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Part XII: The Sickeness We Cured
Time to raise the anchor again. But today, we have a very special series of outfits for the girls. Namely, their DLC outfits from another Namco-Bandai property, The iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls. Velvet, Magilou, and Eleanor all have DLC outfits for three different idols from that series: Rin Shibuya's New Generation outfit for Velvet, Anzu Futaba's Halloween Petite Devil for Magilou, and Kirari Moroboshi's Lovely Princess outfit for Eleanor. As an additional reference to Cinderella Girls, each of the costumes in this game represents a "type" of idol from the game they come from: Cute (Anzu), Cool (Rin), and Passion (Kirari). Also, Anzu and Kirari are in a unit (group of idols) with each other.
For the unique music you get from these outfits, you get an instrumental version of *kind of* the theme song for Cinderella Girls: Onegai! Cinderella (Please! Cinderella).
Once you're done with your business on Islegand, time to shove off for Yseult on the large southern island. Assuming we don't run into any sea-based brigands or the Abbey, seems like smooth sailing. Sickness of the sea
I gotta say, you guys look less like pirates and more like a circus troupe.
Are you all right with having daemons on board, Benwick?
Not remotely an issue. If you're aboard this ship of misfits, you're a pirate! That's just our creed. At least, that's what the captain and the first mate always say.
Speaking of the captain... What's Aifread like?
Hmm... Let's see, how do I put it? He's like if the sea were a person, and that person had a pointy beard.
Huh. A... A bearded...sea?
Look, everybody on this ship is an outcast from society in some way. Despite that, Captain Aifread accepted us for who we are and took us all on board.
So he's...a kind man?
Well, would you say the sea is kind? How would it feel to dive in with an open wound?
It would sting! A lot.
Quite so. Some days he's calm and steady, and others he rages. He can be shallow, deep, even a whirlpool.
Sounds like he's a little scary and hard to read...
Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to serve him, but that air of mystery keeps up around and makes us wanna take those jumps. At the end of the day, the dread pirate Aifread is one hell of a guy!
He sounds like Velvet in a lot of ways.
Wait, what?! How so? Aww, I didn't describe him right at ALL, did I?
*thinks*
Benwick, we're changing course at once for Port Reneed.
Sir? What's going on?
They first showed symptoms three days ago. How are you holding up?
I'm still doing alright. But if this really started three days ago... That means we're all carrying it, doesn't it?
That's what I'm afraid of. But if we head straight to Port Reneed, we should be able to get medicine there.
I'll check on everyone's condition!
Make sure everyone stays hydrated. Including yourself, understand?
Sir, yes sir! All hands, assume emergency positions!
So this corsair's scourge sounds like some pretty nasty stuff. "Thankfully" it only attacks humans, but that also means Eleanor and Magilou are in trouble now. They don't mention a cure here but Magilou does bring up "The Reaper's Curse".
Uh-oh...who's gonna tell her?
This "Port Reneed" is on the southwest coast of Westgand, which we've seen basically none of up until this point. The only bit of Westgand we've seen is a brief glimpse at Burnack Plateau just outside of Vortigern. And Laban Tunnel, I suppose, but splashing around in caves hardly counts.
Well, that was simpler than I thought. As far as Magilou and Eleanor being carriers, for whatever reason, the scourge has no effect on land, so we don't have to be worrying about that, at least. Well, at least we won't have to leave them behind. Unfortunately, according to Eleanor, sale'tomah tastes absolutely dreadful, but it seems there's no other options.
In this skit, Eleanor was concerned about why Rokurou acted the way he did with Shigure, namely protecting her from getting involved in their feud. Eizen speculates that it was Rokurou's bushido code at work, but unfortunately Rokurou wasn't asked to confirm or deny.
According to this, apparently exorcists have been deployed there at the direct orders of Artorius. Well, without knowing more, doesn't seem like too valuable of information, but hey.
These two guys at the docks are discussing Titania, though neither uses the name. Seems like it's a bit of a no-no topic around these parts, though, to be honest, it's better that way...
Eizen's just full of information in this one. As he's saying here, Reneed used to just be that town on the far side of the bridge, but to accommodate large ocean-going vessels, they built this bridge and constructed the port. Of course, nothing about this story prevents him from bragging about his crew's prowess.
So welcome to the actual town of Reneed. There's a bit to see around here, but the only mandatory thing is, of course, that star.
The daemons that allegedly killed Gideon, that is.
Seems like word travels fast around these parts. Well, I assume the whole raid on the villa happened a few days ago.
This Katz up in a high place takes 125 Spirits to open but gives you nothing. I suppose I must amend the previous update's statement where I talked about the costs of chests. I think it's just around the point in the second act where chests get more expensive, regardless of contents.
On the other side of town next to a silver chest lies an interesting mini-game. At first blush, it appears quite similar to Koi-Koi, which is a Japanese card game where two players each have a concealed hand, and they attempt to form valuable combinations of those cards by matching the cards in their hand to cards face-up that both players can see. However, this one has a Tales Twist to it, as you can see. Instead of using hanafuda cards, you use cards depicting Tales characters from games past, including all the way back to Phantasia.
Each turn, the player takes a turn selecting a card from their hand and placing it face-up in the center pile. If you can match something, you'll match the card from your hand to a card on the pile and place it off to the side (since this is a video game, what cards match with others are automatically highlighted). Those cards are out of the current hand and cannot be used by the opposing player. If you can't match something, it'll just go to the face-up pile, ripe for matching by either player. Regardless of whether you match something or not, you have to draw a new card from the stack. If the stack is totally depleted and neither player has scored, the hand is over and the deck is reshuffled.
So what's the objective? In a simple sense, it's Koi-Koi, except the valuable hands are different. Do you see those symbols in the lower right of each card? That indicates a certain family of cards. So for example, Keele, Max, Tear, Hubert, and Rowen are part of one family of cards, whereas Elize and Leon are part of others.
As you can see, cards are grouped not by the aforementioned families, but by the game that character first appeared in (the symbol in the upper left of each card). The cards that match with each other are just characters from the same game, not the same type. Taking a mechanic from Koi-Koi, if you draw a card that can match something already on field, you can play twice in one turn.
And this is what happens if you unite the entire cast of a game. This was actually quite lucky to get, especially on my first hand on this playthrough. In order to unite an entire game's cast, 1) the opponent can't have any of them in their hand or off to the side, and 2) there can't be any of the game's cast in the stack. Should be noted that games with an unusual cast size have been pared down to 6 members just for the purposes of this game. For Symphonia, it's only Lloyd, Genis, Colette, Raine, Sheena, and Zelos.
You get this menu when you form a point-scoring hand. If you Continue Round, the game keeps going and you can attempt to form new hands for even more points. But be wary: if you continue, the opponent can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by choosing to NOT continue when they score a hand. Unless you are really confident in running up the score, I would not choose to keep going. That bird in the hand counts for a lot.
In the next round, do you see how the Orange Persons icon is at 10? That means you get Sworn Ally, another valuable hand.
So what should you aim for? Personally, I'd go for small, cheap hands like Crown Princess. See, you can form a point hand from as little as two cards, if you have the right cards, of course. One of those is for Estelle (Vesperia) / Natalia (Abyss), who are both Crown Princesses, hence the name of this hand. Another is Ninja, for Suzu Fujibayashi (Phantasia) and Sheena Fujibayashi.
I was also able to pull out Storied Hero, which is for gathering any 5 Protagonists (the yellow star icon). In my case, it was Stahn (Destiny 1), Yuri (Vesperia), Lloyd (Symphonia), Luke (Abyss), and Reid (Eternia). For some reason, occasionally the pop-ups for hands have different translations than this menu. Dodgier translations include Crown Princesses becoming Royal Princess (redundant), but better translations have "Heroic Scion" being the pop-up but "Storied Hero" being the translation here. Definitely more clear.
So as you might guess, we're playing for Tales Coins. The exact payout depends on your margin of victory (pretty considerable here) and the difficulty level. Since you have to start out at Novice, I earned 295 here, which is not a bad haul. Again, for the record, the things you can purchase with those coins remains the same. Also, even if you lose a match, you get some pity coins.
Unfortunately, of course, the apothecary would be out of sale'tomah flowers, so it's up to us to get it from the Warg Forest. Doesn't sound like my kind of place but gotta do it.
After that talk with the apothecary, two Conversations pop up for our amusement. In the first, this father is making some rather big-headed declarations to his son, and even asks Eleanor for a most unusual favor. One she was none too keen to grant.
Going back to Character Cards for a bit, Renegade is a fun hand to get. Zelos, Alvin (Xillia 1 / 2), and Raven (Vesperia) are all characters with...conflicted loyalties, we'll say. Mostly I wanted to beat Intermediate because I was assured there'd be some prize. Oh, this round ended up with a +60 margin of victory for me, which scored me 920 coins. I think the difficulty level affects point values for hands + the enemy's luck to some extent. Not too sure.
Well...I didn't say it was a *good* prize. Winning on Intermediate will chase this kid out of town, but not to worry, there are other NPCs to play it with later in the game.
Some speculation on the daemon of Warg Forest. Doesn't sound like talking to the townspeople will be too helpful in solving this mystery. Still, we know exorcists have been seen poking around there. Better we careful. And we're heading there...right now.
Welcome to the Fens of Nog. Unfortunately, the weather has not improved a bit in the transition.
Still a little awkward here...
The Fens of Nog are some pretty dreary wetlands but that's not to say this place is devoid of sights. The local wildlife includes those Witches we saw in Brigid Ravine, skunks, giant orcs with clubs, and piles of goo. I decided to do quite a bit of fighting here to level myself up a bit, since characters were constantly remarking how powerful everything is whenever I got into fights. Figured I needed to even the odds a bit before we go too much further.
By the way, this bridge has a skit on it about Eizen's curse, since nobody has evidently seen fit to tell Eleanor about it.
The kind of stare you can't win against.
Eleanor's "blushing" cut-in portrait is cute, too.
Another skit a bit further on keeps going about the Reaper's Curse, since apparently there is no shortage of tales about it. Bienfu also says that Eizen's men caught daemonblight on an island stopover and that someone who bumped into him died from suffocation after laughing too hard. For what it's worth, the man in the best position to know the truth of these stories says it was SEVEN warships that went missing, everyone on that particular island he stopped on caught daemonblight, and the guy who bumped into him died from hiccups.
Magilou will always find a way to gain the upper hand against close-range fighters like Rokurou and Eleanor.
One of Eizen's best artes was actually learned recently: Eleventh Hour. Nothing too fancy about it, it's just Eizen jumping into the air and crashing down, knocking down enemies light enough to get knocked down by it. Of course, you know what this means. It's now easier than ever to open most enemies up to Draconic Drive.
As far as treasures around here, aside from herbs, there's a chest with 1450 gald in it on the second island north of where you entered this place, a Life Bottle, a Flourite Fragment, a War Pike for Eleanor on a small island, a Shock Ward on that little horseshoe part of the map, and there's one more on that island nearest to where we came in that we can't get to right now.
Well, we definitely don't want to fight all these exorcists, but where there's lots of exorcists, you can bet something worthy of our interest won't be far behind.
By the way, on that War Pike island, we have our next friend. Trickstar
The Trickstar is backed up by three Witches, which definitely need to be taken out as quickly as possible. Most what Trickstar will do at the start is flutter around and shoot out Wind Lance, which is a fast-moving projectile spell that's nonetheless fairly easy to quickstep and doesn't do much damage in any case.
Its Break Soul is Churlish Punch, which is a flurry of punches directed to right in front of it. The damage can add up fairly quickly but that's why I would recommend, at the very least, turning on the BG usage for Blast Switches, so if an ally gets low on health, they can swap out with someone healthier. Regardless of the fact that the Blast Switch icons hang over the character in the first slot, everyone has access to reserve members.
Aside from Churlish Punch, Trickstar is very easy to bully.
Nah, that was cake, my dude. Cake.
Thanks to such a decisive win, I got lots of people Mastering their equipment, so I can finally switch Magilou to this adorable thing. Delicious.
Agreed. Who knows what awaits. Wargs, as people who played Symphony of the Night would be able to tell you, are basically large, demonic wolves. More wolf-like than werewolves, I mean. Like many, many fantasy things, they were popularized by Tolkein in The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings.
The major gimmick with this place is a gate-switching puzzle. You know the drill: when the blue icon is shown, blue gates are up. If you examine it, it turns to a different symbol, a red sword, and blue gates go down while reds go up. There's nothing too complicated, actually, but this place is pretty large. For now, a short skit about it. Emphasis on short.
In a skit a little further on, we get a skit about how Laphicet's compass is similar to how Eizen treats his coin. Well, let's hope the kid isn't tossing it up and down like Eizen is doing to his.
Dang, Eleanor is much more knowledgeable about Eizen's coin than you'd expect (she also knows the hooded figure on the reverse is Dhaos and that it came from Kharlan). For the record, like its namedrops in Metal Gear Solid 1, shape-memory alloy is a real thing. It's an alloy that deforms in cold but can return to its original shape in heat.
Getting back to business, shouldn't be much of a spoiler to say that Lycanthropes are crawling around all over the place. Unpleasant folk, to be sure.
Another cool thing about Blast Switches? Automatically clears status effects when the stricken character heads into the backline.
In the third area, a skit about what sale'tomah looks like. Well, I would certainly share that sentiment about its visual appeal. In another skit that triggers right after, we learn what this vile-looking flower means in the language of flower. A meaning fitting for its appearance, certainly, but most of the skit is about how "deceitful coexistence" might actually describe this band of curiosities pretty well.
Another cool thing about these idol costumes? Unique victory lines. This definitely doesn't sound like something Magilou would say, but if you are familiar with Cinderella Girls, you would know almost all of the idols have some distinctive gimmick or theme about them. In Anzu's case, it's that she's very lazy and wants to put the least amount of effort into her job as possible. She hates work and always wants to go home, hence this line.
This area here leads to a dead-end that we can't go past, and more to the point, there's that northern branch we have yet to explore. So we're going that way now.
Not to mention, a Code Red Friend hiding nearby. We need to find one of those switches fast.
And in the next area, there it is. The exit behind Velvet just leads back to that 3-way junction, so no reason to go that way. Instead, we're headed back to that Code Red.
Well, should have expected we'd run into a giant plant boss sooner or later. Plantasm
So Plantasm is a pretty simple boss. Most of its attacks are just slapping at the ground or air with the buds on its "arms", or rarely twirling around a bit like a helicopter. Simple stuff, except for its Break Soul attack, Heartbreaker Shot. When it uses this, it'll throw out its right bud and let it hang there for a few seconds. The damage is continuous while it has that bud thrown out, and anyone caught up in it are melted in seconds. This is why it's important to quickstep this attack by dodging to the *right*, rather than the left. The left bud is totally harmless during this attack since it's right at the enemy's side and not doing anything. In addition, you have to be at range for this attack to work as intended; if you get hit by the "arm", one of two things will happen: you'll either get pushed to one side and go basically unharmed, or the arm will do the same thing as the bud and melt that character's HP.
Definitely messier than the previous, but it's gone now.
We can't be far away now. I would advise you not head to Velvet's right, down that path. About halfway through, there's a cliff you have to jump off of to proceed, and you can't jump back up to back where you were. It's definitely better to just head to the star now and backtrack later. Like, there's nothing particularly bad that happens, it's just that you'll have to circle around to get back where you are now.
If you're going the right way, when you make your first left, but before the first right, there's a Katz box right ahead of you. You'll get a Shiba Inu Tail in exchange for parting with 115 souls. Traveling further along... Exorcists in the forest
We could ask the same of you!
Couple of ho-hum exorcists with considerably less health than we've seen exorcists lately. Nothing to say.
Is there something going going on back there? They didn't look like they were daemon-hunting...
*compass is freaking out*
Are you making that move?
No, it just did it by itself.
He's in sync with his compass, just like Eizen and his coin.
Eizen, you're an earth malak, right? Do you sense anything around here?
No, I don't. It seems Laphicet's senses are sharper than mine.
*compass stops* It stopped, but...something still feels wrong.
Like what?
It kind of feels like when we got sealed inside that earthpulse...
So a force similar to Innominat's power? I'm starting to think this may be no ordinary daemon we're dealing with here...
Well, nothing to do but investigate, clearly. Definitely something more afoot than it seems. Well, we'll find out the truth after another short area, entirely devoid of things to mention aside from a Cassandra Sash for Velvet, which increases her fire element power.
Innominat's power is no match for Magilou's juggling abilities.
Well, I think we've found our flowers. Definitely quite ugly. The daemon in the forest
Ah! Look! Purple flowers!
Yep. Sale'tomah.
Is the daemon the real reason the Abbey's closed off the forest?
Worry about it later. It's flower-picking time.
Agreed.
Whaddaya think, kiddo? I told ya these things were hard on the eyes! I mean, who PUTS those colors together?
Yeah, they're really nasty-looking. But if they help the others, that's good enough for me!
Laphicet!
This must be the daemon we were warned about!
Only screenshotting this because Magilou's doing a great Anzu impression here: showing very little interest in proceedings. To be fair, she stood up shortly afterwards, but still, not that invested. Not sure what they were trying to communicate. It might have trying to say Magilou got scared, which would be understandable, but she reacts so quietly and off-frame that it's more like "Ugh, this shit again" if you ask me.
I'm OK!
So much for this daemon being hard to find. Is this the Reaper's Curse yet again!?
We're just getting started.
Another barrier!
(That barrier... Even my praetor artes can't break that! What's going on here? Why go to such lengths to keep this daemon alive?
Either way, I don't think we're hauling home any flowers unless we beat up Mr. Bugglesworth here!
Right. Everyone, let's do this!
Ah, tiny, annoying, flying enemies. Everyone's favorite. This fellow likes to buzz around and just generally be really annoying, but it'll occasionally stop to attack or cast spells.
Like this one. A nice little cage of lightning that will eventually throw a lightning bolt down in the center, but as long as you don't run or dodge square into one of those lightning pillars, you can get clear without incident.
Aside from being generally annoying, the bug doesn't have much health and a couple good combos with lots of stuns will pretty quickly destroy it. And not a moment too soon, either.
Phew! Insect-collecting is a sweatier hobby than I thought.
*goes to pick up the beetle*
Jeez. That thing is like half the size of Laphicet and just attacked us. I certainly wouldn't say yes...
No. Hand it over. I'll dispose of it.
Aw...
*unsheathes arm, arm doesn't react*
The Abbey had some reason for protecting it. Maybe we should keep it alive for observation.
*shatters barrier* You want it, you feed it.
I will! I'll take care of him!
Anyway, now that we've got these flowers, Eleanor and my crew ought to be out of danger.
Hey! Forgetting somebody?!
It looks like we've closed the door on this little episode. That insect daemon was a bit of a surprise, but I still think this "curse" business is overblown.
*sigh* I can count on one hand how many have survived more than three years at my side. If you're not careful, you might wind up as Corpse Number 50.
50?!
That's how many comrades I've lost.
Oh! I-- I'm sorry...
Just saying don't let your guard down.
...Right.
Now that we've got what we need, we should get back to the ship.
Again, agreed. The reward for beating up the bug is the Sprinter's Ventite, which increases field movement speed by another 10%.
In this skit, Eleanor asks about what kind of daemon Velvet is, but unfortunately, the party has few answers. As we know from the first update, Artorius called her a "therion", but what exactly a therion is capable of remains a mystery, even to the woman herself.
So speaking of backtracking, a nice thing about shattering that barrier is that all the red/blue gates around here have been lowered for good, so there's no particular need to bother with that gimmick anymore.
Alley-oop. Nothing much between us and the end of the dungeon, except for this particular deathmatch.
I wouldn't get between these guys as they try to settle this debate.
Not helping.
In a skit later on, the taste of sale'tomah, according to Aifread at least, but apparently Aifread was quite well-informed about it, as Eleanor backs the sentiment up entirely. And there is no recourse on the awful taste, no matter what you do to it. For the record, Magilou is getting the easy way out, as she made Bienfu drink the sale'tomah juice in her place. Lucky...
Getting back to the first area of the forest... Eavesdrop
You think there's any chance that wanted malak would launch an attack here?
His target's probably Lothringen, but stay sharp just in case. He might try to break the bug cage as a diversion.
"Wanted malak"? "Lothringen"? Hmm.
First that daemon wrecks Hellawes and then Eleanor betrays us. We're never gonna catch a break.
Quit whining. Cleaning up messes is our job. *the pair leave*
*sighs*
Looks like our Abbey buddies are up to something.
And the "bug cage"... That barrier, I assume?
If so, it won't be long before they found out we broke in.
Then we should make our exit while we can.
Yep. Luckily, there's no nothing, for real, standing between us and returning to Reneed. Unusual armament
Hey! How goes it?
*charges* Zaveid!
...That artifact you've got belongs to Aifread. Why do you have it?
Just picked it up off the ground somewhere.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this thing? Very, very important. Wait and see...
Don't screw with me, tough guy. I have ways of making you talk.
Ha! I wonder how much pain gets YOU to open up.
You're the one about to be tested.
It's not up to you how this goes. If I wanna talk, we'll talk. And if I wanna fight, we'll fight.
What are you...?!
I'd play more, but I don't wanna keep ol' pointy-beard waiting. We'll chat some more later...with our fists! *jets off with a teleport*
Wait!
Eizen! We need to get the flowers to everyone on the ship!
You can handle it. *runs off*
But you're--
Let's head back, Laphicet.
...All right.
Well...looks like Zaveid has himself a fancy new toy. A gun you can shoot yourself with, at least if you're a malak, that can help you out, or at least that's certainly what it looked like. Once you're back in Reneed, you get a skit about the mystery of "ol-pointy beard" and that gun Zaveid was using. Well, the party doesn't use the word "gun" because firearm technology is apparently non-existent in this setting, but we can call it a gun. Magilou says maybe this is the thing Aifread brought back from the mysterious continent across the sea, but without Eizen or Zaveid around, let alone Aifread, no way to tell. Well, a mystery for another time. For now, there's not much going on in Reneed, but make sure you turn in those two Code Red hunts for 5800 gald. We're up to 9 defeated now.
But for now, let's enjoy the wonders of nature. That's actually three frogs, if you can't see the very tiny third one.
So for a non-speaking NPC, this guy actually drops some crucial lore. Since the cat's already been out of the bag about Berseria being a prequel since the start of this thread, I'll just go ahead and say now that this guy is 100% accurate and that Zestiria takes place on one massive continent, rather than Berseria's many smaller ones, and this guy explains why that happens. Obviously I can't get into any particulars now but there have been several areas so far that are revisited in Zestiria (well, revisited in THIS game, more accurately), obviously with a lot of time passing in-between and some name changes, but there are definitely some 1-1 relationships going on.
But let's put all that in the back of our minds as we finally return with the sale'tomahs. Delivery
You've saved us! But...where's the first mate?
We bumped into some wannabe tough-guy malak, and he just took off after him.
Wha--- That must have been Zaveid! Why didn't you guys follow him?!
And leave you all with the corsair's scourge?
Yes! Eizen's the one in danger here!
Is it because the Abbey is after Zaveid?
So you even knew about it! I heard the details from a merchant who deals with the Abbey. Some big-shot exorcist named Melchior has set up a trap for Zaveid in Lothringen. If Eizen gets caught up in that, he might not make it out alive!
So now there's Melchior to worry about...
(Why is Lord Melchior assuming direct command to capture Zaveid? Wait, that's not important. What matters is I can turn Laphicet over to him and finally return to the Abbey!)
Melchior's a legate. A powerful enemy, trap or no.
Gah, you guys are useless! Well, fine! If you're not going to go help him, we will!
What makes you think you're capable of being any help?
Would you let an ally get slaughtered just because you were scared?
What?!
We want to save him. Maybe we'll lose. It still won't stop us! We are the ones who decide our fates. Only us! That's just the creed of Aifread's Pirates!
...You're a real hot-head, you know that? Nobody said anything about not helping Eizen.
Huh?
You all stay here, take your medicine like good little boys, and be ready to welcome back your first mate and captain.
The captain?!
Why else would Eizen knowingly barge into a trap, if not to rescue Aifread?
Ahaha! Of course! Leave the ship and crew to me. *takes off*
Here, this one's for you.
Those pirates haven't a lick of sense in them.
They don't let "reason" dictate who they protect.
...If you say so, daemon.
*eats the sale'tomah, collapses*
Some time passes...
Now... About where Eizen's headed.
Those exorcists were talking about some place called Lothringen.
Yes, it's a tower in the northern part of Westgand where the exorcists train.
Lines up with what Benwick tld us. That must be the place.
There must be a lot of exorcists. Hang in there, Eizen...
Ahh, it'll take more than exorcists to do him in.
We ought to pity any poor exorcists who meet the Reaper.
Right. Let's work together and find him!
That's the spirit. If only that's all we needed.