!
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Gaf: Another update from the Sweet Candy! They've encountered a Golem in the inland sea!! They need backup at once... ...It looks bad...
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Cue more auto-paced cutscenes. You thought we were free yet? Ha! Anyway, we cut to Bartholomew, Jane and Magdalen on the ship. Bartholomew's giving orders, Jane's panicking, and Magdalen is calm as can be. The golem looks like a giant stingray? Right now the golems just leaping in and out of the water, circling the Sweet Candy. It doesn't look like it's attacked quite yet.
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...really Jane? In a time of life or death crisis, you're going to use the fact that Bartholomew has a thing for younger women to try and convince him to save your life?
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It cuts to three random sailors on the lower deck, saluting her.
All sailors: Aye aye, Captain!!
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We see those three quickly jump off the ship, as the giant stone stingray collides with the ship.
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The sailors are crying, and even Jane looks a little sad as she looks out at the ocean.
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Actually, that sounds like a good idea, since this update is getting pretty long. Just a little bit more though.
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End of update status:
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--ATK Bonus: 45 (Lv. 4)
--Bullets: 11 (Lv. 8) → 12 (Lv. 9)
--Gatling Raid: +5 Shots.
--Obtained Gun Claymore.
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--All current Fast Draw's mastered.
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--Learned Cancel, Vaccine and Mirror Mirror
Gella: 8228
Migrant Seals: 10
Ex. File Keys: 4/25
Fuck-Ups: 25
Version Differences:
The Protowing really changed in design, as before it looked like some kind of Ornithopter with an engine.
The boss of Gemini's Corpse is definitely much different. No giant mecha-dragon coming out of nowhere. Dammit.
Worth mentioning that the Heaven Corridor doesn't exist in this game, since Azure visited it in this part of his LP.
A Saying A Day
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Next Time:
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Hanpan gets lost on his search for cheese..