I should be able to do the "end of day" post fairly easily, but after that comes actual COMBAT in the game and making weapons and such, so from there you're free to suggest weaponry choices and choose who Pratty romances at the end of each day. As a sort of precursor to the later post, the list of weapons are:
Opening Cutscene Bonanza Part 3-THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Alright, I'm back, and with the end of the first day. The second day is when you actually get to kill things and forge weapons.
After Pratty and Sugar get acquainted to each other, it's time to head upstairs to your workshop. Bron's standing outside it, so it's kinda hard to miss.
The inside of the workshop has a savepoint, a healing bed, and a forge. As such throughout most of the game it will become your base of operations as you fight through the world.
Other than going to the workshop, there's really nothing left for the day...
But never fear! Bron is here, saving us from the horrible fate of not making swords!
or not.
Sugar suggests that she and Pratty take an evening walk, 'cause with Bron busy, it's not like they have anything better to do. Pratty agrees, and they go off to the harbor.
This is the first evening segment of the game, and the only one where you have no choice who you spend time with. The evening segments provide character development, and the last one that you choose changes some of the final scenes around. This is where the visual novel element comes in, but not all of the relationships pursued are romantic.
...I think.
Anyways, Pratty and Sugar arrive at the harbor. Sugar mentions that she hasn't been there in a long time, and it's really a beautiful place. Pratty, meanwhile, sees a docked boat, and because of her inner pirate, decides to board it.
Sugar: "Won't we get in trouble for doing that without asking?"
Pratty: "Of course not! Now come on!"
They board the boat, and Sugar is the next one to speak.
Sugar : "It's so nice here..."
Pratty: "It is nice...(yawn) I'm so tired..."
Sugar: "..."
Pratty: "What's wrong?"
Sugar: "...Nothing. I'm just very glad to have met you, Master Pratty."
Pratty: "I'm glad I met you, too!"
Pratty: "I want to win this tournament and become a great Craftlord, like Father. Will you help me?"
Pratty: "And why don't you stop calling me master Pratty?"
Sugar: "You don't like that?"
Pratty: "No...just call me Pratty."
Sugar: "Well...How about Miss Pratty, Master Pratty?"
Pratty: "On second though, let's stick with "master""
Sugar: "Yes, Master!"
Then, this segment happens.
Aww, well isn't that just swee-
wat
wat
wat
That's cold.
With that declaration of bisexuality and intent to marry, the day ends.
Next time: The best line in the entire game, COMBAT, and we meet a Tsundere.
Cut line: These come from after Bron talks to you in front of central tower, but I went and dithered about. I had no real good place to put them, but they are kinda funny.
Oh my god, this game is awesome. I wish I had gotten it years ago.
Also, I APPROVE OF STAY AT HOME DAD'S LIFESTYLE DECISION. I APPLAUD YOUR SACRIFICE, SIR, AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT YOU ARE NO LESS OF A MAN BECAUSE OF IT. THANK YOU.
Adventure stories! They can be fantasy, modern, sci-fi, all kinds! Give me some good world travel stories and I'm all over it! I also enjoy romance stories and even though I tend to play females I love playing gay men.
Adventure stories! They can be fantasy, modern, sci-fi, all kinds! Give me some good world travel stories and I'm all over it! I also enjoy romance stories and even though I tend to play females I love playing gay men.
This post has been broken up into smaller, bite-sized chunks for snacking on the go.
Alright, it's the start of the second day, and we've got swords to craft and monsters to slay. First, though, we need to change clothes, maybe have a small fanservice scene with Sugar, then go down and learn sword crafting from Bron.
Oh, well that saves us a lot of time.
Actually, now that I think about it, Pratty's room has no door, nor do any of the other kid's workshops/rooms. Does he want to just be able to barge in on his apprentices whenever he feels like? Or worse...does he quietly watch them sleeping?
God. This would be so much more horrible if he didn't immediately turn into Mr.T.
It's alright if you watch me sleep, Mr.T~
Pratty's still mildly annoyed, but she can't go calling out Mr.T, so she settles on growling. Bron tells her to behave, as the official from Central Tower has arrived, with a gift! Yes, I will do that zelda joke as many times as I can. :DeadHorse:
The labyrinth Key will let us go around and explore the labyrinth beneath town, which is where craftknights get their materials. It's also filled with monsters called stray summons. Pratty's not so hot on the idea of getting slaughtered by monsters, but never fear! Bron's here with some of his confidence-boosting skills!
Yes, Craftlords are badasses.
But today is not just a cutscene day! Today is a day of ACTION and VICTORY, MEETINGS and FRIENDSHIP. We're going to need to start making our own weapons for the tournament, so...
Tutorial time!
Always choose the dumbest option. Always.
Bron is rather annoyed that his apprentice, who has spent months-if not years-working with him to create weapons, remembers absolutely nothing on how to do it. But he's a nice guy, so he gives use the rundown anyways: you collect items, melt them down into the four elemental ores in the forge, then combine them in the right ratio for whatever weapon technique you are using and beat it into shape with your hammer. Simple.
...
Pratty's sheer idiocy aside, the conversation continues.
..um, yeah, I totally wasn't going to do that...
And with 300 boam, we can get 30 iron ore, which will be MORE than enough to get us through the day. Bron does remind us that we need to hurry, though, as there will be tons of other bargain hunters going out to get the ore early.
If you press Select after this, Pratty and sugar have a nice little conversation.
"There's nothing like sliding a long silver bullet into a well-greased chamber..."
With that, we get to actually leave the Silver Guild, and head on down to the Item Shop.
Only one thing to do in this situation...
Girl: "You...have I met you somewhere before?"
Girl: "Ah! I remember you now. You were there at the opening ceremony..."
Pratty: "Yup! you have a good memory. Do I stand out that much?"
Girl: "No, it wasn't that, but...hm."
Wow, what a...meanie...person...face.
Pratty: "What!? What do you mean by that?"
Girl: "Just as I said. And I'm not going to sell you my iron ore, slowpoke."
Girl: "I don't have time to mess with you. I'm going to the labyrinth now. See you!"
Pratty: "Great...What should I do now?"
Sugar: "For the meantime, why don't we tell Master Bron about the ore being sold out?"
Pratty: "You're right...let's go back and discuss this with Master."
Pratty: "Actually..."
Pratty's explanation happens off-screen, which saves me from having to read what just happened again..until Bron speaks up.
Gee, THANKS.
Pratty talks about how the girl was a total bi-er, jerk, and Bron gives us the name of this mysterious yet strangely annoying...stranger.
You see, Sanary is one of Bron's other apprentices. (who, strangely enough, does not seem to live at the Silver Guild. How come she gets a door with a lock and I don't!)
Bron told her-and all of his other apprentices-about the sale, because he can't afford to play favorites. Without access to Iron Ore, it seems we're just going to have to go into the labyrinth weaponless...
No, we can't borrow one of Bron's swords. A real craftlord would never use someone else's weapons.
No, we can't use any materials he has lying around. Because Pratty forgot to ask.
..We do?
....
By pressing A, you can swing the hammer. This looks cool, and is used to activate ancient technology and open locked crates. It is also used to break punier, lock-less crates and barrels.
Bang.
And we're off to go slaughter hordes of monsters in a dungeon deep below town with nothing more than a hammer. Yep, this is definitely what we should be sending children with no prior martial training to do.
The labyrinth guard is actually somewhat sensible, and tells us to go home until we get a weapon.
*dramatic pause*
And who can say no to that kind of sheer determination? Not this guy. He does give us some relaxing parting words, though.
That's not relaxing! That's not relaxing at all!
Upon entering the Layrinth, we are greeted by a glowing green teleporter panel. It'll become important later, and maybe then I will bother to show it to you guys.
Pretty quickly I get into a battle against some slime monsters. Now the battle system in this game isn't like final fantasy, instead being more akin to a fighting game.
This is what the battle screen looks like. The red bar is your health, and the green bar is your weapon durability. At the top of the screen you get the enemy stats.
You can jump (really freakin' high) with the up button.
You can run by double-tapping a direction.
You can block with the B button. This gets a little bit more complicated later. Blocking reduces the damage you take by 90%, but makes your weapon take a durability hit. If you time it juust right, though, this blue "guard" word will float up and you will take 0 damage, with your weapon taking less of a durability hit. Perfect Guards aren't much required early in the game, but they are extremely useful later on.
And lastly you can hit things, causing them to explode.
The Hammer is a special weapon; it never breaks. Ever. It is your emergency backup weapon, in case you somehow manage to shatter your swords of +150 bajillion awesome or something. In keeping with it's status as an emergency weapon, it sucks, providing no bonuses to your stats in a game where normally half of your offensive or defensive power comes from your weapon. So for now, I just run away from all the fights.
By walking up against one edge of the arena, the green gauge will slowly fill. When it reaches full, you escape. You can't run away from all fights, and monsters can interrupt your fleeing (getting a damage bonus because you have your back to them!), so you can't just flee willy-nilly.
After a hearty round of RUNNING THE HELL AWAY, we run into an all-too-familiar face..
Pratty: "I never told you to give it to me! Oh, and my name is Pratty!"
Sanary: "Well then, why are you exploring the labyrinth with just a hammer?"
Pratty: "Hehehe! A hammer is the mightiest weapon of all!"
Vulpine psychosis FTW!
Sanary: "Riiiight..well, if you're that determined to get materials, I might help you..."
Bring it.
Pratty: "Hey, don't just make things up!"
Sanary: "Now, now. You don't have to thank me yet. Here's the first question!"
hm, what would a prideful female craftknight want to hear...
Pratty: "Of course, a female one is greater, right? (I think that's what she wants me to say...)
Sanary: "You sure got that right! Now here's the second question."
Well, considering that most of them don't have portraits, I really can't say...
Pratty: "I think a female one looks cooler."
Sanary: "You're right. Male craftknights are just brutes with muscles all the way up to their brains."
Pratty: (with the exception of my father, that is.)
False. In fact, I will break your sword in half on my face.
Pratty: "Oh, that would be me who's going to win! I won't yield!"
Sanary: "Pretty bold, aren't we? Fine, I'll consider you my rival."
Sanary: "Okay. You can have these. Check it out."
*Sanary Exeunt*
Sugar: "Um...why was she so irritated?"
Pratty: "I don't know... but, let's see what she gave us."
If you hit the treasure chest with your hammer, this happens:
It's the weakest healing item in the game, curing 150 HP.
..which is more than our max right now, so it might be useful. If nothing else we can melt it down for materials later.
Well, there's just a little bit more exploration, and-hey, guess who we meet again!
Sugar: "Careful...She might pick on you again..."
Can you read her emotional state from the back of her head?
Sanary: "Who's there?"
Pratty: "Oh, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to disturb you or anything..."
Sanary: "I don't mind...This place isn't mine, so I won't tell you to leave."
Pratty: "Really? Thanks..."
You can't see it very well in this, but the fish swim back and forth. It's pretty cool.
Pratty: "How pretty. It's like an undersea observatory.
Sanary: "Mhm...my sister took me to this place a few years ago."
Sanary: "I always wanted to come back here again..."
Sanary: "I wanted to make it here without my sister's help...That's why this place is special to me."
Sanary: "Every time I come here, I feel that I'm getting closer to her."
Pratty: "Ahh. You really love your sister, don't you?"
Sanary: "I do. Well, I've chatted long enough. I should get going now. See ya."
*Sanary leaves*
Pratty: "Maybe Sanary is a good person after all?"
Sugar: "Maybe she is."
Well, there's another chest here, so it is just askin' for a whackin'.
THANK. GOD.
With that, I leave the dungeon and retreat to my craft-cave.
Start off by walking up to the forge and pressing A. It'll ask you whether you want to create materials or weapons. Go for materials, choose to create from items, and melt down the iron ore. That gives us enough materials to make the first weapon, which Bron gave us the technique for at the start of the day.
From that we go back out through the menus, this time choosing to create a weapon.
It pops up a list of the different weapon types, and right now we can only make a sword.
The blond-haired official from earlier in the day pops in to say hi, and with him comes...
Our first opponent is Chaves from the Gold Guild, the evil corporate rival to Bron's Silver Guild. Chaves is going to be tough with level one Pratty, level one Sugar, and a knife that we have never before used in our life. And by "tough" I mean "nigh-impossible".
Everyone kinda filters outta the room slowly, until you regain control of Pratty. Bron does teach you a new weapon technique before he leaves, though. Talking with Sugar afterwards brings up a rather nice exchange:
ah well, time to head outta the building, into the dungeon, and get this grinding on wi-
Oh goddamnit!
That said this cutscene is kinda important for Sugar's character development, so I'll be putting up all of it.
How does she even see? HOW?!
Amariss: "Oh, it looks like you've decided on a partner."
Amariss: "My, it's you, Sugar. You're going to be Pratty's Guardian Beast?"
Amariss: "It's been so long since we last met."
Sugar: "..."
Pratty: "Do you know each other?"
Amariss: "Of course I do. Sugar used to be your father's Guardian Beast."
Amariss: "Oh, by the way, Bron stopped by for a little chat."
Amariss: "About your little kiss♥"
Pratty: (Master...how can he find time to tell her that kind of a story...)
Amariss: "I heard that you were quite worried about it, but you shouldn't be."
Amariss: "Because you got your first kiss from me, Pratty."
Pratty: "That's a different story..."
Sugar: "Master Pratty...let's get going soon..."
Pratty: "Huh? Uh, yeah, sure." (She seems upset about something...)
Amariss: "With Sugar at your side, you'll be just fine. Hang in there, Pratty."
Pratty: "Uh. Sure!"
*Amariss Exeunt*
Pratty: "What's wrong, Sugar? You seem a little upset."
Sugar: "... ... ... ... ..."
Pratty: "Um..."
Oh.
Pratty: "Why?"
Oh.
Pratty: "My father's what?"
Sugar: "It doesn't matter...I have Master Pratty by my side now. So, please, take no heed."
Pratty: "Uh...okay Sugar, I'll forget about it!"
After that and all the strangeness of how accepting Amariss is to have her daughter living in a one-bed room with her magical extraplanar bisexual girl fiancé, it's sidequest time.
Yay!
First off we have a little girl and her family who live behind the item shop. The littler girl wants a cat. She does not have a cat. We are to fix this.
Not like we got anything more important to do.
You don't actually "get" the quest until talking to the old man of the family.
A quick trip to the harbor reveals the solution to everyone's problems!
Head on back to the old man, tell him about the cat..
And reap thine reward.
This is one of the magical weapon techniques for this day that we can't make with Sugar. Sugar's really good at crafting spears, swords, and the water element, but has fewer options when it comes to fire and drills/axes.
Expect me to get a lot of axes during this game. I hate axes.
With that done it's time for the second technique of the day, for which we have to talk to Stay-At-Home-Dad.
His wife needs a matchbook. We have a matchbook.
I hate you.
Those two are the only magical weapons I can't get for this day. How do I get the rest, you ask? Funny story...
Let me explain, by doing something else entirely.
If we talk to this old man by central tower, he explains "mystic ore", a strange stone that can be used to give weapons magical properties. Mystic ore is gained from defeating a special class of enemies in the labyrinth, and can be used to mutate normal weapon techniques into elemental versions.
Elemental versions of a technique are harder/faster/better/stronger, but are very weak against enemies of the same element.
When you have enough materials to make a weapon, and enough mystic ore for it's upgrade, trying to craft it will net you this dialog box:
Say "yes" and you get the magic variant of the same weapon.
Oh, and here's why I talked to the guy despite knowing this already:
grinding time. (That song does make grinding kinda fun, strangely. >.>)
The novice knife is our first sword-type weapon, and it does about twice the damage the hammer did. Quite handy.
Swords have a three-hit combo as their main attack, which does a fair job on most enemies. They have a lunge stab as their down+A attack, which trades power for a bit more range.
It makes quick work of the various slimes who tried to challenge me.
Now, despite all the talk about Sugar protecting me, she can't actually do anything until I intervene.
Accessed through the start menu, under "Support" we get to see Sugar. She has four slots for things that can aid us in battle.
Pressing A on an empty one brings up whether you want it to be an item or a magic spell to help you out. Now the items I have right now suck, so instead I go for magic.
Enchant Acqua is the only spell Sugar starts with, and it gives your weapon a damage boost while making it water-elemental. This overrides whatever element the weapon might be normally, so using it on your fire sword while fighting a fire mage makes the bad guys go "WTF HAX".
And this is what it looks like in the menu.
Sugar can only be called upon five times in any given battle, represented by the gems near the bottom of the battle screen. R will switch between the various support actions she can use, but you always have access to the "guard" command, which is just how Pratty blocks. B activates the chosen command, and after using a spell or an item one of your gems vanishes and the command switches back to Guard.
We can go deeper in the dungeon now with a fair bit of ease.
This is the start of the second floor, and the first one to have enemies other than slimes.
let's go see what treasure must be hiding behind that door next to us!
...
okay...
along the way, I run into a couple new enemies.
This is the Gremlin, the first elemental enemy. They're fire ghosts, and have two attacks: A headbutt and a breath of fire that hits you three times for low damage. The paper strips and rope on them have to do with japanese magic, but I'm no Abe no Seimei, so I can't really tell you about what, exactly, they're there for.
It's..an evil pumpkin. It bites you. But often it forgets you are there and wanders to talk to it's friends. Also it's called Pumpkeeno.
There's some crates in the level, which we can SMASH with our hammer to potentially get items.
Yes, supply crates have even invaded JRPGs. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
There's some more treasure on level two, but it's not particularly hidden or notable.
onwards, to floor three!
It's here where most of my leveling takes place.
When you level up, you get to choose where a point or two goes in addition to the generic stat boosts Pratty recieves. Defence and Attack do exactly what they sound like, while Agility determines how fast you can swing your weapon, run, and jump. I end up sinking most of my points into defence, because my general plan of attack on bosses involves letting them smack me in the face with swords until their arms are tired.
Sugar levels up a couple times too, but Guardian Beast leveling is much more boring. She only has one stat, MAG, which goes up with each level, and may or may not learn a spell.
She does, however, gain more uses for a spell-normally she starts out only being able to cast a spell once between resting, but with leveling she can get more charges. Combined with the early level at which she gets the healing spell this means I will probably never buy a healing item again.
I run across a couple of the "special enemies" that the old man was talking about-Spell Swords, magic floaty evil swords.
They're pretty tough at low levels, but by now I have enough raw power to steamroll this guy.
Each Spell Sword carries one Mystic Ore, which it drops upon defeat.
Attempting to go farther down into the labyrinth, however, nets this:
(The glowing green thing is a teleporter, which activates after you smack it with a hammer. There's another on the first floor)
With that, I proceed to grind for materials for a ridiculous amount of time, resulting in a overleveled Pratty and Sugar with access to all but two of the weapons for this day ready for our next match.
So, here's where you come in! I need everyone to vote on two different things:
1. What weapon I will use to destroy Chaves. Your choices are as follows:
These weapons are pretty generic, but still effective. The novice knife in particular has a ludicrously high TEC stat, which would let me slaughter Chaves.
I used this for much of the grinding, and as such it has a high TEC stat too. It's slow and durable. There's also the Novice Axe (technique 001), but that axe is actually worse and I would have to work for a while to get it.
Spears are pretty versatile weapons, and are good against flying enemies. They have the longest reach, and are fairly easy to grasp after a while.
Now knuckles look like they have the lowest attack power. This is a lie. They have a five-hit combo and agility boosts that make them actual the most damaging over time. They're comparitively cheap, too, which is nice.
Adventure stories! They can be fantasy, modern, sci-fi, all kinds! Give me some good world travel stories and I'm all over it! I also enjoy romance stories and even though I tend to play females I love playing gay men.
I vote you romance Amariss! It's convenient after all and it's "Incest(tm): A game the whole family can enjoy!" OR continue with the Sugar lovin'! And go with the Drill! I love the drill...tee hee drill...
...Zypher, I am going to pretend I did not see that romantic bit there. Amariss is her MOTHER, for god's sake! That is a organ you should not return to!
..which sword, Alarice? I have two, the surprisingly awesome novice knife and the fire sword.
WMD, this is a game where every problem is solved with beating the crap out of people. Up to and including cancer.
