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First up, Chamballoon. Simple stuff, just pop all the balloons. They all die in a single hit and you want to finish as quickly as possible.



I wasn't trying too hard here, but, of course, if you were, pick artes with short animations and short recovery times. Next up...



Slash Beat. Do as much damage as you possibly can against the dummy, it automatically explodes at the end and you get rewards based on how much damage you did. At this point in the game, you'd be lucky to beat the C rank damage counter, 4500. S rank is 140,000 damage.



So what the rewards are? Tales Coins, of course. You use these coins to buy accessories (I already have all of them), and various items of varying value at very high prices. Seriously, the most expensive of the accessory / costume items is 2000 coins. Much easier to get these items by Dismantling items as appropriate. That's about all there is to say here. Really not much point in grinding this mini-game right now, if you're playing the game on a fresh file. I had lots of Tales Coins going into this playthrough for...some reason. Not sure why I have so many.



Getting back to the main game, as I said, there's a few conversations in town to go before we head to Loegres. We've certainly seen this in action. As the party points out, it's pretty clever: control the seas in this kingdom, control more than just water.

Oh, and there's a Katz Box at the end of the pier Velvet here is closest to that's opened with 75 Spirits, which you probably won't have if you've opened all the boxes to this point, but there's no reward for freeing this Katz, at least not directly, but it's certainly not going anywhere.



This Conversation over at the market gushes about the amazing taste and ability of...crabs. Hey, crab is pretty good, so I wouldn't ask too many questions.



But as for lizards like Dyle, suddenly I'm not liking where this is going. Let's just move on.



Hmm, not a good day for piracy in Midgand, but as long as Eizen's still breathing, the spirit isn't dead yet. Also, the guy standing next to the warehouse talks about the great influence Port Zekson exercises by being such an important trading post, but if you were looking for a warehouse sorting mini-game, well, buddy, you've got the wrong Tales game.



But next, let's actually continue the story, kind of, by talking to Benwick. In a skit, he talks about how Aifread's crew is planning to chart the whole world, not just the Holy Midgand Empire where this game entirely takes place. To accomplish this, they plan to use the exorcist ship we stole from Titania to scout various locations in the outer seas, beyond the empire's control.

Where we come in is that if Eizen were giving the orders, since the people managing our former ship are his subordinates, it'd probably end up smashed against a reef within seconds. So Velvet and the luck she makes will have to do it. As reasonable compensation, anything that the crew finds on their journey are ours, and this is how you get a number of special items and general consumables, like ingredients.



Do you remember the Cat Expeditions in Xillia 2, how you sent your cat horde to various locations to uncover items that they'd then bring back you automatically? This is essentially the same system, just without the requirement of having to find stuff in the main game to get the most out of it. First, select the area you want to explore, send the ship there, and then after a certain number of in-game minutes, the ship will return and you'll automatically receive whatever goods they found.



Here, you can check the progress of the ship, how many minutes left until it returns, and as the game points out here, the crew are working their *asses* off to get back as soon as possible, taking 5 seconds to go to and from the Leymon Sea.



As far as odds of finding stuff goes, since the seas beyond the empire are rife with pirates and other undesirables, the crew will need to fight them. The odds of winning or losing a fight depend on the ship's level, and as you explore and fight more, you level up the ship, and the odds of winning go up. I believe that, no matter how high level the ship is, there's still a chance to lose any given fight.

The other reason leveling is important is because it allows you to explore new areas. I think level 10 is the highest level? That sounds right. But for now, you'll get a prompt to dispatch the ship again, and this time it takes 30 minutes, the normal time. So we'll just have to wait until that's resolved to see what we get.

Well, I should say, the time I'm pretty sure depends on the clock of the system you're playing Berseria on, and not on the game's playtime clock. I only say this because when I shortly after I ended this update's content to record next one's, when I loaded up the game the expedition had returned, even though 30 minutes of in-game time had definitely not passed in-between my first real expedition ending and the beginning of my second. It's like how the ship mechanic in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag where you sent ships around the world actually was run off of Ubisoft's servers, so you'd still be making progress even when not playing the game.




The guys ain't too thrilled about finding fish, but as long as Velvet's happy with fish, her's is the only opinion that matters here.



Anyway, that's all for the port area for now, so let's head to the town now. The inn, specifically. And buddy, you better believe it. There's a silver chest with a Calcite Blade in it for Velvet in an alley next to the inn, but other than that, we can finally head for Danaan Highway, the main artery leading toward Loegres.



Nope, he's not talking about us, though he very well could be. Code Red Daemons are, as Eizen puts it, basically the daemons on the Abbey's Most Wanted List. Better keep an eye out...




Yep, the game isn't lying. Don't initiate perilous encounters if you're just in the mood, because those are some nasty penalties for doing so. Shortly after arriving (well, it actually showed up just as we were about leave Zekson, I just saw it here), we get another skit talking about Aifread. Magilou actually has some valuable info she reveals here: Aifread disappeared from Titania about a year ago, he's just a normal human, and information about him, anything, is apparently a very closely-guarded secret. Definitely something hinky about all this.



Oh, and speaking of Magilou, yep, she's still here, and still dead weight. This skit is rough for Magilou, I'll tell you that, but at least she's not consciously deciding not to help. She's just useless without this friend of hers, which seems like a rather large oversight on her part, but let's not pry.



Danaan Highway is pretty big, though we only need to see part of it to make it Loegres, which seems to be that city in the distance. It's a standard trail area, not much to say (Calcite Waistcoat in the corner there, any of the guys can wear it), but it does look pretty nice.

Oh, and "Danaan"? Not an Arthurian reference, but a Greek one, actually. It was one of the names for the Achaeans from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The guys who went to rescue Helen. Kind of random but there you go.



Oh yeah, and you can find Tales Coins as random items. Good luck grinding them out that way, though.



This is the indication you get when touching an enemy will initiate a Dangerous Encounter, which involves a looot of enemies and the various debuffs listed above.



The enemies around here at not to be taken lightly, I should mention. Especially the snakes. Small and fast, they can quickly surround and destroy you if there are enough of them in a fight.



Agreed. That was a pretty rough fight, but luckily I was able to stun lots of enemies as Velvet and basically kept her in therion form the entire time.



A bit later on, I accidentally got into another Dangerous Encounter. But this time, I'm running. Since I haven't talked about that yet, let's talk about it. Unlike most Tales games, where Running from a battle is a menu option away (push it twice to cancel Running away), here in Berseria, you instead Run by running against the side of a field, like so. I believe that, like in most of the other games, the speed you Run away from a fight depends on the enemies in the fight, your level, and any accessories / miscellaneous buffs on the character attempting the retreat.

Two important caveats: obviously, you can't Run from boss fights, and you have to continue trying to run away, it's not enough to just brush up against the side of the arena and you start the timer. That means that if you're Running, and an enemy comes up and staggers you, the gauge will start to go down until you resume the process. So enemies may make it hard on you, but generally enemies will try to get a hit in, then run away to fight another of your buddies, so this isn't generally an issue. Generally.



Oh yeah, Eizen's first Mystic Arte. Perfect Mayhem is basically a savage combo on a helpless enemy before uppercutting them into the stratosphere.



Before striking a pose with his coin, of course. Oh yeah, and speaking of Mystic Artes, because you get them so early in the game, they're a bit more casual in operation than other Tales games, where you typically didn't unlock them until, at the earliest, about midway through the game or thereabouts. Enemies won't start using Mystic Artes against you until about the midgame here, but nearly every major human or thereabouts boss has one, so you'll have to be on alert for that.

For now, the fastest way to build the BG for Mystic Artes is to use Break Souls. You'll need to use a Break Soul about six times to go from 0 to 3 BG, but luckily, it carries over between battles.



You can explore the branches of Danaan if it's really so important to you, but there's not a whole lot to see right now, unfortunately. We're still fairly on-rails in this early part of the game. Well, about 6 hours into it, according to my save file.

Oh, there is a Katz Box hidden at the north side of this branch, behind a tree. Costs 95 Souls to open, and you get a Top Hat for your trouble.



Finally, some civilization. About midway across this bridge, we get another skit. We're so close to our ultimate goal, Artorius, but Loegres is the capital of the empire we've thoroughly made enemies of. We must be careful.