Board 8 > To gain +3 to inspiration, BCT plays Tales of Berseria. *spoilers as I go*

(+) Yeah! (+)

A few updates:

• I find a cave that doesn't really have much, but there is a normin and that Bat Baron who's... tougher than a thousand years ago.
• There's a hilarious skit in here about Edna making ass puns about ARSEnic. Mikleo is not amused. Edna is, because he gives her the stimulus response she wants. A party troll at work here.
• Unfortunately, the scene about the Rhinostagros beetle here is hardly amusing. The scene entering the city is absolutely amazing and I almost fall out of my chair since it's so funny. The cheesy romantic lines the seraphs are feeding Sorry as he tries to convince Sergei that Rose is his wife and he's given up his life to protect her is... absolute gold, especially because he's an idiot.
• Lastonbell is most certainly a huge advancement from Stonebury. There's no mention of its original name, just that it was first built as a fort. Sounds about right. The names of these places are all different, so I have no idea what's being discussed.
• I hadn't seen any red flags about Rose until we got inside and she continues to say she's creeped out by the "voices in her head" and that it's unacceptable for the seraphim to talk to her that way, as if they're below her. I did not mind this the first few times she mentioned it, mostly dismissing it as her not being used to it, but the way she discussed it here was just... bad.
• One thing I hate is how you have to stay at the inn 20 times whenever you get to a new city just to see all the skits. Better Tales would just have some of these skits in town. Learning additional out-of-battle skills is nice, at least. AND I get hungry for one such meal, the beef cooked in the port wine. If you haven't had that... you need to fix that. The filet mignon I had cooked like that with the goat cheese and pistachio crumbles on top was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life. No wonder Dezel wanted to replicate that flavor - I do too!
• That meal comes in handy when I end up fighting Sergei at the Sanctuary. About six times, since I need to get lucky in a 1-on-1 like this, so I appreciated the challenge for once! He wants to know who Sorry is, and it turns out he wants to align with the Shepherd. The Abbey... doesn't exactly like Sorry, because they're threatened by him and want to keep power. Apparently the Cardinal in charge is a witch who may have killed the pope and any soldier who looked into that. We will certainly have to kill her later, once we get to Loegres. Sounds like the Abbey hasn't changed much, aside from the Shepherd being determined in Hyland. Rolance seems to be the empire from Berseria and it has all kinds of issues.
• Around town, I find out about the Lord of the Land becoming a daemon and going down to some lake, probably in the cave where Magilou and Majelu resolved their spat. There's also the forest to the north, now called Malory, where the Scattered Bones/Sparrowfeathers are setting up a hideout. Nobody has any idea those two guilds are one.
• Aside from equipment management - I really don't need to care that much about stacking skills, do I? - and hearing about murder mysteries, there's not much else to do here. No Boris's Canteen or anything of note... just gotta get to Loegres.

Honestly, I'm not hating this game yet and I think having played Berseria first definitely helped, because now I'm watching for connection stuff. I'm not seeing much of it.

Since this is the top of a new page, here are my thoughts on each character:

• Sorry: Meh. Just your average idiot do-gooder JRPG protagonist with a boner for a princess and doesn't afraid of anything. Sadly, there's nothing really special about him - the interest in archaeology doesn't go deep enough to make him feel complex. There's nothing that endears him to me, and he certainly doesn't have much in the way of amusing reactions.
• Mikleo: Honestly, the only thing he's been good for is being the butt of Edna and Lailah's jokes. He's basically just Sorry's right-hand man in everything and doesn't have much distinctive about him.
• Alisha: I was hoping to see where her story was going, but I don't know how much more we'll get to see of that. I am entertaining the possibility that I'll have to fight her later - obviously, she's not a villain because the jerks running Hyland are trying to kill her, but she may be used as a pawn by those jerks. I know she survives because of the DLC, but that's about all.
• Lailah: I love some of the running gags with her changing the subject to avoid breaking her oath, and some of her jokes play off of Edna really well. She has the moments of flightiness and times where she seems seasoned. Overall, I don't mind her, but don't find her as memorable.
• Edna: Love her. This party needed a troll like her and she's delivering amazingly. She's just about as good as Magilou in the trolling department, even if her character isn't as complex or interesting besides. So we're clear: That is the ONLY department she compares to Magilou in, obviously. Edna's nothing like I expected her to be.
• Rose: She's been an enjoyable presence so far, but there's that red flag of her just rejecting the seraphim talking to her. If that continues throughout the game... yeesh. I do hope things aren't as bad with her as has been said down the line, but I am keeping a watchful eye for it. There hasn't been any of that just yet. She DID say that she makes most of her money with the Sparrowfeathers side, meaning she doesn't assassinate targets often. From what Iceman has said to me, she's a major hypocrite who gets away with almost anything she does, and is celebrated for doing things not too dissimilar from what the bad guys do. I don't mind knowing this and I will watch for it. It's nice that she targets bad guys as an assassin, which is why she betrayed Fartlow earlier, at least. I much prefer my assassins to be like that, as one of my favorites... well ONE of you know exactly who I'm talking about >_>
• Dezel: Not much here yet. I am under the impression that he leaves the party in some shape or form, possibly by turning into a dragon, as Zaveid is a wind seraph too and he's supposedly playable. Dezel is very knowledgeable and level-headed, but also dark and mysterious. We'll see how his revenge storyline develops.

I honestly think my thoughts on Rose will change as the game goes on. If the game was rewritten partway through because Baba was boning Rose's Japanese VA... for shame.

I played some tonight.

That's it, that's the log. Because there is pretty much nothing to report except for Rose rejecting the forest hideout. That and this field area looking very different, as if Xenoblade came through here to redesign.

Got to Loegres... man, this place is depressing right now. Really doesn't feel anything like the lively city I remember it as (and the arrangement seems very different, as if stone can be moved around). The cardinal's henchman certainly has the daemonblight, so she probably does, too. Edna poking Sergei because she's getting a cold being in this eternal rain is hilarious (must be the mist, since she's the only one who has an umbrella). A few skits at the inn... why do I have to stay several times for all these? Edna got her boots from Eizen and they have matching gloves. She really does love her brother. Which is why she wants to somehow reverse the curse of him being a dragon.

When meeting with Sergei, there's... a lot of little things. Lailah saying "Since Rose has joined, Sorry is much more proactive!" - as if they needed to credit her with this. It seems so out of place. Was he not proactive when he wanted some hot kinky princess action with the last girl? There's also Sergei saying Sorry reminds him of the late pope... sparing no expense for his people. Edna already hates him. There's also something about Sergei's brother, whose name is.... Boris. No freakin' wonder he followed us into Lastonbury. The "Boris's Canteen" lie might have been a tipoff that we knew something. Unless of course that was an oversight, because if that was... somebody didn't update their rough draft. That seems like a small detail, but it's one of those that becomes big.

The Scattered Bones used to be the Windriders - Rolance's mercenary army, who were apparently the best on the continent until they were sold out alongside Dezel's archenemy, whoever that is. I do look forward to the game giving Rose the credit for this genius even though she's far too young to have had anything to do with it, since that had to have been a couple years back at minimum. Rose just up and sneaks out, probably to murder somebody. But nope, she was just taking a walk!

Rose says "If it's evil, the Scattered Bones slay it." And I like this part. I like a "good" assassin who kills bad people only - and will treat the person hiring them as such if they're asking to kill someone who isn't bad. But I've seen this kind of thing done way better. This is being portrayed awkwardly and forcefully, however, as the game is telling us these things instead of showing them, though that will soon change when we look into who sent the missives under the pope's name that led to the attack on Hyland. Rose lacks a certain badass edge to her, one that makes her out to be as competent as the game is portraying, one that also can show a certain complexity. While we did see her overtake situations in Ladylake, we never saw her kill anyone - just be a ninja assassin. There was very little to go on with her character there. The scene in Marlind written by that first grader didn't give us anything, either. Now... her quirks are quite limited, mostly to being scared by the seraphs talking to her while invisible. A good writer would take this and have her overcome this fear, along with her slowly starting to accept the seraphim as her equals. But I don't think I'm going to give Hideo Baba that much credit. That's the only thing making her interesting right now, so we'll see where it goes.

There are things I really dislike here that my mind won't change on. One, is that she says she'd kill the Shepherd if he turns out to be evil, which is what a Shepherd is by nature, so we'll see if she holds to her word when Sorry comes to understand this. Sorry blindly trusting her is absolutely ridiculous when she's saying things like this, and he's not even asking Mikleo to watch his back for him like he should. Two, Rose is being portrayed as wholly infallible, especially with another stupid, out-of-place line of Lailah saying "Rose would certainly never tell a lie." Uhhh.......... you've only been traveling together for a couple weeks, and you're making character judgments to this ridiculous an extent? And... you're saying this about someone who literally just up and ditched you at dinner without saying she was going for a walk? Rose is definitely lying about something here, or not telling us everything.

I do hope this doesn't continue to be a trend that subsequently derails Lailah, who was pretty awesome until we got to Loegres.

Cardinal Gorton is a very, very corrupted daemon.

That's really the only update I have from several hours tonight.

I did explore a ruin in the north of the field that didn't seem to serve any purpose. It's so weird that you can just wander into a place like this when pretty much everywhere else is closed off. Not much there, at least not right now.

Most of my time was in the field exploring and seeing if I could find any treasures. Didn't find much of use.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

It's so weird that you can just wander into a place like this when pretty much everywhere else is closed off.

By this, I mean... this game isn't open world, and doesn't have a linear plot, either. I like how it fuses those two things - and, let's face it, full open-world is a bad idea for a franchise like Tales that thrives off of story so much that it's named for that - but I feel the execution comes up short, in large part since I haven't seen many rewards for exploring. Just knowing where places are ahead of time, and that they're blocked by domains that are "too strong" or whatever. A better way to fuse these would be to have all those areas accessible, but have monsters that are insanely strong and would kill you quickly if you weren't prepared. That would ruin challenge in other areas, though.

I also have found that I still have virtually zero investment in the characters or the plot - and that means I really don't care to save the world at this point. It doesn't feel even remotely the same as Berseria. Loegres is a completely different city that's somehow rearranged itself despite all the stone. The exterior areas there are incredibly different and I had thought they were ill-suited for farmland, either from being too rocky or too swampy. Lastonbury feels like a natural evolution of what was there. It just doesn't feel like the world I enjoyed so quickly into Berseria. I felt invested relatively early on, because there were seeds of care that are missing here. If you don't find some way to get your player to care, they won't, and they'll play something else.

This "Era of Asgard" must be what they refer the time of Velvet vs. Artorius - though that obviously doesn't have any actual historical merit. Was it not "Claudin Asgard" who was the first Shepherd? Or was that Artorius, and what the Abbey did to change the record to control lemmings in future generations? Cardinal Gorton is certainly continuing the same tricks. The Abbey never really changed at all even if Hyland broke from its control at some point. Using the idea of faith to manipulate people... sounds very realistic, honestly.

Character-wise, I'm not feeling this, either. Who am I supposed to care about? Sorry is a pathetically generic JRPG protagonist who is lacking in quirks and complexities that make him compelling. Rose is amusing at times but I can already see some of the warning signs - namely that she's being portrayed as flawless, that her ideals are impeccable and should never be questioned. Milkeo is only entertaining when he's being trolled, and he only seems to exist to be on the receiving end of the party's pranks and to be a foil to Sorry. Dezel is there, I guess. Lailah is awesome at times but weird at others, namely when talking about Rose, and this creates a wildly inconsistent character. She was shaping up to be great until Rose joined. Edna is my favorite simply because of how epic she is as a troll, but she's very one-note and doesn't have the depth of character that makes me care about her; the biggest attachment I have to her is for her quest to get Omega Elixir for Eizen. I'm sure if she were to go to Maotelus and ask for it and name-drop Eizen that he would comply instantaneously.

Also, why doesn't Rose's "Scattered Bones Boss" costume come with the hood and the mask as a head option? That's how she had it when she was killing people, and she certainly could get a spare mask. They similarly dropped the ball by not giving Eleanor an Exorcist's Helmet to go with that costume, seeing as she probably wore one before getting promoted (and it would've gone well with her primary outfit too, unlike with Rose). Like... if a guy character had such a role, he'd get a helmet, so...

...yeah, I'm just prattling on, and nobody's caring to read this anymore so I don't expect to give many more in-depth updates. From what I've researched, the Internets don't have much regarding this game. For what's supposed to be a major JRPG franchise, that says a lot about the game's lack of quality. If that few people cared to write a guide, do fan art, make a cosplay, or any of that... yeah, that's bad. We'll see how much longer I go for. I'd guess I'm about a third of the way. And it's the last third that's apparently the JRPG equivalent of Chernobyl... not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not, since at least I'm going into it knowing it's a shitshow.

Man, this game just killed off a 9 y/o girl. That's... really cruel. Would've hit real hard if that hadn't been the first time encountering her. Was still rough since she was so young, but I had no emotional connection to her or her dog, just... her age. Yeah, that's rough. Poor Margaret...

I find it so weird that Sindra just showed up at the opportune moment when she had absolutely no reason to do so. I was expecting to have to go back to her (which I had planned to do via save point travel) because that would make sense. But, hey, Lastonbury is now blessed again, and we figured out who the serial killer was... or what, rather. Though it was unclear which was the kid and which was the dog. And, if the innkeeper could see the hellion's form, she can see the seraphs in the party. Which is why I'm surprised that, after the game had me stay at that inn eight times just for skits that we hadn't seen her having resonance before.

That's the only update from tonight since it was pretty much just exploring the cave and then... this tragedy.

Dungeons dungeons dungeons... all boring caves with nothing even remotely original. Yawn. Dangerous Encounters are exciting, at least... and I ended up in way too many of those.

Turns out Gododdin was NOT on the other side of this cave I stumbled into that had no clear purpose. This lay of the land is confusing - this is that same area where we met Kurogane, isn't it? Just... connected to the mainland now.

I saved outside Gododdin and will take care of that soon. Went smoothly, for the most part, but I am seeing signs that it will get tougher if I don't properly fight enough battles.

Played quite a bit last night until I passed out. Here's what I remember.

Gododdin is this game's Aball. It's so... weirdly cheerful and upbeat despite a clearly large amount of malevolence. It seems that this village chief is the source. It doesn't make any sense, and makes me wonder if this is an illusion, and this is actually in the past.

But that's wrong - after Edna learned Rock Smash (and almost knocked Sorry out for asking for her age... uh, dude, really?), I find that the only connection to the past is how the Abbey is back to smuggling opium, this time disguising it as Elixir. Or at least the Pope, who's posing as the village elder, is. This place is quite remote so it's hard to trade, the land is unsuitable farming, and it's quite small. Pope Masedra seems quite friendly, yet troubled. Apparently his family disowned him because he was too committed to being a people-pleaser that he forgot about them, and he ran away in shame to die in the woods. He then found Gododdin and the people there took to him quickly, becoming like a family to him. Because they gave him a safe haven, he started smuggling drugs to save the village from ruin, or at least abandonment a la that little place in Hyland. This gave the village enough money for substantial upgrades, including a schoolhouse.

That said, his health isn't very good, and he has an apparent heart attack while Sorry and the crew were discussing what to do with him. Thankfully, it was just a minor thing, and he gets up an hour later no problemo. Also turns out that he has the inscription memorized, and it says that we must go to the temples of four Great Lords to undertake trials to attain blessings from each. This is sans Maotelus, whose temple... is the Empyrean's Throne, most likely. The convenient thing is that the Fire Temple, the trial of Musiphe, is right here and we're told to go in there and undertake its trial. We do.

This place smells like a Zelda dungeon, only the puzzles are restricted to torch-lighting boredom. Oddly, the monsters in here are resistant to earth and wind as opposed to fire, which makes no sense given the monolith at the entrance saying they're weak to fire. The temple is unremarkable; the only "puzzles" are torch-order things. The first I do trial and error for and then Rose is like "I dunno, look for subtle differences or something" I realize those are on the floor. I was expecting a "twenty-three is number one" kind of thing. There's also vermillion ore growing in here, and that had to have been created by something insanely strong. Musiphe, probably.

At the end, there's obviously a domain, and the boss is some fire dragon knight. It's not an easy fight. It's hard to touch the four tablets without getting killed, and I get to the point where I just leave Rose lying there unconscious. After the seraphs come back, there are several more KOs (I stay armatized almost the entire time) but I manage to make it through. Afterward, he introduces himself as Ekseo, Musiphe's protector seraph, and that he was just testing us to see if we're worthy of Musiphe's blessing. We passed. He also knows Sorry and Lailah's names, as he was probably watching the birth of the Shepherd via the Earthen Historia or something. He lights Sorry's blade on fire and tells him to either imprint it upon his face or Lailah's. I expect a choice since it's been a while since I've had one of those, but there isn't one. Sorry chooses himself, but Lailah chooses herself because she's sick of Sorry's self-sacrificial bullshit since that's eventually gonna do more harm than good. No, Sorry. You are the SHEPHERD. You cannot be replaced so easily. The power ends up being a Mystic Arte to use when armatized with Lailah. Like all of the other Mystic Artes so far, it's pretty cool but rather short.

Sorry and Mikleo learn that some seraphim used to be humans. Lailah apparently lost something. And she compares him to an Apple Gel, saying he tastes great. So is armatization sexual to her? I also remember her revealing something about her oath. Don't recall what. May find out more later.

I save after. I would expect the Water Temple to be the same as in Berseria, the shrine to Amenoch in Southgand, but.... that doesn't appear to be on the map. I also gotta go report to Sergei that the Pope is a-okay, but doesn't want to come back. He's not gonna like that news, since it means the Cardinal is in charge of the Abbey, and he don't like her. We're most likely gonna siege the church - gotta wonder how huge it is, since they were building quite the labyrinth a thousand years before. But Loegres isn't even arranged the same, which I still find so odd. You don't move stone walls. You just don't.

The game so far is... inoffensive. I can't understand the seething hate for it just yet, but I have seen the seeds of what people rant about. We'll see what they blossom into. I presume we're headed back to Loegres next, which the game locked us out of for whatever reason. I do wish that the next part was open world and that we could do the shrines in any order, and that enemies' levels scaled with us. But that's probably too much to ask of Tales.

Went beast hunting last night, thanks to Edna learning Rock Smash. Took out numerous Code Red Daemons. The three I recall are King Peacock, the giant scorpion in the Egyptian ruin, and the pain in the ass known as Behemoth. That last one took many attempts (including before each of the others) , but I knew it was doable after gaining a level beating the others.

I can't go back to Hyland right now because reasons, but I don't want to over level so the ones near Gododdin will have to wait. That place seems to think the pope is dying. And if he dies, the town does too.

Gotta add that the skill system here is needlessly complex. Like... what's the point in even having this if what skills you have equipped won't make a difference? I sometimes keep old equipment on because the stats are better. Berseria did skills way better even if having to purge equipment frequently was annoying.

I'm at 35 hours here. And that hasn't been garbage time like much of Berseria. I'll beat this one in considerably less time than the last one. Might clock 80 hours or so depending on how much beast hunting I do.

The Cardinal is totally insane. She is all about "justice" and "guiding the people" - through fear and misery. Like... what the hell is wrong with her? Making it rain so much is depressing for everyone! Rose says that the Cardinal thinks her justice is the same as universal justice. This is a bad thing because of the malevolence corrupting her. The same would certainly happen if Rose became corrupted, since she acts much the same way. But her goal is to help people by killing dirtbags instead of destroying everybody's lives for no reason. Her animosity destroyed her humanity. And Rose kills her, because she's the assassin who kills people like the Cardinal. The ones who don't agree with Rose and her sense of justice.

Oh, and apparently Dezel is blind or something. And he feels like there's something awful still in town. Of course. It's also funny how Sorry and Mikleo theorize about Maotelus since I know the whole story and how dumb and forced it was. Really, the only bad part of the ending of Berseria. And... we can't cure Boris and the others who were stoned. Odd. We have panacea bottles...

Rose tells Sergei that the Scattered Bones did it. I'm sure the people will be happy since it stopped raining after so long. They can make that correlation. Sorry cannot. He's beating himself up for needing to kill somebody to save others or something. It's a necessary evil for the greater good. We're also being watched again. This game has overdone that.

Meeting Mayvin at the inn... I'm not sure what the "Age of Chaos" refers to - now? I don't know. What happened to the story of Innominat? Did that get lost before the Celestial Record was written? And I don't trust this guy.

Next, we're going to find a shrine somewhere. We have many places to look... and Lailah playing coy by singing about bacon will entertain us in the interim.

Nobody seems to care about this, so I'm going to just stop and try to enjoy this. Try being the key word.

I will post thoughts on anything major and answer questions if posed. But that's it.

I also think that Loegres needs a Lord of the Land...

Rose is even being referred to as "perfect" and she knows who this bad guy fraudster Malfore is somehow. The Abbey is still smuggling drugs... some things never change. This guy is slime and people are buying his swampland. Can we just kill him? He has friends in high places and that's why he's getting away with his crap. Sergei can't do anything because of said friends is his boss.

Morgrim makes a return as a daemon. Rough fight! But she is willing to be the Lord... and she seems to have turned on the Abbey. Nice! Also, Mayvin knows a lot of lore. Is he cheating death like the last Mayvin? Hmmm...

...why am I writing this?

I'm still reading lol, I just don't have much to say about Zesty. The most memorable parts are Edna and Zaveid and the rest is mostly a shapeless blur.

Murphiroth posted...

I'm still reading lol, I just don't have much to say about Zesty. The most memorable parts are Edna and Zaveid and the rest is mostly a shapeless blur.

It's good to at least have this confirmation! It's felt like nobody's been reading.

Edna is easily the best part. Masterful troll. Only thing that's keeping me interested. Lailah is also good when she makes puns, but there are other times when she's written annoyingly. I don't have Zaveid in my party yet and I'm very curious to see how that happens; all I knew going in was that he's playable, nothing more.

I get the "shapeless blur" thing. Today I mostly did sidequest stuff and I just hated the way it went about. I had to talk to Rose to get a list of prompts instead of having them in a diary or something organized. And since for some reason there are only 4 per page that is also a shapeless blur. The thing is... there's minimal direction in this game. And yet I can't enter places like the Bridge of Camelot until the game wants me to (so I can't meet Mayvin there now - if he can break that domain, then...). And I keep getting sent back to places I already cleared, like the ruins and the cave. Had to avoid fights somewhat. And since the game is relatively plotless - in comparison to good games like Abyss or Berseria - it's... yeah. I just want something interesting to happen!

Both Goddodin and Loegres are blessed now so that's good. I'm surprised that the history geeks didn't unearth that Loegres is the true name of the place.

Oh, and I managed to get back into the forest, so I can sneak into Hyland again. That's... sudden. And forced.

I'm reading too. But I haven't played Zestiria so it's mostly just to see this play out vicariously through you lol

I'm also reading but nothing really to add since it's been a long time since I played. I'll say that one of the things I enjoyed that I don't see mentioned often is the weird undertones between Mikleo and Sorey (are you calling him Sorry on purpose?).

Mikleo is a (slightly) more interesting character if you're looking at him through the lens that he's got some feelings for Sorey. I'm not even LGBT, just an angle you don't see very often in JRPGs unless it's a joke.

And yeah they're treated like brothers too but there's a few scenes that sure feel like something else is going on there. Maybe you disagree but I'm interested what people think about that.

Some mercenaries murdered more children........... Lucas maybe? Awful. The daemon has the same form as Kamoana, so that's lazy of them. The two who survive give us an Iris gem (stones that show the Earthen Historia) with a bunch of exorcists (Sorry thinks they're all shepherds) in Loegres having a wedding. I know the history.

After taking the secret passage, I'm back in Hyland. Alisha is there to greet me and she's lost her resonance. The game retcons itself by dating Sorry was losing his eyesight or something that doesn't feel right. At least she's still in the sexy clothes.

Hyland side quests tomorrow!

Hyland sidequests are mostly uneventful - just Alisha being Alisha, overworking herself and trying to clear her name. This doesn't quite go to enough places - apparently this bridge-builder is also bridging figurative political gaps. I give Gramps the pipe back, and he and Lailah catch up. Elysia doesn't have much - Natalie is still mourning the loss of her husband Mason, and that's completely understandable (this was one of the only early game NPC stories I remembered; the other one being the guy in Ladylake who likes staring at the water wheel). There are some kids arrested for attempting to steal from the sanctuary, and apparently that sidequest plays out the same no matter what you choose. How stupid of a mechanic if it doesn't actually amount to anything.

Please note that the rest of this post will be expletive-laden, so if you have thin skin, get the fuck away.

The Water Temple. That is what.

Seriously, whoever the fuck designed this place should be shot in the head five times. I want puzzles in dungeons, but nothing like this shit. This could be the most obnoxious, unfun dungeon ever.

For the uninitiated (and those who forgot), there are eyes watching you everywhere in this place. You have to use Mikleo's shroud to avoid them - if ONE of them sees you (even right after your shroud dissipates, which it does quickly when pressured by the eyes), it warps you. Not to the start of the room, but to the start of the motherfucking dungeon. You do not know how glad I was to see a warp pad. Or a second one.

On top of this shit, you have to go back through the same rooms... and new monsters spawn in them. Often two. This means *gasp* chain encounters! So not only am I dealing with these fucking eyes, every fight's exponentially tougher due to the tight rooms here. AND I have to keep track of everywhere that has an eye while fighting these motherfuckers. It gets old. FAST. Even worse: There is absolutely NOTHING to indicate where the eyes are after a certain point. It's just the first half that has eyes engraved on the affected tiles. Which means I'm just wingin' it, and it's easy to miss things.

I get to this annoying part where I have to use the shroud four times in a single room with precision. I do this on my second attempt, only to get caught by an eye in the next room. Just grrrrrreeeeaaattttt. I redo this and get caught again by taking a detour looking for treasure. Le sigh. I ignore that path the next time, go forward, and find a different set of warp pads. I take this, thinking the fight with Asura is right ahead. Then I walk forward and get caught by another eye. FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK. Who the hell wants to be this sadistic to players? Like seriously!? After this, I exit the dungeon, save, and walk out my temper. I am not as cussy as I would have been without that walk.

I may or may not resume this. This dump is THAT fucking bad. Let's go over a few things about game design:

1. Puzzles must make the player use their head - not just their, uh, eyes.
2. Puzzles should be intriguing and challenging to figure out, instead of just a frustrating obstacle
3. Penalties for not completing a puzzle should NOT involve backtracking through the same areas 15 times in an hour or two
4. Don't take away the different tiles for eyes halfway through this dump

If this had been a few "maze" rooms where you had a 1-3 points where you could move the eyes around, thus allowing you to go to different areas of the maze - and the penalty was that the room reset and you had to start just that room over, I would love this place. Like... that's the kind of stuff I WANT to see in a JRPG. But I don't want any of this "make one wrong step and you have to do it all over again" bullshit. The fights on top of this are particularly aggravating, especially the unceasing chain encounters. Not a good idea to stack frustrations on top of one another.

I manage to make it through this time, but that place is seriously annoying. It's not even fun to solve. It's like a terribly-designed stealth mission. Like... yuck.

Asura is hellbent on destroying humanity as humans are the vessels of malevolence. His sword was taken from him because of what he was going to use it for - by his own seraph Altul, this trial's guardian. This transformed him into a daemon - losing his weapon was the last straw on top of his corrupted desire to "purify" the planet by ridding it of humanity. Or something. Mid-fight, I get the water booster while already armatized with Mikleo, but unfortunately don't have enough BP to get the Mystic Arte off. Altul offers me the sword and Sorry (that was an auto-correct thing that just fit btw) just refuses it instantly, not even wanting to check out the craftsmanship of mythril blade. That said, it's rife with malevolence and-

Oh shit. Maltran repossesses it out of nowhere, and it turns out she's not really who she pretends to be: She's a hellion working for Heldalf. This is bad. Worse than working for Fartlow. She can wield the blade well already and is probably gonna take it to her boss. She disappears quickly. I go check on Alisha and she's pretty clueless as to Maltran's true nature; Sorry and Rose don't have the heart to tell her, and Maltran brags about how great she is compared to us. It's probably better that Alisha doesn't know, and is simply told Maltran was "killed in action" once we, y'know, kill her. Unless of course we purify her and Alisha doesn't notice the difference. Maltran is just using Alisha for some sick game, after all.

After getting chewed out by one of the punk kids I had arrested, I leave Ladylake and have no idea where to go next. This game is legitimately bad with this. It wants you to do things in a certain order yet gives you no guidance at how to do so. Let's bring up some Zelda games for comparison. Twilight Princess, for instance, is fantastic - and it's highly linear and often tells you what you need to be doing next, and orders areas in such a way that it's fluid. Breath of the Wild is the opposite, in that it's completely open-world after the first hour and you're told "Yeah, you can do this if you like, but really, just do whatever you want." It's also fantastic. This somehow tries to straddle the middle by giving a false allure that it's open-world when it really isn't. It doesn't work. Either give me some direction or let me do whatever I want. It's obnoxious to spend so much time looking in the same places just trying to figure out what the story wants you to do next. Rose doesn't give any intel on this the way a Zelda sidekick does, which is what sets Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess apart from something like this.

Next I end up on the mountain and notice a sidequest where Eizen probably is. I'm right, and it immediately goes into a fight where I get whomped. Edna refuses to fight him. I wasn't sure if I was going to or if I was looking for clues, but the game clearly didn't point me in that direction because it's not time for that yet. There's absolutely zero to go except on the world map - there's an area southwest of Loegres that I'm apparently supposed to explore, which I have to navigate through the list of places to even see. Stupid. Wasn't the next temple at Aifread's Hunting Grounds?

Also the water Mystic Arte is pretty cool. I got to see it later on. Lots of aimless wandering here....

The monsters at the hunting grounds are ROUGH. Made it there today and am struggling. Maybe the Lord Boon is too high, but I can't exactly change that one. May have to get everyone up another level and upgrade some equipment. There is one of Rose's henchmen here to buy stuff off of, at least.

Still not bothering with the skill system. Way too dependent on RNG. Either with the drops or the skills.

Still struggling, and kind of enjoying it. I've upgraded some equipment. I really hate how much is dependent on drops (which are much rarer than in Berseria) and skills that have a set chance to generate at shops. The Normin bonus only applies to random drops and for some reason I can still only set one at a time. It gets annoying - this is not a fun headache. Hence why I'm only "kind of" enjoying the struggle - the battles are fun, the equipment not so much.

This headache is why I never bothered with the equipment skill system and just powered through everything with armatization.

Taking a break from the fights. More soon

At long last, I FINALLY arrive at the Earth Temple. The battles got slightly easier as I gained a couple levels. I think that's all I needed to push through. Those damn Nagas, though... sheesh.

Getting into the Earth Temple, I see a Minotaur guarding the place like he owns it. The temple's keeper, who's panicking about this gigantic bull-man with an axe, is an ex-Shepherd who was reborn as a seraph, and apparently this guy was a literal James Bond. Quelled over 10,000 daemons and... objectifies the ladies. He certainly remembers Lailah, and Lailah certainly remembers him, though not for the reason he wanted. He mistakes Rose for the Shepherd due to his testosterone and then Edna tries to bait him into hugging her. I am VERY disappointed when he says something something trial and doesn't take her bait, because I was SO hoping for the uppercut to the jaw that Edna was most assuredly plotting.

Not wanting to lose her moment at her temple, Edna goes over to the Minotaur and tells him to SCRAM. Just like that. And... he takes one look in her eye and is absolutely terrified of her. He heads for the hills... and then Pahwan or w/e (the creepy ex-Shepherd protector seraph) says the trial is actually to quell him. It would have helped to have known that. But hey, Edna got her moment, and I can't stop laughing. It's SO GOOD. This is exactly why Edna's my favorite right now. I do hope that sticks when the nuclear meltdown occurs. (I kinda doubt it.)

This place is almost completely open, with a puzzle of how to trap the Minotaur without him seeing us. Because he's scared shitless of Edna. Rose quickly identifies this as a load of bull. It's all a setup. There's a twist. Blah blah blah.

I've heard people complain about the camera in this game, but I didn't really experience anything horrific... at least not until this place. If I was playing on PC, I'd have proper screenshots, but...
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/4/AAR0ZFAADpIY.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/5/AAR0ZFAADpIZ.jpg
That was he best I could do. The second one was right after I'd been staring at the ground. They fixed this in Berseria enough to make it work despite placing battles in the field proper, instead of a special arena. This is simply obnoxious and I'm just randomly tapping buttons hoping they're the right ones. The temple itself is pretty straightforward - just go into the basement areas, smash some stone holding up the columns, and that'll bring down what was on top of them - chests, normin, monsters, etc. That and catching the Minotaur - but I tried sneaking behind him but got noticed because the game wanted me to get noticed, no other reason. This isn't really a puzzle so much as the dungeon's storyline. Man, do I miss the days of dungeons that weren't just soulless hallways.

I keep trying to push the Minotaur into the altar area but he just respawns in the same place. This thankfully lets me hear Edna say "bullcrap" out loud, LOL. They REALLY made it that simple? Geez, how stupid do you think your players are? I just use Mikleo's shroud and all I need to do is have it on when I walk up to him and initiate the fight. Early in the fight, I hear this absolutely AWFUL sound that was probably meant to make me pity the thing: Kids giggling or something that makes my eardrums bleed. And this is why I'm never having children. Apparently the Minotaur is an amalgamation of tortured souls, and this one is of kids. I hit the mute button for a bit and win the fight easily, though it does take a while. The souls disperse, probably becoming seraphim because MAGIC. Yeah... the game wants me to feel sad, but it's just total apathy here.

The Mystic Arte, Earth Revolution, is pretty cool. The scene getting it is pretty unremarkable. I leave the dungeon and nearly get killed by the monsters here again. Yeah... this place was made to be rough. It feels like a huge level spike to me, but hey, I don't mind it. I DO mind the equipment system of course - the way it's set up makes it impossible to pair what you want with gear of the best quality. I'm hoping that paying it no heed is fine, even playing on Hard. I can always lower the difficulty like I thought about. We'll see.

Played a little more. Took several tries against this eye monster in a ruin, but finally pulled it off by armatizing with Mikleo and spamming the Mystic Arte as I was able. Had to change strategy several times. Loved it.

Ended up heading back out and resting at the inn in Loegres, where Edna trolled Mikleo again, this time about not asking a female seraph about her birthright. He doesn't learn!

That's all. Doubt I will be able to play tomorrow or Sunday. Monday maybe...

Nothing like a little gaming after a long, tiring day.

I get to the Wind Temple without much issue. I'm immediately greeted by a falling body, a headless horseman, and Zaveid. I fight Zaveid, who's trying to kill the horseman, and he demonstrates Siegfried and talks smack. He says he knows Edna, who doesn't really know him that well - but she doesn't mention that he's her brother's friendly rival. He also seems to be over Theodora by now, at least enough to hit on the ladies. I beat him and there's more smack talk before he leaves.

After, the falling body stirs - Dezel was able to save him after all by armatizing. Guy had tried to kill himself, though how he got to the top of the tower is still a mystery. After convincing him that no seraph would want him to sacrifice himself - he's dubious - we turn to the Wind Temple. This is one hell of a tower, apparently from before Berseria (but I don't recall this from Berseria). The side path up the stairs isn't an option, so main entrance it is.

I get through it without much issue. The first half is incredibly boring and straightforward, but the second half has an actual puzzle with doors that slide from one floor to the next. That said, this is pretty simplistic with that, so I still get it no problem. I do manage to get everything.

The roof is the real interesting part. The guardian seraph here is also a former Shepherd, Wardell. He implies there's stuff to do. One of which is a young woman about Sorry's age trying to throw herself off the tower because people hate her for murdering an asshole who was extorting her family. Sounds like she is NTA. I don't know how the hell she got up here given all the doors and crevaces and the game never tells me, so I'm just going to say it was MAGIC!

Dezel is acting very IDGAF right now. He is fine with this girl jumping. Sorry is not. The headless horseman shows up and Rose and Mikleo fend him off while Dezel saves the girl. He... doesn't seem to like saving lives. The girl says she doesn't want to die and we go fight the horseman. Two achievements from this fight - I don't need any items because I have half damage enabled from before. I plan to turn that off to see how bad it is without that. We kill the thing - malevolence formed from people's suicides - and talk to the girl. Sorry tells her he's wondered if he was the asshole before - sometimes he was, other times not so much. It's life, and you shouldn't want to end it all for nothing because you made a mistake. He introduces her to Dezel, who hates this, and then she teleports back to the entrance. Dezel is mad that we're not doing what he wants. His revenge mission.

I put the pieces together. I know Zaveid is playable. There was the skit after the fight with Zaveid with Sorry comparing the fighting style of the two wind seraphim. Dezel is definitely starting to exude malevolence. One of two things happens here. Dezel either leaves the party to prevent himself from becoming a dragon or he becomes one and we fight him, replacing him with Zaveid.

This will have to happen some other time. I'm going to sleep now.

Cleared out another ruin. Beat Boss Troll on the second try. Wasn't a hard fight to adjust to. Later met up with Mayvin at the same spot after having forgotten what I was chasing him for in the first place. Equipment management is taking a while because I suddenly have so much from the increased drops since Morgrim is leveled insanely high.

I head out to the battlefield in the basin and find out from Rose's right-hand twins that they were approached for a job something something Rolance royal family something something. I legit have no idea what the hell they just said in this rapid info-dump, nor do I even have a clue what this "job" is supposed to be. Are we killing the queen? The one who's trying to seize power? Are we killing her son, the one who WOULD be the Joffrey? Like... this is all so fast and vague that I really wish I'd seen more of the internal affairs of the royal family before, along with how they intermingle with the Abbey. This is another example of the game telling things it should be showing. Dezel gets his undies in a bunch about all this, so it seems like his target is the queen. Just a coincidence that appears forced. And there's something the seraphim all knew that Sorry and Rose didn't... and Lailah says they'll explain soon. I have no idea what the hell to make of any of this but I have a very bad feeling, especially that given my levels are 50ish by now (and fights still aren't easy on Hard!), that this is the start of the total nuclear implosion. Like, if this was meant to be a plot twist, it just confused me, because this is regarding people who hadn't been relevant to the story at all so far. This information needed to be repeated.

The game does reexplain things (via Mikleo being a geek) to me at the inn in Lastonbury, but this is EXACTLY WHY I WISH WE COULD VIEW SKITS ANYWHERE. This was NOT an optional thing, and certainly not something you should have to go out of your way for. Terrible plot design and a stupid mechanic that I'm glad they realized was a terrible idea. From what seems to have happened, the two legitimate heirs of the emperor were killed in some power struggle, so the third, whose mother was the Empress's sister, took the throne. The secretary is standing against the Empress and wants her killed because she adopted this nephew as a way to stay in power or something, and he... doesn't think the late emperor would have liked it? Rose doesn't trust any of them and is most certainly trying to figure out who she needs to kill for a better Rolance. None of this makes sense, though. Why was the emperor boning his sister-in-law? Why would he have been upset that his son was in power and his widow was helping? Why did Rose just take the job without question, and not tell us anything? The game is conveniently not telling me things that ordinary people would've shared with each other by now. It doesn't feel natural.

I get back to Loegres, ready to save and quit, and Zaveid is outside waiting for me, ready to challenge me to a duel. Before I could save right outside the gate like I intended to. The devs really don't want me to enjoy this game, do they? I want to GO TO BED.

Ugh. Gonna hit the hay right after I beat this guy, however many tries it takes me.

Zaveid went down pretty easily after I ate a Chiffon Cake to reduce my wind damage. I enter Loegres, stay at the inn, and it becomes night. I spend a good chunk of time wandering around and find out that the game apparently wanted me to try to leave town. In the middle of the night. In a place where that had been explicitly banned. Uhhhh.... that's some logic. Who would've thought to look there?

Lunarre - the creep who was after Alisha early in the game - is there. I beat the shit out of him, and then he gets cloned a few times and I beat the shit out of them too. I chase after him to the shrinechurch and his boss obliterates him - she's the one who Dezel has been wanting to kill. Sorry says "She's not a hellion!" and thinks that means she's off limits, even though she creates hellions despite not exuding malevolence in her domain. None of this makes sense. Sorry, you're not the only person in this party. You promised Dezel you'd help him get even, right? Geez.

This chick tells the story. She accuses Dezel of outright possessing Rose, creating the Scattered Bones as a way to recreate his Windriders and relive his days of glory. She never "betrayed" him - she merely left, and the Windriders had run their course. He'd even control her body at times to do this and wanted to take it a step farther by getting the armatus - which is why he wanted practically all of this. So... he's only been following his own ends, and doesn't share our ideals to end the daemonblight. He just wants to assassinate people and use Rose to do it, since she was apparently this SO PURE vessell or whatever the game tried to justify it as.

I win the fight and the next part - after she uses Double Team and Dezel goes rogue by controlling Rose's body and breaking the pact we never should've made with him - Dezel finally feels he's about to kill her for whatever reason (he's probably been projecting) before she invokes the Earthen Historia through this illusionary daemon. She shows Dezel scenes from his past, including... Rose getting engaged to the Prince of Rolance?! WHAT?! What's next, are they trying to justify her as royal blood now?

Rose comes to the prince and says the captain's missing... and Dezel and the other Windrider guy have to block him from doing anything to her. When he says they smell delicious, it becomes very apparent who this guy is: Lunarre. The terrible scene that follows has arrests, knives, sacrifice (of the guy Dezel got the hat from), "Angels of death" and a lot of confusion, all of which was apparently Dezel's fault for no explicable reason. I keep coming back to type this out to try to make sense of it all. Too much is happening at once and they're asking too many questions without answering anything. What of this is even real? Did Rose REALLY just draw her knives on her supposed fiance? Or was this distorted by this... illusionist? Wouldn't surprise me if she altered what we saw through this very real daemon.

Dezel and Rose are mortally wounded, and Dezel recognizes that he's going to die. He asks Sorry to fire Siegfried with his spirit... and Sorry does. It's apparently suicide, because it is. This isn't exactly explained since Zaveid gets away with it all the time. Dezel severs the bond and gets one last moment with Rose, who says she's grateful for what he did - even if it was a mistake, like we all make. I still don't even know what "what he did" means but this was most certainly a trap. This Symone is ALSO an "Angel of Death." Whatever she did to earn that title. The game threw a lot at me at once and expected me to understand it all, despite very little of it having even been alluded to before. Sure, this last scene between Dezel and Rose was great - it felt intimate enough and it certainly healed Rose MAGICALLY (not to mention the funny bit about the geeks in the ruins). Who most likely never wanted to kill Sorry, by the way - that would've been Dezel's doing. And Dezel is, apparently, just dead. He just died. That's it. Zaveid arrives and picks up Dezel's hat. He knows what this means, along with Symone saying "take time to grieve."

Highlights from the scenes following the Big Event where I speak to everyone... Edna alludes to Eizen being "the Reaper" not too differently than Dezel... Lailah finds folding origami comforting... Rose realizes that Dezel had been protecting her... Zaveid invites himself along just the same as Dezel had... yeah. That's about it. I head back to the inn and get a scene the next morning. Zaveid says that he still has thousand-year sour grapes with Eizen and Laphicet aka Maotelus. He seems to think that Maotelus went missing because he fused with Heldalf - the best part of this is Zaveid referring to him as "our baby boy." Absolutely hysterical knowing the history. But that would explain a lot of things. And it would make sense considering Velvet - Laphicet's aunt and caretaker - was the original Lord of Calamity. If Heldalf has any relation to Velvet, he's probably also tied to Innominat. So it could be that as well. Rose starts bawling and passes on Dezel's message to not waste too much time grieving and go out and kick ass. Okay. I stop there.

So... thoughts. That Dezel scene was wild, but there was a pretty big problem: Everything happened this way because it needed to. It did not feel like a natural flow of events. Sure, there were pockets of awesome stuff, but it was too many weird little details at once that could've been expanded upon. "Angels of Death" as a reveal was needless, for example, since... that hasn't even been mentioned before. This sequence could've definitely used some rewrites. A lot of times the developers make things happen because they want to as opposed to letting the story write itself. It could have been better with a little more handiwork.

...did I miss anything or get something wrong here? I was trying my best to keep up. No idea what was important and what was not.

Blah blah blah skits at the inn galore. This is a really stupid mechanic, have I mentioned that? It makes skits extremely missable and is a major inconvenience. Especially having to stay at an inn seven times for seven skits. Like... wut. It's mostly just Zaveid trying to fit in and not fully succeeding.

I eventually end up at Aifread's Hunting Ground, where Heldalf has placed his domain. It's still a struggle to get to him since the monsters here are rough. I save right before by the ruin in case any funny business happens. Well... you know what I mean, because we have another kind of "funny business" to talk about.

Heldalf toys around with Sorry, who still thinks challenging him and "finishing this now" is a good idea. Moron. You DO realize how outmatched you are here, yes? Your self-righteousness isn't enough to fight an entity this overpowered. Heck, Heldalf summons Symone to restrain everybody except Sorry and Lailah. After blathering on about how Shepherd and Lord of Calamity are supposed to be at odds, he has Symone release Rose, who makes some assassin maneuvers and for some dumb reason decides to take her knife to Symone's throat. This makes me think Rose isn't very bright. Why don't you just kill her? If you put a knife in her throat, her restraints will be released automatically. There's absolutely NOTHING to gain from a hostage at this point. You only do that to gain an upper hand. Heldalf quickly proves this by using Hyper Beam, with Symone accepting her fate. Rose gets blown away and Symone giggles before freezing. I take it this means she's dead. Thrown away as quickly as she was introduced. All that buildup for nothing.

After he turns down an offer to work together, Sorry rejects Heldalf's challenge to finish the fight. Heldalf just accepts this and disappears. Uhhhh... what? You'd think something emanating this much malevolence would just want to finish off his rival right now, like, y'know, he had for the second half of the fight. This seems very out-of-character. After he disappears, Symone isn't even mentioned - they just say he's definitely connected to Maotelus because he is, and that Maotelus must be using the continent as his vessel. Much like Innominat had used the Earthpulse before him. This all feels like forced logic that has nothing to do with Heldalf. And then, even worse, even though we literally just encountered the guy, we have to go to Lohgrin (Lothringen) to ask for info about Mayvin. Sure enough, he's no longer at the ruin. How fucking pointless it was to put him there if we're gonna have to go all the way to what's left of Melchior's tower for info.

This game is dumb and they didn't write it as a singular entity.

I haven't played for the past week for a few reasons:

• My movie watchthrough topic
• Being a busy beaver, getting stuff done that I'd neglected when I was busy being social
• Not feeling it, since... as you can see above, it's lining up to be at that point where the writing completely falls to pieces.

I'll get back to this soon. Maybe tomorrow. Don't count on me being too interested, not after how pathetic that last part was.

Played a bunch this morning, but have virtually nothing to report. Took me several tries to clear Lailah's crucible; Mikleo's only took one. Edna's... I'm not ready for it yet, in large part due to Lord of the Land hax making that thing too powerful. I couldn't find the one at Aifread's Hunting Grounds.

I crossed the Camelot Bridge - the boss was a Kraken that wasn't too hard - and that was the end of several hours' worth.

I DO hope people still care to read this... I feel like I'm just speaking into a void here.

Played a bunch tonight. Not much to update. I explored a little and found a shrine underneath what used to be Reneed. Only one thing of note here: The gold key. Fucking finally. I can open gold chests with this dumb mechanic!

I took a walk in the woods - they're decaying just the same as the town (even the walls aren't there, which is odd considering the lay of the land makes it obvious) - and ran into way too many daemons. Sometimes they even lined up for their executions... which was annoying and gave me no room to breathe. I finished up in here and intend to head to Lohgrin (the town around the tower of Lohringen) next time.

Played some more last night. This will also be my last update if nobody replies, since it's become quite imperative that nobody cares to read.

I nuked through a crucible that let Sorry take a seraph with him; I chose Lailah since she was in the best shape and it turned out to be a good call - only one enemy there was resistant to fire, so it was hugely helpful. I actually won on my first attempt, but it wasn't easy. I don't think I needed any items but I certainly used Rhapsody to heal frequently, since I was armatized the entire time to avoid a need for Life Bottles.

Horsa was devastated just the same as Reneed. The boss there - another Medusa, called Steeno or something - proved extremely difficult, though I got her attack patterns down. For whatever stupid reason, Panaceas don't work when you're Stoned, so that was just great. It took me many tries but I eventually managed to do it. It was thankfully obvious when she was about to use her glare to stone somebody, and I stopped worrying about what Rose was doing unless she was wasting seraphs like there was no tomorrow.

After that fight, Sorry hesitated to purify her for whatever dumb reason, leading to her teleporting away, and Rose grilled him hard for being a liability. It's nice that she actually told him to man up and not hesitate because it was like the Cardinal all over again. I have a bad feeling that she's gonna resurface later, but maybe she'll give us another iris gem. We got one that showed a Shakespearean tragedy, possibly of Heldalf but I'm not quite sure who it was who had a bunch of family members die there. It was weird.

We get to Lohgrin and it turns out the tower - or what's left of it - IS the town. It's a tent city that's using the ruined tower as walls to keep things out. Not quite what I expected. But Mayvin's right there at the entrance and Lailah immediately cuts to the chase, apparently breaking contract and asking him for his aid. Sorry, Rose, and Mikleo are befuddled, and so am I. Apparently he's the "Storyteller of Time" and he has greater resonance, so he could see our seraph friends the entire time. The game does not explain what all this means. He says something about collecting iris gems and missing pieces of a puzzle, which is... what this situation is. Could very well be that Mayvin has lived for centuries, much like the Big Bad of Berseria.

I check with Rose before speaking to Mayvin again and a bunch of sidequests popped up... in previous towns. The wut? Shouldn't sidequests be starting HERE? Why does the game want me to travel back to Loegres to buy another iris gem NOW, when there could've been something at, say, the Great Camelot Bridge for sale when I went by there? I get that this is Tales and they're genuinely bad with sidequests being way out of the way, but this is ridiculous. At least I can fast travel, but it's stupid that I have to pay for that (and it's not cheap, it's asking for 13,000 gald right now since it's based on percentage and I'm like... no). I take a look around town and the local sidequests involve some geometric cave and an Armadylan, whatever that is, plus a gigantic elephant daemon attacking people, thus causing prices to skyrocket. I also see the Toitolez and get another map off him, and I think that's the last one. It's a measly 600 gald when I have over 200,000... at least until I spend some at the armory. I do have to go through and sell some of that stuff, but I think I'd rather use it as tribute to the Lord of the Land in this area once I get one of those. I'm presuming that's related to the elephant.

I saved after this point but that's about it. I will play more when I play more, but I may not be updating anymore since there's really no point in writing this if nobody's reading it.

I'm still reading. Just don't have much to say because I really don't remember much about ToZ. It's not a particularly memorable game. The backtracking is a bit annoying tbh.

I'm just sidequesting an hour here, an hour there. So far:

• I went to the cave to look for the Armadylan thing Lailah wanted to see make perfect curls. He wasn't there, some OP pillbug that took me several attempts to kill was. This was a waste of my time. There's like no point to this sidequest. What did I gain out of it? Absolutely nothing. This doesn't even give me character development that's interesting!
• The armorer wants mythril and points me to Aroundight Forest or whatever it's called, up in Elysia. I find some mythril there. Now I can unlock the strongest gear in the game! I haven't yet, though I DID see Alisha items in the Lohgrin shop. This makes me think she'll be rejoining the party for a spell quite soon.
• In Loegres, a serial killer is on the loose. The people are scared and accuse Sergei of doing nothing. He's calmed down by a priest................. a priest who turns out to be the culprit! He's showing these people "the way to salvation" - in other words, he's so messed up in the head that he thinks he's helping the people he's murdering. I'm sure he'll think he's being saved at his execution. But that's why he's not a daemon. I don't have to fight him, but he does drop an iris gem after Sergei arrests him.
• I go to Westronbolt Gorge on a tip that a salesman is there, and apparently someone - a daemon - snatched his iris gem. I go and purify the giant goblin and get to keep the iris gem magically, without the guy even saying "Oh, you have a use for that, Shepherd? Feel free to take it as my thanks." Odd. Feels like I'm stealing.

Uhm........ am I missing anything I did? Still have to take down a berserk elephant, look for someone wanting to revive Reneed, and maybe do other things? IDK. I'm just trying to get all the iris gems so I can see everything the Earthen Historia wants to show me about Heldalf. At least the game allows me to ask Rose "HEY what kind of egregious sidequests am I supposed to do now?" It helps given how little has happened in this game. Like the Dezel/Symone confrontation contained like half of the game's events so far. With nothing happening, there's no prompts to remember things like... Armadylan.

Oh, yeah, didn't I do a little more? Yeah, I think I did a little more:

• Another Gorgon in what was left of Reneed - apparently this is a revival of the town that... one of the Cardinal's sisters set out to restart with a "bunch of believers." The town didn't last and she became a Gorgon, just like her sisters. She's considerably weaker than the other one, so I beat her on the second try after coming close the first one. I then go to Loegres and find out the aforementioned history. Apparently their hometown is in Glaveid Basin - the war zone. Yikes. That's probably where they escaped to. A safe place. Or what's left of it. I'll have to kill them later.
• I find all the iris gems finally - the game essentially confirms this to me, so PHEW! I can go talk to Mayvin (pretty sure this is when I get to kill him from a few things I read by accident).

...I don't recall if I did anything else. Like most of this game, none of it was memorable, so whatever.

Seriously, this entire game is a blur of forgettableness. The characters don't have enough backstory to be memorable. The skits are pretty boring; the only times I've been laughing have been when Edna and Lailah fuck with Mikleo (and are now teaching Zaveid to join in). Those have gotten pretty one-dimensional at this point; it would be nice if there were other gags or nuances in this party, but there aren't. Like I can't even describe any of the relationships beyond a sentence for some of them. Like Sorry/Mikleo were raised together by Gramps in Elysia, often exploring ruins and pushing each other to do new things, in a way that was like brothers. That said, we haven't gotten many heart-to-hearts of the two of them, and this entire plotline has been dropped.

Really, it feels like this party lacks a cohesive soul. If we look at better Tales games, let's see... I'm gonna go out of order to make my point here, because one game stands out for a comparison point.

Abyss: Luke, Tear, Jade, and Guy are all incredible, well-rounded characters with considerable depth; Luke has very complex relationships with the other three, as well as Natalia. Natalia is annoying as fuck at times, but she's got an incredible story and her personal growth is huge - and that means she's in a tier just below those four. We won't get into the sixth. But this group, despite all their bickering and hypocrisy, actually liked each other despite masking it. This is one of the greatest JRPG parties of all time and that's inarguable, with Luke being among a pantheon of all-time great characters (and Tear being one of the best waifus ever)

Xillia: While not absolutely great, Xillia does have more development, as well as a few relationships worth noting, such as Jude/Milla, Jude/Leia, Alvin/Elize, Elize/Teepo, and... that might be it. Rowan is a good mentor-type character, and an actual "old man" that isn't a joke. The character dynamics here feel deeper than they do in a game like Zesty.

Berseria: Had six characters who were all VERY well-developed, each with dark backstories and fully fleshed-out personalities. There were several relationships within this group that were intriguing, and that was from them all interacting, as well as Magilou and Rokurou messing with literally everyone. This group actually feels like a bunch of people who banded together for a common cause and became friends in the process.

Graces: Graces is relatively plotless and, like this game, is severely lacking in the villains department (more on that soon). However, it compensates for that by having over half the party be trolls and to have this jovial camaraderie that carries the game as you play it, even if it is severely lacking in memorability. The characters by themselves are unremarkable, but when you put them together, anything can happen because they're so weird and wacky. You have clueless idealist Asbel, his little brother Hubert who is so serious all the time yet easy to troll, whackjob Pascal, Sophie and her ability to crack jokes, Prince Richard and his power-hungriness, love interest Cheria who's there for only that reason, and the subtle troll of Malik who's very good at getting away with it at the same time he's good at being a badass.

Graces is a good comparison for Zesty here, because both games are devoid of memorability, yet Graces is so fun as you play it because of the sheer amount of skits where the party are just having fun trolling each other. Here in Zestiria, you have none of that - there's a serious lack of a sense of humor outside of Edna and Lailah punking Mikleo time and time again (have I mentioned how deeply stupid it is to lock skits to save points and inns in Zesty? That means you miss a fuck ton of them!). The party is mostly characterless in the chemistry department, versus the electricity of Graces where the party is so fun in the moment, and that carries the day. There's nothing here.

I wouldn't quite say Zestiria so far is as insufferable as a certain unmentionable disaster, but it's certainly boring in all the wrong ways. And that's why I haven't played much. Didn't expect this to get this long, but it did. Oh well.

Sounds like you're knee deep in bad part of Zestiria. Not that I'd know since I never played it and I don't think I will!

MysteriousStan posted...

Sounds like you're knee deep in bad part of Zestiria. Not that I'd know since I never played it and I don't think I will!

Yeah, don't bother. Most of the game is incredibly dull. And then things finally start to speed up and... it's a mess. Let's go over what happened during the confrontation with Mayvin, shall we?

He takes us to a monolith that has at some point been placed in the center of the tower - the same room where, a thousand years earlier, his asshole ancestor copied the formula of Siegfried. The irony of the fact that the Mayvin clan would end here, at the pride and joy of their patriarch, is not lost on me. This monolith lets him do some storyteller mumbo-jumbo that warps me to the past, to show an innocent village being ransacked by Hyland after it was abandoned by Heldalf, the military commander in charge of the area.

The interesting part is, at the Empyrean"s Throne, when Shepherd Michael takes a baby from his sister Muse and sacrifices it to do some witchcraft that pushes the hellionized Maotelus (no explanation given as to what happened) into Heldalf, who then kills some Hyland valkyries and shakes of anything that comes at him. He became a hellion because he was made one by a dying Shepherd.

A dying Shepherd who so happened to be Sorry's father. And one who so happened to be Mikleo's uncle. Yeah, that's right, the two ruin nerds are cousins, and Mikleo was the sacrifice made to do whatever nonsense was done with Heldalf. Muse uses the last of her strength to bring what's left of Mikleo to safety... Gramps, who came along. Being her brother's squire, she of course could see seraphim. She was shocked to see that her brother had knocked up one of the other villagers, who... I don't know how the hell it happened, but she had given herself a C-section and delivered Sorry three months premature in order to let him have a chance at life. Something that makes no sense in reality, mind you. Gramps takes the two boys in with the intent for them to become Shepherd and Sub-lord 17 years later. And now, those two boys, her son and her nephew, are witnessing her death at the onset of this Age of Chaos. Chaos as in the utter disaster this story is becoming. I take it Sorry only survived because Gramps.

Afterward, Mayvin attacks us as a test. I'm equipped with mythril now, so that should help. He's not too difficult, save for the Mystic Arte he abuses after getting down to half health. Rose takes all four times he uses it, though, so I end up just spamming arrows at him. Water armatization is so dull. After I beat him, something something bonds of whatever blah blah blah this doesn't make any sense. Apparently, like Dezel gave himself up? I have to sever something and use my seraphs' lives to do it. Sorry hesitates because he doesn't want to kill Mayvin. Mayvin says to do it if he wants to prove he has conviction. Sorry concedes. He and Mikleo fuse and Sorry fires Siegfried and...

...Mayvin suddenly has a heart attack and dies. Apparently it was taboo for him to tell this tale and that cost him his immortality, which was probably hax made by Melchior wanting the Philosopher's Stone and trying to replicate it. Or something. Because he's probably a few hundred y/o at this point, it wasn't going to take long for something to kill him. He's shocked to have people at his side in his final moments, but he relishes it. He knew this was coming, but it had to. He didn't want the important parts lost to time.

The gang gives the old man a proper burial outside the tower and sets out for Elysia, where there's access to his origin village. Gramps had closed the entire thing off so nobody could go there. That's where I end for the night. Explanation of any of the nonsense parts - particularly the "bonds of fate" or whatever that was - would be appreciated!

Okay, played some more last night and this morning.

The game won't let me warp to Elysia like it says I'm supposed to, because it's dumb. At the Camelot Bridge, I hear rumors about a war brewing, and some greedy merchants start plotting at how they can profit from it. That's how corporate executives operate and always have, even before they wore stiff suits and designer slacks. Immediately, the plan becomes "let's stop this from happening" because this is a JRPG, and stopping wars is a thing. Also Toitolez vs. Katz is a thing but I can't figure anything out there at the moment, I got 99 problems and a puss ain't one.

We go to Glaveind Basin and Rolance reports a skirmish with some casualties, and Sorry is shocked at how such numbers are "low." Must be nice, being so sheltered. We agree we need to find a way to get this stopped, so we go back into Volgran Forest and... Rose's right-hand man is there,clutching his chest. Turns out their cover was blown by that foxy snitch Lunarre, who took a good sum of profit from telling Rolance that the Sparrowfeathers and Scattered Bones were one and the same, and also informed them that they were paid by a high-ranking Hyland government official to murder Cardinal Forton. That part was, of course, a lie, but Rolance has been stamping out Rose's crew and he comes to tell us that. Rose takes his tip and goes off to Loegres to kill some fuckers, and we're left with a "choice" of three options:

1. Find Alisha and get her help in calling off the Hyland advance
2. Find Sergei and get his help in calling off the Rolance advance
3. Go help Rose

I choose this order specifically, mostly because I want to see Alisha again since it's been a while.

Alisha isn't at the Hyland camp yet - Maltran says her little pawn is supposed to bring the order to attack, and if she doesn't, she'll be imprisoned as a traitor, and that it's quite brilliant of Chancellor Fartlow. That guy hasn't been present AT ALL since the early scenes for whatever reason, which is bad, but whatever. I go to Ladylake and Alisha is at her manor, refusing to budge so as to stand up for her ideals. Edna doesn't hesitate to drop the bombshell: Maltran is a daemon and has been using her the whole time. Alisha, of course, doesn't believe this, but once we're set upon by some Hyland thugs who have been hellionized, she starts to see the truth and wants to talk to Maltran herself. Also Lailah just magically reactivated her Squire's Pact like you can just do that. Okay then.

With Alisha in tow, we go back to Maltran, who cackles about the truth and leads us into the Bors Ruins. She's been the ones pulling Hyland's strings for her master, Heldalf, and helped incite the war. She also talks smack about Alisha serving two purposes: One was her goody-two-shoes attitude to keep Fartlow in line or something to that effect. The other is... right now. I presume it's to be a martyr to rally the troops (Mikleo later theorizes it's also to turn Sorry into a daemon, having seen his girlfriend die). We beat the crap out of her in quite the slugfest, with Alisha's resolve standing up for herself. She still refuses to believe that Maltran outright works for the Big Bad and asks her to stop being a willing pawn, but Maltran doesn't want any of that bullshit. The thing she hates the most about Alisha is how soft she is, that she still believes there's good in people. Maltran then impales herself on Alisha's spear and bleeds to death (the "blood" is her excess malevolence). Alisha is in shock. After staring into space, jaw agape, for a while, she runs away crying.

Sorry chases after her and comforts her, saying that said softness and naivete is part of why Alisha's awesome, and what it REALLY means to be a knight is preventing the war like she wants to do. Maltran may have been blowing smoke with the "kindness makes a good knight" comment, but that had impact on Alisha and has gotten her to push the envelope in that direction. She goes off to call off the dogs and the seraphs all know that Sorry's being a good boyfriend - it's also one of the few times I've seen him show likable personality instead of being horrifically flat. Alisha really brings out the better side of him, which is a stark contrast to Rose. I am quite happy that she was in the party again for a spell. It was a nice change of pace. She leaves just as quickly, going to try to get Fartlow to call off the troops.

With the Hyland side being tended to, we need to go do the same for Rolance. Heading to Lastonbury, we find Sergei in front of the Sanctuary, where Sorry had the duel with him earlier. He has his hands full with angry locals who accuse him of being lazy and not a true knight since he's not willing to give his life for his country. They don't seem to understand that it has to be within reason, and instead treat wars like sports teams. I... honestly can see where the tribalism of sports teams comes from - it's stuff like this. It's quite the resemblance, honestly. Sergei takes us outside to talk but finds the 9 y/o boy who'd been giving him grief getting set upon by three daemon Hyland knights, and goes to confront them. We're about to help but are told to stay out of it... by Symone? I thought she was dead! How'd she come back to life...?

Symone toys with us and masquerades as Sergei, and since it's just two in the party right now since Sorry can only be tethered to one seraph at a time and for some dumb reason that precludes any others from fighting unless another human is in the party, it's not an easy fight. But like with Maltran, I win it in one go, whittling away at Symone and her skeleton sorcerers one at a time until they burn to a crisp. I was thinking that Symone was going to admit that Sergei never existed and she was masquerading as him the entire time to lead us on and manipulate Rolance into the war, given the "JRPG equivalent of Chernobyl" comments I'd heard, but thankfully there wasn't such a nonsensical retcon. She taunts Sorry after having the snot beaten out of her and just talks about la la la goody-two-shoes crap that's really just brim and bluster. When we go to impale her, she dissipates, taking her domain with her. The real Sergei's fine but two of his men aren't, nor are any of the Hyland soldiers. The twerp said he wanted to die happy by killing at least one Hylander, and is reminded that Hyland's soldiers are people too, and that we shouldn't blindly rush into conflict if we can avoid it. The citizens thank Sergei for saving the boy like a knight's supposed to and put their trust in him. Sergei is shocked that he's not overrun with malevolence but that's because Hideo Baba didn't want him to be, and thought of justification as to why being his convictions. It's so inconsistent.

None of this was quite as bad as I was anticipating. But I have a feeling I've saved the biggest writing disaster for last, especially with what I've heard about Rose's hypocrisy. This is probably when that rears its ugly head. I haven't noticed anything hypocritical - she condemned Cardinal Forton for her self-righteousness causing endless amounts of people to suffer, not just for her idealism. Rose hasn't yet caused anyone to suffer. YET. Big difference between partisan condemnation for having disagreeing ideals (a la political tribalism) and accusing someone of having ideals that leads to the suffering of many, i.e. through that eternal rain.

Anyway, I stop there for now. Can't say I'm looking forward to this next part.

Strap in on the roller-coaster, peoples! It's going to be a bumpy ride~

I get to Loegres and hear whispers of a local Robin Hood ripping off from the rich and throwing money into the street. The only piece of evidence is a note that essentially amounts to "ATTN: Lunarre; Love, Boss." Yup, it's Rose's handiwork, all right. I go to the inn and stay the night, then overhear a conversation between Lunarre and a noble who's hired him as a hitman. Apparently, three of the five Scattered Bones members are to be executed come morning, and Rose is still at large trying to free them (as is the one who got away to warn her of what had happened). Lunarre runs out when the client says it's none of his business where the boss lady went off to and since he worked with her, he can find her.

I find Rose on the stage. She's fighting Lunarre. I relieve her, and she goes to release her brethren from their bindings. So, uh, they were left hung out to dry overnight like that? They're not being held in a jail cell over by Sergei's garrison? Was there even a guard here? Did Lunarre kill a pair of them? I'm sorry, but this is some really weird math here. I beat the shit out of Lunarre, with Rose eventually joining in the fracas after she frees Eguille and the others. Never really cared to learn all their names. The one who got away shows up to help his sister, too, and Rose stabs Lunarre in the chest after he refuses to accept purification. He bursts into flames for no reason, singing about how the sentiment of Rose's "fake family" relationships really kills him. Literally so.

Rose says she'll take care of things, but I'm most astonished that she and her Sparrowfeathers just fly away when they were, y'know, scheduled to be hung in the morning. Nobody comes to be like "lol, no, and you're ALL being hung now." They just up and leave like they never did anything, when Rose had murdered Cardinal Forton - more on her later - and now was ripping off of nobles who were footing the bill for the Rolance army, because they had a stake in it or something. Politicians, basically. And she just got away with all of this with on consequences. Personally, I don't quite see what's wrong with her doing what she did, seeing as that was money being used for war, and instead she could help feed some people who were struggling. It was for the good of the populace. Her logic is sound and her motives are pure. There's no problem with those.

There IS, however, a problem with how Rose ALWAYS has sound logic and pure motives. It's like if a job interviewer asked you "Tell me about a time you made a mistake." - they're really looking for 1) that you take responsibility for your humanity, 2) that you don't dwell on anyone else's mistakes much, and 3) that you learned a lesson and rectified things going forward. If you say "I don't make mistakes" you're instantly unhireable because of how you lack self-awareness and/or are a cocky SOB. Rose has both self-awareness and isn't overly cocky, and yet... she could legit answer that she doesn't make mistakes. Which, in turn, would not get her a job. This is a problem, because she's literally too perfect; there's no character flaw that makes her relatable. There's nothing she ever does that is wrong, and that in turn makes her a boring character and a Mary Sue. I hate those. Back when I wrote an epic Pokemon fanfic (never finished that), the protagonist was kinda like that at first but there WAS going to be misfortune and there WERE going to be mistakes, they just weren't going to happen until later and that was my mistake. I need to establish character flaws early and ensure that someone isn't perfect. Rose did not get this treatment. This is amateur writing. She always does what's right for the most people. She always just walks away as if she's a saint. Though I've heard people call her a hypocrite, I haven't quite seen that myself - she only killed Cardinal Forton because of how many people were suffering at her hands.

I leave town, Rose in tow, and Symone appears out of nowhere to taunt me, saying "Battle of the century. Glaveid Basin. What kind of Shepherd are you, missing out on the action?" I get to the battlefield in a hurry and am actually able to enter it now. There's just one problem: Somebody forgot to put the BEWARE OF THE DARGON sign out. Typo included! Seems like Maotelus spawn is murdering soldiers faster than they can murder each other, in part due to Godzilla being eight hundred times their size. And, uh, everyone's panicking, retreating, and nobody knows whose side they're on anymore, just that this overgrown lizard is killing people at an alarming rate.

After taking out some daemon soldiers, I encounter a Toitolez and fill up on Life Bottles and the goods. This is a frustratingly long battle, but with epic choreography strewn in between. Even more frustrating is that, after the first part, it suddenly heals back to full health just because there was a cutscene, as if that part didn't count, and my 152 hit streak isn't counted at the end (though I DID get a new battle action so I presume it did stick). Alisha and Sergei make a quick truce on the sidelines. Lucas, the mercenary from the start of the game who I haven't seen in a significantly long time, is serving in the Hyland Army still, and he rallies the troops. They start firing arrows at the big scaly thing in the way. And this makes the second half of the fight a whole lot easier, because his spellcasting is frequently interrupted by arrows and this lets me finally get Mystic Artes off, which I had been locked out of before that for whatever reason. This leads to an epically satisfying ascent, where Sorry and Rose take the dragon to the skies and purify him into the clouds, killing the seraph in the process. This is awesome, even though the AMV felt like there was a lot of dilly-dallying. This really is a satisfying conclusion to all the tension between Hyland and Rolance; the buildup was well-executed.

Rose and Sorry land in Volgran Woods nearby, and are able to move about just fine but go to the old hideout anyway. They lay down and are comatose for three days. They didn't even act tired, but I guess dragon slaying will do that, unless you're Coach. The seraphs wondered when they'd both get up, and they only needed a little bit of sleep. We head over to Lastonbury (yeah, I know it's LastonBELL, but I combine it with its old name, okay?) and Alisha and Lucas are at the gates, with Sorry not realizing that Lucas was her bodyguard. Sergei comes and negotiates a temporary truce with Alisha, saying she'll get an audience with the emperor... all the while Lucas just imbibes. Since Sorry, for whatever reason, says he's not going with Alisha (what else does he have to do right now? The Empyrean's Throne can wait), I get a potential romantic implication between Alisha and Sergei, a sort of "Hey, Hyland's princess married a general from Rolance! PEACE!" kind of thing. It's the type of political marriage that can actually reap benefits, or at least get the dominoes falling.

There's this fantastic sequence at night told by narration from Rose and Lailah up by the bell, with them kibitzing as they talk about what Zaveid and Edna are talking about, though they're kind of wrong. Zaveid is chasing dreams and flirting, and it's not going well. They also talk about Sorry and Mikleo, who go from talking about there being as many stars as there are emotions, and romanticism... until Sorry changes the subject about closing his senses. Apparently, he's willing to go into a coma so Maotelus can inhabit him and something something ALL HUMANS WILL HAVE GREATER RESONANCE something something. I guess that makes sense...? Maybe...? I don't quite know how one Shepherd's body would accomplish that, but it WOULD help end the daemonblight and allow for human-seraphim cooperation, especially to stamp out the very evil people of the world, some of whom have already met their ends at our hands, like Cardinal Forton, Maltran, and Lunarre.

Really, this sequence is fantastically written and told - the camera work is great too, and it's nice that the romanticism comments pay off with Sorry being called a romantic before everyone calls him an idiot for wanting to give himself up. WHY HAVEN'T WE HAD MORE OF THIS? This feels like a lot more casual chatter, something that's been heavily missing from this game. All the skits - there haven't been that many, and they're at either inns or save points for some inane reason (instead of being easily accessible at any time). I think this stupid mechanic severely restricted the amount of skits, and most of those that we get are business-related, even if at times they devolve into Edna and Lailah trolling Mikleo. Sure, there's stuff about the Beef Bourguignon and such, but that's quite rare. This scene felt very casual and made the party feel more like friends who understand one another. Berseria was much better in this regard, with Magilou's antics and Rokurou's subtle trolling devolving many a skit, plus things like Magilou's failed career as a stand-up comic and all the Bienfu abuse.

Sorry decides to leave Lastonbury in the middle of the night so he can remember the night under the stars forever. Because he's a romantic, of course. I am spawned outside town and I can't go back in because I can't. And all the sidequest dialogues are finally available with Rose and some of them are in Rolance (Code Red IDs, Mayvin's Grave), and I can't quite get there because the shortcut TO Rolance is through the woods, so... welp. There's one I can take care of quickly: The Medusa sisters. They're back in their hole in the wall village, the one with their family name. There's two of them, but I'm stronger and they aren't, so I don't have much of a problem. It takes me two tries since I got an insanely unlucky break shortly before killing one of them in my first go - that and I had forgotten how to react quickly enough, but I get the gist again fast and purify the crap out of them. I end for the night on a skit about choosing the path of light or darkness - it's a choice since we have free will, and all three sisters chose darkness because of an epidemic of a sleeping sickness that wiped out the rest of the village about 20 years ago. Apparently the soldiers - a patrol of both Hyland and Rolance goons - found records of Forton Village in such a short amount of time. Wow!

But yeah, as you can see, tonight had some very high highs, but also some lows. The up-and-down nature of all this makes me understand why people think it was a disaster. How can it so quickly switch between shoddy writing and good writing? How are there so many things to complain about even when I'm enjoying it? Why are there so many stretches where I'm NOT enjoying it? Here, I had:

• The Lunarre sequence, which I hated
• The battle in Glaveid Basin, which I loved
• The aftermath of the battle, which was eh
• The Lastonbury sequences, which started okay but got great later
• Some stupid BS after that too

This feels like a rush job, with more effort focused on certain aspects than others, and that's probably why the first half of the game was mostly pretty dull. The payoff here is great, but there's still major holes in the writing that make me think nobody went over this to revise details and ask questions about why stupid things are stupid. Including Sorry.

I'm definitely close to endgame and I'm looking forward to laying this one to rest. More coming soon!

Oh yeah - forgot to mention Dezel's spirit blowing his hat off Zaveid's head. A nice little touch. Also didn't mention that Zaveid didn't turn and look when a hot (human) chick walked by behind him. You'd think he'd be checking her out, with the short shorts and legs. I mean... I noticed. She was that noticeable.

Also, with the climax behind me, I thought I'd do a character ranking but most of this cast is just whatever, and my ambivalence toward the lot of them is quite similar. Top 3 are Edna, Alisha, and Lailah, probably in that order (none of them would be in my top 10 Tales characters - meanwhile Abyss has three there). Then probably Zaveid and Dezel. Then Sorry, Mikleo, and Rose. Really, though, this cast is unremarkable, and I legit do not care what happens to any of them. That's the sign of a poorly written game. You'd think when I'm over 80 hours in (I have no idea why it has taken me that long tbh, probably my "leave no stone unturned" philosophy, plus playing on Hard) that I'd care about this cast by now. I just don't.

Sorry is boring, and his design and personality are as "generic JRPG protagonist" as you can get. I don't hate him, but am I going to be able to tell you a thing about him or his backstory in five years? No. This topic may help me recall more details, like him and Mikleo being orphans from a destroyed village. And that - plus the ruins thing which kinda disappeared after we cleared the elemental temples - are the only things tying them together, the only story threads relevant. Mikleo is a good punching bag for Edna and Lailah, but that's the extent of his personality. There's not much there. We don't see many nuances of character. The discussion between our cousins was great and reminded me how that had been missing - you establish characters' personalities through their fun times together, and this game has been devoid of that. This is why I will only remember Mikleo as "punching bag for the jokester and the prankster."

Edna the prankster is an epic troll but has nothing else going for her. Yeah, she's Eizen's sister, but that's about the only backstory we have; we've hardly seen what their relationship is like at this point, and only got those details in Berseria. We don't know how that changed over time, or even how long Eizen's pirating days lasted for. Edna certainly found out eventually, but she's said nothing about what Eizen's like. While she has mad troll skillz, her personality doesn't really have many other fleshed-out facets to it, nor does she have a journey edit where she's still grappling with her brother having turned into a dragon. This is what's missing - a vulnerable side, mostly related to that, and that would've made things a lot more interesting, especially if Eizen's transformation had only happened recently as opposed to years prior.

Lailah the jokester had her previous journey with the last Shepherd, Sorry's father and Mikleo's uncle, but that's the only backstory we got. She's just a typical seraph aside from being the Prime Lord, one who was born after the events of Berseria (unlike Edna and Zaveid), but is still quite advanced in age compared to humans. She has a notorious addiction to puns, wants to find "the perfect curl" or whatever unmemorable crap that was, and seems to be easily roped into things. There's also that stuff about a pact she made that she can't violate, but that was only used as a story device to withhold things from the player until later. It didn't culminate with anything relevant to her.

Zaveid has probably the most memorable story here given his relevance from Berseria, affinity for the ladies, rivalry with Dezel, and general cavalier attitude - but that's not saying much, seeing as how most of the others have virtually no story. Dezel's death was something, but that - alongside his design (it's the hat) - were the only things that stood out about him. His blindness and vengeance against Symone are nothing remarkable, since he was discarded instead of enacting said vengeance in epic fashion. It would have been far superior if he had gotten to kill her by sacrificing himself.

This leaves just Alisha and Rose. You all know which one I prefer here, and it's not just because I love Alisha's design and find Rose's boring. No, it's because Alisha brings out the best in Sorry, and she is a compassionate person even though she's a bit gullible and emotional, despite masking it well. She was duped by Maltran for years and this shows depth and flaws that Rose couldn't hope for. My rant on Rose is above. I don't quite hate her (Emil is probably my most hated), but she is being portrayed infallibly, and thus this is mild disdain. At the very least she got used to the seraphim talking inside her head, but that storyline was left behind and was never given any finality. "Yeah, I just needed to get used to it. Sorry I was rude." This was excluded because it would portray Rose more negatively than her boyfriend wanted, I presume.

Really, the best thing I have to say is some of the character designs. Alisha and Dezel are both great. Edna, Mikleo, and Lailah are also pretty strong here. I'm too straight to enjoy Zaveid's shirtlessness. I find Sorry's design generic, and Rose's boring.

So yeah, quick aside over. Hope to finish this off real soon.

Oh yeah, played a TON last night. Not much to say, honestly. Because for the most part, there wasn't much to talk about.

Another pointless ruin in Glaveid Basin, which took over an hour and a half to clean out and kill the boss and whatnot. Not sure why these places exist, exactly, but they do, so I explore.

I get to Marlind and, on a tip from one of Rose's assassins, find out that the guy who murdered the kids is some NPC I've never heard of named Romano. His goons are mercenaries; two of them head for the hills when Rose claims she's one of the Scattered Bones, and then we have to beat the crap out of the other two. This takes me two tries, and it's not an easy fight. Afterward, Romano goes on some rant about how only people who truly understand and appreciate art should be able to have it, and you can't put money on it so stealing is the best way, and it doesn't matter if some brats have to die for it, it's none of his business. Rose just says "fuck it" and stabs him in the heart. Good riddance. And it turns out the two thugs are wanted in both Hyland and Rolance for numerous murders and raids.

After staying at the inn a few times, Sorry decides something he needs to do, having been inspired by the fight with the dragon in the basin. That something? Kill Eizen. Can't let Edna and Zaveid have that baggage for another few hundred years, since apparently Eizen turned 2-3 centuries ago. This is weird. Why, you ask? Because Zaveid tells a very tearful Edna "You know what your brother told me? "When I become a dragon, kill me. I can't let Edna suffer for it."" So................ he waited 250 years???? WHAT??? Edna is broken down and I'm struggling against the monsters at Rayfalke Spirit Crest, the mountain on which Eizen and Edna were born and staying, because they suddenly changed from weaklings to stronglings. Zaveid went ahead and Edna's busy crying.

Edna realizes that this is what's best, that her brother doesn't even recognize her anymore (which is why she gave herself permission to leave on a journey with a Shepherd), and he's nothing but a mindless monster. Sorry is right: The way to free him from the pain of being a dragon is to kill him. The fight is ridiculous; I take so much damage early that I spend an All-Divide, and suddenly this fight reaches Nebilim lengths. I am NOT kidding you. It wasn't hard - I was just spamming Saint's arRow and the like while fused with Mikleo, but it was LONG. As Eizen fell off the mountain in dragon form, I was like "Wow, that took me an hour." Sure enough, it took me an hour!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/4/AAR0ZFAADzbS.jpg

And, yes, as you notice, I bought the swimsuits for the ladies (that was another project last night that took considerable time). Just for the ladies. Because I was getting bored and thought that was a good use for five bucks, including going back for a bit and playing around with Alisha in hers. Also I like Rose's hat (you know I have a hat fetish, yes?) and it looks good on Edna too (and Alisha, but I didn't get a pic for w/e reason - will change that and load an old save), particularly the band around it:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/5/AAR0ZFAADzbT.jpg

I saved and quit after that since it was 1:30 am. I regret that 3 pm coffee I had but I knew what I was getting into. Tonight should be better, but I gotta do a movie.

But yeah, that fight with Eizen was rough on me, having played Berseria first and getting to know him when he wasn't mindless. I knew this was coming. I knew he was a boss fight in Zestiria as a dragon. And he needed to be released from his curse, which strangely wasn't mentioned at all. Edna really didn't go into detail about her relationship with him, as I noted above, and she should have. This wouldn't have been emotional for me if I hadn't played Berseria, but that retcon helped me actually feel something here. And seeing Eizen's gravestone set up hit me. That said, his drinking buddy Rokurou has been long gone, as are Eleanor and Magilou, Velvet's soul is sealed away suppressing Innominat, and Maotelus isn't the same as Laphicet, honestly. He reinvented himself. But even so... Maotelus was the answer to curing Eizen. There's only one thing that could have, a possibility I'd entertained earlier: Omega Elixir. Maotelus would surely oblige since it's Eizen, someone he was eternally thankful for.

That's all I did and thought about. Long post for little actual content though! Will play more soon, probably not tonight though. Gotta get a movie in for the other project.

Played some last night. A lot of the time was devoted to escaping Rayfalke Spiritcrest, since that area's monsters are VERY rough. These were not the same ones from when I first met Edna, and because Lord of the Land buffs, they were ROUGH. The good news: I got some good equipment, and was able to go back and save to ensure I didn't lose it. I died twice and had to redo that, so I learned, lol.

I got back to Ladylake and after I save a Katz from some bratty children outside Alisha's manor and a skit at the inn, Rose suggested visiting Eizen's grave again. The WUT? I just escaped that mountain and now the game wants me to go right back there? Yeah, no, I'm just gonna warp and pay the fee. So that's what I do. Edna learns Shooting Stars, her ultimate Mystic Arte, and that one is lively and badass. After the game fails to activate it on its own (seriously, she had a 3-hit combo, and it requires a 4), I just go ahead and do it once she has 5 BP. Worth it, even if Edna controls pretty clunkily. I do wonder how the others get their Mystic Artes since this is the only one I've gotten as of yet.

After visiting Eizen's grave, I head back to Elysia. I get into Aroundight Forest and something is very, very wrong. Heldalf has come through with the goons he converted on the battlefield and turned the place into a malevolent mess. He overwhelmed Gramps' domain and left some more strong monsters here. Mythril monstrosities... and this daemon sorcerer that's, as Rose would later put it, "a son of a submariner." No idea where THAT one came from, but yeah, that was a brutal fight and it was something in my way. I manage to get to the exit and waiting for me is none other than Orthrus - yup, Niko's dogs, still fused together after 1000 years. I beat the crap out of him and this is easier than the resistant-to-everything sorcerer, but still depletes me. Also worth noting: The game changed my party composition so Lailah and Mikleo were the active seraphs........... the two that Orthie and Russ are of course resistant to. It's a middle finger to those being smart about who you put in your party, a poor and unnecessary attempt to inconvenience a player.

Elysia is a ghost town. Sorry's bedroom is inaccessible since the daemon knights made a mess because Heldalf said to not let anyone get away. But some of the soldiers were so rich with malevolence that they turned on each other, losing their damn minds, and Heldalf had just sat back and relished it. We worry about the others until we get to Gramps's house, where we're repelled by a barrier. Sorry knocks on it and he and Mikleo announce their presence, and everyone comes out SUPER happy to see them. Everyone except Gramps, that is. Honestly, I don't even remember these people's names, save for Natalie, Mason's wife, who's still coping with her husband being eaten alive. I was hoping I got to tell her that Rose killed the motherfucker, but nope (hmm... Mason was a fire seraph, perhaps Lunarre bursting into flame was his doing?). They didn't do a very good job at getting me to care about Elysia - really, the only one I didn't want anything bad to happen to was Natalie since that would be just too cruel, after all that grieving.

Gramps apparently went to fight off Heldalf and had everyone garrison within a barrier that repelled anyone from outside, but whoever it was leading in Gramps's absence changed it so Sorry and Rose's biosignatures were admitted in and out just the same. I head back out and find Symone taunting me again. Seriously, when do we get to finally kill her? Hopefully soon, because she just disappears after completing her assignment. Heldalf wants Sorry to be paranoid and worrisome, which will allow him to manifest with malevolence. Sorry is aware of this and is magically fighting it off. Because the plot demands he has to. Really, "malevolence" is a lame plot device in this game - it manifests when the plot needs it to, but when it doesn't need to, there's always some excuse as to why it doesn't. Berseria did a much better job making it clear that all humans have malevolence, but it only manifests into daemonblight if you let it consume you. Here, it's inconsistent. Cardinal Forton had malevolence overtake her despite her believing her ideals were pure, but other baddies - the priest serial killer, for example - didn't experience that. What's the diff?

Now, for whatever reason, I can warp to Rolance. Probably because plot device Gramps will fend off Heldalf until I complete whatever dumb sdiequests had to wait until this time. I warp to Lohgrin and get a tip about a poet named Mayvin in a cave nearby; apparently she's been dead a few hundred years but she was a prior Storyteller of Time. "Mayvin" is a clan name, and their role in history is to ensure people continue to know it - punishment for Melchior Mayvin doing the horrendous deeds he did, according to Zaveid. "The first one did something bad, this is the punishment" - and that comes with immortality as long as you keep the oath, so you get to live long enough to see all your loved ones die. Who Wants to Live Forever and all that jazz.

I next head to the Camelot Bridge for the tip about strong daemons and there's one in the wetlands by where Reneed used to be. But I don't quite get there before I get too tired to keep playing, so that'll have to wait until next time. The plan was to warp to Lohgrin and work my way back. That's still the plan. Tonight's a movie night so maybe tomorrow after Survivor.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Now, for whatever reason, I can warp to Rolance. Probably because plot device Gramps will fend off Heldalf until I complete whatever dumb sdiequests had to wait until this time. I warp to Lohgrin and get a tip about a poet named Mayvin in a cave nearby; apparently she's been dead a few hundred years but she was a prior Storyteller of Time. "Mayvin" is a clan name, and their role in history is to ensure people continue to know it - punishment for Melchior Mayvin doing the horrendous deeds he did, according to Zaveid. "The first one did something bad, this is the punishment" - and that comes with immortality as long as you keep the oath, so you get to live long enough to see all your loved ones die. Who Wants to Live Forever and all that jazz.

I'm surprised you didn't have more to say about that, given how strongly implied it is about who that Mayvin actually is.

Mewtwo59 posted...

I'm surprised you didn't have more to say about that, given how strongly implied it is about who that Mayvin actually is.

I wasn't sure tbh. In part because 1) there's no Bienfu and instead we have an Aksha with whom I wasn't familiar, 2) it was just 300 years as opposed to 1000, and 3) "poet" isn't exactly how I'd describe Magilannica Lou Mayvin.

I also played that late last night and some of the connections might've been lost on me. Of course, the secret to immortality might've been something Magilou inherited after her step-monster got his comeuppance. But he's the one whose actions cursed the clan, yes? That connection I made. I'm just trying to figure out the weird family tree here!

Also thanks for confirming you're still reading. These are becoming low-effort too so...

Played a little more last night to prevent myself from falling asleep. What a weird day yesterday was - I don't even remember forgetting that detail!

I took out the wyvern in Pletzerback Wetland. Apparently this was somebody Zaveid knew, someone he'd made a pact with on "a previous journey" in the same area many years before, probably back when Reneed still existed and that place wasn't nearly uninhabitable. I'm not sure who this could be since Zaveid wasn't playable in Berseria. It's not Velvet, who was sealed away and had her therion form. It's not Rokurou, who was also a daemon to begin with. It's not Eizen, who we killed already (RIP). It's not Laphicet, who's now Maotelus. It's not Magilou, who's buried in Trizolde Cave. And Eleanor wouldn't make any sense. Looking it up, it was one of the wyverns from Lothringen (yeah, back before it was "partial"), the one he'd stopped Velvet and Eizen from killing in that whole fracas. Easy to forget that part of that sequence given everything else that transpired. Anyway, this fight unlocks Zaveid's ultimate Mystic Arte, which I've yet to see.

After this, I hike back through Rolance to Loegres, and there I see Sergei who says the two sides have agreed to peace, but the details haven't been worked out yet because politics. What he says sounds uncannily realistic. The conservatives are refusing to budge on their principles and aren't willing to negotiate. The progressives are trying anything they can to gain political power and drown the other side out. Seriously, this sounds like OUR world. It sucks being a moderate, I guess. I have people ask me how I can support both outlawing abortion and a situational death penalty. And that's because I think logically, not politically. Logic would indicate that nothing really needs to change with this treaty aside from border control measures, so there aren't any further skirmishes or battles.

After this, I head into the woods by Lastonbury to check on the two remaining kids and tell them we killed the bad guys. Unfortunately, by returning to the same place and constantly recalling the death of her friends, the girl becomes hellionized again, and Talfryn (one of Rose's assassins, the guy in the hat who got away) is trying to calm her down. Sorry just goes and purifies her instantly, but it's too late. The other kid is dead, and this one... may or may not be. Sorry rues that he wasn't actually able to save anyone, but Rose talks him down by saying if he hadn't managed to purify her the first time, she could've killed many people. She always knows what to say, and never needs comforting herself, after all.

Also, Berseria was CLEARLY being planned when this late-game NPC dialogue was written, and it's unclear what was added later in this game to tie in. Like, Vortigern is there, but it's in a desert and looks like a dried-up wall; this may have been added later with the thought to make it a major dungeon in Berseria. A random NPC in Loegres talks about seeing an old map of what became Glenwood, and how different it was, and how "a lot of guesswork" had to go into it. That last part we know to be untrue, but that's what time will do. People aren't aware of this stuff. There are a lot of tie-ins, including Zaveid mentioning Melchior, the grave that's probably Magilou's, the wyvern... they really tied the two games together at this point, but it feels forced. It doesn't feel natural. It just feels like they tacked a lot of stuff on and that's probably why a lot of people ended up confused. I think I figured out the secret to not outright hating Zestiria: Play Berseria first.

Now, I would by all means consider this a mediocre JRPG, and especially a sub-par Tales game. The first two thirds of the game is devoid of anything exciting or interesting; the buildup is thrown away to replace Alisha with Rose, and the lack of conflict or tension for too long a period makes it boring. It only starts to get interesting when the Dezel/Symone drama unfolds, but the writing is so uneven after this - there are parts that are great, particularly the climax (in no small part due to "Rising Up"), but other parts that are downright terrible (the entire Lunarre thing in Loegres, as well as how confusing the Symone thing is) - that it isn't as engaging as it could be. It honestly feels like they KNEW Berseria would have to exist as they built this part, so that in turn shows issues with the writing of this game.

I also gotta say that the battle system is really boring by now. Armatization has long lost its novelty, and that mechanic makes it easy to overpower foes with their weaknesses, making it harder when you're not linked up. It's imbalanced. What's worse is the skill system - you have no real way to control what skills you have on your weapons, but at least you're not getting hundreds of 'em like in Berseria. I'd prefer a mechanic that could let you choose skills to add to weapons for a fee. You'd have to pay a blacksmith each time instead of getting each skill for free ONCE when you encounter the normin it's tied to, using a very unintelligently-designed UI. You can't even check how adding those skills affects your loadout! There's a lot of back-and-forthing there and it's obnoxious to figure out. If you're designing a game, you should play this one to see how NOT to do a UI. But yeah, the normin should simply unlock the ability to add that skill to a weapon at the smith; each weapon has one innate skill and three other slots, just as it is now. Just pay 500 gald for the first column skills, 1000 for the second, 2000 for the third, etc. Also increase the gald output by 25% because 256,000 for the last column isn't easy to come by. That's all I have right now and it's endgame, where my gald total is usually in the millions.

So yeah, this game is pretty mediocre. And, going into the grand finale, I'm thinking it's just a 5/10 game. That's higher than I've seen some people give it. There's nothing particularly WRONG with it - I don't outright hate any of the cast, but I don't really like any of them either. It's mostly ambivalence. I don't care what happens to any of them. I don't care who wins in the end. There's nothing that's made me wholly invested in their story, what little of it there is. There hasn't been enough drama or tension between party members. Really, the only fun part was Edna and Lailah trolling Mikleo on the regular.

We'll see how the finale is, of course. I haven't quite seen the Chernobyl-level disaster people speak of yet, just a few shoddily-written parts like... the Scattered Bones execution nonsense. Like WTF was that shit? Was that written by the same 6 y/o that wrote the terrible scene in Marlind where Rose was whining about how Sorry had to leave? This is why you need someone to read over your work. I'd be extremely critical of this, and also ask "What about the FUN scenes? This party seems all business. When they aren't so serious, they're great, but those moments are rare." I blame Rose.

Minor updates only. Killed a dragon knight in the basin, by where I fought the dragon itself. Apparently it hated us or something. Found Katz Village - it hasn't changed at all in 1000 years, and the Katz even mention the Berseria visit ("Maotelus" specifically). I die against the vigilante Toitolez there... yeah, not trying that again for a while. I instead start clearing crucible fights - took care of Rose's and Edna's. Also found something at the end of the Earth Temple (I'll check the others later). All these fights were easy, though the latter crucible was longer since Edna is slow (I'd love controlling her if she were faster). Only one to go...

I think that's all I have to report.

Last night: Played another crucible with Rose and Zaveid. Went into the temple - you know, the one where the game started. It's tough in here but there are only three enemy types... and one coward named Symone. She's throwing illusions at us, including copies of ourselves that fall to Mystic Artes pretty easily.

The first of these illusions might have been real: Mikleo's mother, Muse, was fighting off a bunch of thugs, including one of the Hyland higher-ups (I don't remember who was who and they were such irrelevant characters, save for Maltran, that I never needed to - but this was probably Fartlow) and is the only one left alive. She insists she go fight off Heldalf or something and talks about the kids she left with Zenrus (Gramps, who this temple was built to worship by a people of older times who considered him Zeus) being raised to be... who she's talking to. She doesn't seem to recognize her own child and nephew are 18 years older and right in front of her, and she disappears to die since her staff is left behind, which Mikleo can equip even though it's weaker than most of what I have. This was meant to be emotional and it was, but there's nothing to hold onto. It would have been better to explain how she was still alive, because that just came out of nowhere, hence why I immediately presumed this was one of those illusions conjured by Symone even though this was before the game told me she was there. It would have been better had Muse been in a role like that of Mayvin (in addition to him) and operating under a different name, only for him to reveal who she really was later. They would add significant emotional impact to this scene and not get me to dismiss it as Symone fucking with us to generate malevolence. This reeks of the fake Aball.

I hit midway and, after a skit that makes absolutely no sense due to the poor dialogue, notice that there are suddenly more sidequests. One is putting a bow on Alisha's story. This guy, a liaison trying to keep the peace - is pushing her around for "assistance" of some kind. Implied sexual. Alisha is too nice to be a strong decision maker, and he calls her out for this. He asks what kind of leader acts like that and isn't at least somewhat of an asshole. He's got a point, really. Alisha might not be cut out for this, and she's still holding onto "a knight's kindness serves the people" even though she doubts Maltran was doing anything other than spouting whatever bullshit sounded good at the time. This is also true - there's nothing more selfless than self-sacrifice for the greater good, so long as it really is the greater good. War is not typically one of those things, unless you're smiting terrorists who don't hesitate to murder civilians en masse.

I leave Ladylake and, after changing a tire on a wagon for somebody, Rose suddenly turns on me and kills me. I'm not joking. This was apparently just a "training session" but I still have to win, and she gained six levels of of nowhere. This is dumb, and not a fun dumb like the Yuri/Flynn "sparring match" from Vesperia. I try the Toitolez fight instead and though I don't need the All-Divide right away, he still slaughters me. I'll need to go kill Symone and gain a few more levels (including for equipment) before I have any hope in either fight.

Just trying to finish things up as much as I can. It's not going that fast. The monsters here are tough, including sub-bosses and the like.

Symone was pretty weak and Sorry just left her there crying for whatever reason, instead of finishing the job. Not totally sure why. She was spouting bullshit and I was just yadda-yadda-yaddaing that corny dialogue. None of it made sense since it all felt forced, so I just blew it off and promptly forgot.

I eventually get to the Empyrean's Throne - now branded with Artorius's name, since this was his folly - and it's now suspended over a huge pool of malevolence. The ground near the entrance is gone. This doesn't even feel like the same place! I presume this was the doing of sealing Innominat and giving Maotelus the power instead, plus the other Empyreans shifting the land and such. All this said, the monsters are still strong and the place is still sprawling, and the paths still feel the same even though they're suspended in the air.

I didn't get very far in the Throne but that's for another time. I did try the two boss fights again and still failed. Welp.