00:00:01.53 Jala Hello world, and welcome to Jala-chan's Place. I'm your host, Jala Prendes (she/her), and today I am reunited with my friend Daniel F. (he/him) to talk about Shining Force 3 scenario 1. Spoiler for folks who don't really know what goes on in recording land here for us. We are back to back recording. So we already did the overview, we took a short break, and now we are back to talk more Shining Force 3, and we're probably gonna do the other two episodes this way as well. So we are chugging our coffee and we are ready to go to talk about this. We have a Ko-fi, KO-FI.com/fireheartmedia. You can kick us a few bucks. Or you can share this episode and tell people about it and, um you know, otherwise engage with us at the links that are in the show notes. But I would like to get started with our actual episode. I think this is the fastest I've ever gotten an episode started on my podcast ever. So, yes, yes, we are talking today about scenario one, God Warrior of the Kingdom. And now that that translation of the title is as per shutting for Central's translation that they have posted up there. So the first chapter is entitled, Nightmare in the Floating City of Saraband. This game opens up in the neutral city of Saraband, where the Republic of Aspinia and the Destonian Empire are treating for peace. Synbios, our lead protagonist for this installment, is attending the Republican King Benetram, his meeting before this event, in his father's stead. So Synbios's Father Lord Conrad is this legendary warrior who once was a knight of the empire, but left it to form the Republic along with some other folks. So um he is one of the leaders of the Republic and you are here in his stead. He is not doing so well. ah he's kind of having some health issues back at home. So at the start, you see a masked person transforming into different townspeople to infiltrate the peace talks and King Benetram is approached by the disguised person and asked to go early for an informal council. He decides that he's going to go, hoping that with fewer voices in the room, more progress towards resolving the conflicts might be achieved. He tests Synbios with exploring the town to learn what the people of Saraband think of the Republic, the Empire, and the peace talks in general. So um there are some other little small scenes that happen throughout this, like When you're talking to King Benetram, Masqurin and Grace are outside. They're sitting outside of the headquarters, and then Masqurin goes up to the window to sneak a peek. Then Dantares sees her and is just like, hey, stop that, and you know closes the window. and Then he gets yelled at by the people in the room because he's and jacking around over there when he's supposed to be listening. So he gets in trouble for trying to keep Masker in out of trouble and to keep her from snooping. So um there's this cute little like you know largely wordless scene where you just see the little characters going about their business right at the very beginning, which kind of sets the tone for some of the main characters that you start your game out with. There is a lot of talk that goes on inside of that headquarters that sets up the whole situation with the Republic at this point so before Synbios even really begins to wander around the streets you have this setup where you have um The different people talking about you know, oh, well we need to treat for peace and you know, ah there's these different ah strains in the Republic in different areas and you learn about some of the major players in the Republic. What was the biggest thing that stood out to you, Daniel, at this opening part of the all the talky bits? 00:04:05.26 Daniel Well, as a kid, I really loved when the lightning bolt sound effect goes off and the window gets closed. That really stood out a lot for me. it was ah It was a lot of fun watching that and experiencing that. It was a great way to open the game and to showcase some of the effects right away. And as an adult, I really like when Masqurin is apologizing for causing a disturbance because I feel like she's owning up to her actions a bit there. And she doesn't really do that very much throughout the series. She's more of a, jokester trickster kind of character for a lot of the dialogue when she's younger and not promoted and in that mentality of we're just having fun as kids. So I see that she experiences a lot of growth and in the very beginning you witness her being very young and very adolescent and it's a very nice way to tie people into the game that way. 00:04:51.82 Jala Right, because after the whole kind of conference with Synbios and Dantares and the King Benetram and the other advisors, Brutus and Tybalt, um when they are all done with that and they did like adjourn and then it's time for Synbios and Dantares to go into town, Masqurin is there and she offers Dantares some flowers and apologizes. So that's a real sweet moment. So um you get to wander the streets at this point. You get turned loose for the first time, which allows you to engage with the ah books that we talked about in the last episode and the barrels that we talked about in the last episode and talking to the NPCs, some of whom end up giving you stuff that is important. Now, here's a question I have for you. I forget the significance of the flower, the cut flower you can get. I know in scenario two, what you do with it, but what do you do with it in scenario one? Is there any point to having it in scenario one? I forget. 00:05:45.57 Daniel Absolutely not It is just an item that you hopefully carry and utilize in scenario two um there is a discussion in the group on the translation project about if we should turn it into a usable item because you can and there is a way to do that and I'm hoping to adjust that in my mod as well but outside of ah that in the vanilla gameplay there is absolutely no use to have the flower and you could discard it if you choose to however it is recommended to try and keep it on you since it does carry over. 00:06:18.78 Jala So after you roam the streets as Synbios and you kind of get your legs under you, this is this is kind of where like you get some tips about how to play the game. You get the ability to interact in the exploration mode and all of that. You ah end up coming across the Imperial Camp. And some of the guards there try to pick a fight, but then Prince Medion and his men intervene, particularly Campbell, which is his centaur knight. 00:06:45.05 Jala And while talking with Synbios about how they were tracking some masked men in town, there's suddenly some explosions and then everybody runs off to their own camps to check for damage and figure out what's going on. ah During this first kind of interview between Medion and Synbios, you have like um a meeting of some of the major players like immediately like off the bat in this game, which is interesting um because like You are in a so like the only setting where these two would meet so casually. 00:07:16.36 Daniel yeah it's a really neat setup for the future game as well and for the series as a whole. 00:07:22.91 Jala Right. Because, um, Synbios and Medion and the friendship that they forge with each other, despite the fact that their politics are essentially like opposite ends of the spectrum is, you know, like a key point to a lot of the tensions that go on throughout the entirety of the game. So like setting it up right at the beginning is a really good move. And I like the, right. 00:07:44.36 Daniel And you see that you see that Campbell and Medion are very noble people right off the bed as well. And you get that sense of these are honorable folks that you could just spend time with and learn more about. And you hope to see them again. And it's quite a while before you see them again. 00:08:00.70 Jala Right. And the thing that's really cool too is that Dantares and Campbell have heard of each other. They know, they're like, oh, you're the guy who routed all of those troops and sent them packing in that one battle that we had against you. Oh, you're the guy who did X. Your exploits are known. you know And they basically are just you know sitting around admiring each other's abilities and stuff um and talking about like one day I want to be able to fight you myself. That would be cool. you know um That would be a fun test of our abilities at some point in the future, but they mean it in this like friendly, kind of competitive way. And so like you have this feeling that these people would just sit down and have beers and just talk. you know So ah that's a really good way to ah introduce them. But so ah you have this exchange of information, which becomes a hallmark of Synbios and Medions brief interactions throughout the entirety of the series is that they oftentimes are sharing information and then having to run off and do stuff. You know, you already get that function here at the top before you even have your first battle. And then you've got the explosions and then everybody's like, I don't know what's going on. Let's head back to our camps and figure out what's going on. Cause I don't, I don't know what's happening right now. So, uh, you, you pick up with that thread in scenario two for Medion side, but in the meantime, Synbios is on the way back to the Republican camp and then comes across some masked monks. And this is where you end up with your first battle where ah you get to fight some of these monks on your way back to the Republican camp to go see the king. The first time that I played this battle, ah definitely kind of charged in a little too fast. I think that's like everybody. And even though I played other Shining Force games, it's like um you don't have an idea of how far the enemies can move or any of their abilities or anything like that off the bat. So it's real easy to get overwhelmed if you don't play more conservatively and defensively. You need to like Have a stronger person up front to lure the people in. And even though Masqurin goes first, don't put her at the very front and use a fire spell. You will die. 00:10:13.08 Daniel Actually, I don't even think Masqurin can reach the enemies in the very first movement section. I think and think a lot of people probably put her in front of the church because you can move up to the church a couple squares. But my tactic is to put them put her around the side of the church and then to move Dantares to that spot right in front of the church so that he takes a couple hits. And then if you flank him with Synbios, either directly beside him or down and across one, You can flank with Synbios and then he can attack freely an next turn and Grace then can heal Dantares. That's my tactic for that part of that fight. 00:10:47.48 Jala What's funny is that that's eventually what I ended up doing as well. Um, like that's, that's a good cat tactic because you were using the terrain. The fact that there is this church right there, uh, to your advantage when you're doing this fight. So, this is pretty standard stuff. You've got a handful of monks. You are fighting. None of them. I don't think none of them have magic. They're all just sword guys at this point. The first magic users, the second battle, I think. 00:11:10.23 Daniel And also one other tactic that you can use that is technically not a great idea because you get way ahead. But if you give Grace all of your healing herbs, she actually gains bonus experience points for using healing items on people. So when you run out of experience point or when you run out of healing, healing power, magic power, your MP zero, you can still then use up to four healing herbs from her on the other people. And if you have more in your inventory, once she uses one, you can trade them to her in combat and then continue to use them. So you can actually, I have spent 45 minutes on that battle or sometimes two hours to power her up to level 10 or 11 or 12 before leaving the city and getting her almost promoted in that first battle just by doing that and getting everyone else up to level four and five and getting them some skills on their weapons. 00:11:54.05 Jala Oh, my God. Wow. OK, like I have done the beginning part of this tactic before, but I have never I've never sat on that battle for that long. But ah that is a good tactic if you want to, um you know, like really use the system. 00:12:19.15 Daniel There's many ways to play, any which way that you want to play. I play the game a lot. For me, it's about getting the most effect out of the characters the fastest. So getting Grace to level 17 is the fastest, is the absolute best tactic I've ever felt. 00:12:33.76 Jala Well, and I have to say too, um, so, so when it comes to the characters in your party and who's MVP, like Grace very often ends up being like and MVP for me in so many battles. Cause like, especially if you put her up front, when she starts getting stuff like monks and then she has her special attacks and stuff, she does good damage with those. I mean, uh, your healer grace don't sleep on using her as an ah attacker as well. She's actually can hold her home pretty well. 00:12:59.44 Daniel Yep, she's got some pretty good stats. 00:12:59.54 Jala You end up fighting those monks. They're just like, Hey, there's some guys let's take them out. Cause they saw us. They're not supposed to see us. And then they get routed by you. And then you end up rushing back. So you talked to king Benetram and ah or you go back and you're trying to go to talk to King Benetram, and then you see King Benetram taking the emperor, Emperor Domaric or Dominate, if you're going with the Japanese translation, um taking the emperor away. And you try to chase afterwards and then you end up finding um Benetram with his advisors, but there's no emperor in sight. And you seem to find out pretty, pretty quick. OK, there's a body double. There's another ah King Benetram. And um this is tipped off to you as to who's who, because the eye color is different when you the one of the kings is talking. So original King Benetram has blue eyes, but then the body double King Benetram has red eyes. 00:14:10.51 Daniel Okay, because that is actually Fiale. 00:14:13.63 Jala Yes, exactly. 00:14:14.19 Daniel The person who is there is actually one of the priests of Bulzome, who you do fight a few times and who is one of your main villains in the first scenario. And he is actually doing his best to tell you that he has been a Tram, even though you can tell by looking at his eyes that he's someone totally different. It's a pretty good double, but it's not perfect. 00:14:32.57 Jala Absolutely. So, um, the high priest of Bulzome that is being referred to, which, uh, we haven't explained Bulzome monks yet. We'll get there, but, um, so his name in Japanese is Fear. 00:14:45.11 Jala And, uh, when they brought him over to, uh, you know, English speaking, it's F I A L E. So, uh, you pronounce it one way. I've always said Fiale, but you know, it's whatever. 00:14:55.02 Daniel Yes, absolutely. 00:14:57.77 Jala Whatever you want to pronounce it as, his name is Fear in Japanese. um All of them have, no, not all of them, but many of them have names that are recognizable words. So ah anyway, so we have this body double situation that gets set up right at the beginning and there's all these explosions happening. You end up coming again across Benetram with the advisors, but there's no emperor. And then you ask about it. And then he's like, what? I've been here the whole time talking to my people. I haven't, I don't know what you're talking about. So ah Edward and Tybalt, who are two of the advisors, offered to distract the forces of the empire in Saraband while the king is escorted back to Aspinia by Synbios and his team. And the reason for this ah we're going to abandon this is because obviously this peace conference has been foiled. ah You know, this whatever is going on right now, is just going to put the ah king in danger and so we need to get him out of here safely because he didn't have anything to do with whatever abduction is going on with the emperor right now but he's going to be blamed for it because a body double just took the emperor. So um you know like ah as much as like the very, very beginning of the game, like the whole conference pre-talk and everything is a slow little bit, once the stuff starts happening, it starts happening pretty quick. 00:16:19.03 Daniel Is there a very quick to start confrontation? The monks of Bulzome are really interested in disrupting these talks because they don't want peace. That doesn't help their agenda at all. 00:16:27.41 Jala Exactly. Exactly. So ah Brutus, which is another one of the advisors, meanwhile says that he's going to talk to general Governor General of Saraband, talk to Garvin and tell him what's happened and try to explain the situation. So ah while that is happening, Synbios and company are trying to head towards the docks. And then they see that fake Benetram taking the emperor away like he's still hanging out in the city. And after all these, you know, this exchange that you have with the real king, you end up seeing, hey, the fake king is there with the emperor and they're trying to take him down the docks to go wherever with him. So ah you end up having another battle here on the docks. And this is one of the, I think ah this is the first place where you have like a major pivot point at that affects future volumes of this this game. ah You can either get one character in your team or another character in your team, depending upon your decisions here on the docks. So um there is a character named Garosh who is here and he is an archer on the stock. And he is an ally who you cannot control. the There are many of these throughout the game. And very often you have to kind of keep this character alive until the end of the battle and or ah get Synbios to that character to talk to that character to, um you know, like have this this little discussion on the battlefield and then be able to advance the story from there. In this case, you would just have to keep this guy alive, and he likes to charge in and shoot stuff as a little archer guy. 00:18:06.59 Daniel He is an archer. his ah His brother is there with him, Hayward, and you can recruit Hayward to your team. However, if you talk to Garosh first, then when you talk to him, he realizes there's a problem here and flees the battlefield to go talk to the governor i as well. I believe it is. And when he goes to talk to him, then if you do that and he's still alive at the end of the battle, which he would be then, you can have a chance to recruit him later on in the series. 00:18:35.24 Jala Correct. And we'll go ahead and say it. You can recruit him in scenario two at that point. 00:18:40.11 Daniel Yes, and quite easily he's very apparent to find. 00:18:41.29 Jala So yes, yes. So um that is, again, one of your first pivot points. You can still get Hayward either way. But um whether or not you can get Garosh later is really just dependent upon whether or not he's alive and you get to that that scene first before all of this happens. 00:19:01.86 Daniel And the tactics to do that are to generally rush Dantares as fast as you can down the field to get their first even if it means you don't talk to Hayward first, Hayward usually is in less danger. If you're playing on the harder difficulties, there is a chance for both of them to die before you get to them. And if that happens, you don't get to recruit either of them to your force. So if Hayward dies, you don't get him. If Garosh dies, you won't get him either. So it is in your best interest, and this is why I power up Grace so much sometimes, is because I usually play on the insane mode, and I want her to be able to survive long enough to help get over there and heal either one of them if they need it. 00:19:38.37 Jala Yeah, absolutely. And of course, you can always equip Dantares or whoever with healing herbs so that they can go ahead and heal them as well if they can get within range of this character in order to do that. So um as you save some of the soldiers that you're finding there, that would be a Hayward and Garosh. One of them says that he will report back to the governor general, that would be Garosh, and tell him the truth of the matter to exonerate Benetram. So he's going to go back and tell. So, ah narratively speaking, the best course of action is to get Garosh out of there alive. Ultimately, it does not matter whether or not he lives or dies because the governor general, did the what the governor general ends up doing is the same regardless. um But whether or not you can get that character. I mean, as you're playing through as Synbios, ideally you would want that guy to live. 00:20:29.44 Daniel hmm here it is one of your best units if you treat him well and give him lots of experience points and have him shoot a lot of guys another point about this battle too is that there is a missable item called a battle bracer and if you do not shoot the barrels in front of the ships you will miss a couple of decent pickups here early in the game so make sure you rake those barrels can be broken. Don't leave any barrel unturned. 00:20:53.76 Jala Absolutely. And that's a very good point because I probably would have forgotten until way later to mention that. But ah in these battles, if there are breakable items, break those items always because ah sometimes they have stuff in them just like they do when you're in exploration mode and you want those things. 00:21:03.89 Daniel Always. 00:21:10.01 Jala So ah after that, you have this battle. But regardless of what you are doing here, you end up ah not able to catch the fake king Benetram with the emperor who is being abducted. So ah you are chasing after them. So you immediately rush after and leave Saraband and. um the masked monks are leaving a few behind them you know to slow you up on their trail. The fake king and the emperor are fleeing off and they're going to another town. and Along the way, you have another battle right outside of Saraband where you have to fight a bunch of nasties. I want to say this is the first time where I saw like a friendship thing growing for me, because if you are playing like a normal human like going through your first time, and you are not on your 7000th playthrough, um this will probably be about the time that people start forming their friendships, especially with Grace, because she heals everybody. But her or Masqurin, because Masqurin is within range very often and has to hide behind a unit um to keep herself alive at this point, because she's kind of squishy, as all casters are. 00:22:21.95 Daniel I believe often here, Dantares and Masquirin start farming friendships often as well. 00:22:26.34 Jala Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So um you end up being slowed up ah fighting these guys. And um let's see. ah This battle includes some some more mass monks. There's lots of mass monks. You fight these guys constantly. There's different iterations of them that you fight throughout. There are some bats. And I don't remember if there's anything else initially. Then you end up having ah some knights come up behind you because the governor general does not buy the story that the king didn't kidnap the emperor because he just saw the king take off with the emperor. So he sends some Saraband knights after you when you're about like halfway down the field, then suddenly you've got some knights show up behind you. Um, and then you have to fight those guys. 00:23:14.12 Daniel It's actually, we found out that it is distance based. There is a line in the game, but there's also a countdown timer, I think, for number of turns. So that one of the tactics is to hide in the mountains. If you go into the mountains, the line goes clearly down the map almost center point. And you can hide in the mountains to slow the knights down because they kind of spread after they come on the field. They do a bit of a reach out. And if you get them spread enough, you can narrow them down one by one and don't have to take on three or four of them at a time as a group. Or if you're careful, you can try to use Hayward and someone else partnered together to take on one or two at a time and then have the other three units getting up on some people. 00:23:54.03 Jala Awesome, awesome. So yeah, um once you've played through enough times, like you know where where the trigger point is on the map, and you're like, Oh, yeah, I know. I know right about here is is where those nights will pop out or whatever and, um or this many turns in is when that happens. So it's about to happen anytime now and you can kind of um position your troops to be aware of that. But for folks who are playing for the first time, definitely just be aware that about halfway through the map, as you're going through, you're going to end up fighting these guys ah who are going to get you from the but the rear. So ah you've got to make sure to position your people in such a way that you can still protect your squishies. So. so um Yeah, absolutely. 00:24:31.83 Daniel And also it's probably not a good idea to get flanked so don't rush this map Make sure those guys come to you and don't force your way through because if you push too hard too fast You'll get flanked and then you will not have a fun time 00:24:42.71 Jala ah Absolutely. so ah Yeah, so Governor General Garvin is not buying the fact that Benetram is innocent. So um after you end up escaping or fighting, taking on the Saraband forces, because I think it doesn't, Dantares's or um You know, you're but advice like whoever you're advising folks, didn't they say something like, oh, you got to get away from those guys because they're too powerful, but I always fight them? I want to say that they probably tell you to stay away from them. You can wrap them. You can you can take them out. ah You just have to be smart about it. 00:25:18.00 Daniel Oh, yeah, they mention that they're trained knights and that this will be a tough battle if you try to fight them head-on, which means going four against all a whole bunch of them at once. If you separate them out, it becomes much easier. Keep in mind though that they are knights, so they have advantage over Synbios and will knock him out real easily if you let two or three of them attack him in a turn. 00:25:38.43 Jala And then also something that I don't think we really emphasized much in our overview talk was the that the different tiles on the map have different terrain percentage effects, and different types of characters are able to move differently. So part of the reason for the mountains being so important, or forest for that matter, is the knights, the centaurs and any centaurs in general, like have a hard time going through those areas. And so they slow down and their massive movement, which is available to you when you're on planes and things like that, ah just like reduces down to very little. when you are in these um higher effect areas of terrain. But people like Hayward, I think, are really able to go through those areas a lot further than the nights are. 00:26:28.92 Daniel Yes, Hayward and Grace can climb mountains a lot easier than most of the people. It's not recommended to go super far into the mountains. Don't go too far to the north on this map or you'll be alone. But if you stick to the bottom part of the mountains, you can easily get to your destination and also ah distract the knights a lot easier. There is something in the game that we didn't talk about called the land effect bonus. This seems to, as far as we can tell, only affect the defense of the bad guys. It doesn't give you any attack bonus and doesn't help you have any defense bonus. So keeping enemies off of the land effects that would give them benefit also seems to be to your advantage more often. 00:27:06.21 Jala Yeah, absolutely. So ah after you escape, the Saraband forces and you read all of the monks. Synbios finds himself too late to kidnap ben the or too late to take down the kidnapper Benetram. Let's put it that way. um But he ends up heading into the town of Balsamo where the monks have a stronghold because um the fake Benetram takes the emperor off on a ship and off he goes somewhere. He goes away and you can't catch up with him. And now you're just going to Balsamo, which is the nearest town ah to see what's going on there. 00:27:42.71 Daniel You're trying to escape Garvin's chasing forces after you at that point. 00:27:45.73 Jala Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in Balsamo, Synbios ends up coming into this inn and meeting the four of Balsam, which are Fiale or Fear, or however you wish to pronounce that, Dessheren, or another way of ah pronouncing it from Japan, Death Helen, Basanda, and Goriate, or Goliath. And it is discovered that they have emperor Domaric captured in, in captive. They are the ones who have him captive, but Synbios, Dantares and Benetram can't fight the four as their entire camp of monks is, uh, is there, you know, and like, it's just the three of them. And they, they, they happen to wander in when everybody else is in headquarters and they, they happen to come across these and they're like, Oh man, uh, we can't fight these guys on our own. So they leave to go get their comrades. When they return to the inn, the monks are all gone along with the emperor. So all of that is gone. um So there is another secret character that you can get if you um go through a certain area in this section. ah in this On the second floor of the inn here, ah there is a guy that is tied up and you can see him on the map. ah You can see him, he's in like a secret room back behind everything. 00:29:07.01 Jala And you just have to figure out where that secret path is to get to him. 00:29:11.95 Daniel And it's a bit of a windy path that actually leaves you down in a little ways and then you turn a corner and then you turn another corner to get to him. That would be Bernard, the archer. 00:29:20.87 Jala Yes, correct. So if you do not save him in this part, in this second town that you have come to, you do not get to recruit him later. So 00:29:30.33 Daniel Actually, I don't even think he shows up as he would still be tied up there and probably perish. 00:29:33.30 Jala Yeah, he would probably just die. That's what I mean. You can't recruit him. He's dead. He's gone. and Goodbye, Bernard. 00:29:41.96 Daniel So don't choose to let him don't let him put die. Make sure you go and save him. 00:29:46.27 Jala Yeah, yeah. So ah I unfortunately, because I was using that um ah data that was just like the default data, he was already gone. So I didn't get to play with him when I was playing the ah scenario too when I was doing that. But either way. So meanwhile, Imperial forces are heading to Balsamo also. The force set Synbios up to be a distraction so they could get away. So ah they're you know They're in Balsamo, Synbios is in Balsamo. They delay him a little bit by having all of this stuff go go on. And then they basically ah rat out Synbios and party and more or less make sure that the um you know empire knows, hey, ah the Republic guys are over in this town. And so like you just look over the hill and see that the imperial forces are coming. So, um, Synbios at this point also gets another member, possibly, uh, you, you can choose not to talk to him, but I don't know why you would. Oh, bright the dwarf. So, um, you can talk to that guy and he's just like a guy that was left behind when one of the other generals had moved on or something like that. And he wants to serve again. 00:30:55.51 Daniel It's General Varlant, actually. He's a member of General Varlant's forces and he has an injury and by the time he's healed and ready to go back into the force they've moved on and are already out fighting and he feels left behind so he asks to join you and you can recruit him there. 00:31:10.05 Daniel It's ah really important that you pick him up. He's quite a powerful member of your force. 00:31:14.72 Jala Absolutely. And um yeah, he is one of your mainstays, definitely throughout the entirety of the game. So ah you get him and then you flee the city through a valley filled with monsters. 00:31:27.01 Jala So um this is the part where you get that. I forget that. what What is that little boy's name in the town? Like there's a little boy who's friends with Obright that you end up having to talk to. 00:31:37.09 Daniel You're talking about Toby. 00:31:37.11 Jala I guess he's a mandatory character. Yeah, Toby. There you go. So Toby. his friends with Obright has made friends with Obright while Obright's been here on recovery and so if you talk to toby and toby's i think is his grandfather or something um something like that 00:31:54.02 Daniel Yeah, so something on that lines, yeah. 00:31:56.58 Jala Yeah, i don't I don't know if it's his grandpa or somebody who's just taking care. I don't know. Either way, there's an older man that you have to talk to that's like the guardian of Toby, and um they will allow you to go through this secret passage that will take you away from the town, but it takes you through a valley of monsters. So when you come out on the other side, you fight this battle um in this valley with a bunch of different monsters popping up. I think this is the first time that you have like infinispawn critters, right? 00:32:22.09 Daniel very similar to infinite spawn. The worms there spawn a certain number of them, and they can respawn if you kill them. And I think the way to stop them from respawning is to sit somebody on those spots. So that really takes away from your force if you're planning on stopping all of them. But once they've sat there for a turn or two, I don't believe the monsters come back for a while. I do believe they are infinite, but they take a break if you've put two people there. So I usually personally run two guys onto the platform on the right. And I usually take Grace with me when I do that, and usually it's Hayward and Masqurin with her. So we have ranged, because if you don't have ranged there, the goblins and the worms will totally decimate you. So I'd usually use those tactics to get up there, block that off for a couple turns while I run the rest of my guys through the valley. 00:33:13.95 Jala Mm hmm. So what I end up doing in this part is um where you were grinding grace and the other characters in the very first battle, I usually use this infinispawn area to get a few levels up. And I'll just like camp out some people and just, you know, set it up where I've got like a ranged guy on either side and then I've got other people around and whoever I want to level, I have that person ah finish off the monster and all of that mess. and Then like I let them respond and then I'll just go through a little like a few cycles, a few turns of doing that before I move on, just so they can get a little bit more ah leveling before moving on. 00:33:48.15 Daniel It's a good spot. The only problem I have is that those worms can poison you. And if Grace isn't already a couple levels in, then she probably doesn't have antidote and the antidote herbs, if you forget to stock up on those, can lead to some problems in that battle. So make sure if you don't have her leveled up or even if she is leveled up that you buy a couple of antidote herbs in the town before, as you have to fight two battles back to back here. 00:34:11.27 Jala Yep, yep. So you come out on the other side. This is just like one of those eliminating all the critters ones. So you come out on the other side and then you find some of Sharaf's men. And Sharaf is a thief king who ah it also plays like a more important part than you might expect from just, there's the thief guy you know and his entourage of folks, he ends up being ah kind of an important character. He's an important character to this series of games. So well you find some of Shiraf's men talking about how the war between Aspinia and Destonia allows them to steal so their hearts content because everybody is so busy fighting battles and stuff that they are leaving stuff unguarded and that leaves these thieves able to just go do whatever they want. And once you wrap these men, then Synbios learns that Shiraf was plotting with the monks of Bulzome to ruin the peace talks. So ah he is involved with what is setting up this massive, more or less like continent wide war. 00:35:17.89 Daniel There is also a ruins in that battle that is the first chance for you to get some decent treasure. As we mentioned before in the previous cast, there is different ruins and the map for this ruins is found in the first town in Sarabat. So make sure you find that map. And then make sure when you go through this ruins, there's a couple of key points for this. Synbios cannot enter ruins. So you have to send two or three other people and try not to let him take too many hits from the guys while you're doing this. So either clear guys around there and then just have him hang out near the ruins or put him back a little ways or whatever. Make sure there's nothing there to kill him. And then you can leave him and grace if there's a guy or two still to mop up or whatever you need to do there. but have that map go into that ruins and then once you've entered the ruins or opened the door at least and the thieves have come out to steal the treasure, if you retreat at that point, those ruins are lost. So make sure that before you're done in there and that you're prepared to go in there, don't open it up until you're ready and then go in there, get the treasure, like let the thief pick up the treasure as we talked about, make sure you get him and then once the ruins are closed, that's it for those ruins and that happens with every set of ruins in the game. 00:36:30.31 Jala Right. And something that I tend to do because whoever opens up the door takes their action when they're doing that. So I tend to have Synbios or whoever I'm not going to send into the ruins, open the ruins so that everybody else can go inside. um who ah Everybody else who is after that person can go inside. So um yeah if you're first person who's ah able to do an action in that turn is Masqurin, which is often the case at this point, then you can just um you know ah have everybody approach and be in range to be able to go inside when it's open and then just have Masqurin open it and then have like everybody else run in real quick after that. So that way um you are in the ruins at the same time as the thieves and the thieves don't get a turn on you. 00:37:13.38 Daniel The other trick you can use is to have Obright open them. Because if Obright is going last, so the last character, if you know who that turn order is, it usually is Obright. If he's last, he can open the runes, then the Thieves go, then your turn starts, and Masqurin goes in, and then that you can have a full turn at the same time as the Thieves, for sure. 00:37:31.27 Jala Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, although I thought once you go in, that spends your action. So then like, if they go in afterwards, then like they can't. 00:37:40.30 Daniel Yes, so that's what I mean, though, is if Obright opens it, then Masqurin and Dantares and Hayward could all go in there, and the thieves are there at the same time, and then you're not burning that turn for Masqurin if she's going in with the other people. Because she's usually more useful in runes than say, oh, right, at least at this stage. 00:37:55.35 Jala Later on, Obright does ah come into his own when it comes to those ruins, but not at this point. At this point, you don't you don't need him in there. So after you go and this is another one of those battles, you don't have like um a big, a real big, bad and aimed boss character or anything like that, per se. ah It's another one of those. Let's just clear the guys off the map. But also you can do this, you know. ah Oh, is this one? 00:38:22.10 Daniel but Actually, this battle does the battle does have a boss. He's the Brigadier Commander or whatever. 00:38:24.81 Jala Oh, it does. 00:38:27.52 Daniel b gt cmd r or whatever He has 60 hit points. He's the first boss of the game, really. He's an archer guy. He's just ah an archer with ah with a different name. He's technically a boss. 00:38:39.89 Jala Yeah. He's not memorable. He's not like he's not like a big guy. 00:38:45.74 Daniel No. 00:38:47.20 Jala He's not like ah a main guy. um So this game does have bosses that kind of count. They they seem more like mid bosses to me if you want to use like a different video game term, you know, like a mid boss, not like the big named, you know, massive battles that are memorable and have story impact. They don't they're not story bosses. So then the team heads into Railhead, which is a railroad town ah where there is actually trains and stuff inside of this game. And they are hoping to meet with General Proton's army and join forces with him. General Proton being another of the Republic's generals. So that wraps up chapter one. And that is that is where that ends. And then we have the beginning of chapter two. So ah chapter two is cross continental railway. Synbios and company find that the border guard sent by Prince Arrawnt or Arrogant in the original Japanese ah to protect the train station as he expected King Benetram to head that way. And in order to avoid making the town a battleground, Synbios heads away to a railroad switching point intersecting with a band of Imperial refugees seeking asylum in the Republic. Pausing there before we go any further with like the big story beats. So when you're exploring in Railhead, it's kind of fun because like you get to hear about how ah the cost of the the railroad fare is so expensive. It's so prohibitively expensive that people like save up money for an entire year but to get onto the train, and people dream of riding the train one day, and it's this really prestigious thing for the people of Aspinia, it is very rare and very costly to be a train rider, whereas the people of Aspinia don't have the same um level of cost associated because they're already established and they all have a level of wealth that's not seen in Aspinia at this point. So this is um one of the first times that you get to see really the disparity between the empire and the republic in terms of just you because like up till now, the only the only thing that you've had to compare is just some stuff that you hear some people say and then just, you know, you have your interaction with Medion. And then that's about it. And then you know now this is where you get to see, well, okay, so the republic is struggling. It has you know some financial difficulties and you know like the empire is is much more richer and has a lot more ah in terms of resources and stuff. So um moving along though, so because Synbios doesn't want to do battle in the town and make that a battleground, he ends up going to this railroad switching point, figuring that he and King Benetram and everybody else can just jump onto a train and just like sneak on, you know, just become, um you know, like stowaways. And so they end up intersecting this band of refugees from the empire who are trying to flee. And the border guard is intent on killing both Synbios and his team, which they see, as well as the. 00:41:59.34 Daniel I think we missed a battle there, actually. 00:42:01.74 Jala Oh, we did. 00:42:09.14 Daniel Sorry about this, folks, but we're going to jump back in time here. 00:42:09.41 Jala Yeah, sorry. These notes are primarily based on whatever memories I had after I had already done a couple of chapters. When you're in Railhead, you are exploring the town and you at first, before you decide you're going to go to the railroad switching point, you are trying to find a way to sneak onto the train. And so you go into the cargo area, one of the storage warehouses. And when you're in there, you find a bunch of thieves breaking into all of the stuff, all of the cargo. And then one of the thieves happens to crack open one of those boxes and then there's a girl in there. And her name is Irene. Irene is a monk. She does not speak, I guess, Aspinian or whatever the language they're speaking is. um She does not speak, for lack of better words, English. She doesn't speak English very well. It's her second language. And she's struggling to you know talk to them. And you know she they're just like, oh, I don't know about her. But she just saw ah she's a witness. We have to kill her, which is a running theme with all of the villains in this game. So this is the first battle where you have multiple levels. There's um it's multiple maps, but not related to a ruins. So you can go inside the different cargo boxes and stuff and this underneath second section to get to Irene faster, because you need to get there to save her if you want to recruit her into your party. You can either go around all of the boxes and fight all of the guys, ah or you can go through the boxes, pop out the other side, and then climb up the boxes to get to her. so She 00:44:04.29 Daniel actually she climbs down to you so she slowly climbs down and ends up at the end of where that tunnel is so one of the popular tactics is to send a couple people around the side to distract the one birdman so she doesn't take the extra hit and the other you send a couple people through this is one of the few ruin type areas where um Synbios can actually go and can actually be part of that so i personally usually send Synbios Masquirin and Dantares through the tunnel and then put the other three around the side so that they can deal with some of the guys there and distract a couple people. If you're playing this on Insane, which I don't recommend anyone who's playing it for the first time does, but if you are playing it on Insane and you're not using the fix that we have in place, the game will not let you recruit Irene because she does receive too much combat damage before you can get to her. There is a solution to that that doesn't involve the patching process, but in the patching process we have actually edited code to allow her to heal herself once when she takes enough damage so that she doesn't die and you can still recruit her. So if you do the new patch, we have that in place so that people can actually save her and not have to worry about her dying. 00:45:16.00 Jala Right. I remember, okay, so what I'm thinking about. So you do have to rush through those tunnels to get to her in order to recruit her before she takes too much damage. You still have to do that either way to get over to that area. 00:45:29.52 Jala ah I think there's still a bird guy that's up there or there's an item up there. There's a reason for you to climb those boxes. 00:45:35.97 Daniel there is a healing rain item, which fully restores all of your character's HP if you use it. And at this point in the game, if you do go get that and you choose to sell it, I think it's worth 10,000 gold pieces. So it is worth it to go get it for any purpose. But if you don't put on hanging onto it, you can use it to get some early gold. 00:45:59.87 Jala Yeah. Yeah. So I was going to say, so I'm like, I know there's a reason for me climbing those boxes. And I know you have to go through that tunnel to get to Irene in time. So you're fighting a bunch of birdmen. Um, once you if eliminate everybody, one bird man happens to get away to go tell sure off about everything that just happened. 00:46:21.17 Daniel And in order to save Irene, you have to talk to her once. So you have to spend a character's turn talking to her. If you feel like she's going to die first, heal her with a healing herb or whatever have you. And then you can talk to her next turn if you have to do that. 00:46:34.19 Jala Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And um usually that's what I'll end up doing depending upon how everything plays out and how fast I get through and all of that. um There are some times where depending upon how I'm playing through, I might need to heal her first and then talk to her after on the next turn. But you just, the name of the game is you need to keep her alive. You need to get to her to talk to her. and all of that and then of course try to get that healing rain item it is really useful really important. um The healing rain is like a game changer if you are on like a one of the big final last boss battles and stuff or any boss battle really and then like all of your people are really wiped like you are just getting the you know your butts handed to you. So, um definitely worth your time to use to keep that item and hold on to it. Or if you really are just wanting to make your life difficult and you don't want to use it, um you can just sell it off and make a lot of gold to get some of your important upgrades. so The Birdman will leave after the battle and go tell Shiraf what's going on. and Meanwhile, you're like, well, ah now there's a big mess. There's no way that we can go onto this train at this point at rail heads. We're just going to have to go to the switching point and then bestow a ways that way. ah When the trains are switching, the tracks are switching and everything, that'll slow the trains down. They'll stop for a little bit and we can hop on the train at that time. But then when you get there, you find the refugees who are also trying to get onto the train so they can get to the Republic and then the border guard. 00:48:06.80 Daniel Immediately before you get to this bed, this next area, too, you also uncover Julian, who is aware we were traveling right after you deal with the Railhead situation. Right. So before you get to where you're where you're getting to, I just want to make sure that we point out to people that this will be where you encounter Julian. And there's a small cut scene there with him talking about his his need to join up with people in his quest. 00:48:30.09 Jala He doesn't join you at this point, does he or does he? 00:48:33.24 Daniel Yes, because he's part of that battle. 00:48:35.55 Jala Okay, so Julian shows up and you know, he's just like, this is probably the most normal way that you find Julian. Cause like, uh, in scenario two, his, his appearance is pretty wild, we'll get there. so Then we go to the railroad battle. and um this in this In this particular part, We have the refugees that are trying to escape the empire. We have the border guards of the empire who are intent on killing both Synbios and team, as well as the refugees. Then general violence shows up of the Republic. And, you know, at first the refugees are like, oh, it's a Republican general. He will help us. And then violence, like we don't need people like you leeching off of our goods. We can barely struggle to be alive. And he decides he wants to kill them too. 00:49:32.27 Daniel Yeah, he's not very impressed with people at that point. He says, nope, we're just going to end your lives right here. 00:49:38.00 Jala Right, and then right about that time, also Medion shows up. um And Medion is there for his own reasons that you you can't you don't know at this point. And so he shows up to, and he's like, Synbios, how about you rescue all of those refugees, okay? And I will go and fight violence so that way y'all don't have to fight your own troops because he is not listening to reason. Because Dantares is trying to reason with him. Benetram is trying to reason with him. Varlant's not having any of it. So Medion ends up interceding and he ends up fighting a battle against Varlant, which you get to do in scenario two. And then Synbios and company have to go and try to save these refugees. There are a total of what, five or six? There's five. There's five refugees that you have to save and it is a tricky, tricky, tricky battle. Daniel, I'll let you talk about that. 00:50:31.58 Daniel oh well it's actually the hardest battle I've fought in the entire game up to that point and most people will struggle with it their first times but the big secret is to run Dantares as fast as you can to the switch Yes, there are five refugees you have to save. at least one of them is guaranteed to die. There's no way to save every single one of them unless you are super, super strong and can rush the boss and murder him before that happens. And that is also possible, but in order for that to be likely, you have to quit this battle and come back a few times unless you've already been power leveling and gained a lot of levels with other characters. There's just no way to make that a possibility on a normal playthrough for anybody. It is a bit of a tricky sticky spot, but if you're determined to save them, the benefit of doing so is not just a bonus ah to your experience points. For every refugee you save, I believe you get an additional 10 bonus experience for everyone. I think it actually gives you a massive bonus for saving all of them, something like 120 experience points. I can't, don't quote me on that, but I know it's a lot. And then later on, the refugees come into play in scenario two, I believe, or is it scenario three that they come back? Scenario two. So they do come back a second time for you to save them yet again. And if you save them the second time, then you are capable of getting another character, Robbie the Robot. That's the only way to get Robbie in Scenario 2 is by saving specific ones. So they seem a little bit nameless and faceless in Scenario 1. They're just five refugees, but they do have specific roles in Scenario 2. And if you let the wrong ones die, then you lose out on some items, some experience points. It's really an important point in the game to try your best to save them all at this point. And it is a bit tricky with some practice. If you're not getting it the first time, don't feel bad. Retreat. Start again. Try it again. Do your best to run Den Terrace down there. If you can get some before Synbios or Julian down there too to help out with the guys. It's recommended um I usually also try to send Hayward that way, but he's not quite fast enough So it's ah it's one of those situations where you just have to do your best and you can reload you can you can resave this this area You can save in the middle of battle for that this game, too That's something that we haven't really talked about But if you save in the middle of battle if you are doing really well and you choose to save at a certain point You can reload that save and that can help you get through this as well 00:52:57.10 Jala Right. So um one thing I will say is that for me, at least um playing like, um you know, like a person who is doing their first play through would play. Right. ah Not grinding, not doing a whole bunch, and you know, like not super grinding, maybe a little bit, but not like overly and not, you know, power leveling everybody. um So it came down to Dantares had to be on a specific square on each one of his movement turns in order to get there. And he only makes it by one square. If you do it right. And so ah it's really kind of a trick to get there. So, um, definitely it is worth your time to do that though. There are some major benefits. And, um, I, when I was playing through for, for this recording, um, I did not end up saving all of the refugees, but I did save apparently the key ones that you needed to get Robbie in the second one. 00:53:55.02 Daniel It's, I believe it's Robbie and you get a power wine and I think a myth roll or something. So there's three different items that you can get from the second set of saving the refugees. 00:54:05.85 Jala Right, right. So ah this is really like a very important harrowing narrative narratives point for me. ah Every single time that I have done this game, every time I come to this point, I'm like, this is really where the game starts to truly begin for me because this is where it's putting into question like the here's some of the guys that are on your team and they are also against what you feel is the ethical thing to do here and you are already coming up against here's some differences of approach to things and how people are coming into conflict. So ah really a significant battle in my opinion. So after having saved the refugees, hopefully Synbios and his men board the train headed for the Republic. And all is not well, however, the bandit Shiraf and his men have attacked the train and Synbios ends up fighting off these men. 00:55:04.91 Daniel Actually, before yeah before we get there, you do have to do a bit of exploration on the train, right? Because there's some really key moments here. I'll let you go through that if you don't mind. 00:55:15.13 Jala Well, so we do have um a few different areas that you have to go through. You get to talk to some of the people who are going back to the Republic. ah You have ah the very important obtaining of the chicken feed that you need in order to go to the cart that has all of the chickens in it. And you have to talk to all of the chickens with the chicken feed in your inventory. No, you have to use the chicken feed on the on each of the chickens, I think. 00:55:42.63 Daniel I think you only have to use the chicken feed on the chicken that's above the priest. So you go all the way to the front car that you can reach and you go up the stair type thing there. That's a bunch of it's a bunch of blocks, a bunch of different blocks. You climb up the boxes and then at the top of there, there's a chicken that you use the chicken feed on and it follows you around either that or it's on top of a box in the previous car. But I know it's somewhere in the two cars there. You do give the chicken feed to it. It gives you a message, the chicken is happy or whatever, and the chicken will follow you. And then it will hang out in your HQ for a while until you find the necessary components to bring pen into your force, which is happens to be a chicken egg. 00:56:23.95 Jala Yes, absolutely. A gigantic egg that you find later in the game, but, um, I only say you have to use it on all of them. Cause like, I never remember which one it is. I think it is. It's the one on top of the box, but I think it's the one that's in with all of the other chickens. I don't think it's the one that's in with the priest, but I might be wrong. 00:56:40.07 Daniel Actually, you might be right. I feel that that's more accurate, yeah. 00:56:44.72 Jala Yeah, but you have to take that chicken back to your team so that it can go hang out at your headquarters. and ah so Then you have a little chicken companion and it makes me happy. ah This is also kind of a callback with the chicken to ah Shining Force One because in Shining Force One, when you get to the city where you Meet Arthur and then you end up getting on re in your party in that game ah there is a place where you can optionally decide to have a which turn you into a chicken and then you can walk around and be a chicken for awhile until you get somebody to turn you back. 00:57:17.38 Daniel Oh, I forgot about that. That's pretty cool. 00:57:19.51 Jala Yeah, so like the chicken coming back to this game was very charming to me. And the fact that it actually plays a narrative role is pretty good. And also, that's the same place that you end up getting the Domingo egg, which is how you get Domingo in the first game. So ah you know like they have a lot of callbacks here to the first game in that way. And it's very fun. So ah did I miss anything important about wandering around in the um train cart? 00:57:46.29 Daniel There are a couple of other items available, so make sure you check all the barrels, check all the all the blocks. I believe there's a treasure chest or two. I don't think there's a map or anything yet at this point for this area though. 00:57:59.76 Jala Yeah, yeah, that comes a little bit later. I don't think it's on the train. So um so then Sharaf and his men attack the train and Synbios ends up having to fight them off. And the thieves disconnect some of the cars with passengers in them. So now the train has been disconnected um from the um engine. And Synbios then takes this fight to the roof and then fights his way up to the engine car to get the conductor to stop. 00:58:27.80 Daniel I will like to pose a little bit about the tactics in the previous fight that you're mentioning. 00:58:31.99 Jala yes inside the train 00:58:33.29 Daniel Inside the train, there is two groups of enemies. Don't let them pince for you. It's very easy to stop them. If you have Masqurin and Hayward go towards the boxes, they can quite easily take on the Birdmen there. If you have ranged equipment for Obright, I think you can pick up a Tomahawk and Railhead. If you've done that, then he's also valuable there because he can go back and help you deal with those. And then you can push slowly forward through that because I believe there's a dark mage or something there. 00:59:02.53 Jala Yeah, there's a mage. 00:59:02.72 Daniel And he's got freeze or freeze two at this point. So he can be very dangerous if you're not careful. I think Synbios is weak to his magic or takes a lot of damage from it. So try to keep him from taking too many attacks. Don't push too fast unless you have your full force all the way down to the rest of them. And then it's time to head up to the top of the train. 00:59:21.52 Jala Right, right. And so ah if that one guy has, I think they had that the mage character that you are fighting does have something that will hit multiple guys, make sure you stack. Well, for me, i so I always stagger my people out whenever they get close to a mage. So um I make it to where there's no way they can hit multiple of my characters at the same time. I'm not about that life. 00:59:40.12 Daniel actually it's ah when you take an AOE type of attack like that if more people are close together you take less damage overall no until you get until you get an aura spell it's not preferred to take multiple hits on multiple people but if ah if you don't have a lot of healing or if you know if you know you guys can survive it you can take multiples and be okay as long as it's not like three or four of those attacks at once 00:59:47.88 Jala Hmm. I still don't prefer to have all of my people injured though. So then you head up to the top of the train and then you are fighting your way forward through several different men and Sharaf himself is on the train. And so you have to fight your way forward to get the conductor to stop because all of the other passengers and stuff are back in the back. And then, you know, like you need to be able to go retrieve all those people and not just leave them abandoned. Also, this Something that I didn't mention is during this part, I believe it's when you get to the top of the train, you find out that the tracks are wrecked up ahead. So you also have to get the conductor to stop because you're about to go into your doom, which usually happens on a train. 01:00:45.41 Daniel actually technically right before this fight after the last fight you encounter the bird people, Zero and Eldar. They come along to help you out and you send Eldar to go back and save the people who are in the back train. So that's why Zero disappears but you still have Eldar in the fight up above and she actually has an extremely important mission here because you want to send her all the way to the front of the train around the what I'm going to call the north side of the train, where the engine is. Send her around that side and she can pick up a large mithril in the very front of the train for you as long as Sharaf hasn't moved in front of it. 01:01:23.03 Jala Yeah. Yeah. so um You're right. so the like The bird people show up right around this time. They are soldiers of the Republic and they're brother and sister. They're Zero and Eldar. Eldar is the recruitable character for this game and then Zero, although he is a Republican soldier, ends up showing up in scenario two as a playable character there. so ah He does play a role actively in this first scenario, but he is very often being a messenger and having to go over there and do something over there. And in this instance, he is going back to the back car to make sure that those people are okay. But then again, like ah like the train, I and believe that the train tracks are all messed up. 01:02:05.52 Daniel Yes, the tracks were also messed up ahead and that was something that Eldar noted as well when they showed up. We also forgot to include the fact that you would also have Sybil at this point after saving the refugees so at this point you should have a sizable force. 01:02:20.94 Jala Right. So Sybil or Chivalry is um another person who was part of another force. And then um again, like all these people keep getting left behind. And then like she ends up um joining you at some point in here. And so like you have her for the fight on the train. So um she's. 01:02:40.53 Daniel Yeah, I can't remember if she is actually part of Varlant's Army as well. I think so. 01:02:46.44 Jala She was, I think she was. 01:02:48.23 Daniel Yeah, I think she was she was another person that he left behind. And so you pick her up as well. 01:02:51.44 Jala Yeah. I don't remember if she's there for the fight where you're trying to get Irene, but you do have her. 01:02:58.62 Daniel No, because you get her after you save the refugees. She shows up and talks to you after you say save or don't save the refugees. 01:03:06.16 Jala You're right. I was like, where, where do I meet her? She does just kind of show up. So she joins you up, it joins up with you. And then you have her for the first train battle and all of that. So, um, in terms of your, your centaur night, she is squishier than Dantares. And, um, so like, she's not going to be able to tank as many hits as Dantares is. 01:03:28.24 Daniel But she starts with combat levels and also has proficiency in the halberd. So she is a stronger fighter, but less capable of the melee hits. Or receiving melee hits, yes. 01:03:38.87 Jala Yeah, she's a little squishier, but she does pack a punch. So ah you get to show off, you fight your way to show off, you fight show off and end up having to kill him. And yeah, the train still can't travel down the tracks to the Republic because the bridge is out. So um once you manage to kill show off and all of that, isn't it like um You find out about the tracks when Shiraf is dying, right? Doesn't he tell you, but... 01:04:08.26 Daniel Yeah, he mentions he mentions that the tracks are out and good luck surviving anyway, and then you're just able to stop the train in time from going off the tracks once he's dead. Because he's at the conductor station, you can go in then assumed, because you don't see it, but assume that you can go into the conductor station, pull the lever to set the brake, and then the brake will slow the train down enough that you don't die. Which is kind of useful, since you don't want to all fall in the river. I don't think it really tells you, but there's a bridge and yeah, you assume that you can't, you don't want to go in there. That's not going to be fun. 01:04:42.63 Jala Right, right. So um it's at that point that Zero comes back and kind of reports back in. Everybody's OK in the back. it's We're fine, guys. So um once ever all of this happens, then you're trying to figure out where you're going to go now. 01:04:57.01 Jala So ah you decide that you are going to move north to a village called Quonus. which is located in the mountains and on the other side of the mountains, you can get to the, whatever, you're going on your way to the Republic. Quonus happens to be the nearest place that you can go. It is starting to get dark, so you need to go somewhere to shelter for the night. So, Quonus is where Governor General Garvin of Saraband first came from. And back in Railhead, everybody was talking about the miracle of steam power and wondering how Garvin got it and all of this other mess. 01:05:31.49 Jala So ah there were also some rumors that Kornis is being haunted. so but So that's the end of chapter two. 01:05:37.67 Daniel It is a pretty spooky looking place once you arrive. 01:05:43.10 Jala You have wrapped up the railhead battle. At this point, Zero goes back somewhere to report to somebody. ah He goes away. he does Yeah, I don't know. He's always gone. 01:05:52.85 Daniel he actually He actually goes with the Medion Army to help them out in their endeavors. 01:05:58.27 Jala Yeah, he goes over there. Maybe he's going to go tell Medion what's going on. I don't remember. like there He had a message he had to convey. 01:06:04.10 Daniel There was something about him going with Medion to help them deal with a particular crisis. I can't remember if it was still general violent at that point or if it was somebody something to do with Edmund, but he went to go deal with some other stuff. 01:06:18.47 Jala Yeah, he went to go help Medion go do something over there. and Meanwhile, Eldar is now part of your force and comes with you. so ah Chapter 3 is called Target, Guardian Statue of Elbesem. This one starts out in super creepy place. and I love the beginning of this because it's like um sort of like the one little moment of horror in all of these games that's very cool. 01:06:45.31 Daniel It's very creepy. It's an excellent mood sitting here. When you come out of that headquarters, because you start out in the headquarters, when you come out of the headquarters, it's very ominous and you get a feel of, oh, this is actually kind of creepy and very scary. 01:06:58.80 Jala Well, the music really helps because it's just this very like slow, like it has this, you know, like so strings kind of thing going on and these high keys. And it's just like little, you know, screech little sounds every once in a while until it starts. And then this is where you find out that Dantares is absolutely creeped out by anything having to do with like zombies and ghosts and all of this other stuff. So, He is not a fan of horror. He is not a fan of haunted houses. This man doesn't want anything to do with any of this creepy stuff. And um so, and then Grace keeps on talking about it and he's like, Grace, stop, stop. yeah It's the cutest little exchange. Cause all of your chapters start in your headquarters where you're having these conversations and you're either like talking about some story stuff or in this case character building and then you decide that you're going to be going out and you're going to be going and checking around the town because you didn't see anybody when you were coming into town and you you're looking to see What's going on so I think it's a symbiote and grace leave together and then they're walking around the town and then While all the spooky music is going on all of these creepy things start happening so as you go through the town One of the doors will suddenly slam and then you know all this whole set up outside with chairs and tables and stuff or boxes or whatever starts floating in the air and then there's like some flashing lightning and then everything's back to normal and then some boxes start jumping and then rotating around and you know as you're going around town like all these weird things start happening. 01:08:37.53 Daniel And the sound effects that go off while these things are occurring are very, very accurate here. It gives a very spooky feel to the town. You can't find any people. You're sitting there going, oh, this is actually very, very strange, very weird. And I wonder if there's something going on that has a deeper meaning here. 01:08:53.89 Jala Right. And it kind of calls back the feeling that you get when you go to the monastery and you find the Birdman, Amman and Balbaroy in the first Shining Force, because in that one, you go to this um monastery and you're walking around and all the people there are just kind of a little off. They're a little weird. And then they start following you and then they won't let you through and you can't leave. And all of a sudden they turn into undead and you have to fight them in this this monastery. And so, like, it's kind of giving those kind of vibes, but even somehow a little bit creepier than that, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool. So, after that happens, um you know, like, oh yeah, if you go to ah to the church At night, if you go in there, there's not a priest. Instead, there's a little fairy and the little fairy from the opening of the game is there. Um, and she says that she will, you know, she will ah function as your save. And she will say that, uh, the town is on the priest of this town is under a curse and she will make the dreams come true for this village. 01:10:04.12 Daniel I can't actually remember if that is Primula. We think that Primula is that fairy, and that Gabriel is the same guy that you encounter in Scenario 3, but I don't remember if there's definitive proof that that's the same fairy or not. 01:10:17.46 Daniel Somebody mentioned it in the Discord, and I can't recall what was ah determined, but I believe it is Primula, from my understanding of it. 01:10:25.94 Jala It might be, yeah, it might be ah the colors are a little different, so I'm not sure. 01:10:26.56 Daniel That's the fairy. 01:10:32.83 Jala I haven't looked at Primula's sprite in a while. I'll have to go pull up my book and take a look at it. 01:10:39.00 Daniel There is research. I'm sure there's information on it somewhere that we can find out though. 01:10:44.72 Jala So ah as you go through this town, the next place is to go to this big mansion, but the mansion's on the other side of a graveyard, because of course it is, right? So ah you enter the graveyard as you continue to look. Oh, because Julian, Julian has wandered away in the night. We don't know where he is. So like that part of the reason you're going around town too is because you don't know where Julian went to. Number one, we need to see if there's anybody else in this town because I didn't see anybody coming in. And number two, where is Julian? so um you end up going to this ah graveyard. And then you find out that you have Julian. Julian's there in the graveyard, but also some Elbesem monk named Kahn, who he's talking to. And then there's also a whole bunch of Kyonshi, which are um a type of Chinese jumping "vampire." It's more like a zombie kind of undead creature that's a jumping critter. And um so Kan says that these Kyonshi that you are encountering are not really dead. They are alive. They're just cursed. So um he asks Synbios to let him take care of the Kyonshi using his Elbesem orb, which is like a major key item for all of the game. And so you have a battle that you have to go through, but you have to have Kahn who is controlled by AI following after your team and using the Elbesem orb on them to ah safely render them you ah uncursed, I guess. 01:12:23.81 Daniel A nice thing about the quality of life patches from the translation team is that he no longer has to be AI controlled. So you can actually, in in version 25, the newest version that we've talked about, with that I actually was able to so very successfully take Kahn all over the map and free the Kyonshi in the order I needed to free them in 01:12:33.28 Jala Oh, bless them. Bless them. Because this is frustrating as hell if you are playing with the AI. 01:12:49.69 Daniel and was able to use my party to successfully take him around and go through the things without having to worry about him wandering off or not using the orb or any of the other things that the AI sometimes does. However, we have also gone through and looked at what the AI is doing. And most of the time, as is most of the case with most of the situations that AI is in the in the scenario one, the AI is following Synbios and acting on its best combat advice from that. So if Synbios can't reach a Kyonshi, Kahn couldn't reach a Kyonshi. So we do know now that part of that is if you set them up properly now with the AI being not in control, you can easily make this map a lot less of a headache. 01:13:29.04 Jala Right. Because that was something I was going to say is that if you were just playing vanilla from the game without modding it or anything, it's AI controlled and it follows any AI character that is following your party follows Synbios specifically. So you have to position Synbios wherever you need that character to go. And then that character will follow after that in most cases. 01:13:53.55 Daniel The other thing too with this map is this is one of the first times that you get to a point in the game where enemies will appear randomly, and it seems randomly, based on where you are on the map. But each one of the enemy spawn points, and some of them break out of tombs, some of them come out from the, the I believe some of the liches come out of the water. These enemies are all keyed by very specific points in the map. So if you take Eldar and center her across the water very carefully, You can cue a bunch of these enemies early and then force them to come to you in a way that makes them a lot easier to deal with as well. So, Eldar is very important here as a key role for manipulation of the map, not so much for combat. She is combat useful up to a certain point here, but in a lot of situations, Eldar, when I use her, is not really a combat character. She has utility in the maps that require her, like I mentioned in the one with Sharaf, she goes and gets a Myth roll. I generally don't level her up much. I don't use her a whole lot personally. I find her attack to be very lackluster until you get her a DP or a foil. Once she's got one of those, then her combat abilities go a little bit higher and she becomes a lot more useful because of that agility boost that those give. 01:15:06.51 Jala Right, right. um So the Birdmen are usually fairly squishy for a pretty long time in every Shining Force game that they appear in. And um so she functions more as a scout. You want her to go out there and she can kind of do a little tiny bit of damage, but she's doing like three damage where everybody else is doing 10, you know, that kind of a thing. She's not a major, major attacker like Grace does more damage. Mask her in, might even do more damage depending upon her level ah with a physical attack than Eldar is able to do initially. So um that's something to keep in mind. she is really And then she's, of course, because she is a flying critter. She is weak to arrows. If you happen to have any kind of archers on the map, keep that in mind. 01:15:49.74 Daniel and also weak to the tornado spell as well, that's why I say send her carefully, because you don't want to trigger too much too fast. 01:15:53.48 Jala And that's one that comes into play because the liches here have that spell. But as a scout, going ahead to pop those guys out onto the screen so you know where they're at, that's really important. And that is a good function for her or her to have ah so that you can do that. She's also really useful if you need to fly somebody in real quick to get a healing item to somebody, like to use a healing item on somebody. She can also be useful for that as long as um the enemies that are around are not going to go gravitate to her immediately, you know, that kind of a thing. 01:16:27.63 Daniel And if she's the only thing nearby, they definitely will gravitate to her because they like to eat food and especially the liches. They will eat Eldar for lunch. 01:16:35.45 Jala Yeah, absolutely. So um yeah, you do have, and so the Kyonshi, you need to leave alone so that Kan will join your party because these are the townspeople. They have been turned into Kyonshi's at night. And so once they are returned to normal and and saved by the Elbesem orb, they will show up in town and be people there. So I've never done it before, but if you like, if you say to heck with Kan and you just go through and kill all the Kyonshi, does that mean that the town remains abandoned? 01:17:03.47 Daniel The town remains abandoned. You can't buy anything in the shops because the shopkeepers are part of the Kian Shi, and there are specific ones. So if you do release just the shopkeepers, you can still buy stuff. But the church guy is gone. The townspeople who are in the buildings are gone. The married couple is gone. So you can pick and choose which ones you want to save. 01:17:21.97 Daniel And the only ones that you absolutely need to save are are the people who are shopkeepers. So if you know which ones those are, you could go through and murder the other ones if you feel like you need the experience points. 01:17:32.60 Daniel Personally, I like to so save them all. 01:17:32.62 Jala There are so many ways. Yeah, I know there's, there's so many ways to get experience points. You don't need to shoot yourself on the foot that way. 01:17:41.13 Daniel and I would rather free them all and being able to control con makes it that much easier. You can set them up to be cured two or three at a time in some instances. There's a spot where you can do two or three of them as a group if you set it up right. So it's really not that hard to do when you do that. The combat message you get is that the key on she's magic is sealed. I questioned the translation group about this very recently and wondered what that meant and because the key on she are there from the enemy that's inside, I don't want to spoil too much too quickly because I know we're going to go into this in a sec here. but the enemy inside the mansion has taken these people and sealed their lives. So he's stolen their ability to live and turn them into these things, and sealing their magic means that they're going to be released when he is finally defeated. 01:18:27.43 Jala Mm-hmm. Gotcha. So um other than the Kyonshi, you also have bats and you have skeletons, which are kind of a pretty strong enemy at this point. They can take you out if you're not careful. And then the liches, which are some really strong magic using guys. And there's two, two of those, I think? Three? Two or three. I can't remember which. 01:18:48.13 Daniel Two or three. There's also like three or four skeletons throughout the map. Again, if you have your group together and you mostly go as a group, it can be very easy to deal with all of these. I usually go from the entranceway down ah across the right hand side and up around the buildings. And then if that finds, if you find that to be difficult, you can also run people the other way. But I only usually do that if the Kyonshi are there and already all taken care of, and then the liches aren't coming out. So I've noticed that sometimes if you do it that way, you get to a certain point where there's two or three skeletons and you know, there's still a lich to come out and the Eldars not figuring it out for you and you are afraid to send her too far ahead. You can run around the other way with some people if you feel it's necessary. ah You can take as many turns to do these levels as you need to, right? So you don't have a set time limit on a lot of these maps. Actually, I think there's only a couple of maps in the whole ah series where you have to be mindful of the timing for how many turns you run. So ah that you can take as long as you want with the tactics here, go around and just safely make sure all your guys are taken care of. Don't take too many hits on any one guy especially with the skeletons as you mentioned The other thing too is that these bats are different from any other bats that you've encountered at this point They have a technique called blood sucker and blood sucker will steal your HP Yes 01:20:05.55 Jala Yep. And then heal them as well. So, um, you know, that's something that will become important, especially in the next battle. But, uh, after you fight through this graveyard and you manage to get through these gliches and other critters, Julian reveals that he's after a the Vandal rumored to be in this town. So, I think this is the first that you hear that there is a Vandal in this town. Like, you know it's a ghost town, but you didn't know that it was a Vandal until now. So um Kahn is also after this Vandal as a monk of Elbesem El Elbesem being the kind of god of light in this game, and Bulzome being you know a critter of darkness, ah but a Vandal, a very strong Vandal ah that is opposite Elbesem's power. So as a monk of Elbesem, he is naturally opposed to their or natural mortal enemies in the wild. So um the two resolved ahead into the mansion to fight this Vandal. And King Benetram suggests that Synbios and his crew go along with them, and then they decide to all go in together to go ahead and fight this next fight. So um this one is one that the very recently, hey, we're just going to have guys pop up on the map when you reach a certain point, gets kind of frustrating if it's your first time through. 01:21:22.92 Daniel Yes, I actually personally really love this fight and because I play on in Insane and am absolutely nuts, I take Eldar on her first possible turn and send her to the staircase. Which is not recommended for any other player. At this point, my Greece has hit level 17, been promoted and is now level 5 or 6 and has access to aura 1 or aura 2 sometimes at this point. so I am extreme at this point because I, again, with the min-maxing and the super-gaming, I have made my party almost invincible with the access to those spells at this time, and I'm not afraid of any leches, so I ain't afraid of no ghosts. But a normal playthrough would definitely want to take their time, send everyone across to the left side and then go up. Some liches do appear out of the holes. So you want to be careful of that. I usually try to send, if I'm playing a normal playthrough, two or three guys around those holes and have somebody sit there so that the liches can't easily come over to my guys and pick and choose who they want to kill, because they will if you let them. And then you also have to be careful, of again, of the skeletons. At this point, your character should be somewhere between level 10 and level 13 for normal Uh, non promoted status. If you choose to promote it 10 immediately, then they'll probably be level two or three. Um, I'm not sure where you're at this point in the game, but usually if I'm playing with a normal ish style, I'll have everyone at level 12 or 13. I generally tend to take people to level 15. The reasoning that you'd promote around this time is that, and this is found in the code. Once you hit level 17, the stat increases for your characters is nothing for 90% of the levels. 90% of the levels across 90% of the characters. You might get at point of HP or at point of defense from 17 to 20 for some of the characters. But you generally don't gain anything else past that point. It's not worth your investment of experience points because the game tracks how much experience points you've gained on all the characters. So the only problem there is that if you've already gained a bunch of levels up to 17, then the game already thinks you're so many levels in. If you promoted at 10, you're actually probably lower down on that scale. to gain more experience points when you attack and when you kill guys. 01:23:37.94 Jala Right. Right. So um there's another thing I wanted to mention about this section, too, is that when you are going around from the left hand side, there are some barrels you should already be destroying every barrel you see anyway. But you have to make sure that you destroy the barrels in front of the door that's in the upper left corner, because that is a place where you can access a character you need to talk to in order to recruit them later. 01:24:02.60 Daniel Yes, this is a good place and time to talk about Ratchet for a second. We'll get back to him. But he is a funny little gnome and he has a power suit. So if you want to recruit him, you need to break open those barrels. There is also an item in one of them, I believe you get either a healing drop or a small mithril or something. So there's something in there to go and get the the barrels just for themselves. If you are doing it the normal way, or the harder way, you would take someone over and melee all three barrels. If you use Masqurin to cast Fire or Blaze one or two on them, you will destroy all three barrels and probably only get one of those items. Yet there's multiple items. I can't remember if there's more than one, but I know that that's it's not always beneficial to destroy all the barrels as fast as possible. So, yes, I prefer to send people over there and do one or two attacks. You can usually spare Obright or Masqurin to go and do that quickly. Um, or if you really want to have the access to range sending civil or dentists over there that they can join your party again faster as long as you're taking care of the liches. And then it's our time to go back across the table. So when you're doing this kind of a play through, if you send Eldar onto the table at the very beginning, she'll generally cue one of the liches. So bottom, bottom corner of the table. 01:25:21.19 Daniel Yeah. So make sure that if you're ready for that, you like I said, surround those holes because you can't occupy the holes, but the liches will come up out of there. And then you've got some skeletons coming back across the table. I think more another lich spawns a third one. And then you will get more liches as you go further up the stairs. So once you've gotten down through the staircase and you're going up the staircase, one or two more guys spawn in that area. I think at the top of the stairs, you get two skeletons. 01:25:50.31 Jala Yeah, you get two skeletons as soon as you um go to the staircase and as soon as you step on the staircase, then or you're close to the it's right at the bottom of the staircase, you pop it and then a couple of skeletons will pop up. 01:26:02.23 Jala But then when you get to the top of the staircase and you're moving over, then you get a couple more ledges show up. 01:26:07.83 Daniel Yeah, at the very, very top of the staircase, once you've got two or three guys up there and there's a little spot, I think it's two or three spaces in, then more liches will show up. Alright, so after you've beaten the liches outside the doorway, then we're going to go inside and fight Abdark, the Vandal, who's floating around there, as well as the Succubus, who happens to be joining him. And that is a bit of a fight, because this is the first boss that you can have that is invulnerable to your damage up front. 00:00:19.94 Jala Yeah, so if you just go in there and you don't have if you don't automatically use cons orb on this Vandal what will happen is like you'll just keep attacking this guy and um I believe in the green room You said something Daniel about like you can kind of like grind levels or something off of that if you don't use the orb right away and 00:00:39.88 Daniel Yes, so if you kill the succubus right away and then you can force him to kind of into a corner a little bit like pulling him with the main character or a character he focuses on, he focuses on Masqurin, he'll focus on Grace and he'll focus on Sinbios. So if you can bring him over to a wall or corner, you can surround him with two or three guys and then kind of keep everyone else out of his range. And then if he runs out of MP and you heal through that or can heal through, heal up through all that using the herbs and whatnot that you've accrued. then you can just kind of sit there and attack him. And every time you attack him, you get weapon experience. So you can level up your extra spear or your halberd or your knife or whatever you happen to have at that point. I believe earlier in this area, earlier in the game, just a town or two before you can buy a knife for Synbios and Julian. So you can focus on leveling up their ranged attacks as well. So there's a couple of tricks there with him that you can kind of force him to provide your team with experience. However, there is also one small problem with him. He can level up by counter-attacking your guys. So by attacking him and attacking him over and over again, if you do it enough, he can actually level up and get slightly stronger. So you got to be careful of that. 00:01:45.56 Jala but that isn't that like a bug with the translation team's version of it? like Because I don't remember that happening when I was playing on my original game software and hardware. 00:01:55.23 Daniel No, that that happens on every version. we haven't We haven't found a way to fix it, and we're I think we're going to leave it in because it's just a neat little bug that happens no matter what, as far as I know. 00:02:05.89 Jala Uh, cause I didn't even realize that he, cause like I, I had used that part to grind up some of my weaker characters cause he does heal every round. And so, uh, I would just have some of the weaker characters go up and do some damage and make sure that I kept him low, but not like in danger of dying if one of my weaker characters attacked him. And then I would just like grind a couple levels for some of the people who were lagging behind by the end of the mansion scene. Is how I would do it and it wasn't really for like the weapon experience It was just for like overall levels and stuff like that that I would use um But yeah, so you end up fighting this guy ah once you use the Elbesem orb on him then that allows you to attack him or fully and all of that, but ah as Daniel already said if you um ah Wipe all of his magic out then you can just use him for you know farming experience in different ways if you if you so choose so 00:02:56.70 Daniel Yeah, he does have he does have a powerful attack called the Photon Rage, which will hurt you quite badly, but as long as you can ah heal, he doesn't have a second attack. 00:03:05.10 Daniel So he's one of the bad guys where if you deal with that properly and you heal up whoever he's focused on, he usually won't change targets once he's out of MP. 00:03:16.30 Jala Right, right. So um we will put a pin in that because there was something that we missed a little bit earlier. We will talk more about this Vandal and details about that in a second. But ah Daniel, go ahead and tell us about the fight that we missed earlier. 00:03:31.87 Daniel Yeah, so I forgot all about this fight it's a very innocuous fight happens right before the railhead switching point so we're gonna go back all the way to the train station and We pick up Julian leaving the town and then I forgot that right after you pick up Julian There is another fight with another ruins you have to go through it's a very seemingly innocuous fight because you can take two paths to get to the ruins and And then once you get through there, there's a little river that kind of blocks off the boss from your character, so you don't have to worry about him trying to storm you while you're dealing with the runes. And I believe that's where you can get a pretty nice item called the Life Ring. And that helps to deal with the events going forward so that you can rush one character through most of the maps. Say if you give it to Dantares, he's got fairly good defense for this point of the game. So you can equip that to him. And then when he goes forward and does a lot of combat actions ahead of the group, because he's got such good movement on most maps, You can really utilize his strengths there and and it really helps to heal back his hit points. I think it's 2 HP recovery every turn or something like that. So it's a really cool item that we totally messed out on. So now we're going to go back forward in time to dealing with this Vandal. 00:04:39.91 Jala Right, right. So ah once we end up beating this Vandal who has a name that I didn't know because like ah in the versions that I played, like I've never seen the name, but apparently it's there somewhere. You just have to like see it in some of the the books or notes or something. 00:04:53.79 Daniel Yeah, it's in the it's in the world book and I believe it's mentioned a couple of times, but I don't think they mention it directly in the game lore unless you're looking for it in a book or something. His name is Abdark. 00:05:03.19 Jala ah So ah once you beat him, you find out that he's actually a really old and weak member of his race. And he even tells you, he's like, I'm old and weak. And I basically have no teeth. So if you think that you're cool for beating me, sorry, buddy. Everybody else is way stronger than me. I am just the weakest, oldest possible. Like you just beat up a granny in a wheelchair. So what just happened this is what this is. And I think it's this point where Julian tells you that his dad was killed by a Vandal. I think that's where he tells you this information and that he is looking for a Vandal named Galm. And I believe Abdark might be even the person who's like Galm. LOL. Good luck with that, buddy. This guy was a servant of another Vandal called Bulzome. Anyway, Julian is seeking out Galm in order to get revenge, and then Kahn is also along for the ride because he is ready to kill all Vandals because of his mission as a monk. Something else that you learn as well, if you read some of the books and stuff around there, is that the steam engine that is part of railhead stuff that was ah brought up by General Garvin, it was part of the Vandal Kingdom, which existed a thousand years ago. So Garvin is in league with these Vandals. Why else would this Vandal be in his town? Why would his town be cursed? Why, you know, does he has suddenly have steam power? It's because he made a pact with this old Vandal. This old Vandal tells you that he agreed to work with Garvin in order to further the cause of the bull zone sect, which is, of course, to resurrect bull zones. Garvin is in league. and so This is the person that ah way back in Saraband at the very beginning of the game, everybody was trying to convince that, oh yeah, the king is innocent, but like he's in on it. so you know Of course, he's going to be like, I don't buy that and send people after you. 00:07:04.43 Jala So ah once you piece all of this together, Benetram is like, okay, the first thing Synbios needs to do is number one, get out of the empire. You are surrounded on all sides by enemies. And um they have to get back to Republican and territory territory, and then they have to review their options from there. They have to like regroup once they're in a more safe situation. So um go ahead and tell us a little bit about noon, Daniel. 00:07:28.75 Daniel Oh, yes, noon is one of my favorite casters in the game. I'm trying to still figure out. I know the Japanese puts the voices very masculine. However, the English voice was very middle of the road gender style. So it's hard to discern in English, the English version of the game, whether or not it's a woman or a man. And the art style doesn't help with that because of the long braided hair. And I believe comes across as a little bit of an older. look because they believe it's gray. It might be white. Yeah, it's gray silverish. So you get the feeling that this is a very wise person, a very skilled person. And yes, they happen to have some of my favorite magic in the game. The the freeze spell, which is fantastic in the in this point of the game. It does a lot of damage and has the potential to really knock out a bunch of guys at even the smaller levels. I think it's still arranged to know it's arranged one at level one. But as soon as you build up level two, which I believe they actually start with at this point, So leaving the mansion, we're actually going to go a couple of places with this, but leaving the mansion, you find noon just outside and ready to join your cause. But there are stuff in the mansion that we will go back to noon because you brought up noon first. so we'll, we'll just go that noon is a fantastic addition to your team and anyone who doesn't utilize noon in their main party really needs to build her up so that, or him up so that you can use them, uh, and the, in the reserve team, if you choose to do so. Heading back into the mansion, though, we do have a couple notes about Ratchet Manipul, who you can get if you did break those barrels. I'll let Jala explain more about that. And then there's also a couple of neat items that you can pick up in treasure chests and things on your way out. Go ahead, Jala. 00:09:06.88 Jala Yeah, so ah Ratchet is the American name. Manipul is the name in Japanese. I kind of like the name Manipul a little bit better because it's manipulation. like he's a little dude, a little gnome dude, or a goblin, or whatever he is with these huge whiskers. And he is just using all these little levers on his steam machine. He's got this cool robot outfit that he wears. And um anyway, You can find him in a room, ah the room that you opened up if you destroyed all the barrels on the first floor of the mansion. And when you go in there, he's just like, I'm free, free. And then he runs out the door and then like that that you hear a loud crash and then that's all you see of him for now. ah He comes up later and he was eventually recruitable. But not at this time. But he does have this really fun scene where he's like, he kept me in here to do stuff. And I'm just so sick of this. And I made this suit so I could get out. And now I'm out because you let me out. Awesome. I'm going to go run around. I'm free. And out the door he goes. So um that's the ah entertainment, which is you you know this this character that you will come across later. I actually really like this character quite a bit. He's very cool. So ah go ahead and tell us a little bit about the other stuff you can get in this mansion. 00:10:19.73 Daniel I do believe if you were paying attention in the fight with Abdark, and I believe you can go back for this as long as you haven't left the mansion, there is a spot immediately behind where he stands. And in combat, if you go and and stand there, or I think it's where he's at. Yes, it's where he's at when he spawned, when he spawned the fight. There is a dark matter that you can pick up here. So you go and you click on that, or you can, I believe you can search the area where he was standing, if you know where it is. And I believe you can find it later, but I believe you, you the easiest way to get it is to just either stand behind him or in front of him and then search him instead of trying to fight him in the very, very first instance of getting to him, assuming he hasn't moved. And then from there, there's also a, I believe there's a myth roll in the chest in the room next to the upper floor. And then I think there might be another item that's a power up item inside the mansion where you go to the chef's area. I think there's a power up some kind of, I think it might be a power wine or a happy cookie or something in there that boosts your stats as well. 00:11:19.41 Jala You leave Quonus Village. So I want to say that noon didn't ever say why they joined you. 00:11:39.27 Daniel I think they were just a traveling caster that was looking for a group of strong people to join. 00:11:44.00 Jala Yeah. It wasn't plot important, you know? 00:11:53.29 Daniel There is a small plot hook, but it doesn't seem to be relevant. It's just the same as when you get some of the other characters. 00:12:01.67 Jala You look strong. I'd like to go with you because this town sucks. It's very cursed. It only recently got lifted. When you go back to Quonus Village, the people who were not killed as Kyonshi are back in the town again. So if you didn't kill anybody, the whole town is back to being populated and everything. 00:12:25.06 Daniel And also, then you can acquire Kahn if you don't kill any of the Kyonshi and free them all. Because if you don't if you kill a single one of them, then Kahn is like, nope, I don't like you guys. You're not holy enough for me. See you later. 00:12:36.37 Jala Kahn of course is really important to use just in general. Like I try to recruit every single person. I think you end up, you have to end up with the Elbesem Orb either way, but like, I think you end up just keeping it or something. He gives it to Julian or I don't know if you don't recruit him. 00:12:53.75 Daniel I think he just gives it to you, but he will not come with you He says you will need this more than I but I'm going a different way 00:12:59.24 Jala Yeah, he won't join you. So anyway, Synbios Force finds the Imperial General Franz waiting for them. Franz and his team do not want to let Synbios go back to the Republic, this rogue force that has the king, to get back to their own land. 00:13:39.37 Jala So at this point, we are also introduced to Spiriel or also known as Spirited, who is being controlled by one of the four of Bulzome. Basanda has a lot to do with a lot of things in this, especially in scenario one. 00:13:57.57 Daniel Yeah, she's very prominent. She's almost a main antagonist, I would say. 00:14:01.03 Jala So you find out that Franz and Spiriel are betrothed. And something I didn't even know for a long time until I got the art book that Franz is a centaur and Spirited as a human. I didn't know that for a while. Because his sprite, you only usually see it from the front. And then, oh, oh, no, no. It's when I got into battle with him, I'm like, he's a centaur. I didn't realize from his sprite, because you only see him basically from the front. He doesn't really move. 00:14:30.64 Daniel Yeah, and he's got that really big nose in his sprite and you're like, oh yes, I could see this being like a Frenchman. 00:14:35.65 Jala Spirited's that kind of woman. Okay. Wow. So, that was a big revelation to me. I didn't think they'd go there, but here we are. um So anyway, what's super significant about this one, Daniel? 00:15:00.84 Daniel I personally have tried my best to catch Spiriel and it's nearly impossible even if you um use cheats and make your characters faster and buff a few things. Even if you put in the maximum possible movement speed for every character and make them uber strong, you still have a really hard time even trying to catch her and I've never been able to talk to her or encounter her in combat in this fight. 00:15:23.56 Jala Right, because so she and her force are ah headed across the map. And so she's got like her own like entourage in this part, the white knights, right? 00:15:33.44 Daniel She has the white knights and they fight the Franz's forces and he's very confused. And then also you can go and you can interject in that fight and get a lot of experience points because the silver knights are really strong and they were worth quite a bit of XP. First time you've encountered any of those. And then also she herself has a succubus and I believe it's a lich with her that are traveling. And they walk across the map and you're just like, oh, I want to try and catch up to them. But it won't work. I've never done it. If you if you do it, let me know, because I have never seen any anybody catch up to them. And then Franz is also quite frustrated because he's like, hey, where are you going? Let's talk. And she's like, no, no, no, I'm busy. She totally ignores him. 00:16:20.26 Jala Yeah, she keeps on repeating whatever her mission is at the moment because you can tell that there's something wrong with her, you know, and Franz knows there's something wrong with her, but he doesn't know what's exactly going on. Don't you see Basanda? 00:16:35.98 Daniel I believe you see her at the very beginning of that because she tells Spirited that they have to go and do the thing. And so she's like, okay, I'm going to do the thing now. And sort of warps out at that point. 00:16:50.30 Jala So Basanda pops up and then disappears quite often. That's most of the four of Bulzome do that. So um Franz himself as ah as a guy that you fight is really not super notable. I mean, like he's a centaur knight. He has a lot of hit points like every boss. But he doesn't have like ah notable amounts of of you know magic or anything else going on. He's got guys around him. But like if you take all those guys out before you attack him, as you usually should in most boss fights, He's not a big contest, especially not considering what you just went up against in that mansion. 00:17:23.50 Daniel Yeah, and then especially with him being a Lance user, he is particularly strong against Julian and Synbios because they have weakness to him. So be careful not to put them in his combat range or he will attempt to murder them. But other than that, he's not much of a challenge. 00:17:38.46 Jala And so from there, after you defeat Franz, you end up heading to the town of Vagabond, which is a traveling caravan town. And that's where you meet Justin, the right hand man of General Edmund. So Justin is a bow knight. He is a centaur guy. I know Justin, Julian, it's hard to keep them separated, but, um you know, this is a different guy. This is a guy with blue hair who's a centaur. And he mentions that he ended up getting into a fight with Edmund that he doesn't want to talk about. He's real upset about it. ah And he joins the Synbios battalion so he can hopefully meet up with Edmund again and talk sense into him. So Edmund is up to something. Edmund is one of the Republican generals. So a guy who's supposed to be on your side. So Justin joins you hoping to knock some sense into Edmund. 00:18:26.56 Daniel Have we seen Edmund before this in the story? I don't believe we see him before this story point. 00:18:30.42 Jala He's talked about in the opening stuff, but he's not there. 00:18:39.40 Daniel I believe Tybalt and Brutus mention him, but I don't think he's actually at the convention in the beginning. 00:18:44.44 Jala No, he's not in Saraband at the beginning of this. ah He is mentioned, but he is not actually present ah because he's off doing something else, like keeping peace somewhere else. I mean, they say he was keeping peace somewhere else. Another notable thing about Vagabond is you can buy an egg from a lady in a tent. There is a very spotted and big, like the size of a human person, egg that's on this fire that this lady's like, I found this egg and I'm going to eat it. 00:19:17.73 Daniel It reminds me of an ostrich egg. 00:19:24.29 Jala Yeah, it's huge. And it's just sitting on top of this lady's fire pit and she's like, I'm going to eat it. I'm going to eat this egg. And then you can offer to buy it from her. And she's like, well, you know, I'm not going to just give you my lunch or whatever. But if you pay me 1000 gold I'll give you this egg. And if you had that chicken follow you from that train back aways, back in the last chapter, then you can use the egg on the chicken and then the chicken will sit on the egg and it hatches immediately. 00:20:03.06 Daniel Yeah, it's the most instantaneous transformation of items I've seen in a lot of and in any game at this point. it's Oh yes, let's sit on this egg. Oh look, a magical beast pops out. Fantastic. 00:20:13.57 Jala What's funny about that too, is that like that lady in that tent, if she had tried to like crack open that egg, like, and then here's like a fully formed pen inside, like, oh my God, that would be um kind of horrifying, possibly. But I mean, she was going to eat it, whatever. But anyway, so pen then cracks out of half of the egg, has the other half of the egg still on his body, and then he runs out the door. The end for now. 00:20:38.53 Daniel Yeah. and He's excited to be alive. 00:20:41.96 Jala He is happy to be alive just like Ratchet and runs out the door. Speaking of Ratchet, ah you can find him in this town. He's off in a corner by some barrels and you just talk to him and he's like, hey, I'm having fun running around. It's so wonderful to be out and whatever. And then he runs away again, but like you have to talk to him here so that he joins you later. Every time you see any of these characters, you have to talk to them. 00:21:05.48 Daniel And keep in mind, too, with this village, there's a couple of items that are really nice that are hidden away in the barrels and stuff. So it's a good idea to explore and continue to do that thing that we've been doing where you check all the barrels, check all the boxes, look under all the skirts and all or not skirts, check under all the curtains and read all the books that you can find and all the shelves. I don't think there's any books in Vagabond, though, but yeah. 00:21:25.33 Jala Some of the cabinets that you go into have some questionable items in them anyway. I mean, like you're already checking out people's panties and then my favorite one is probably a candle and a whip. That was a very good one to and it and it's funny because it only appears one time and only in certain houses and it's like only specific spots because I've sat in front of a cabinet for like 20 minutes opening it and closing it to see if I could get that one to pop up and it doesn't and it's funny because one of them is the house of a preacher. So you leave Vagabond and then you find Spirited attacking the Elbesem statue and this is another one of these big battles and she is zombified. She's continued to go across the map since the fight with Franz. And she's almost to this Elbesem statue. Now, why is this important? The Elbesem statue is basically a guarding point that holds back the Vandal power. And so once this is wrecked, then that's basically the shields that keep the Vandals at bay or whatever. And so this statue, it's real important to keep it alive and she's all the way across the map at the statue. There's a lot of stuff in between you and her and you're trying to go over there to see if you can rescue the statue before she breaks it into pieces. 00:23:04.80 Daniel Not to mention there's another ruins here, which you would have got in the previous, I believe it's in Vagabond actually, where you can get the map and go through this as well and get some more good items. 00:23:15.17 Jala I've tried several different ways. And I'm sure it's one of those things where you just can't. I can get people over to the statue when she's still beating on it. But I cannot heal enough of the damage that was done before I get there to keep it alive or anything like that. 00:23:33.98 Daniel You cannot target the statue on with your characters, so you can't actually heal it, I don't believe. I've never gotten a guy over there myself, but from what I recall, you cannot save that statue no matter how hard you try. Even using cheat codes, if you do destroy her before she has a chance to beat up the statue, the game just freezes from what I remember. So I would not try that personally, because I like to keep playing. 00:23:56.82 Jala Yeah. I ran Dantares past and like I had Chivalry/Cybil going alongside him in separate, like ah whoever who was fast to distract enemies. And then I just ran my guy over there to try to like kill some of the knights and stuff. And I managed to distract some of the knights, but they still took out the statue before I could do anything. 00:24:20.51 Daniel Yeah, she just has an overwhelming level of force there, too. There's eight guys that you have to deal with, including two tanks. 00:24:25.79 Jala I can get there I cannot stop them. So as you try your hardest to stop her Basanda one of the four of bull zone You find out that she is helping ah and also controlling superior. So she ah it Starts to what heal superior and stuff like she's she does a lot of different. She shows up near the end of that fight ah while you're fighting like okay, so They destroy the statue. Then you still have to deal with superior and the rest of the force that's there after they wreck the statue. And while you're doing that, Basanda shows up at some point in there. Daniel. 00:25:10.69 Daniel I believe she actually shows up ah fairly early in the fight if she's not there the whole time and what she does is she every time that the statue attacks he uses spark 3 or spark 4 or something on the group and does some damage to everybody but then Basanda also uses her divine cane which is a special that she has she lifts her cane up and then she heals all of them so it's like they have their own perma-healer like if you were in FF14 and you have somebody walking around just healing you while you're trying to level up 00:25:43.54 Jala Right, because the statue uses that spark spell and they keep on getting healed back. Not for the exact same amount of hit points, but they're not very damaged when you get to fight them. After the destruction of that statue, Basanda ends up leaving because she hears this voice and she feels weird power 00:26:16.28 Daniel She feels the Vandal energy coming out of somewhere, and she's like, oh, I must investigate that. I will be back. The power that she feels is actually Galm coming to interfere with the current events, and after we've dealt with Spiriel and Spiriel is lying on the ground bleeding to death. And then Basanda comes back and then Galm shows up. 00:26:58.22 Jala Galm shows up and she's like you know what, you're the Vandal. You should be helping us with Bulzome, where she's just like, why are you opposing us? And Galm's like, I don't have an allegiance to anybody. And good luck trying to fight me, you know? And then she just kind of like takes Spiriel and leaves. I'm going home with my toys now. 00:27:24.51 Daniel Yeah, I've had enough of trying to deal with you. I'm out of here. And then Julian decides he's going to try his luck at Galm. And that doesn't go very well, does it? 00:27:33.28 Jala No, that does not go very well at all. You know, ah he gets batted away like a fly. And um is it at this point where he just like disappears because he, he's, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:27:43.13 Daniel Well, Galm picks him up. Julian charges him. Galm picks him up and throws him over his shoulder like it's nothing. And he flies into the river and floats away. And then he's like, oh, I guess I'm done here now. You guys are not worth my time. 00:27:53.81 Jala Yeah. So Galm just totally terrifies Basanda. Julian rushes to attack Galm. And then he ends up in the river and disappears. And that's all that we see of him for this scenario. Bye, Julian. Since you're on the main images and stuff, we know you're alive. But we won't see you again for this this installment of the game. In either case, Basanda also does swear to kill Synbios and his army the next time that she sees them. And that's like every single villain in this is like, I'll get you next time, children. 00:28:32.25 Daniel I like the yeah the Dr. Klaw version of this. I'll get you next time, Gadget. Next time. 00:28:39.09 Jala Yeah, and that's the thing about the four of Bulzome. Every single time you're like surely this is the last time I'll see them. No, it's never the last time you're going to see them. So anyway, Synbios and his team, now that they are missing Julian, continue on and they are going across this bridge to get into the Republic. And then you find out that General Garzel is there and he is waiting in surprise to attack this army. 00:29:22.76 Daniel Garzel says, You will not pass. We will kick you off this bridge and you will all die. And then you get into the fight. You get up around that first hump and then Edmund comes out and says, haha, I am here. My forces are joining. And then no, there's an even better surprise on top of that. 00:29:42.63 Jala Right, right. So you start the fight and there's two different sides to the bridge. There's some birdmen you have to fight in addition to some tanks and things like that that you have to negotiate. And um so you're going along and after you hit a certain point on the map, then um Garzel is the only one you see across the ridge, but then Edmund shows up and then at first been a tramp in everybody. You're like, oh, hey, it's Edmund. Perfect. He's a Republican. He'll help us and we'll get past this real easy now. Ha ha. And then he's like, syke. I'm on the other guy's side and I'm going to destroy you guys. And so Garzel's like, yes, bring out your forces, Edmund. And then everybody turns to look and the place where the forces are supposed to come out. There's like four guys. And that's all who shows up. And then Garzel's like, Edmund, I thought you had more men than that. But then who should appear? But Medion, Prince Medion, who ah in his hotness has decided that he was going to help out Synbios by wrecking shop on Edmund's men. And so there's only like four guys that come out in six. 00:30:46.72 Daniel I think it's six actually but yes there are a few guys he's like yeah I got this I got this massive army and we're gonna stop you guys now this pincer attack is working and it is not occurring 00:30:57.74 Jala Right, because Medion takes care of all the rest of the troops over there. He has his own battle, which you play in scenario two, but then as for this fight with Synbios, there are a few people who appear at the rear to you know take him out, but it's not as hard as it would have been if there was a whole force there, of course. 00:31:20.53 Daniel And they are a bit challenging because they are all pikemen. And if you have Synbios out in the open there, it can be quite devastating. There is a spot where you can sneak through the rocks. I really like sneaking through there. I go through there with all of the characters. Actually, I don't go around the side because if you go around the side, you leave your forces open to being attacked en masse. If you go through the rocks and you sneak one or two people down the little cliff face, then they can come at one of your guys and then you can cast spells with them. It makes it really easy if you put new and remastered near the front of the force. 00:31:49.14 Jala Yes. So after you do that and you fight your way to the bridge and you're going across the bridge, a certain fun scene happens. Daniel, you want to tell us about that? 00:32:00.93 Daniel Yes, so Edmund is like, hey, whoa, we're going to stop this army with our forces, right? And Garzel is like, no, we're going to drop everyone in the river. But those are my guys and your guys, too. Let's not do that. And Garzel turns to him and says, aha, but this is where I betray you, too. And he pushes Edmund into the river as well. So now we have two Republic people in the water floating for their lives and trying to try to survive these rapid waterfall situations. And we are threatened with the thought of being dropped in the river, so we must now stop Garzel from cutting the ropes, which is all flavor text because he doesn't actually move a single inch the whole fight. 00:32:36.56 Jala I know. Cause like, as soon as that happened, the very first time I played this, I was like, okay, we got to rush him. But they're blocking the way, but then he didn't do anything. I just wanted to throw that guy in the river. 00:32:53.23 Daniel He might move forward one or two spaces if he can get at you, but other than that, he doesn't actually cut the ropes at all. He's so vibrant and full of life and then no action. 00:33:03.59 Jala Yep, absolutely. And then he's not vibrant and full of life because you kill him. And that's the end of that. So that is the end of chapter three. Now chapter four, revolt in the Republic of Aspinia. We're going to be dealing with once we get back to the Republic. ah Ben Trim has come back to Aspia, the capital of Aspinia and the troubles back home are plentiful. The harvest was bad and the people are hungry and this was this is has led a bunch of the different Republican leaders to revolt despite the ongoing war with the Destonian empire that is starting back up again and Brutus and the army of Baersol head to Storich to raid the republic's supplies for themselves. um And Brutus' name in the original is Briabable, which is great. His name is Briabable. Anyway, ah so he he's going to go raid the stores ah to feed his people because he's had enough of waiting and this, that, and the other and doesn't want to fight. ah Despite needing to return to Flaggard, which is where Synbios, Medion, Grace, and Masqurin are from, to see his father, who is ill, Synbios ends up volunteering his army to head to Storich to prevent the raiding of the supplies because ah General Fafhard, who is the guy in in charge of Storich, is reluctant to stop hungry people from getting the food they need. So he's going to just let Brutus and company come in and get those stores because he's sympathetic to the people which understandable, right? So instead of going to see your ill father you go off to try to stop the raiding of the supplies because you know, we need these supplies to meter out to everyone especially in the middle of a massive world war that we've got going on. 00:35:04.00 Daniel Yes, the only thing of note that I can remember from the entire location here is that once you're in the town, you must stop at the barracks and pick up Horst. And then it's time to head out. 00:35:16.72 Jala And as he goes out of the castle, Synbios meets Fafhard's son, Braff, who is very, very ah complimentary of Synbios' talents and skills, but he's acting like a real weirdo. He just is just, I don't know, he's kind of stalkery feeling. He's got a real weird vibe to him. So ah you meet him and he's all praise and singing stuff, but you're just on your guard when you meet Braff. So, anyway, outside the castle, Synbios reunites with Eldar and Zero, who tell him that the statue of Elbesem has been destroyed. We already know that. and this This has strengthened Bulzome's and the other Vandals' powers, so that's what they confirm. They say, well, since the statue has been destroyed, the Vandals are stronger now. They discuss this and they say, oh crap, if Prince Medion goes against Bulzome, he's going to be in danger without the Elbesem orb because that's what weakens the Vandal's power so that ah you know people who are human and otherwise you know can get hits in. So Zero ends up heading off to give Medion the orb so that he can fight these guys. So um after that, when you are heading out, you start another battle. Tell us about that battle. 00:36:28.89 Daniel The battle is on the way to Storich? Yes. So that is a fun little battle. It's not super tactics heavy. I would recommend at this point having Eldar on your team though, because this does make getting a secret item really easy. If you do not have the translation patch in here, I think it's the last one, version 24 or this version 25, they put in a special item as homage to our one and only Moogie of Shining Force Central. There is a Moogie arrow and it's up in the mountains. I'm not going to tell you where, but you can find it yourself if you have Eldar or if you take one of the other characters that can walk on these kind of trains like Hayward up in the mountains there, although why you'd waste his talents on that, I couldn't tell you. But yes, take Eldar up there, go find that arrow, enjoy it. It's a really powerful, really nice item with, I believe it's got Goddess Charm as its special attack, so it kind of gives a lot of that that sensational feel to it, so it's a great item to pick up for your for Hayward or another one of your archers. Get in there, grab that item, go around, defeat all those guys, and get yourself into Storich. 00:37:40.78 Jala Yeah, I've got the Yogurt Shining Force shirt that Moogie has for offer. Anyway, moving right along. Synbios and his crew fight the Baersol army, and they prevent damage to the storehouses and Storich. However, during the battle, the gates of Aspia close behind them and keep them out, because there's conspiracy afoot. So you can't get back in. 00:38:09.17 Daniel Yes, that actually happens immediately after you get into the battle here. So as soon as the battle starts, that gate closes behind you and you're like, oh, I guess we're not getting back in there anyway. So then it's time to proceed forward. 00:38:18.74 Jala You go to Storich and the egg that you found earlier is there. Pen. There is a penguin that if you talk to it, it's like, beep beep beep and then like the translation of what it's saying is these Vandals have been bad to my kin and I shall go smite them for my people or something, he has much more of a narrative to him than like noon or some of the other characters who are really baller and you've got this little penguin chick 00:38:53.66 Daniel And here, once you get him in the HQ, he actually has different things to say. That's another thing that we haven't pointed out until now. Every time there's a headquarters, talk to all the people if you want extra flavor text. And inside the headquarters, there's a library book that if you check that out, there's all kinds of different definitions and descriptions of all the people as well that are in each scenario. So those are worth checking out too. When you talk to pen he's like yes, I am basically going to come out and be the holy Avenger that my people need ah Nine on promoted so you still have to level him up at least once But that's much easier to do than leveling him up 15 or 10 levels Yeah 00:39:22.30 Jala You look like a garlic bulb. And he's like level one when you get him in the original game. Although the translation team has made him 10 unpromoted, I believe. Nine unpromoted, okay. So after that, yeah When you're in Storich, you learn that you may be able to pass through this magma chute of a local volcano to get to Flaggard, which everybody's just like, that's wild. You want to do what? and They're like, well, desperate times, we can't get back into Aspia. I don't know what to tell you, man. We got to get to Flaggard. We can't go back to Aspia. 00:40:06.99 Daniel This convenient volcano is just located just off of this other path over here. 00:40:13.24 Jala Yeah, sure. That's not going to be dangerous as hell. So they decide that they're just going to go because they don't have options. Where else are they going to go? So there's enemies within, there's enemies without. So on their way to the volcano, they end up coming across another set of Baersol forces. This is Brutus's men again. So there's another ruins and another battle. I think this is a pretty straightforward, kind of like nothing battle more or less. I mean, there's the ruins, but like the battle itself is not really super notable to me. 00:40:44.54 Daniel The battlefield is very wide and spread out. There's some forces to the north or to the south immediately away from where you're at. You can go and deal with those with a small group and then hopefully deal with getting Pen that level. And then if you want to retreat and promote him right away in the translation patch, you can. And then you push on forward up to the ruin. I generally try to keep my forces around the side of the ruin, the bottom side away from the cave entrance and the boss. And if you do that, then you can sneak some people around the side entrance those bad guys never move, and you can plot them out for when you when you leave the ruin after you've acquired the items in there. So that's my tactic for that map. It's very straightforward. 00:41:30.70 Jala Yeah, usually I will start picking off people that are around the boss while the people are in the ruins still. So you have to be careful cause you can trigger the boss and then the boss will come after you too. And then you have to like retreat all your people far enough where the boss won't come. And there this is a whole game of tag. 00:41:53.63 Daniel And there's some archers, and he himself is a mace wielder, so he will hurt Dantares and Cybil pretty strongly, so be careful with them. 00:42:03.42 Jala I tend to do ranged as much as possible. And since he's a mace wielder and a big guy, like he doesn't have a big movement range either. So um that that helps. So ah all of these forces are meant to be decoys to stall Synbios while Fafhard and his men attack Flaggard. That's why you're trying to go back to Flaggard because ah your hometown and your dad are getting assaulted by these other folks. Fafhard, remember, he's the guy who leads Storich and has left when you get there. He's off attacking your house, so go back home. That's part of the reason for your urgency and your, "we're just going to jump into a volcano now." 00:42:49.33 Daniel Yeah, so we just plowed through the volcano battle too with that. So let's go straight through. There two notes that I have for the volcano. The first one is use Eldar again here. She has two really key points. The first one is going to get the Mithril Dirk up in this corner, which if you use ranged throwing knives, it's fantastic. Or if you don't use them, it sells for good money at this point. And then also be very careful not to kill the baby dragon. 00:43:14.89 Jala Yeah. Yeah. If you kill the baby dragon, it complicates scenario two. 00:43:20.98 Daniel That, yeah, that's a synchronicity point. There's several of these in the game. Garosh is one of them. The baby dragon is another one. If you mess this up or if you fight the baby dragon and you kill it, then you deal with a much harder dragon in scenario two. 00:43:34.17 Jala I will attack it. I just will use my weak people and get like a little bit more levels of experience and stuff. And then I will go away before it actually dies. 00:43:45.66 Daniel And if you, if you get to a certain point in the map, there's a cutoff line. You can run Eldar across the lava and not trigger that cutoff, but Eldar cannot be the one to win the map. Eldar can only go across and trigger stuff for you to make sure that it's easy. And then you can surround the baby dragon and run Synbios up across. I do not recommend sending him by himself because other adds will spawn. But if you take him and Dantares and maybe Masqurin up the hill, then you can get out pretty easily without too much confrontation. 00:44:13.57 Jala So after that, um then you find out about Fafhard attacking Flaggard because there's allegedly a bunch of hidden wealth being kept from the people that Conrad has been squirreling away. 00:44:29.98 Daniel And this is further plots from Basanda and Fear. So we're going to convince Fafhard that you are up to no good and that you guys must be stopped and Conrad must be put to rest. Ratchet pops up after you beat the guys before you go into the volcano. If you choose to retreat and put him on your team, or if you don't have enough characters at this point, he will automatically be on your force, assuming you missed anyone. I don't think we've missed anyone up to this point. So if you've been following along with us, then you should also have to retreat to put him on your team. 00:45:29.22 Jala So once you come out of the volcano, you realize that you are near Flaggard in the nick of time. Fafhard's forces have not arrived yet. So Fafhard then redirects his army to fight Synbios instead of raiding Flaggard, but his forces are divided. So this battle is kind of a little bit trickier, because you have to be real concerted in your efforts in order to get them knocked out safely without losing your folks. 00:46:26.46 Daniel Again, my tactic here is generally to go straight up the middle for a bunch of the characters and then branch a few off towards the extra forces that are available. My Grace is usually so powerful that she has Aura 1 or Aura 2 so she can heal a bunch of guys. So for me, it's not really an issue, but you can play a little safer, run up the middle and then go after those few guys and then branch off and come back to Fafhard and beat him up. it is a good idea to keep the axe wielders away from Fafhard as he is a sword user and he also I believe cast the Phoenix spell up to level two, when he uses that on your characters, make sure they're grouped together, because if you have a single character, they get a lot of damage. If they're grouped together, they take less damage as an aggregate amount. Everybody gets so much HP damage. 00:47:37.91 Jala So after Synbios routes this army and is speaking to Fafhard, he ends up convincing him of the truth. There is no hidden treasure. You were duped. And Fafhard's loyalty is restored at this point. He's like, oh, OK, I believe you. I believe in the Republic. I'll join you. But then High Priest Fear appears and strikes him down, saying as he leaves that he's heading to meet Conrad and that makes Fafhard suspicious all over again. Fafhard dies suspicious of Conrad. So Synbios ends up telling Fafhard he will honor his wishes. Fafhard's like, you've got to find out the truth about Conrad and if he's doing a bad thing, you need to strike him down and Synbios vows that he will do this. It's kind of a weird point because everybody else in the team is, of course, shocked by this. And they're all filled with doubt suddenly because so many people have turned on their principles so far in the Republic that they're like, has your dad actually gone rogue? They're doubting because they've seen so many other people they didn't think would turn on their original intentions. So they're kind of concerned about it. And I don't know. I'm not buying it. Every time I got to this part, I'm like, I don't think that my people who have lived and grown up around Conrad would suddenly be all suspicious. Maybe the other people who don't know him, but for everybody else this wouldn't have been a crisis point for them. But they're all questioning anyway because plot reasons. 00:49:45.93 Daniel And more like they want to ask Conrad what's happening. Let's go talk to Conrad, see what's going on. Your dad will give us the honest answer, Synbios. Please, let's go talk to him. 00:49:53.68 Jala So Flaggard is shut up tight when you go there, and everyone has locked their houses. ah you know there's There were people trying to almost kill them very recently, and here's another army that has come in. So, Synbios finds a wolfman named Frank that is in the town, and this is one of those parts where, as Daniel mentioned, you want to push this fella around. 00:50:17.78 Daniel Yeah, he actually tells you not to, just like the other people in the game that you can do this to tell you not to. But if you do and you take him all the way back to your headquarters, you get a nice surprise of, hey, you now have a werewolf on your team. 00:50:30.18 Jala Right. Cause he's like, Hey, you're pretty strong to be pushing me all the way around this town. I mean, I guess that, you know, I respect your strengths, so I'll join you. And Frank is such an MVP. I mean, like not at first, but later on he is an MVP. 00:50:44.40 Daniel Once you can give him some better weapons and accessories, he becomes a monster ah that he truly is. He is fantastic. One of my favorite characters in the series. 00:50:52.44 Jala Absolutely. So ah anyway, so you speak with the priest and Synbios then learns that there's a hidden passage to into the castle because the castle is closed off and they won't let you in. So ah you have to go to the priest and the priest um you know tells you, hey, there's a hidden secret way in. So um your dad and I used to use this. 00:51:09.97 Daniel Yeah. Talking to the priest, the priest does not actually remember exactly where it is. But however, that when you try to trigger this, I made this mistake on this playthrough, don't talk to the priest like you're going to save. You have to go around and actually talk to him directly outside of his pew. If you try to talk to him, he'll just offer a save option, which is also still a good idea. But then you have to actually walk around, talk to him directly. And then once you've done that cutscene, go back and talk to him again so that you can save again because nobody wants to sit through that extra exposition a second or third time if you screw up. Make sure that you save. And then, ah yes, I'll let you talk about how to get in there unless you don't remember exactly where it is. 00:51:46.63 Jala It's a little secret sigil on one of the walls. There's like these little symbols on the walls and you have to basically go around the city and look at every one of them until you find the one that is the right one. And so there's just like a marking on the walls. You just have to go check the outer city walls for that to get in. 00:52:01.93 Daniel Yes. It is actually the coat of arms. This is posted in several places in the game. 00:52:08.72 Jala So ah once you get inside, you end up approaching your father, Conrad. And Conrad tells Synbios to leave. It's a trap. It's a trap. Don't do it. And um right about that time, of course, you don't have time to leave. High Priest Fear appears and then is disappointed that Synbios didn't fall for his nefarious trap. Because like ah basically, you bust into the chamber. There's a whole chamber length between you and your dad. And then your dad's like, no, don't do it and then a battle pops right about then. Because yes. 00:52:39.72 Daniel And very luckily this time around when something like this happens, you actually have your force. So that's very handy because everyone else is with you and you're on your way to talk to him as a force anyway. So everyone else is in the room and there are a couple options for dealing with Fiale here. You can rush him directly with Synbios, which is not necessarily the best plan since he also has buddies hanging out that will smack you in the face with their swords. um A lot of people rush Dantares up to help you with Synbios. That's my usual plan here is just ignore all the adds with Dantares and Synbios and focus on dealing with some of those. You do want to attempt to hit him once because he drops a key item. I'll let Jala talk more about that. And then also my general strategy for this is to focus on dealing with the groups by having your casters cast big spells on the guys on the sides and having a healer or two available to heal people on each side. So usually at this point for me, Kahn is more of a melee character, he does heal a little bit, but his main focus is to use those amazing chests that he has and pound people into the ground. He's one of my MVPs in this battle, actually. And then if you've also switched out for Frank, I usually switch Pen out for Frank at this point. If I have Pen ah remotely leveled up, then you also use Frank on the other side to help you destroy ah one guy every round, for sure. 00:53:51.57 Jala Right. So there's a couple of things about this battle. So the reason why Fear was so upset that you didn't fall for it is because if you had gone all the way into the chamber, the guys come in from either side and it's a narrow little path in the middle to get all the way up to Conrad. So if you had fallen for it and gotten all the way into the room, then you would have been really SOL because it would have been a pincher attack right on your butt. So um they're like, it is kind of infinispawn. Like there's more enemies that pop up on either side ah fairly regularly. I thought there was there's a certain number of them then that come through. 00:54:21.07 Daniel No. Not a single extra add pops up in this fight. They're all there. You can destroy them as they come. However, there are I think it's there's a group of monsters on each side that you have to deal with. And then there's four monks on each side or something along those lines. 00:54:48.56 Jala It's a big battle, um but you could have been pincered. You definitely don't want to allow yourself to be pincered. You want to keep those groups separate from each other for sure. But um as you rush up to a Fear, if you hit him at least once, you get a key item, which is a key. You want that key. It's very important for getting another character in scenario two. So you need to get that key and hang on to that dang thing. 00:55:15.55 Daniel Yeah, it's the way to get General Rogan. If you don't have that key, then General Rogan cannot escape a trap later on and he will not join the Shining Force because he will not be alive. 00:55:24.57 Jala Yeah, he will no longer be breathing. Yes. It's kind of like ah Bernard. If you didn't say Bernard in that inn way earlier in the game, um sorry, Bernard. You're gone. So um there's that kind of a situation going. So Fear eventually will. he like He'll sit there for a little bit, but then he deuces out. I don't think you can kill him here, can you? You can knock him down, but he still leaves. 00:55:44.91 Daniel you if you have the right if you have the right things when if you do remove his hp in full lucky strikes or whatever if you get enough specials up he just leaves he doesn't die he just says oh that's enough for me I'm done here I've my work is done I've done what i set out to do which was poisoning Conrad and it's time for me to go 00:56:05.07 Jala Yeah. And he does that either way, like he will. And that poison is a very important thing because they do have a lot of poison guys right around this area. So you're going to be using a lot of antidotes and stuff ah for this fight and or you know the healing spells to counteract that because there are a lot of little poison dudes running around. There's a worse issue coming up. But like, this is kind of like the, hey, if you didn't have those antidotes in your thing, you might want to start carrying those around. So um yeah, at that point, Fear goes away. And then you end up fighting to Conrad. Fear says that he's going over to Lookover Tower. He's going to go visit Palsis, Duke Palsis, whom I have not heard of until this point in the game. Like you, you don't hear about Palsis until this point. I don't think like nobody mentions him in a book. 00:56:57.41 Daniel I believe there's one mention of, uh, Duke Palsis because actually there's a couple of mentions of him in the books, but it's not directly his name. They talk about the leaders of the Republic. And every time they talk about the leaders of the Republic, him, Benetram and Conrad are the leaders. So when they talk about those people, that's referring directly to him. So yes, there is mentioned, but not directly of his name. That's the first time you even hear that he exists. And then all of a sudden there's this guy you got to go see. 00:57:23.34 Jala Yeah. Yeah, there's a guy you got to see. So Conrad, meanwhile, is ah mortally wounded. He is dying. He's got the poison in him. And he is not going he is not long for this world because, of course, healing spells don't work the same way when it's a plot important point. So ah Conrad ah ends up asking Synbios to protect Palsis and then pretty much dies at that point. Does he give you any other information, though? like He's just like, go to look over Palsis, save him the end. 00:57:52.96 Daniel Yeah, Palsis is your next dad on this journey. Go talk to Pulsus. You need his help. And then that's pretty much it. So yeah, we have a short funeral scene for Conrad, which actually takes a fair amount of time in game because you're sitting there dealing with the loss of your father. 00:58:14.15 Jala Yeah, but there's also a blacksmith. So some of the items that we've mentioned along the way, like the mithril, for example, there's small and large mithril, small mithril makes accessories, large mithril makes weapons, and then dark matter makes like a cursed item, like very strong, but a cursed item. 00:58:29.84 Daniel They are actually not substantial in my books. The Dark Matter, it is best to make a Dark Matter sword one time when you have a Dark Matter and then sell that Dark Matter sword for lots of money. Because in scenario one, the Dark weapons the the ah dark Matter weapons, they all have curse effects on them. And in the playing game without the translation patch quality of life updates, you get paralyzed fairly often whenever you go to use it in combat. You can take HP damage from a siphon that happens after you attack, and you can also take HP damage a second way in combat, I believe, from the weapon itself, cursing you. So there's three ways that the curse affects you outside of the quality of life patches. With the quality of life, we've taken away the para paralysis, so it works a lot better for those weapons, but they're still fairly impotent compared to what they could be if the damage on them was increased, which we are talking about doing, but haven't actually set out anything for that yet. We want to try to make them a little bit more substantial in scenario one, Scenarios two and three have an item called the Chaos Ring, which negates all of the negative effects of being cursed. So those ones have a lot better usage for that. But in my opinion, just make a dark sword for yourself and sell that immediately so that you gain the extra money to make another item or some more accessories for your characters if you choose to do so at this time. 00:59:42.59 Jala Right, because at this point, um like ah it's you can make items at the blacksmith, but like you're going to be limited in how many you can make at this point, at least for me, ah because I'm not grinding a whole hell of a lot. So ah yeah at this point, if you're just playing like, you know you're not grinding a whole heck of a lot, you're not going to have tons of ah money. like You can make some stuff, but not like you're not going to cover your whole team. Let's just put it that way. So you have to pick and choose who you want to give better weapons to, for sure. So ah that, it wraps up chapter four, you end up with the death of your father. And then we move on to chapter five, Tower Ruins of Lookover. So Synbios and Tim are mourning Conrad. ah Zero ends up returning and giving Kahn the Elbesem orb back, but then he goes back to Medellin's army to keep on helping him out because he's been such a pro helper so far for them because they don't have a bird man otherwise. So ah despite the people of Flagard really wanting Synbios to stay, the force ends up marking to look over to protect pulses per Conrad's last wishes. So you know everybody's like, you've got to stay, you've got to take over for your father and all this other stuff. And everybody's sad, but you have to go. like You've been given a mission and you have larger stakes so ah you head out fighting past an army of Bulzome monks and monsters which that's the next battle that's a filler battle. 01:01:04.62 Daniel There's a couple of items you can find by exploring the lakes and stuff, and there's a treasure chest with a nice item for Irene, but outside of that, this battle is pretty straightforward to rush the boss. There are ads that happen, but don't worry about those. They're pretty easy to deal with, especially if you've pushed forward enough quickly. They come at you from behind, but I generally ignore them or send one guy back for them, and just push through this. This is a very simple, easy battle. There's nothing crazy, no extra tactics, as far as I'm aware. Just yeah try to keep your guys alive. 01:01:30.19 Jala And so like the thing with that too is that some the ah the guys who come up behind you, again, like if you're advanced far enough, like I think it's like a, what is it? 01:01:47.07 Daniel That's how Wyvern comes at you. So as soon as the Wyvern comes at you, yeah, you know that there's going to be two of those, or maybe three spawn, I think, total. But yeah, just to have a Obright or somebody stand back and knock those out of the park. And yeah, push forward through that very simple battle, indeed. 01:02:02.37 Jala Yeah and like the thing about it too is that like even if the even if they're a an enemy like a wyvern that can go faster or farther if they are too far out of your range they're not going to advance all the way to you and keep flying at top speed to get to you they will just kind of hang out on the map so ah Don't feel like you really have to unless you want to ah anyway Synbios then from here We'll head into the tower where you have another battle um yeah And this is one of those where you also have to fight thieves in a ruin that is right there on like the way up the tower like you're scaling the tower and there's like a little offshoot place with a little tomb or something right there, so 01:02:42.17 Daniel Yeah, and this is a very easy ruin to deal with. You have two thieves. They're both pursuing different items. I don't believe any of the items are hugely significant. I think that there's a fire axe or flame axe, which allows you to cast blaze two if you use it on somebody who has an axe capability. But outside of that, I don't believe there's a lot of stuff. There's a mithril and maybe a healing drop or potion or something in the chests. The big thing about this ruins is it has Hagane in it, which is where you can pick him up. But you don't have to get him in the middle of battle. You can come back for him. He can be found on your way out or ah before you go up to Save Palsis if you choose to go back to the town. right away near the end of the battle. You can, or no, sorry, you cannot do that. But yes, on your way out, you can pick him up instead of going to the end of the road and going down the pathway. You can come back to the runes and pick him up afterwards. So it is available to get him there. And that rune is not really a huge tactic issue. um Just again, watch out for the different monsters in there. Take a healer with you. I usually again take Kahn and I have Frank in there usually as well. Dantares for the range. And then going up the tower, coming out of the ruins, there's a small staircase you can use. I generally put all of my guys up the small staircase because it doesn't usually lead you to extra combat because the monks on either side and the monsters on either side don't charge you going up those stairs. Or you can wrap yourself around the tower if you want, but that takes a lot of extra turns. 01:04:08.31 Jala What I end up doing is I'll split off two different groups, and I'll go up both of the hour or both of the areas at the same time, just because like I want certain people to get more XP, so I'll put them over in one area where there's more stuff. But yeah, Hagane is your first ninja fella that you can get. So ah you will definitely want to get him. Ninjas are cool, and that's a thing. So um yeah, you go through and the monks that are at the end that that pop up there, they keep popping up if once you kill them, I think. At least for a little... 01:04:42.02 Daniel this is also not ah This is also not an infinite spawn monk area. These monks spawn, I think it's four sets. So if you put some people down there to deal with that, I think it's four sets, it might be five. But after you killed enough of them, they stop. 01:04:52.90 Jala They will eventually stop. 01:04:57.35 Jala I remember that I usually put my guys over there, like the lower level guys to fight those guys, because then they can just get like a level from just fighting these monks that keep on popping up several times. 01:04:59.48 Daniel It's two. The monks here do have a poison attack. So having extra antidotes is, or having a grace there is definitely very much a helpful ah point as well. 01:05:23.93 Jala Yep, absolutely. So ah after that, you are heading up to the top of the tower to deal with Fear, who is at the top of the tower, hanging out. ah You have the showdown with him because he's like right there trying to get to Paulsis. Paulsis is just kind of chilling. He's just there. I don't know. 01:05:43.09 Daniel Yeah, you can look at him a little bit. You can check him out. But I don't know if in the untranslated or the unpatched version that it shows his stats. I think you can see stats on him in the translated in the in the patch in the new patch. So he does things out there. He never gets attacked. Nobody ever is like a non player character that just kind of hangs out on the map is like, hey, I'm here. I'm alive. Welcome to my party. 01:06:05.05 Jala Yeah. And see, here's the thing. Um, the way that usually happens is like, I'm like, Oh man, he's going to attack him. But then like, you're like, Oh, he's not attacking him. Hmm. You know, like I thought you were here to attack the guy, but, um, you know, he doesn't, he's just waiting for you to come up to see him. 01:06:20.63 Daniel Yeah, and fail is really just determined to stop you from getting to him, which is why he's posted there. He's just like, yeah, come at me. I will win to go you in the face. 01:06:29.24 Jala Yes, and that does not feel good at all, especially at this point in the game. Wendigo is not your friend. Yeah, not yet. Not yet ah will be but not now. So ah yeah, you beat Fear to a pulp and then Basanda, who is our functional like Healy lady who shows up to heal all the bad guys all the time, ah no matter what pops up out of nowhere and says, oops, I got to go heal this guy came by and then drag sphere off to go get healed in his cryo chamber or whatever. um So Then you manage to catch up to pulses and pulses takes Synbios to the top of the tower to explain why Conrad had sent him there because you don't know you you're like who are you who are you man no. 01:07:14.90 Daniel Yeah. Hey, we were we were told to come see a guy about a thing. I'm the guy with the thing. 01:07:19.71 Jala What's the thing? So the tower is home to a mysterious gem that glows brighter the more suffering there is in the world, which is a very weird function for a gem to have. But here you are. It's like the Care Bear meter. Like the Care Bears have a caring meter up in the sky. 01:07:36.21 Daniel It's the inverse care meter. It's like, so this is dark. Oh no, now it's super bright. Now we must worry. 01:07:45.58 Jala Yeah, this is the beacon, beacon telling you about bad things. So ah it has been steadily brightening for a while now, and it correlates to the amount of power that the bull zone sect has as the Vandals derive their power from suffering, of course. So Palsis, Conrad and Benetram had spent many years studying the ancient veined Vandal civilization and the thousand year kingdom in an effort to find a way to stop Bulzome from taking over. So they just kind of anticipated that Bulzome was going to come back. And while they weren't trying to fight their way and branch the you know branch themselves off from the ah Empire, they were also studying very hard to prevent world destruction. So they made a pact that if one of them died, the others would teach a chosen successor so they could continue on the work. So you are here as Conrad's replacement since Conrad has passed away. So there's Benetram, Pulsus, and you. And you are the new child who has to be ah taking over in this fight against Bulzome. So you have a whole other new assignment on top of the other assignments that you have. 01:08:50.28 Daniel On top of now being a king, you now also have to rule in another way too, which is fantastic for your character, the character's line for you. So yes, you are a great king and you're also going to be a wise leader someday. Today must be that day. 01:09:04.43 Jala Yeah, exactly. Study hard, so son. So ah in order to fight Bulzome, the war between Destonia and Aspinia first needs to be halted as the suffering of the war is only making Bulzome stronger and all of his minions. So in order to stop the war, the internal strife within the Republic needs to be quelled. So like you take the big, we got to kill Bulzome. Then you go, well, the war has to stop. Well, before we can stop the war, we have to stop the Republic in fighting. So Synbios has to contact Tristis of Mallory, who holds great influence within Aspinia. Tristis happens to be your bro, so your bro-in-law. So Paul ends up joining Synbios as his new advisor because Benetram is still back in Aspia, locked up. We don't know who's locked him up, but he's in Aspia right now. 01:09:54.84 Daniel Actually, I believe he is actually just still in the political chambers and doing the political side of things from where he's at. I don't think he's locked up at all. Yes, he's in Aspia, but I believe he's stuck there. He's not a prisoner, but he can't leave because now he has to govern this place which he no longer so really controls. 01:10:16.85 Jala So in order to get to Mallory, so you can see your sister and your bro-in-law and your little nephew, Synbios and his team have to cross the Great Wall, which includes another new character that pops up, as well as a big mini-boss guy that that introduces you to some particular elements that come into play as the story continues. 01:10:42.04 Daniel Yes, we now we now meet the golem, who is a giant machination. Getting onto the bridge here, or the Great Wall, you go down a a little ways, and then Murasame is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, you're about to walk into a trap. Watch this. And he throws a a mighty ball down the pathway and reveals the golem to you so you don't get curb stomped. 01:11:02.21 Jala yes, so Murasame is your second ninja. he's another ninja you can get. Murasame has been spying and trying to get information for Benetram and whoever, everybody. ah But he has reappeared. He's been getting info, intel on the bulls and monks and what they're up to. so ah he ends up telling you, hey, there's a trap. It's this golem. And this golem is at the end of like, ah so you've got a zig and a zag. So you go down one way, there's a little bit of a turn, and then the golem is at the end of that section of the path. ah So you've got ah this golem that will basically pick up a rock from, I don't know where. I guess he's tearing up the wall and throwing the wall at you. And then he rolls it, and it throws it down the line. And it take goes down the entire line and attacks everybody in its path. And that's a thing that you'll see from some other boss characters, or at least one boss character coming up here soon as well. So um you have to do that. But like the good and bad news is that this means it also attacks everything else in its path. So it's kind of like the laser eye from Shining Force One, where as the laser eye fires, it will fire on anything in its path, including its own allies. So if all of the enemy characters for you, allies for the golem, are in front of the golem when it attacks your character, whatever character you've got there, then all of them will also get hit and get damaged. 01:12:27.13 Daniel One of them is a ground and pound earthquake. I think it's just the two. A couple of quick notes for this battle. There's a treasure chest on top of a little point that you can go to, which is very easy to get to. I also recommend still bringing Eldar for this map, because if you go around behind the Golem, he has a dark matter on his bum. So you can find that and grab that from him. And also, I don't believe he attacks behind him, so you should be safe to attack him from there. ah um Running your guys up, it is best to stay in a group and be healable. At this point, you will have access to Aura 1, I believe. So keeping a tight cluster of guys together means you take less damage from the Tremor, I think. But I don't believe there's any damage reduction from the Rock Throw. 01:13:19.07 Jala No, there is no damage reduction from the rock throw. so um What I often will do is stagger out my people on the way up, but then when I'm at him, swarm him. so um In either case, after the battle, Murasame tells the team that he was captured by the monks, who used their magic to learn about Aspia's defenses from the ninja. So he's the reason why the Bulzome monks know about everything, because he got captured. ah But he also tells Synbios about two really big problems that we've got going. One is there's a massive hidden weapon called the Colossus, and there's also a flying fortress called the Walcuray, both of which Bulzome intends to unleash on the Republic. So ah the Walkuray does not play a part for you in this game. It comes forward in the next installment, the scenario two. Actually, it's mentioned in scenario two, but it's fought against in scenario three. So you hear about it for a long time ah before you see it. 01:14:15.29 Daniel Yes. And you see it in, you see it in media and you see it in the intro video of scenario one, but yes, you don't encounter it. I believe until the midpoint of scenario three. 01:14:23.30 Jala Third. Yeah, something like that. so ah But the Colossus, however, that is your big bad. You're going to fight that guy. So ah that's going to be a thing that you're going to have to come up with gri and against here soon. So Bulzome intends to unleash these two things on the Republic, and you're like, oh, snap. So Murasame senses danger as the group heads towards Mallory and then he just kind of de deuces out. He's like, ah, something's going on. I got to go by. And so he joins you for the one battle ah go on on the the Great Wall going to Mallory, but then he leaves again. So meanwhile, the force stops in the nomadic town called Vagabond again. ah We were we were there once, but it's a moving town. So you get to revisit everybody at that point. 01:15:09.34 Daniel I think this is actually attempt number three at Vagabond because you see them in the very early stages and then you see them again here and then you see them. You saw them mu right before you went into the suspension bridge battle. 01:15:20.98 Jala Yeah, yeah, it might be it might be the third one. Yeah, you at minimum two, possibly three. I will trust your memory over mine. So then after you stop in Vagabond, you fight another round of monks and monsters. And there are poison worms that you found out have come from a distant land. And everybody's surprised that these poison worms have popped up out of here. They're like, this is not their natural habitat. Why are they this far south or whatever? And how are they this big? 01:15:49.87 Daniel And how are they this big? That's another main main problem that we have to deal with is normally the poison worms are much smaller and easier to deal with, but these ones have been grown by Bulzome. 01:16:00.56 Jala Yeah. And so they're a bit of a problem. So lots and lots of poison damage. ah These guys are pretty heavy hitting when you first come across them, especially. And that poison will wreak havoc because it gets stronger as every like um every turn goes by, if I'm not mistaken. 01:16:18.18 Daniel Actually, what it is that up till now, you've been encountering enemies with Poison Level 1, and this is actually technically Poison Level 2. We found that out that all the attacks in the game are spells. So every time you've been attacked by anything in the game that's been anything as a special or anything, that's all technically a spell. So this is the next level of poison that you can encounter. And if you're not prepared for it, this is brutal. 01:16:41.32 Jala Yes, absolutely. So ah do you have to fight the queen poison worm at this point as well at the end of the map, if I'm not mistaken? 01:16:48.85 Daniel Yes, she comes out as a big surprise when you're about two thirds of the way through the map. There will be an infinite number of, as far as I'm aware, infinite number of spawns for the worms here because I've killed them many, many times and still not come to an end of them. I, at a certain point, you are suffering from the triage of being poisoned everywhere and you just can't stay on the map to try and beat them all. 01:17:09.44 Daniel So my tactics is to stay as far away from them as I can, lure them into me. and then destroy them with range as much as possible, and then push through the queen worm. She does have a couple of really neat points to her. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but she does have one thing that you can really utilize to your advantage, which both of us have done at some point. 01:17:26.15 Jala Yeah. Yep. So ah the, the queen worm though, like, how do you usually attack the queen worm? Like, I know you like range stuff. I try to use range stuff on her as much as possible. Doesn't freeze work especially well on her or is that. 01:17:41.58 Daniel Freeze prevents her from, if you can freeze her feet, it prevents her from coming at you at all, which stops her from doing super made massive damage to your guys. But she also has three worms that spawn with her. So, area of effect spells, the lightning spells at this point, Spark 3. 01:17:57.51 Daniel Spark 3 is your best friend for a lot of the damage on these guys. I generally try to put every character I can that can attack her, attacking her rather than her adds and clean them up with spells. And then I do my best not to cause that to happen near the end of the round. I think the spawn is actually, there's two different times they can spawn during the round. So if you kill her adds too quickly, they come back. So be very careful to kill them all only near Obright's turn or somebody else with low agility and focus on killing her specifically. There's a unique tactic with her that she's not an actual unkillable boss. ah Her luck stat, which happens to affect whether or not you can soul steal or insta-kill a boss or a character. Most bosses have a luck of nine. She does not. So you can soul steal her. So you can suck her soul right out of her body and you can also insta-kill her with any of the insta-kill specials. 01:18:46.41 Jala Yep, yep. And it is such a great relief when you do because you're like, oh man, i i I have like two turns until all of my guys die because I have lost all of my magic. I don't have any more antidotes, ah you know, that kind of situation at the end. is you I usually try to ride the line real hard where I'm like, okay, I have exhausted everything I can exhaust and I've ground my character as much as I can grind. Let me just finish off this queen if I can and get out of here. So um this is the very end of chapter five. Ten minutes to finish the last one. So moving right along from the queen, we got the last chapter of scenario one, Colossus of Aspia. So despite being Tristis' brother-in-law, Synbios is not admitted to see him. When he grows impatient with waiting, Wilmer, Tristis' second in command, invites him in to wait for an audience. The door gets locked behind him in the waiting room, forcing Synbios, Dantares, and Palsis to exit into the courtyard where Wilmer and his men await to murder them. And of course, this is one of those situations where your team is back aways. They're like at headquarters and you are here. 01:19:51.46 Daniel Very specific tactics for this battle will come up, but yes, talk about how Marasemi plays a role here. 01:19:57.31 Jala Yeah, Murasame appears ah just long enough to confirm that Tristis is being held captive in his own castle and that Synbios' nephew, Algernon, has been kidnapped by Braff. Braff being the son of Fafhard, the guy who was went one back to your side but then was killed by Fear um and all of that just a little while ago. So ah he also explains that Braff is Fafhard's son by Basanda. So, Fafhard, the Republican general, had a romantic relationship with Basanda of Bulzome and had this son who has kidnapped your nephew at this point. 01:20:38.42 Daniel I mean, he can't you can't blame her. she's He's quite handsome. Prepper is quite handsome. He's got a mighty beard and everything. So yeah, I could see her getting wowed by him. 01:20:47.42 Jala but So Braff meanwhile is aiming to assist the bull zone sect in tearing the Republic apart because ah he's upset that his father was killed by you and he blames you and all of this other stuff because as far as he knows, you you killed him. You killed Fafhard. So Murasame leaves again this time to get the rest of the force while Dantares and Synbios are still waiting and they're trying to stall until the team arrives. So this is a tricky bit of a battle. 01:21:13.65 Daniel And it's even worse, actually, if you don't have Synbios leveled up above any other Force member, because then you will be forced to fight this fight without him. There's something in the code. It's very unique, too. And it happens to every part of the game. We're currently looking at implementing so a fix for the translation patch coming up. But if you have Synbios at level seven and everyone is level eight or higher, he will not appear with Dantares. So you will fight this fight alone with one character for three rounds. That is not fun. I just had that happen in my playthrough. I was like, how could I have forgotten that? Whoops. So that was not fun. I managed to survive, but he is out for the entire rest of the fight. And then afterwards, if that happens to you, you have to go into headquarters and ah reset him by talking to the transfer. If you go in and talk to the transfer, he gets set back into your force and he comes back. Otherwise, he's out of your force permanently and Dantares is the new leader. And that's kind of a little bit messed up. So you can really mess up your game here if you don't level up your main character. which shouldn't be a problem, but just keep that in mind going forward. It's very important. 01:22:15.04 Jala Well, it's real easy to keep Synbios leveled up because everybody wants to at him. Everybody is going after him all the time. So like it's very easy to get him leveled up. It's better to keep him stronger anyway than everybody because you don't want him to die in battle. So you know like I've always keep Synbios a little bit above everybody else. So um after ah stalling, like so there's an area with a fountain. And like there's some pillars and stuff and a little stairway. And you can go there and kind of like stall the force by hiding in there and using the terrain to your advantage ah for a little bit to fend off the forces until the rest of your guys come. It's two, three turns? 01:23:00.10 Daniel you can you can run around the fountain I believe it's three turns that they they appear on the third turn you can run around the fountains or you can try to deal with the small group with the mage and the two guys on the lower or the right hand left the bottom side don't take on the knights because they will murder you the knights will just destroy you but there is two guys with two guys with the maces that you can try to take on. I think there's one group of those that also comes down from the fountain area. But again, if you go around the fountains, you should be fine. There's a way to avoid all of their range. And it's a very simple area, and you can deal with them that way. 01:23:34.46 Jala Yep, yep. So ah together after you reunite with your folks, you end up routing Wilmer and his men, and Synbios learns from Wilmer that Prince Arrawnt, or Arrogant, has successfully invaded and occupied Aspia. But so long as Mallory remains neutral, there is no threat to Algernon's life. Because Algernon, of course, is kidnapped at this point. And ah before i ah before I proceed, I know you're going to tell me, Daniel, don't forget to break those barrels because there's stuff that in that battle where there's fountains, there's some barrels over to the side, and you have to break those because there's goodies in there. 01:24:11.32 Daniel Right next to Wilmer, you do have to break the one in front of the door. It's recommended to break them all for the goods inside the barrels, but if you miss out on those, there's some good money to be had by selling those items or utilizing them to your team's fullest extent. 01:24:22.88 Jala Yes, so ah moving right along though. So ah Wilmer, in his interest of trying to protect Algernon, ah imprisoned Tristis and took up his sword against Synbios to keep Mallory neutral and thus prevent anything happening to your nephew, as Tristis would mobilize regardless of whether or not Algernon were kidnapped, because Tristis is going to go for the good of the Republic, but Wilmer it does not want Tristus' son to die. So, ah even after the defeat of Wilmer, the force cannot free Tristis until they first secure Algernon's safety, as Tristis would sacrifice his son for the sake of the Republic, and Synbios doesn't want his nephew to die either. So, then you end up having to of wear off against Braff. Braff is guarding Aspia's northern gate, and Dantares tells Braff that Fear killed Braff's father Fafhard, not Synbios. And while Braff is sad that he misunderstood the situation, he's like, oh, really? I wish you would have told me that sooner. ah That's a line that he says. ah He also intends to fight Synbios anyway to prove himself against an opponent that he has long admired. So you still have to fight him anyway, even though like you talk sense into him. 01:25:36.71 Daniel Yes, he wants to be worthy and he wants to be worthy of your of your combat skills. So he's bending his medal against yours. 01:25:45.23 Jala Yes, so this is a fun little battle. Aren't all of his people like in a big line across the map? 01:25:52.42 Daniel He has two lines of guys and they're all at the far end. And it's such a big group that if you don't take them on from one side and force your way down into breath, it can be very challenging. Most of the characters here will not make a single move towards you until you've reached a certain point in the level. So if you've gone too far forward, you'll get swamped by two or three guys at a time. If you go too far forward, I have for fun try to rush Braff and beat him in the first round or the second round and you can but usually in doing so you will lose one to two guys so if you're going for a lossless playthrough or if you want to try and keep the challenge at a certain level don't rush him directly because it's a very very tough strategy to try and pull out without losing a couple of guys if you're okay with the losses push through him and get through it otherwise I recommend going to um 01:26:43.38 Daniel If Bradford is facing you, I go to his left flank because Down that side, there's wyverns and not yeah wyverns there's two I believe, and two pixies, and then the rest of his knights. And that's a fairly easy way to push through. On Braff's left and right, immediately to his sides, there are sorcerers that have ah attack magics as well. So trying to deal with them without getting them attacking your whole group at once is also very preferred. Because he can really swamp you if you force you guys to the center, as I said. so 01:27:14.14 Jala Absolutely, they will swamp you. This can be pretty challenging. So after you finish this battle, though, the wounded Braff is taken away by a dragon controlled by, drum roll, Basanda! Basanda, the healer of the Bulzome. And so, yeah, she takes him away and ah is doing she's doing her usual let's heal all the antagonists so they can come back later. So she takes him away on a dragon. And that's what you see a Braff at this time. Algernon. 01:27:41.94 Daniel And there's also a mention of them being family. So that's kind of cute to witness there. 01:27:44.89 Jala Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, ah Algernon, meanwhile, is in Aragon's custody rather than Braff's, and you find this out as well. So, ah Synbios and the team march onward, using a gem that was in Braff's possession to open up a secret passage in a statue to the catacombs under Aspia. The force finds Basanda and Spiriel, who has been restored, of course. So you can have another fight. 01:28:11.55 Daniel She's back and stronger than ever. 01:28:12.99 Jala Mm-hmm and Basanda warrants of the Colossus is pending activation and that the only way to control it is with the dark energy staff she possesses and So the team is trying to take her down and get the staff to prevent the Colossus running a muck so ah this is one of those fights you've got the Basanda and superior on your screen and superior is a little bit ahead of where Basanda is at and you've got like a staircases and Mm-hmm. 01:28:37.36 Daniel She's about halfway down. The other main problem with this level is that there's a lot of minotaurs, which you have not fought up to this point, and they have a huge amount of hit points for characters that are everyday hit point characters. They are like 110, whereas most of the monsters you've fought now up to this point are 60 or 70, and they have axes, and they are not nice. They are really mean and nasty, so you have to be careful dealing with those individually if you can. I generally send guys down into the first pit area and then try to have a stopgap there on the first bridge that you can go across. And then once you've dealt with that, then you can push up slowly across the side. If you put them too close to the middle of that area, not only will you get attacked by a Spiriel and have to deal with her, but you'll also get attacked by a bunch of the Minotaur's all at once too. So either be careful of taking them out in advance or dealing with them as a group. 01:29:30.12 Jala Right. And then this is also the same map where, um, con ends up using his orb onto. Okay. So, so there's different things you can do when it comes to superior. The thing that you want to do is you want to have con or whoever has the Elbesem orb on their person to use that but orb on superior. This restores her to her senses. And if you just kill her outright, then she is out of out of the games from there. But she has a further part you can play later on if you keep her alive here. 01:30:02.04 Daniel and I think I actually just beat the battle with her alive, so I don't know if I'm going to get her either in my Scenario 2 playthrough. So I will have to keep that in mind going forward as well. 01:30:11.40 Jala Yeah, that'll be interesting to see whether or not you can get her or not. So um so yeah, like if you beat the game, if you beat this ah battle without using the orb on her, that yeah, i'm I'm curious to see what happens next because ah her senses have not been restored. So this is also the place where the final ruins is. 01:30:36.44 Daniel You can actually access ah the ruins in the fight. So like I said, you send a bunch of guys down into the one pit area. You also have to split a small force off to go up to the north end of the map or whatever it is. The one area there that has a doorway and you go through that doorway that's open. And that's the final ruins. It's very simple, but there's a lot of barrels in there. Again, this is one of those fights where you don't have a lot of time. So unless you stop the thief by putting guys in front of him and then destroy the barrels one by one, you have the chance of not getting all the items from the barrels. But if you use like a spark spell on the barrels, you should break them all. And I believe all the drops come through. So you want to be careful not to do that to someone who has, say, three or four good items on them, because then you'll be forced to choose between things like a happy cookie or a myth roll that drop, I believe, and the things in your current inventory. So if you send Masqurin and she has three wands, you might end up having to drop a happy cookie or a myth roll, which might not be the best option for your characters. 01:31:30.22 Jala Right, right. So after you go through that, then you have to take on Basanda proper. And she's got some summon spells as well. So um which ones does she have? 01:31:42.21 Daniel I believe she has Thanatos as her thumb and summon spell. 01:31:43.61 Jala Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. She does. She's got Thanatos. That is that is not a happy spell. 01:31:49.60 Daniel This is one of those spells that comes with the epilepsy warning. 01:31:52.54 Jala Yeah, yeah, this is very flashy. like ah Basically, all the summon spells have a lot of flashing going on. um I think it's pretty safe to say. So if you have epilepsy, anytime you see a summoner or summoning something, yeah, yeah, you got to be careful. 01:32:04.64 Daniel Yeah, turn it turn away, plug your plug your eyes, plug your ears, whatever you have to do. 01:32:11.07 Jala Right, right. So um you can take her down. like Doesn't she have a minotaurs or something right around her too? There's something, yeah. 01:32:18.08 Daniel There's a couple minotaurs in her immediate vicinity as well. She has a bridge so you can put people as a stopgap on the other side of the bridge so that they come at you and you can get across. Otherwise, if the minotaurs are on the bridge, then she can attack you freely and you can't really reach her. So pick your poison there. But I choose to generally put someone who's pretty tanky on that side and then try to build a small group around them so that they don't all get a single cast of Thanatos, which will probably kill most of your characters at this point. 01:32:49.83 Jala So ah yeah, once you defeat Basanda, however, Synbios finds that he cannot touch the staff. Only somebody who has given their soul to darkness can use it. And this is something Basanda herself tells you. She ends up taking the staff and throwing herself into the moat, cackling because she's like, and now the colossus will be uncontrollable, ah-ha-ha, and then jumps into the river. Everybody likes jumping into water in this game. So colossus is now uncontrollable. And then right about this time, finding a bird knight who was locked up in Mallory arrives as Synbios heads off. ah you know there There's a couple more things to say about that, but let me finish my sentence about this. I see you. Daniel. but so ah So he arrives right as Synbios is kind of making his preparations to fight Prince Arrogant and tells him that the Colossus will attack anybody in the Republic or the and yeah Empire and that Tristis escaped his imprisonment and is calling Synbios back to Mallory for an emergency strategy meeting. So it's also at this point that a multi-level optional battle map opens up. This is your hero's challenge. And it's a great place for grinding. If you do not have some of your team leveled up, especially Pen, if you're playing OG style on the actual hardware, ah the final battle uses every unit you have. So you want to go through. There's also some good items and stuff you can get at the bottom of the hero's challenge as well. 01:34:19.17 Daniel Yes, some of my favorite battle moments are in this hero's challenge. And a couple other quick notes here. When you go back to Mallory, you can also actually use another blacksmith. There are many items to be bought and found in that town, as well as with the translation patch, we have put in a bonus battle, I believe, in there for you to go back and peruse. So there's some extra hidden goodies there. Make sure that you go back and talk to him. You can go into the hero's test right away, but it's preferred to go back, save, do all that stuff. Because again, if you don't save and you die, that's game over, man, game over. In this game, when you die, you lose half your gold if the main character dies. So that's not much fun to deal with, especially if you're trying to save up and buy a bunch of mithril items, you really want to be able to do that. Hero's test, the first level has a succubus as the boss. And this is a great place to farm experience points for your low level guys. So go back, re-arrange your party. come back, fight a bunch of skeletons and a succubus, and then proceed on forward. so level one succubus level two is a bit of a maze climb there's actually a bonus item in there for people who do the newest version of the translation patch as well and then going through level three there's some minotaurs 01:37:34.29 Daniel might be another succubus. I think I missed a level in here actually somewhere level four. I can't recall if that's the straightaway with the lizard men. I believe there's a dragon there. And then there's also a really interesting character as the final boss will let you experience that yourself. But yes, it's worth it to plunge all the way down into the depths. when you finally have a fully leveled up party. But from here, we're going to proceed, I think, straight into the final section 01:38:08.92 Jala The last little end game of this whole thing. So you go back to Mallory and Palsis lays out the plan. Synbios battalion will split into two forces. The primary force will be at the castle bridge to fight Arrogant and the second force will rush the dam to open the floodgate and use the immense power of the water flowing from the dam to destroy the colossus. When the signal is given, the main force will hide from the water behind the bridge walls and then at that point um you know the folks up in the hills will pull the pull the lever and then down comes the water and away goes the colossus. So, ah finding joins Synbios' army and leads the second force to the bridge. So in in the bridge battle, there is an endless stream of Imperial forces coming across at the team. And I'm sure you're about to tell me it's not endless, actually, but ah or is it? 01:39:01.20 Daniel Yeah, I believe there's at least five waves. I've generally dealt with it by the time there are five waves. I think if you trigger the clauses early enough, it seems endless, but I don't think it's fully endless either here. Again, I'm not 100% on that one, but if you deal with it as a pincer attack, then it can be quite challenging to deal with all the enemies. I generally rush three or four guys again to the end of the bridge. Usually at this point, it's for me a masquerain, Hayward, Dan Terrace, maybe Frank, and then I deal with the rest of the army on the bridge as they are fairly easy to mop up with the rest of your force. 01:39:37.59 Jala That is interesting. I almost never take like my primary folks to the um the damn fight. I always have my like B team there. But anyway, yeah ah while while you trigger the Colossus, when you go far enough across the bridge towards Arrogant, the Colossus can appear and attack pretty much anywhere on the bridge, not anywhere on the bridge, but pretty much anywhere on the bridge there's a certain there are certain areas where the he cannot attack but for the most part that's um you know a thing and then on one side of the bridge you have Arrogant and then on the other side of the bridge you have a bunch of forces imperial forces coming to back him up so there's going to be like a constant stream of folks coming across while the colossus is oh he's not yet okay okay it's just all the guys okay 01:40:21.03 Daniel I don't think Arrogant is actually on the bridge yet at this point. yeah after the water takes care of things, then Arrogant comes out. 01:40:31.40 Jala So all the characters on the bridge just have to stay alive for a certain number of rounds until you get your team that's at the dam across where they can pull that lever. So um once that happens, the water destroys the colossus and washes away anybody else, your team or Imperials that are not you know hiding behind those walls and everything. And then after that, that's when Arrogant pops up with his strongest troops to kill Synbios. So yes, ah he pops up after the Colossus has been washed away. 01:41:03.73 Daniel And I believe you get a reset on your MP and your HP at this point because I think it treats it as a whole other battle. 01:41:10.21 Jala Yeah. Yeah. And it happens right after that split battle, meaning that you have no time to regroup or revive anybody who is dead or get any new items or anything like that. It's one battle into the other. So if people have died in the meantime, then you're SOL. They're not going to come back for you. 01:41:27.43 Daniel And if they get swept off the bridge, they're swept off the bridge and don't come back either. So make sure you get your guys huddled up towards where Arrogance people will show up because there's a nice little cliff face there or or blockage face there which will protect your guys from getting swept away. 01:41:41.79 Jala Right. And so ah for me on this go round, when I was playing on my OG hardware, I was using Hayward and Masqurin. Those were my MVPs and Masqurin was dealing a bunch of damage with Wendigo level two from a wand that I equipped her with and then blaze level four. And then Hayward kept on using special attacks. Like every other time it was like a special attack and was dealing massive, massive damage with every single ah attack that he was doing. So by the end, I had only a couple of folks left. because everybody else had died in the middle. Because like I wasn't grinding. I did not grind in the Heroes Challenge at all. And I didn't level up pen and I didn't do like some of this other stuff I usually do because I was just trying to barrel through it. right So no grinding, no grinding at all. And so by the end, I had Synbios, who I couldn't risk getting close because of how much damage Arrogant was doing, and then Hayward, and Hayward was the one who finally, finally killed him. so I did it by the skin of my teeth this time, but I i don't normally have it that anywhere near that close. I usually go through the hero's challenge a few times and things like that and level my folks up. so It's not usually by that why or that small of a margin. 01:42:49.99 Daniel Yes, on my playthrough, the only person who died was Frank. And that was because I put him in a silly situation where I left him there, and then an extra guy spawned. And I couldn't get him out in time. he The Colossus got swept away, and he got washed out with the water. Frank, go get those XP points. That'll be great for you. Yes, that was so good. He took a bath. And we never heard from him again. 01:43:14.03 Jala Right, right. So ah arrogance back up, folks, because he's like, am my backup's coming. My backup's coming. They never arrive because Tristis and his army intercepts meeting Synbios on the bridge. And Algernon is still alive because he was being held on a rope up in the air, suspended over everything. So like he's there. The Colossus is beating the crap out of everybody below him. All the water comes flooding down and he's just still hanging on the rope. Like, I hope I don't fall. I don't want to fall into this water. Anyway, he's cheering. He's cheering from up here being tied up on this this rope, which must be dreadfully uncomfortable. But then an imperial ninja named Yasha appears and cuts the ropes. He leaves as Algernon plummets to the water below, but before Synbios can jump in after him, finding himself rescues Algernon and brings him back to his family. So at this point, we have our epilogue and Synbios and company relax a little and decide their next move back in Aspia's castle. They're alerted to the fact that Prince Medion and his army have fought past Tybalt at the southern southern gate and they're on the bridge with Emperor Dominate. And despite his warm relationship with Synbios, Medion seems ready to follow Dominik's wishes to reclaim Aspinia for the empire. And he manages to talk the emperor into leaving in peace for the moment. But Dominik intends to return and conquer. And that's like though the way that they tried to end it in the original official English release was that Medion talked his father into backing out for the day and that they would come back another time. 01:44:50.07 Daniel Yes, it was a very interesting and not very ah concise way to end that for sure. 01:44:55.73 Jala so the original Japanese version Dom Dominate and Medion do not appear on the bridge there's only news that the southern gate forces were annihilated there is no I will leave you in peace for now but I will come back and wreck your shit later think that that that's not a thing in the original version so uh you had a note about how the translation patch deals with us 01:45:12.68 Daniel Yes. The translation patch does go through and have them still have the conversation as far as I'm aware. I'm still on that fight with errant, so I'm not quite there on my playthrough, but I believe it deals with they change the dialogue to be more appropriate for building in into scenario two and scenario three. And I'm excited to see that myself at a few hours here, hopefully, while maybe tomorrow. But I'm excited to see how that goes and check out that new dialogue because I don't recall it from the top of my head here at all. 01:45:39.79 Jala right Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it's better than what they had in the original in English release. That is where the story ends for now. and We will, again, pick this up on the next installment when we were talking about scenario two. ah Scenario two and three episodes will be coming out a little bit later. so um you the giving us enough time to go through and play them. So you can look forward to those in the future. But in the meantime, this is where we'll leave things off. If you are interested in playing this game, this is the time to dig into it and see it for yourself because there is so much cool ah stuff to be found inside of this game. And yeah, that's where we'll leave it for now. ah So in the world, where can people find you if you may be found anywhere, Daniel? 01:46:28.16 Daniel I may be found at to on the Discord for the Shining Force 3 translation project. I am also on Sega Extreme Discord that I don't frequent very often, and Sega Saturn Shiro Discord. So that's where you can find me as Magic Knight Fredrickson, and I am available for any help you might need, as well as any of the folks on those Discords will be able to help you out with various Sega Saturn issues, help you get yourself set up, find a good cheap Saturn that's very affordable, and in good working order and help you procure copies of these games. So do your best to join us in this game and join us in this adventure and continue the discussion further over there. 01:47:04.63 Jala Yahoo! And, of course, you can also come into my Discord, Jalachan's place. So, um as for me, you can find me anywhere I may be found at Jalachan, including Jalachan.place where you found this episode and all of the others. So, until next time, take care of yourself, remember to smile, and please don't fall into that water, folks.