RPG Review: Tales Of Symphonia, Part 3: Summons, Relationships and Other Delusions.

Last time, we recruited Best Girl. Now that we have a decent amount of the Party assembled, we need to discuss an important matter: Love.

Not like that!... Kinda.

See, Tales of Symphonia has a hidden relationship system that basically dictates a select few points in the plot. Mostly this comes into play in the final stretch of the game, in which some plot events will be dictated by who Lloyd is closer to. Characters can lose or gain points based on stuff like dialogue options, optional events and so on. Whoever is the winner will become Lloyd's Closest Ally.

So what's the problem? One word: Colette!

She starts out with an astronomically high amount of points, so shaking her off is not an easy task. Worse, she is absurdly easy to please, so often times you may want to give someone else points, but you'll also be giving her points as well. This is even worse if you're not careful, so you could have stuff like wanting to get all the stuff with, I dunno, Raine, but you get Colette instead. Even worse, there's a character later on that has the opposite issue in that he's a pain in the butt to get points, but he's like, the best character in the whole game so more than a few people would like to get all the stuff exclusive to him!

The good news is that most of the main plot stuff this depends on is reliant on one choice in one scene, so there's that, and that scene just needs the character you want to be in the Top 3. So even if Colette is Number 1, it is possible to get someone else to get all those extra moments with Lloyd. However there are still some optional scenes that are often unobtainable in your first playthrough (New Game + carries over the previous relationship values). Overall, this is one of those cases in which they probably should've thought things through a bit better.

As for who I got... well, the answer is obvious by this point, isn't it?

These two are adorable together and you know it.

Whatever the case may be, I did some grinding before heading off to my next destination... and then found out I needed 100000 Gald to pass.

Okay then, guess we're taking the long way around. First of all we need to get to Lake Umacy, in which we find, of all things, an unicorn stuck under some rubble in the middle of the sea.

Remember that, it'll be important later.

Whatever the case may be, our heroes need to do something to get its horn, but what exactly can they do to get it? They can't just swim there, Genis's Water magic isn't powerful enough, and they just don't have anything that could conceivably let them get to it. Sheena does propose just making a pact with a Summon Spirit, but it's not like they have a Summoner anyways so that's a big no.

Well... Sheena is a Summoner.

Well, okay, not exactly. She's primarily an user of Seals, but she is completely capable of use Summons should the need arise. Hell, she already has a Summon, her little pet Corrine, though she is actually an artificial Summon Spirit and not a proper one. Kratos also recommends we Obtain the Spirits of Wind and Fire as, well, since we're here already we might as well do so.

However, getting Undine, the Spirit of Water, comes first. Thus we must make our way to Izoold, which will let us go to Palmacosta. After some hijinks, our heroes do get a ride there, and are dropped off. Sadly Colette's clumsiness makes her break some assholes' potion, so now we gotta get a new one.

Surprisingly the one person who does have one is a girl in a shop who's having a scuffle with the Evil Desians, with her rightfully angry that her grandmother was taken away by them. Yeah, turns out Palmacosta really fucking hate the Evil Desians and their Governor, Dorr, is one of the few people willing to stand up against them. Anyhow, her mum offers the Party the Potion for 1000 bucks.

Although speaking of him, as we give our freshly bought potion to that group of assholes, they claim that he "Sure was trusting" and gave them his family treasure. I agree with Lloyd: They piss me off!

On a nicer note however, we see a bit of Dorr himself, comforting a young child about his father being taken away, and promising that when the chance comes, he'll go and rescue him and all others captured by the Evil Desians. For some reason I imagine this is his thought process:

We also find out he regularly looks for people to help him fight the Evil Desians, and that he has been raising his daughter all by himself since his wife died all those years ago. Truly a wonderful man.

So naturally when Colette claims she's the Chosen One, she tries to kill her.

Okay, not exactly, as Colette shows her wings he realizes she really is the Chosen One and orders his men to stand back. See, a bunch of people claiming to be the Chosen's group came a few minutes ago and he gave them the Book Of Regeneration, records of the events from previous Journey's like the current one, including the locations of all the Seals.

Genis naturally calls him naive, once more showing off his less than stellar views on humans, but Raine stops him from saying anything else, for now they're gonna  just have to go to the church to see if they know of at least some of the book's contents. They don't. Well, we're screwed.

Well, not entirely. Before, the impostors said they were planning to sell off the book, so it's off to Hakonesia Peak! And guess what, the guy with it is totally working with the guys who asked for 100000 to pass the thing in the first place. Thankfully, we do manage to convince him to let us read it, but he wants a Spiritua Statue first. But there's no time for that, as Palmacosta is being attacked by one of its generals!

Who are you and what's up with your hair!?

To be exact, the woman who sold us the potion is about to be executed, and the militia is off doing training exercises so they ain't helping this time. The angry girl from the shop tries to help her mum, but gets in trouble. Then a sassy little kid throws a rock at him and since this is not gonna end well, Lloyd finally intervenes.

In fact the whole Party intervenes, deciding enough is enough and it's time to end this insanity. Magnius leaves, and his grunts are nothing too special, if I may say so myself. The young girl thanks us, and she shows herself as a non-believer, but she is very much grateful that Colette saved her mum.

However, as we head off to the House Of Salvation to get the Spiritua Statue, a soldier comes in and tells us that our sassy young girl whose name I won't even bother to remember for reasons that will soon become clear has been kidnapped. As if that wasn't enough, turns out the Spiritua Statue got lost in the middle of a geyser of all things. We naturally agree to go get it in spite of, you know, boiling water.

Did I mention Sheena is Best Girl?

However before we go get that thing however, it's off to...

Palmacosta Human Ranch:

Get used to seeing rooms like this a lot

Before we reach there however, Neil, one of Dorr's assistants, comes out of some bushes to tell us some bad news.

Yeah, Dorr has actually been collaborating with the Evil Desians. Neil doesn't know since when, but it's probably a recent thing. Raine considers abandoning this mess, but Colette insists on going, claiming saving people and regenerating the world are not and should not exclude each other, something Lloyd agrees with.

As for the Dungeon itself, it's mostly a maze that requires you to use the Ring to change the game's color scheme to that of the OG Game Boy. It's kind of a mess. Either way, wer eventually save our sassy kidnapped girl, but before we can fight the boss... this happens.

I believe you now all understand why I hate this girl. Anyhow, onto the boss. I need to blow off some frustration.

Magnius:

CV: Kawada Shinji/Chris Edgerly

He's easy as hell as he's meant to be fought earlier in the game so... yeah, he didn't put up much of a fight.

At the end of it, Raine notices our Stupid Young Girl is gone from this place, much to my pleasure. Whatever the case may be, Raine once more decides to blow up the base... though as they leave, Magnius receives a call from his superior telling him that, well, there was no order to kill Colette. It was all a lie. Naturally, his time in hell will be one spent with many regrets.

Naturally, it's time for Dorr to give us some explanations, with Neil insisting on coming along. Naturally, he's in the underground of his little building, talking to one of the Evil Desians. And we soon find out why he's been doing this. See, remember his wife who died some years ago? Yeah, she never died. She just got turned into the same Monster Marble did.

To put it bluntly, the guy's been reduced to a self-pitying idiot, something Lloyd calls him out on, basically telling him what he truly is: A Coward. Oh and I forgot to mention, his daughter isn't actually his daughter. She had been killed and replaced by a Half-Elf impostor who stabs him in the back.

She's technically a boss but frankly she's so easy I won't even give her the usual treatment. After dying she lets loose Dorr's wife... but strangely she just leaves instead of attacking the heroes. Lloyd lies to him about his daughter being fine, but at the same time tells her he can't save her because Dorr's sacrificed so many people that saving her should be his job, not anyone else's. He ultimately dies leaving Lloyd a pass.

RIP, I guess

Neil decides that the first step to take will be to reorganize everything, with the heroes wishing him good luck before leaving... but not before Raine lamenting that even as a healer, she wasn't able to save anyone...

But who cares about that!? It's time for some hijinks!

Ah, fear of water will never not be funny in an RPG... well, something else also happens.

Again, keep this in mind for later. Anyhow, we get a pretty easy mini-game after that... and right next to it there is one of those hand-print things meaning that we didn't even need the stone for the next seal.

Ugh, whatever, NEXT DUNGEON!

Thoda Geyser:

Did you know this is the water dungeon?

This one is pretty straightforward. The gimmick here is some balances you need to move using the Ring. That's it. That said, given that this would be the second Dungeon for most people, I can understand why they may have made it this way. Overall a bit bland but not too bad. As for the boss...

Adulocia:

Again, apologies for the lack of images
of better quality

This one's pretty easy. By this point Kratos or Genis should know Thunder Blade, and this Boss is weak to Lightning. Do the math and see the light show as she dies in an instant.

Afterwards Assho-Lord Ramiel reappears, telling Colette that the only Seal left is the one at the Tower Of Salvation. And once it is all done, Colette will become an Angel. Yay...

But who cares, it's time for a Summoning Pact with Sheena! Everyone is quite excited about this, even Kratos of all people. And naturally everyone has 100% Trust on her even though they have no idea what this will entail. And indeed, trouble arises, as this Summon Spirit already has a pact with some dude named Mithos, who is totally not the Great Hero Mithos.

Mein Kaiser's expression says it all.

Kratos suggests that she just request for Undine to null his pact with this Mithos that is totally not important to this game's plot, which surprisingly enough works... with the condition that we must prove our strength first.

Undine:

CV: Sumitomo Yuko/Nika Futterman

Undine is a pain to fight, namely due to her signature spell, Spread. Unlike Genis' version, which takes some time to cast, hers can be cast almost immediately, not helped by her catastrophically high amount of HP! Patience will pay off eventually, but don't let your guard down. And for the record, you need Sheena for all of the Summon fights, so that's another reason she's almost always part of my Party.

I did however ultimately beat her, and thus Sheena fulfilled her pact and unlocked her true power: The first are her elemental Seals, which can change your characters' attack attribute to any of the elements, which can help you exploit weaknesses and sometimes even find new moves (It's the only reliable way to get all of the Elemental/Physical Hybrid Artes for certain characters, of which only a select few like Rising Phoenix and arguably Storm Dance are of any use for all the effort you need to put into getting them) however her second mechanic lies in a certain aspect of the game: Mystique Artes. Or as they should really be called and I will call them...

The conditions vary from attack to attack, but after fulfilling certain conditions your characters will be able to use a Super Move that deals a massive amount of damage. Sheena has one of the easiest ones to trigger, all she needs is to be in Over Limit mode and she can use one of her many Summons, and best of all most of them are mandatory for the story. The difficulty for the others vary, Lloyd gets his (Falcon's Crest) after a certain point in the story and by equipping a specific title and weapon, Genis' Indignation Judgement i-

... Yes, thank you very much, anyhow, it has some pretty lenient conditions of you just having to have used Indignation 50 Times and be in Over Limit,  Colette's Holy Judgement requi-

... Goddammit Shirai... anyhow, it requires her to use Holy Song and Judgement 50 ti-

For the love of-STOP INTERRUPTING ME!!

Anyways you need to use Holy Song and... the Skill That Shall Not Be Named (She'll be getting that one in a bit) 50 times each, but the chances of it activating are completely random. Don't get me wrong, it hits like a goddamn truck, but it's a bit too luck based for my liking. Raine's are kinda ridiculous however, probably due to the fact they were introduced in the PS2 Version of the game. To wit, her first Limit Break, Sacred Light, needs you to be in Over Limit and have used either Photon evolution (Ray or Holy Lance) 100 TIMES!!!

Her second one isn't much better, with you needing to be in Over Limit and used Revitalize (Raine's best Multi-Target Healing Arte) 100 Times as well, but to be fair it gives some of the most powerful buffs in the game alongside a massive Party-Wide heal.

Finally there is Kratos' Shinning Bind (For some reason localized as Holy Binds in this game even though every other game uses Shinning Bind, including the game's sequel, and it is very clearly written as シャイニング・バインド) which is pretty cool and has relatively lax activation conditions (All you need to do is unequip a specific Weapon from Lloyd or not have him in the Party and be in Over Limit), but due to reasons that will soon become apparent he never used it in my playthrough... or most playthroughs really.

Anyhow, back to the plot. As you'd expect, as we leave the temple, Colette ain't feeling so good, but this time she has been given a far bigger punishment: She has become Kenny!

Not in that way! No, what I meant is that she can't speak anymore. She is completely mute now...

At night, Sheena realizes it'd probably be a good time to explain what her deal is, though by this point Raine has figured out she's not from Sylvarant. Indeed, she is from another world named Tethe'alla, basically a world that somehow exist in the same yet different planes of existence, kinda like light and darkness... and indeed that's how it works: If one world's better off, the other one's going to hell. The world regeneration if basically just a glorified way to reverse each world's mana flow. If the journey succeeds, Tethe'alla is screwed. If they fail, Sylvarant is screwed.

Nobody is really happy about this, Lloyd and Sheena especially, but there's really nothing else they can do. As they are now, if they wanna save someone... someone else will have to suffer because of it. Colette will try asking her "Father" for help... but the chances of this working are... well...

Anyhow, at the very least we should go get that unicorn. Unfortunately, there's an extra condition: An Unicorn can only be touched by a pure maiden.

Err... Raine, what did you do? I mean, yeah, maybe it's just her masking her fear of water, but isn't the wording just a tad too specific?

Anyhow, the unicorn confuses Colette for Martel (The reasons are explained later) but ultimately recognizes her as the Chosen of Regeneration and gives her the horn... and then it dies. Okay then... anyhow, they could use it to fix Angel Toxiocis, but it's a one-use item so Colette ultimately decides to let Pietro have it. To be fair, we did go here to save him. At the very least, with this Unicorn's death, another one is born. Hopefully said Unicorn doesn't have to face Christopher Lee and a Flaming Bull-thing.

And hey, now Raine knows Resurrection which... yeah, what it does is pretty self explanatory. And indeed she uses it on Pietro, saving him at last. He tells us also about the Angelus Project, though not the details, and that the Evil Desians are building a Mana Canon which... yeah, what it does is self-explanatory too.

Before proceeding with the main story, I chose to take a small detour and go back some previous dungeons to get some extra Summons, each of them located in a previous dungeon. Starting with:

Sylph:

CV: Shioyama Yuka, Matsuoka Mika and Mizushiro Rena/Debi Mae West, Nika Futterman and Hunter Austin

If you thought Undine was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. This sucker is three mini-bosses in one and it's as annoying as you'd expect it to be. I hope you brought some gels and Life Bottles, 'cause this will most certainly take some time.

But hey, the next one can't be too hard... right?

Efreet:

CV: Inada Tetsu/Keith Szarabajka

Yeah, he's a bit easier. He's basically just the fire version of Undine, so if you can bet her, you can beat him. Hell, he's arguably easier by value of having a bigger hit box than Undine! So overall, not too hard.

However there are two more things to do. Firstly I went back to Lloyd's house so that Dirk can give him an Exsphere shard along with some other goodies. The second was go to that tunnel in the Ossa Trail. Not just to get some treasure... but also for this ugly asshole.

Sword Dancer:

Doesn't seem too threatening...

Well, you'd be wrong. There are three encounters with him, and while this one is the easiest, he will take you down if you aren't prepared. As his name implies, he is purely into CQC, and so he will decimate you if you enter his range and you aren't careful. I did ultimately take him down, but it was not by any means an easy fight.

Anyhow, back to the main plot. Our heroes manage to convince some dude to let them use his dragons to get to the tower, but before that its time to rest and talk to the rest. In particular, Sheena mentions that there's a Chosen in Tethe'alla too and that he's not a particularly trustworthy fellow.

Have I mentioned Sheena is Best Girl?

But yeah, the time to end it all is coming. Colette and Lloyd talk for a bit, her admitting she's a bit scared, but that from her point of view, even if it dies, her life will be spread towards the rest of the world. Which really just summarizes her whole deal of coping with this, to just become a martyr and accept all the suffering in the world for the sake of others... even if it means sacrificing her own happiness.

At night, Kratos suddenly wakes up and goes out, with Lloyd following him. And then Kratos asks Noshie to take care of Lloyd for a bit longer. You know, people whine that the OVA made this twist way more obvious than in the game, but the game wasn't exactly subtle about it either, but more on that later.

What does matter is that the blue haired dude who doesn't have a mustache shows up and tries to sneak attack Kratos, but Lloyd stops this.

The assassin retreats, with Kratos then telling Lloyd one simple thing: Don't die. Naturally he's really confused, but whatever. That said the Assassin did drop some weird ring for some reason. I bet this will not be important at all unless you do a specific side quest.

But alas, the time for the finale has come: Cue the epic music!

Huh, that's weird, my "Epic Music For The Finale" Generator is not working correctly. I wonder why that is... eh, I'll just have to fix it.

But yeah, they set off in their dragons. Kratos goes with Colette (He is the one getting paid for this, after all) but Lloyd gets to choose who he goes with. You all know who I picked. Lloyd even assures Sheena that they will find a way to save both worlds. Daww...

Also Kratos and Colette went in early.

Will you press it?

Oh and there are a bunch of floating graves in the tower. This doesn't seem fishy at all...

And so, Lord Ass-Ramiel reveals the last thing Colette must sacrifice: Her heart and memories. Yeah in case you couldn't tell already, THIS JOURNEY WAS A REALLY BAD IDEA!! And Colette knew about that too and flat out asked Raine not to tell anyone. Now, Lord Asshole (Yeah I'm not even gonna bothering censoring that even more) claims it's not really dying, just giving her body to the Goddess Martel, but fuck if Lloyd cares about that shit! Oh sure, maybe both worlds will be saved, but if there's one thing this game enforces above all else, it is this: The ends do not, and shall never justify the means.

Oh and Asshole isn't even Colette's father. Everyone thought that and he just went "Sure, let's go with it". After all, they are nothing but... inferior beings. You know, the same thing the Evil Desians call everyone else.

And so, after a pretty tear-jerking goodbye... Colette sacrifices herself.

A scene that would work a heck of a lot better if that little thing down there wasn't there to tell us Colette has learned Judgement. Oh and speaking of that:

But yeah, Colette is now gone... so... who's up for some payback?

Lord Asshole:

CV: Sakaguchi Tetsuo/Wally Wingert

Nothing too special, but make sure your Spellcasters have some solid defenses, as he can snipe them. Otherwise though? Yeah, punching this asshole in the face hits really good.

Yet in the end it's a bittersweet end... for as, as Kratos points out, Colette is still lacking her soul. Oh yeah, Kratos is here, I guess. He's an angel too, by the way, and Lord Asshole's superior. Time to beat his ass, I guess.

Well, easier said than done. Thankfully you don't have to win this fight, but if possible try to do so, as he leaves some very good items if you beat him. Though as it ends Lloyd can tell he was holding back. However... let's just say Kratos has a superior of his own.

Yes my friends, this is the leader of Cruxis this game's true antagonist and one behind the Evil Desians: Lord Yggdrasil. And as I mentioned in Part 1, the Dub for some reason mispronounced his name as "Ygg-DRA-sil" instead of "Ygg-dra-SIL". I know the former is the Japanese spelling, but that's Japanese, this is English. Still better than calling him "King Drasil" though...

He is a hopeless boss fight, so don't even bother with him, especially since Kratos likely made you waste a lot of your resources. He will spam the hell Light Artes though, so there's that...

But yeah, the Party is wasted, with Lloyd even thrown to a pillar with some... random magical sword. However reinforcements arrive in the form of... Botta!?

Okay, shit just got interesting.

Botta takes them out of there, though loses some men in the process. Yggdrasil refers to them as Renegades, and then leaves, and so does Kratos... but not before this:

If you haven't figured out the twist already, shame on you for not doing so.

Sometime later, Lloyd wakes up in the Triet base. Colette is still a soulless husk, but she's thankfully fine otherwise. They also start to think of what to do, given that by this point they know two things: 1) The Evil Desians are probably Cruxis' pawns, and 2) Kratos was using them all along. So yeah, such a happy day alright.

Their leader, whom I shall from now on call by his actual name of Yuan, explains that basically Cruxis is the one that controls everything from behind the scenes, even the church. Most of Cruxis member's are also actually Half-Elves who have evolved with something called the Cruxis Crystal. Oh, and Tethe'alla? Yggdrasil himself created that world.

As for why they wanted to kill Colette, that's simple: They couldn't let Martel gain a vessel, so they had to kill her. Sadly now Colette is stuck in self-defense mode, so even touching her is a bad idea. So what are they gonna do? Capture Lloyd of course!

Thankfully the gang manages to escape, mostly because Yuan hasn't healed from the injury he got from Kratos over at Hima. After some puzzles, the gang just wonders what the hell they should do now. However Raine has an idea. She asks Sheena from where she got her Exsphere, and she tells her she got it from some institute... and also that the Renegades were the ones that told them to kill Colette.

However, this does give them a chance. Since Angels are Half-Elves evolved through Cruxis Crystal... maybe those guys can do something about Colette's own Cruxis Crystal. I mean, they're already researching the other Chosen's Cruxis Crystal, so Colette's should be more of the same thing. Mind you they need some machines called Rheairds, but so long as they can find them, they're set to go. And wouldn't you know, the Renegades have a few of them.

And thus, it's off to a brand new world... which we will cover next time.

RPG Review: Tales Of Symphonia, Part 2: Being the Chosen One Sucks.

Last time, we began this little journey to save the world. So how do we begin the second part? Introducing a new Party Member of course!

Raine/Refill Sage:

CV: Touma Yumi/Kari Wahlgren

Raine is a White Mage and that alone makes her massively useful. She learns basically every healing skill in the game and she has the TP to use it. Best of all, she even has a few offensive tricks up her sleeve, so she's not even completely defenseless. Needless to say, she was totally part of my Endgame Party.

And sadly, that's also why her little Brother isn't in the Party.

See, the game has a system that makes it so you can't have more than one character casting high level spells at once. So even if I did bother to regularly use Genis, he would either drag Raine down or she would drag him down. Basically, you don't want both a Black Mage and White Mage in your party. The Red Mage will have to pick up the other's job.

Anyhow, your next destination should be the game's first proper Dungeon, that being:

Triet Ruins:

That statement speaks to me on a spiritual level.

Indeed, there's some random ruins in the middle of the desert. After being randomly attacked, Kratos teaches our heroes some defensive Artes, our heroes reach the gate, but before they can do anything Raine's Ruin fetish kicks in. On the plus side, this does allow our heroes to open the damn door.

The Dungeon itself sets the precedence for most others in this game: Not too big, but with lots of back and forward In this case you have to move blocks around and light up candles in order to progress. Nothing special, but it works. I should mention that generally speaking, there's one save spot in the Dungeon, but in order to trigger it you need a Memory Stone. How do you get one? Eh, beat up one of the random enemies. How do you know which one it is? Good question!

Still though, not much happens inside here, thus leading us to:

Ktugach:

Oh look, it's a flaming kitten!

Well, for an early Boss he's a moderate enough challenge. He does however have an exploitable weakness in the form of Water Attacks... that I didn't use because, as I said before, Genis isn't exactly a regular member of my Party. So I had to take him down the hard way. Oh well, he did eventually go down.

With it, the Asshol-I mean, Lord Ramiel comes down once more, and even gives Colette a pair of pretty wings.

Oh I wish they were that cool.

Oh well, at least Colette is having fun with them. And hey, combat-wise she learns "Angel Feathers", which is her first of many heavy offensive Artes that work off her Angel deal. Sadly on a purely physical level she isn't doing so well, with her looking kinda sick (Or at least the character say so. Her Sprite barely changes). So it's time to take a break before they leave.

After a nice scene in Triet, it's time to head off to the Ossa Trail. However as soon as they arrive, Colette must face her greatest threat for Lloyd's (But mostly the players') affection: BEST GIRL!!

Wait, what?

Huh, never thought I'd find more reasons to like her... anyhow, this is Best Girl and-

Yeah, she's a bit clumsy alright. But what can I say? That's just one of  her many charms. And hey, as our heroes are just about to exit, she manages to catch up with them. Girl's got skill, alright. That said she's kinda easy so don't worry about to losing to her. She leaves as soon as she's defeated, with Lloyd naturally wondering why the hell does everyone want to kill them. And yeah, more RPG protagonists should ask themselves that in this kind of story.

Before leaving however, Kratos teaches you Unison Attacks. Basically they're a move in which each Party Member unleashes one of their Artes. Doing certain combinations however, will result in a Special Finisher. I sadly learnt about this a little too late into the game to use these, but the regular Unison Attacks were more than enough for me.

By this point I should mention one thing I actually really like about this game: There's a lot of non-linearity. What I mean by that is that by now the path basically splits in two. To illustrate what I mean, I show you a map of the world the game takes place in: Sylvarant.

As you can see, in front of the Ossa Trail lies Izoold, which should be our next destination. That said, there's nothing that says you can't simply go North instead and go the long way around. This path is generally harder, but it will end up easier by the end. It will also make it so your next Party Member will take less time to join your Party, and given the identity of that Party Member, you may or may not want to take it.

Wanna know something funny though? Even though I went that path, at first it was because I got lost and didn't realize where Izoold was. Yes, I ran literally almost all around the Map to find a place that was right in front of me. By the time I realized what I was doing I just said "Fuck it!" and decided to continue taking that path.

Anyhow, in this path we must first go to Hima and waiting us there is...

More Best Girl!!

Indeed, she is the gift that keeps on giving. Anyhow, she needs to go find some healing technique and just leaves our heroes to deal with the rest. Oh and we also find out her name: Sheena. Anyhow, basically there's some dude that's been cursed because he left a human ranch and, well, we kinda need to fix that, now don't we? The previously mentioned technique is over at the Tower Of Mana. So we make our way there and... it's locked.

Indeed, this calls for extreme measures: Grinding!... Did I mention this Review will from now on be based on my New Game + Playthrough?

There's a little fact I forgot to talk about, and that is types. There are two Types in the game: S (Strike) and T (Technical). These will to an extent dictate what Artes you'll get by leveling up.  You can switch between the two Types through EX Gems. Each character can equip up to 4, and all of them give you skills that are S or T type, which is what determines your Artes Type. The more you have, the more you'll swing from one side to the other.

Additionally, the reason the Artes System is as it is is because each base Arte you have to spam to get the higher level version basically branches once it reaches Level 2. So for instance, with Lloyd if you use Demon Fang 50 times and you're an S Type, you'll get Fierce Demon Fang. However if you're a T Type, you'll get Double Demon Fang. However while you can have many S Type and T Type Artes, they must be from different trees, so you can't have both Double Demon Fang and Fierce Demon Fang.

General recommendations for our current Party Members: Colette should be locked in S Type, Kratos is mostly an S Type bar the Sonic Thrust line, Lloyd is mostly a T Type with the exception of the Demon Fang, Beast and Tiger Blade lines, Genis is mostly a S Type bar the Thunder and Fire lines (Indignation is too OP, and this comes from someone who rarely used Genis!) and Raine is primarily a T Type bar the lines for Sharpness, Barrier and Photon.

Whatever the case may be our next stop should be Luin, as we need to get the key to open that door in the first place. However in a shocking twist, guess who we find there!?

Even more Best Girl!

Indeed, she is quite friendly with children, playing around with them for a while... only to realize Lloyd is there.

And yes, for the record, I ship it, dammit! Ship it to the grave!

Anyhow, we head to the church, and we find out that some pastor has it... and that said Pastor is on a pilgrimage.

This is how this mess is feeling right now.

After some grinding for Genis in case of emergencies, we move on to Asgard... in which we're immediately told to go to the Balacruf Mausoleum. Whatever, at the very least we have some Ruins to look at while we're here.

Not like Raine's gonna let us do anything else, anyways.

Still though there are some guys in the background for some reason... and they're planning to destroy the Ruin! Naturally, Raine shall not let this happen!

... Are we sure Colette's the actual klutz here?

Thankfully Lloyd stops this, and we get some exposition afterwards. First of all, the area is forbidden, so even our heroes can't be there. Secondly, the reason they wanted to destroy it is because a girl, Aisha, is gonna be sacrificed to the Summon Spirit of the wind. Originally she just had to do a dance there, but one of the two idiots removed the seal and, well, this is how we got here.

Thankfully there is a way out of this: Let Raine be the Dancer and have them just beat up the Summon Spirit after that. Thus the dance begins.

Oh I wish it was something like that. Yeah the cutscenes in this game reuse the overworld assets, so there isn't much they can do, so the dance barely counts as that.

Oh well, onto the Boss.

Windmaster:

Given the order of events I've chosen to do things, this fight is a bit on the tough side of things, mostly due to the sheer amount of HP he has. Enough perseverance will eventually make him fall (And also spamming the ever loving hell out of Lightning Tiger Blade or Photon Tempest whenever possible).

And indeed everyone's thankful, with one of the two bomb guys even going to help Raine with a map... and another one almost makes the Party realize one small fact: Raine and Genis are Half-Elves.

This isn't explicitly confirmed until later, but yeah, the moment this scene comes the whole deal becomes rather obvious. Still though, it's clear at least Genis has his reasons for not wanting for that to be known. Whatever the case may be, it's time to head off to the Mausoleum. And thankfully the Pastor is nice enough to give  us the key. Now, normally this would be it, but considering we're already here...

Balacruf Mausoleum:

I have no joke for this.

This Dungeon is small, but if you don't know what you're doing it can be a bit annoying. There are a few gimmicks at play here. First are Spikes, which, if you touch, will shave off a bit of your HP. Secondly there's the wind, which will sometimes hit some candles you want to light up. To stop it simply push some blocks to the appropriate spot. Finally is the Sorcerer's Ring, which gains a Wind Element in this Dungeon and must be used to spin some pinwheels around to open the door to the boss of the Dungeon. Not too annoying but the floor spikes are a bit of a pain. Anyhow...

Iapyx:

Apologies for having to use this image, most
of the bosses don't have many good ones

Well, first of all he's a bit of a pain because he resists too elements instead of one, in this case Wind and Lightning. Even so, I surprisingly didn't have much of an issue with him, he just took his sweet time to give up for once.

Once he did, Assho-I mean Lord Ramiel reappears, giving Colette his blessings or something.

Err... yeah, I don't buy that at all.

Anyhow, we begin to head out and guess what? The Beautiful Assassin is back!

Not her!!

Anyhow, it's time for Round 2, and she's a bit tougher but nothing special. I should mention that after releasing any Seal you get a full HP and TP refill. Thank God for that because otherwise this fight would be unbearable. As she is defeated, she claims that unless she stops the Regeneration, her country will be destroyed. Colette points out how odd that statement is as, well, the Regeneration should save the whole world. Sheena then leaves, though her statements do cause Kratos to wonder something...

Anyhow, as we go out, Colette once more falls from exhaustion, with Raine currently naming this phenomena "Angel Toxiocis", but Colette claims to still be fine, oddly enough. At night, she can't seem to be able to sleep for some reason, so Lloyd talks to her for a bit to try and convince her to sleep... which she agrees to, but whether or not she actually does is not shown. Spoiler Alert: She didn't.

Anyhow, onto the reason we went here in the first place.

Tower of Mana:

The sequel to Trials Of Mana nobody knew they wanted.

Yeah, in order to open a door here, three of our Party Members must stay behind... which in this case means "You're stuck with just Lloyd and Colette for a bit". Besides that the Dungeon's main gimmick is that you have to move around some blocks to redirect rays of light to specific areas. Not too tricky overall if I may say so myself. Anyhow, onto the Boss Fight.

Iubaris:

So I guess we're eating winged horse tonight?

His HP is massive, but otherwise he's pretty freaking easy. This thing is basically an endurance battle, as running out of TP won't exactly be rare in this fight. Still though, like before he isn't that hard all things considered.

Anyhow, once defeated the prayer stuff happens again with... crescent moon lady?

... Yeah, kinda like that.

Err... whatever the case may be, she asks where Aska is and then leaves... wait what?

Err... anyhow, Assho-Lord Ramiel appears afterwards for the usual proceedings. Oh and remember to grab the book with that healing spell from the first room. And you know what's next, Colette nearly faints, Lloyd catches her, and so on. However after that, at night, Lloyd looks at Colette's hand, which might as well be bleeding right now even though she says she's fine. Thus I present to you, unedited, one of the most infamous moments from the game.

Yeah, Colette is not okay. Each Seal has been taking something away from her. The first one was her sense of taste, the second one is her fatigue and finally her sense of tact and pain. Her sight and hearing have all improved, sure, but can we truly say this is worth it? This is legitimately one of the game's best scenes, and I can see why it has been memed by some people.

But hey! She wanted this trip to be fun, so let's have fu-Wait, why is Luin burning?

A visual approximation of what's going on.

Well, okay, it isn't burning, but it has been pretty much completely destroyed, and Sheena's there looking as tiered as ever. To give you the brief version, basically some shit happened and thus the Evil Desians decided to attack the city and... yeah, this is the result. Raine heals her at Colette's request, and then Sheena proposes a truce: They help her beat the assholes at the ranch nearby, and she helps them out with this journey. Raine is against it, but everyone else isn't, so yes, Best Girl has joined the Party!

Fujibayashi Sheena:

CV: Okamura Akemi/Jennifer Hale

Alongside being Best Girl, Sheena is quite the useful Party Member, although I'll admit she is a bit of an acquired taste. She has three things going for her: The first is that she has three Trees of Skills that are all based around Debuffing your Enemies Defense, Accuracy and Evasion respectively (General recommendation: Power Seal should follow the S Branch but Mirage and Serpent Seal go to the T Branch). Her second and third Quirks however are what make her character work in my book, but that's for later. Needless to say, she was totally a part of my Endgame Party, if only because her Unison Attacks freaking hurt.

Naturally, it's time to head off to face those bastards head on, and the location will be:

Asgard Human Ranch:

Gotta love the classic "Infiltrate the enemy base" level.

But yeah, we need a plan to do so. Step 1: Ambush the enemy. Step 2: Steal their clothes. Step 3: Have Raine and Sheena dress in Evil Desian Outfits... that lets a decent lot of their skin be seen? Err... okay then.

Anyhow, the infiltration seems to be successful... until we bump into Botta again. Oh well, he's willing to let us go for now... and then more Evil Desians pop up... and then some asshole with white hair too... whoops...

They do manage to escape for a bit, but the general from earlier, Kvar, catches up to them, and reveals a dark truth.

No, seriously, Exspheres are literally just Philosopher Stones, only instead of being many humans for one stone, it's one human per sphere. Oh and we also find out one other small detail: Lloyd's Exsphere is his mother's. Yup. Now you see why Dirk didn't tell him anything,

Sheena gets them all out of there, and thus they retreat to Luin for now. They are all naturally distraught over this reveal, Lloyd in particular, but Kratos convinces the group to keep using them, at least until this mess is over, anyways.

They go back to Hima, We find out that not only did the cursed guy put a boulder in the way he used to get out, but also brought an Evil Desian Orb with him. So naturally we go back and somehow the Orb moves the boulder out of the way. No, I don't get it either. Whatever, we're inside now. Unfortunately there's some system that need to be stopped that are the opposite way from Kvar's room, so you know what that means!

And this time you actually get to choose who to take with you, in my case I took Raine and Sheena. There's also a Refresher nearby, which serves as an Item Shop and also a Full HP and TP Recharge in case of emergencies. Anyhow, this dungeon is fairly simple besides the split. Just shoot some things as Lloyd, turn some switches on with the other group and you'll reach your destination.

Speaking of our destination, Kvar is talking to one of his bosses, who very clearly doesn't like him too much. But whatever, he's power hungry, so he's gonna take that Exsphere away from such inferior beings, thus leading us to...

Kvar:

CV: Ushiyama Shigeru/Chris Edgerly

Kvar is annoying, mostly because he has Three Drone-Things helping him out, all the while you have only two Party Members. And those Balls take a while to kill too! Thankfully once those are out the rest of the fight becomes a lot easier, so you won't be completely doomed.

However the tough bastard somehow manages to get up after beating him, trying to strike Lloyd in the back, but Colette takes the blow instead. So Kratos... you know what, I'm just gonna leave this here.

Again, more on this when I actually cover the Anime.

But yeah, Colette losing her sense of Pain has been revealed to the rest of the party. They decided to just blow the whole thing up... but as they're leaving, another of Kvar's superiors pops up, telling him he's just gonna take all the Research Data for himself now. But yeah, the group otherwise heads for Asgard to rest.

Lloyd informs everyone of the rest of the situation, and naturally they are lessed than thrilled about this, with more than one of them wanting her to either A) Quit, or B) Find some way to do this trip without her losing her humanity. Whatever the case may be, they can't stop now, so for the time being, they'll just have to push on until the very end, even if the fate that awaits her is uncertain.

And this is the point we'll be stopping for now. Will Colette get better? Why does Sheena want Colette dead? What even is that Angelus Project Kvar kept mentioning? That, my friends, is all answers not for now, but next time.