Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2) Playthrough

I’ve beaten this game once before, back in either late-2007 or early-2008 when I bought the game. This game is the reason I bought my PS2, buying it as part of the same purchase on July 17, 2007. While it’s one of my favorite PS2 games, being almost a decade since I last played it, I really don’t remember much about it. Having read through the manual, it’s time to fire this up and settle in for what will most likely be a month or so journey. “Overture” is still one of my favorite video game opening themes.

After a short cutscene of someone removing a sword from its chained confinement, we’re introduced to our starting party of the hero, Yangus and Trode, as well as a button layout Help screen. While looking for the princess, we’re attacked by a trio of Slimes! Well, that’s quite a bit quicker to get into battle than in Dragon Warrior VII, where I was almost at the 3 hour mark before the first battle. Easily dispatching the Slimes, we’re introduced to the princess, who’s a horse. And since Trode calls her his daughter, that must mean he’s the king. The opening credits roll and we enter the town, where Trode mentions a Master Rylus that lives here. After this, we find out who we’ll be after when Yangus mentions Dhoulmagus, who is responsible for the curse that transformed everyone in the castle, except for the hero. Trode then wants us to locate Rylus, since he might have a clue as to where Dhoulmagus is, being his teacher. Yangus joins up and it’s time to explore the town of Farebury.

A girl by a town entrance thinks we’re after the Thief’s Key. Upon talking to the armor shopkeeper behind the counter, he mentions a “special” item he’s willing to sell for 600G. Hmm… Entering the inn through the back door, don’t mind us pilfering the hanging bag right next to you, Mr. Innkeeper. Upstairs, a man decked out like a Shriner says they came to this town to see the great Kalderasha, who didn’t live up to his reputation. Lying on the bed next to the man is, I’m assuming, his wife, who has apparently lost her ring. We hear about a mysterious jester from a couple people. Speaking to the priest, after telling him we’re looking for Master Rylus, he advises us to leave town. That’s not good. Finding a Pot Lid in the back room of the church, Yangus equipping it brings up a rotating 3D model of him now showing him with it being used as a shield. That’s neat. Unfortunately, the nearby chest is locked. A couple people make mention of the house that burned down and that the old man who lived there died in the fire. That must be important for a later time. Unsurprisingly, the two chests behind the counter at the weapon shop are locked.

With the bar being the final place to visit, we head over there. Well, hello there, bunny girl. Talking to her, we find out that the little fellow in the hero’s pocket is named Munchie. So, the old man that died in the fire was Master Rylus. Well, that’s unfortunate. Approaching the thin man at the bar, this turns out to be Kalderasha, who apparently is a fortune-teller. Speaking to Kalderasha, he sees something remarkable in the hero’s face, but is interrupted by the kid that ran away from us earlier barging into the bar and babbling about a monster in the town. Well, I guess it’s time to see this monster. Oh, hey, I missed that well. And there’s a chest with a leather shield in it. Nice. Entering the courtyard to see what the hubbub is about, the monster turns out to be Trode. After Trode takes a couple stones to the noggin from the townsfolk, we take our leave of Farebury. Hmm, Trode is now referred to as King Trode in his dialog boxes. We inform King Trode of Rylus’ passing, to his disappointment, and before we head off to search for Dhoulmagus, Kalderasha’s daughter, Valentina, approaches, asking us for a favor, and to visit her in the house by the well. Trode and Medea stay outside of town and we head back in.

Heading into the inn, the man upstairs mumbles in his sleep about dropping his wife’s ring into a well by some castle. I’ll have to keep that in mind. Back in the church, checking the bell tower out of curiosity (there has to be some reason to be able to come up here), there’s now a scrap of paper on the floor, which turns out to be the Thief’s key recipe. Ok. Reading it, besides stating how to make the key, it mentions needing an alchemy pot to make it. With nothing else of note changing during the nighttime in town, we head to Valentina’s home. Entering, she’s asleep at the fortune-telling table. We wake her up and she proceeds to tell us how her father lost his fortune-telling powers. Just as she tells us that the crystal ball isn’t actually crystal, Kalderasha enters, interrupting. He heads upstairs to go to sleep, and Valentina asks us to find a real crystal ball. Agreeing, she tells us she dreamed of a crystal ball hidden deep in the cave under the waterfall south of town. Yay! We have our first quest!

Leaving town, Trode is waiting for us and tells us to rest up at the inn before starting off on our quest. After an automatic, free night, we then leave by the south gate to find this waterfall. During our first overnight stay at the Inn, Trode is seen pounding away on some contraption. Back outside, we head south, talking to every sheep we pass, and getting nothing more than a Baa, we eventually make our way to the waterfall. As is standard with DQ games, the beginning battles are tough going. It’s pretty nifty that Trode does change up what he says when opening the battle summary screen, even making a comment when we passed the 10 miles traveled mark. Trode and Medea stay outside as we enter the cave.

I do like how you’re shown carrying a torch. I doubt this will be completed it one trip, so it’s nice that the hero picked up the Heal spell at the last level up. Shortly in, Yangus reaches level 4 and gets his first skill points, which will go into Clubs and Humanity. I guess they didn’t want to make the first area map hard to find as the first chest we come to, and can’t miss, holds the map. And, of course there are Bubble Slimes in here that can poison us. So, back to the Inn to recover MP. Back in the cave, we run into a hammerhood guarding the tunnel that leads further into the cave. When we pluck up the courage to fight him, he simply moves aside. Talking to him again, we end up fighting. When he pulls off his spin attack, he does pack a good wallop, enough so that we need to head back to town to replenish MP. On our way back, Yangus picks up the Whistle skill thanks to his increased Humanity. Geez, you’d think they’d have put out the fire by now.

Back in the cave, the hammerhood is still laid out on the ground. After speaking to the slime we come across, who tells us there’s treasure at the end of the dead end when we tell him we believe him, we arrive at the little ledge we could see on the ground floor, picking up a Copper Sword from the chest. Yay! Now we just need to start finding some armor. Taking the next flight of stairs down, directly in front of us, floating in the middle of the waterfall here is the crystal ball. Shocker of shockers, we can’t just take it as Geyzer pops out of the water to defend his trinket. After some comic relief, we do battle. His curse attack is annoying when it affects Yangus, but thanks to Yangus being able to psych up a few times, he’s able to do some serious damage and we eventually win. Geyzer tells of Trodain Castle being cursed, and we get a sepia-toned flashback of our castle being cursed. He then hands over, in a sense, the crystal ball and returns to the water. With our MP pretty well depleted, our hero casts Evac to immediately exit the cave. It’s just a quick jaunt back to Farebury to complete our first quest.

Oh, hey, we have over 600GP. Let’s see what that “special” item is. What? You just sold the last one? Grr… Hmm, come back in the evening, you say? Ok, we do need to rest anyway. Before that, let’s visit Valentina. Hmm, Kalderasha’s at home. After some backstory about Valentina and Kalderasha, our hero awakens upstairs in their bedroom while Yangus can’t be roused. Heading downstairs, another scene plays out where, in his crystal ball, Kalderasha sees the jester the townsfolk were talking about, who turns out to be Dhoulmagus, breaking through the southern checkpoint. Speaking to Kalderasha further, he tells of the small village of Alexandria on the way to the checkpoint. Waiting around for nightfall, and watching the braziers spontaneously light up, we head to the armor shop. Well, they finally put out the smoldering ruins of Rylus’ house. Well, shoot, it was just the Thief’s Key recipe we already found. Well, since we were saving up to buy that item, we can now spend it on equipment instead, almost maxing out everyone’s possible equipment.

Leaving town, we fill Trode in on what happened, then head south to the checkpoint. Yeah, that boomerang was a good purchase. As we approach a more substantial bridge, we spy a chest nearby in the hills on the other side of the river. And as is standard fare, the monsters just became stronger after crossing the bridge. We’re able to open this chest, unlike the one in the hills nearer to Farebury, and find a fetching pair of slime earrings. Arriving in what I’m guessing is Alexandria, a couple little boys, Bangerz and Mash (um, okay), act as town guards and attack us, but an old woman stops them. Aw, I wanted to wipe the walls with them. There seems to be a rash of murders happening around here. First Master Rylus in Farebury, and now Master Alistair in Alexandria. A couple people make mention of the statue of Alexandria, and one mentions the jewels in her eyes. After saving at the church, we head to the Albert Mansion in town to meet the late Alistair’s family, and most importantly, Jessica.

Oh, boy, some cheese! Heading upstairs, a poet claims to be Jessica’s fiancée, but Bangerz and Mash are guarding Jessica’s room and won’t let him in to “console” her. They won’t let us in either, so there must be another way. Finding a set of wayfarer’s clothes in a dresser, which we didn’t have enough gold to buy in Farebury, we head upstairs to see a maid who is afraid of mice. On cue, one just happens to scamper in and through a small hole in the wall, which leads to Jessica’s room. Hint! Hint! Well, first things first, let’s smash all the barrels and pots! Searching by the hole, we let Munchie out and with Munchie-vision, he gets to snoop around Jessica’s room. We’re shown a letter on her desk and making it over to it… Oh, no! Munchie is completely fixated on the mouse we saw earlier that’s on top of the books on her desk! Take the letter, Munchie! Stop doing somersaults trying to impress the mouse! Well, the mouse doesn’t seem impressed, so Munchie takes the letter, stores it somewhere, and returns. Reading the letter, Jessica has left for the tower to avenge her brother. Reading, and then showing, the letter to Bangerz makes him join us so he can open the door to the tower. So, it’s off to the eastern tower.

Taking the straight shot east to the tower, we notice a two-legged bull-like thing off to the north. This turns out to be one of those really strong enemies that we’d heard about back in Farebury. Arriving at the tower, Bangerz opens the door like a garage door, and then takes off back to Alexandria. Gee, and the townsfolk were shocked that someone else had managed to open the door? Making our way to the fenced in outdoor area, after picking up the map from the chest, surprisingly, we don’t read the tombstones and nothing is hidden around them. Dang Imp did its breath attack, killing the hero, so back to town to resurrect, fleeing from every battle along the way. Back in the tower, not buying that scale shield pays off as we find one in a chest. Arriving at the statue, Jessica suddenly appears out of thin air behind us thinking we’re the thieves that killed her brother. After dodging a couple fireballs from her, just as she’s about to unleash some devastating spell, the deceased Alistair’s voice comes from the flames of her fireball that hit the statue. He tells her that we didn’t kill him, quelling her rage. We then get a flashback of Alistair’s demise and hear Dhoulmagus speak for the first time. Oh, nice of you to join us, Trode. Alistair fades away, and as we start to leave, Jessica apologizes and says we’ll need to talk when we get back to the village.

Back in Alexandria, we talk to Bangerz in front of the Inn and he and Mash have put together enough money to pay for our lodging for the night. How nice of them. Taking advantage of their courtesy, Trode is again seen banging away on the contraption during our stay. Yangus’ Nose for Treasure skill says we missed a treasure somewhere in town. Not being able to find it in the town, I’m guessing it’s in Jessica’s room, which we haven’t been able to enter yet, well, except for Munchie. In the mansion, Bangerz and Mash are still guarding her room, and Jessica and her mother are having an argument. Approaching, we watch as Jessica gets disowned by her mother for wanting to avenge her brother’s murder. Getting kicked out of her house, she goes into her room to get her stuff, which mostly appears to be changing into something quite a bit, cough, revealing. Hey, we can pillage her room now! Woohoo!! Raiding her dressers, we pick up Jessica’s outfit. Leaving the mansion (yep, that was the last bit of treasure), we find out Jessica’s headed to Port Prospect. Before heading off to the port, we’re buy all the best equipment and save.

Heading east, then south, we come to the beach and there’s a dog that follows us around for a little bit, but that seems to be the extent of that. There’s a cureslime floating around, which turns out to be another one of the special enemies, the Family Doctor. This one’s actually doable, and after defeating it, we get a copper monster coin. With the Yabbies being a danger with their double attacks, we don’t linger on the beach long and continue wet towards Port Prospect. Making it though all the rather pesky spiked hares, we finally arrive in Port Prospect.

Speaking to the first person we see, the town was built by the Albert family, which would explain why Jessica chose here to head to. The ship here seems to be unable to sail for some reason. Gee, why am I not surprised? At the bottom of the well, a man o’ war tells us that the boss of the sea has become angry all the time. A couple people tell us of a man walking across the sea. I’m guessing this was Dhoulmagus. A book in the inn tells of the ruins of an ancient ship in some wasteland. This could be important later. A woman here tells us about our skills and how many points are needed to reach the next level. A useful thing, but very annoying how you can’t skip the text and you can only inquire about one option for one character at a time, needing to completely back out and go through the introductory speech if you want to change the option to learn about. An old woman on the dock mentions her old flame collected little medals. We haven’t come across any mini medals yet. Entering the lighthouse-like building, we can see Jessica speaking to a man. Approaching, she’s demanding the ship set sail, but the man claims the waters are too dangerous. Yay! I guess we’ll eventually be fighting some boss monster on the sea. Noticing us, she ropes us into fighting the monster. Well, might as well buy what we can for equipment and set off. But first, we really need to rest. Again, Trode is seen pounding away on his contraption.

Heading back to Jessica, we set sail with the Dragon Quest Overture playing, almost like this would be the true beginning of our adventure. Shortly after leaving port, a huge squid-like creature surfaces behind us. This must be the monster that was stopping the ship from sailing. And its name is Khalamari. Gee, real creative there. Simply having the hero heal and Yangus psych up to a state of high tension makes this battle relatively easy as Yangus takes him down with 2 attacks. Khalamari’s flame attack was the only real danger. Khalamari then explains how the jester did something to cause him to start attacking ships, and then gives us a gold bracer as an apology. With that taken care of, we turn around and go back to port. Before setting off again, we raid the ship for the remaining 9 treasures here. A book in the captain’s quarters tells of a tiny island in the ocean with a building on it. I’m guessing this is where the mini medal collector is. We also explore the little area to the northwest of Port Prospect that we avoided on our way due to having low health and we find out it’s the path to Trodain Castle, but is blocked by some huge boulders. With nothing else to do, we rest up and head back to Jessica to set off.

Since we’re also after Dhoulmagus, Jessica joins our party and we set off for Peregrin Quay. After Yangus tells Jessica about how we met, complete with lengthy flashback, we find Trode in the captain’s chambers along with the alchemy pot that he’d been banging on during our stays at the various inns. Arriving in Peregrin Quay, the guy that was trying to decide whether to go straight or not gives us an iron nail. Convenient considering we also found a bronze knife and can now make a thief’s key. A young lady on the roof of the inn tells us about the templars that protect Maella Abbey and that we should go see them. Making use of our new toy, we make a thief’s key, and then help out the shopkeeper by opening all his chests that he’d lost the key to, finding our first mini medal, and thereby allowing him to open his shop. In the inn at nighttime, we’re told of a holy island to the southwest. Thankfully, the alchemy rejects the ingredients if you pick an invalid combination. With nothing else to do here, it’s off to the abbey.

After leaving town, to the east we defeat our second special monster, a Mullet Mallet of the hammerhood variety. Beyond the Mullet Mallet is what look to be ruins of some building with a chest holding a nice feathered cap, which Jessica can use. Actually, before heading to the abbey, now that we have a thief’s key, let’s Zoom back to Farebury to hopefully loot what we couldn’t before. That was a good choice as we find another mini medal and a dagger for Jessica in the three locked chests. We should also be able to open that chest near the town. We’re also now told of a hut on top of the waterfall cave. Mini medal #3 is now ours. Heck yeah! I made some boxer shorts!! Exploring around the waterfall, we come across another special monster, a One Knight Stand, which is a slime knight. Finding a path up the side of the cave, the old burly man in the hut wants us to retrieve his tool bag from near a tree with red leaves. Looking around, we can see the tree he’s talking about to the east-northeast. The tree ends up being near the signpost to the Checkpoint. Not thinking anything of it earlier, we never noticed the bag at the base of the tree (assuming it was there before talking to the old man). With tool bag in hand, we head back to the hut. Being nighttime, we defeat the dracky special monster, Pain in the Neck. Handing over the tool bag, the old man notices Munchie, saying he’s no ordinary mouse, and gives us 8 pieces of plain cheese.

With this area easy pickings now, we decide to explore around where we hadn't before. Taking the path east from the fork that goes to the Checkpoint, near the end of the road, we take care of the mecha-myna special monster, the Automaton Aviator. It would be nice if it noted the special monsters we’ve defeated somewhere. Someone in Farebury mentioned a strong monster to the west and then north, so taking the north path on the way to Castle Trodain, we arrive in a little circular clearing with nothing of note other than a couple empty barrels. Continuing along the path to Castle Trodain, just before reaching the bridge where we had originally met Yangus, we defeat the bodkin archer special monster, a Shortshooter. Near Alexandria, we decide to try again against Buffalo Bill, the special bullfinch. Jessica didn’t survive, but we finally defeated it. I think we fully explored what we could of the northern continent and looted the remaining locked chests, so it’s time to get back to actually progressing toward our goal.

Following the path out of Peregrin Quay, we arrive at Maella Abbey. We find out this is one of three holy places, with the Holy Isle of Neos and Savella Cathedral being the other two. Also, the Lord High Priest resides at the Cathedral. Simply talking to what turns out to be a couple templars prompts them to push us back and Marcello, their Captain, to show up warning us that he might not be able to stop the guards from I guess full on attacking us the next time. Okay. It seems Marcello has been running a bit of a racket, demanding payment to the Abbey from those who visit. Hunting around for the treasure Yangus smells, we find another mini medal. An Angelo seems to be the person we’re after, but he appears to have gone missing. Well, we’ve been everywhere we can, with the guards are barring the door, so I’m guessing we need to leave for anything to happen.

Well, nothing happened, but it seems the town of Simpleton might have some clues. Exploring around the abbey, we defeat a Hollow Knight, the armored knight special monster, but not without the hero going down thanks to a critical hit. Beyond the Hollow Knight, we pick up a dirt path that leads to a little area, which, going by the bag o’ laughs’ bestiary entry, must be called the Ruined Abbey, with an ancient stone marker inscribed with a crest. This has got to be something important. With the path being a dead end otherwise, we head back to the abbey and see if anything has changed, now that it’s nighttime. It appears that Angelo’s favorite pub, The Cock and Bull, is located in Simpleton, so there’s a good chance we’ll find him there. Since the templars are still blocking the door to the back area, we take our leave and head south to Simpleton.

Taking a little detour right off the bat, we can see an island in the middle of the river enticing us with a couple chests. Completing the short trip, we arrive in Simpleton and find out the lord of the manor, who is Angelo’s father, succumbed to some plague. The stray dog throws in an “er” among his “woof”s, as does the cat before purring in the inn. Ok. The merchant in the acting church mentions that selling a bunch of rare items will eventually lower the price. Interesting. So, the lord of the manor’s wife wouldn’t bear a child, so he had an affair with their maid and had a child with her, and then his wife DID bear a child, who is Angelo, so they shipped off the illegitimate child, whom I’m guessing this is Marcello, to the Abbey and fired the maid. Heh. Entering the pub, we find Angelo playing cards against a man with the standard, so far, weapon smith character model, and playing quite well. Speaking to Angelo, he gets accused of cheating by his opponent and Yangus starts a brawl. While Yangus is duking it out with the large bloke and his mates, Angelo pulls Jessica and our hero outside, affirming that he was cheating. After ogling Jessica, Angelo introduces himself, gives Jessica a Templar’s ring that we’ll need to show back at Maella Abbey, then runs off back to the abbey. Aw, you can’t use it in the alchemy pot. Other than finding a Mini medal upstairs in the bar, there is nothing to do here, so back to the abbey.

Back in the abbey at night, we learn of a group of heroes that saved the world long ago, and that the Holy Father is descended from one of them. Hmm, is this supposed to establish some connection to an earlier game? Speaking to the templars guarding the door, seeing Angelo’s ring, they move aside so we can return it. Kind of surprising that they didn’t just take the ring to return it themselves, considering how they treated us before. Now that we can explore the remainder of the abbey, a very young monk tells us that the Templar’s rings used to be used as keys. After finding another mini medal, we find out the Abbot is here, but are barred by a couple more templars from visiting him. A priest who made the trip to see him tells us there’s a secret path to the area we aren’t allowed into. I’m guessing the entrance to this path is in that building we passed by on our way here from the Quay, but the plot hadn’t progressed to where we could access it. Heading down into the abbey’s dungeon, one of the monks affirms my suspicion about Marcello being the illegitimate son. Entering the interrogation room and approaching the torture chamber, we find Angelo and Marcello in conversation and Marcello basically grounds Marcello, not allowing him to leave the abbey or else be expelled from the Order. The torture chamber is locked, so we can’t talk to either of them, or return the ring. Leaving the dungeon, the templar wandering around near the stairs down mentions a jester heading to the Abbot’s chamber. Uh, oh. Still barred from the Abbot’s quarters, heading back, Angelo’s conversation with his half-brother is over, and he’s wondering why we’re here. But, you told us to meet us here. Jessica reminds him of this and Angelo senses evil from the jester and wants us to make sure the Abbot is safe, telling us of the secret passage in the ruins of the old abbey and we’ll need to use his ring to open the way. So, I guess I guessed wrong about the building.

Back at the ruined abbey, we use Angelo’s ring on the stone marker and a set of stairs is revealed. Aw, cow manure isn’t usable with the alchemy pot. Someone must still come here as all the torches are still lit. Oh, no! A cannibox! Hmm, that was remarkably weak. After learning that the plague also ravaged this place, we find the boxer shorts recipe we already made, 2 mini medals, and a nice bronze shield. Dang metal slime fled. Eventually we arrive at what appears to be the old altar and the cursed head priest who laments what happened to his abbey and then attacks us. Using much the same strategy as against Khalamari, a couple high tension attacks by Yangus along with some standard attacks from the hero and Jessica, and the tortured soul is defeated. His summoning a walking dead and skeleton just served to prolong the battle as Yangus was needed for healing purposes a couple times. After dropping a gold rosary, the tortured soul can finally rest in peace, and our party’s HP and MP are fully restored. Surfacing behind the Abbot’s chambers, we find the final treasure in the abbey, a mini medal in a barrel, and then enter his chambers.

The templar guards inside and out have been defeated by Dhoulmagus, but not killed apparently, and they plead for us to save the Abbot. Hold your horses. We have books to leisurely read first. After reading a few of the Abbot’s puns, we head up to find him peacefully resting on his bed with Dhoulmagus levitating above him. Dhoulmagus just gives us a smirk before disappearing. As the Abbot awakens, some fresh templars, along with Marcello, run in and accuse us of trying to kill the Abbot. The Abbot assures Marcello that we are not criminals, but Marcello takes us in for questioning anyway. I sense a stint in a jail cell coming up. After Angelo enters and is of no help to us, Trode enters the fray, only adding to our troubles. Aaaaand, we get tossed in a cell to be tortured the next day. Ooh, I hope we don’t get subjected to the Comfy Chair. Shortly into our stint in the cell, Angelo pops by and frees us. Escaping the abbey via a secret passage in an iron maiden, we end up in the building outside of the abbey. So, I was right about the building, kind of. Angelo then takes his leave. Exiting the barn, the bridge to the Abbot’s quarters is on fire and Angelo runs to save the Abbot. I guess we’ll follow.

Back in the abbey, we can finally enter Marcello’s room, and find a couple recipes in his bookcases. Reaching the burning bridge, the templars won’t cross it. Sheesh. After crossing the bridge with no issues, Angelo appears from the main part of the abbey, unable to find Marcello. He then senses an extremely evil presence. Sprinting across the bridge just as it collapses (I guess no one here knows how to swim), the Abbot’s chamber is locked. Breaking through the door, we see Dhoulmagus wiping the walls with Marcello and his troops. Dhoulmagus then skewers the Abbot, which releases some seal on his staff and he vanishes. After laying the Abbot to rest, we spend the night in the abbey. Awakening in the morning, Angelo reminds us that we’ve been cleared of all suspicion and informs us that Marcello wants to speak to us. Well, we can’t leave the abbey, so we’ll see what he wants to talk about. Marcello wants to take revenge on Dhoulmagus, but can’t leave the abbey as he’s (self-appointed himself?) the new abbot. He then wants us to take Angelo on our quest to defeat Dhoulmagus. After Angelo says he will join our party, Marcello gives us the world map. Yay! After collecting Angelo at the entrance, we’re off to continue our search for Dhoulmagus.

I like how having the world map adds the view monsters by habitat option making it easier to fill out the bestiary. Wait a second… The cowpat description states, “Use in the alchemy pot” but it’s darkened out… Exploring the countryside leading to Ascantha Castle, we come across the first chest that the thief’s key can’t open. In a small wooded area, we take out a Root of Evil, the treeface special monster. Wow, the mummy boy’s curse attack’s sound effect has some serious bass to it. After scouring the countryside, we arrive at the home of an old couple near a bridge across the river. Raiding their home, we find a mini medal. Talking to the old man, apparently something terrible happened at Castle Ascantha. Taking the path down to the beach, we finally are able to defeat a metal slime. Woohoo! At the end of this path is a cave. Since we have no reason to explore here yet, we leave and head back to the bridge. Crossing the bridge and talking to the cow (because we must talk to every single animal we come across), we receive a bottle of milk. Woohoo! Trying to be a Dr. Doolittle finally paid off! Taking advantage of the free night’s rest at the church, being a religious holiday, we get a cutscene with Trode and Angelo, followed by a flashback of when Angelo joined the Abbey.

Exploring the fields north of the church, we find a couple more chests the thief’s key can’t open. The chimaeras around here are a bit dangerous with their fire breath attack. Winding our way around the cliff, we take out a Sharpshooter, the bodkin bowyer special monster. Heading south of the church, we come to the Lakeside Cabin wherein we find the snakeskin whip recipe. Based on the map, Pickham doesn’t seem to be our immediate destination, so we turn around and head back north along the coast to Ascantha. On the beach, we defeat the yabby special, a Little Nipper. Approaching the castle, we collect a bottle of fresh milk from each cow. We take the bridge across the dry moat and enter Ascantha Castle’s town to some rather sad music.

Hopping into the well near the entrance, we find a lady’s ring. I think this might be the one the lady in Farebury lost. The people here have been wearing black mourning clothes for two years while the king has been sick. After finding a mini medal in the house by the entrance, we go on a shopping spree. Along with several recipes, one of the books in the church has a poem describing a door on the highest hilltop that is revealed on a full moon’s night. Ah, so the queen’s passing is why everyone’s in mourning clothes. Speaking to a woman at night, a folk tale tells of a mysterious being living beyond the Moonshadow window (the door in the poem?) who will grant one wish to anyone who meets with him.

Entering the castle by the door to the left of the main entrance, we find a mini medal in the cupboard right by the entrance, and then are told by the guards of a strange mountain along the riverbank and of the cave we already visited. The old lady in the house we already visited might have more insight into this. Being told that Emma, the granddaughter of the old lady by the bridge, is praying in the church, we head there to find her praying for a miracle to allow the king to see the queen once more to relieve him of his misery. I believe we have a reason to go to that cave now. Back in the castle, outside the Minister’s quarters, being told to meet with him during the day, we ignore that, enter his room and take another mini medal from one of the cupboards. Continuing to ascend, in the throne room, the king is found wishing to see his late wife once more, if only in his dreams. Continuing up, there’s nothing of note in the king’s bedroom. I really don’t think I’d want to have to go outdoors to enter and exit my bedroom, not to mention that there doesn’t seem to be a door on the stairs up to his chamber. Every time it rains, the interior would get drenched. Who would design it that way? As we leave, Emma comes up the stairs, tells us about her grandmother’s tales, and then asks us to go see her grandmother to be told the story of how to have wishes granted.

Leaving Ascantha, we fill Trode in on what happened, then start the trek back Emma’s grandparents’ house. Speaking to her grandmother affirms what I already figured out. Good thing every night is a full moon. Spending the night in the nearby church, we journey back to Wishers’ Peak in the morning. Ascending the mountain, we find a nice Templar’s shield for Angelo. Climbing the final slope to the summit, it suddenly goes from sundown to the middle of the night and we find a windowpane and a few remains of a building. We watch the shadow elongate until it rises on the wall standing opposite the pane, with magical bubbles rising around the area. Examining the wall, a door opens and we find ourselves inside some unknown area. Taking the single straightforward path, we arrive at a little building and meet the elf-like Ishmahri, keeper of the Moonshadow Land. Divining why we’ve come, he then asks to be lead back to the castle and joins the party. Leaving the Moonshadow Land, we’re instantly back in Ascantha Castle. All the doors are locked, so we can’t go wandering around. Ishmahri tells us his magic only works at night, so we need to get to the king before sunrise. Arriving at the king, Ishmahri strums his harp and we see visions of the queen dancing around the throne room, followed by a scene from the king and queen’s past that breaks him out of his doldrums. The banners of mourning are retracted from the castle and we’re rejoined dining with the king. With that taken care of, the next stop looks to be Pickham.

I got a chuckle out of how Trode’s back is to you on the Battle Records screen as he sulks about how we got treated to the banquet while he was stuck outside of town. Exiting town, Trode is also sulking about not being part of the banquet. Yangus then suggests we go to his old stomping grounds of Pickham where he assures Trode that he will not have to worry about his appearance, and that we may learn of Dhoulmagus’ whereabouts from a guy named Brains there. Wow, you can see treasure chests from a long way away. Unfortunately, the one at the base of the northern cliff along our way can’t be opened with a thief’s key. And I just noticed that that last event reset my party order as it switched Jessica and Angelo. Shortly after picking up a dirt path, we spot an odd looking building a little off the path to the east. This thief’s key is starting to become useless, as the chest behind the building can’t be opened. Heading up the ramp to the roof of the building, we find a flamboyantly dressed man standing on the edge with his scarf flapping in a pretty stiff breeze that only seems to be blowing around him. He doesn’t say anything, so I guess we’ll head back down and try the front door. Before leaving the roof, he turns and introduces himself as Morrie. Speaking to him again, he gives us 3 memos with info about some nasty monsters he’s looking for. The front door is locked, so I’m guessing we’ll have to fight the three monsters on the memos to gain access.

Taking the path, we arrive in Pickham. Yangus was right about no one paying any mind to Trode. Oh, boy! A casino! And a ton of treasure hidden around this town. Poorest of the poor, eh? No, I have no issues taking that mini medal from you. Near the guy on the roofs that makes fun of Yangus, we find another mini medal. Heading down the nearby stairs, we find Brains’ place, but he’s not around. One of the books in his home tells of a spring that can cure curses. Another mini medal is found in the “secret club” at the bottom of the dried up well, as well as one in the item shop. We really need to get a magic key or ultimate key as the apartment complex has a locked room where we can see four treasure chests. Must… loot… everything! Entering the inn, I love the human trophy on the wall. Entering the fortune-teller’s place at night, no one’s here, but I got a good laugh from the Fortune Telling for Dummies book in the bookcase. The last place to visit is the bar to talk to Trode. Ha! You can walk right between Medea and the wagon. Where’s the quality control?!? Entering the bar, we find Trode sitting at the bar. As we talk to him, it sounds like someone’s taken off with Medea. Time to hunt us down a horse thief. Asking around, and paying a bit of gold for some info, we learn that a Mitts is our culprit. Climbing the watchtower, you’d think it would be easy to spot a horse, but no. Entering the building at the base of the watchtower, we find Mitts counting his money from selling off Medea. 1000 Gold? That’s pretty good. It turns out she was sold to Dodgy Dave. Taking Mitts’ earnings, we head to Dodgy Dave’s in the back of the smaller pub. Pay us no mind as we take the mini medal from your cupboard. It’s like mini medal central here. Speaking to Yangus’ old pal, Dave, it turns out he already sold Medea to someone named Red. Now we need to find out where this Red lives. As we leave the black market, Yangus says she lives to the southwest in the middle of a lake. Time to upgrade our equipment and head to Red’s.

Getting into battle, Jessica gets to show off her new dancer’s costume. Staying along the southern coast, on the beach, we take down the khalamari kid special, Squiggly Squiggler, who also happens to be one of the three monsters on those memos. After defeating it, it gets back up and we have the option of sending it to Morrie’s place. Of course, we will. Hmm, so will every special monster have this option? Spotting what looks like a good candidate for Red’s house on our map, we head north from the beach to what would be better described as a house with a moat around it rather than on an island. In the barn, we find Medea, the cart, and a mini medal. Red, hearing Yangus arguing with the big bloke guarding the door, tells him to let us in. Before speaking with Red, we search her house to find another mini medal and a locked door with some chests behind it in the basement. Red’s reclining in her rocking chair and won’t part with Medea, regardless of the price. Saying he’ll do anything she wants, she perks up and says she’ll trade Medea for the Venus’ tear that’s in a cave to the north. Something about the cave has Yangus spooked, making him not to eager to go there.

Fighting through some hipsters, we find another chest we can’t open. We also take care of the scorpion special monster, the Sand Slayer. Well, it didn’t give me the option to send it to Morrie’s place. Maybe I need to get the three on the memos first? We arrive at an area somewhat surrounded by poison with a crypt-like entrance. Nothing else around here looks like a cave, so this must be the place. Entering, Yangus points to a chest dead ahead and says the Venus’ tear is rumored to be inside it. If only we could jump over the chest high railing. The fall doesn’t seem very far, or we could just jump across the rather small gap and land by the statues, then… In a room with a bunch of pots, the thief’s key actually works and we get a couple mini medals. Another chest holds a kitty shield for Jessica. Ignoring the sword pointing the correct way leads us to another mini medal in a jar. Solving a few extremely easy puzzles, a plaque below the Venus’ tear fully restores our HP and MP in preparation for our “final test.” Attempting to open the chest with the Venus’ tear summons a Trap Box for us to fight. Withstanding its desperate attacks, and with a bunch of high tension attacks, we defeat the Trap Box and receive the Venus’ tear for our troubles. After a bit of a softy moment from Yangus, we heal up at the plaque and leave. Needing a break, we Zoom back to the Riverside Chapel and save.

Current playtime: 35:35
Levels: Hero & Yangus 23, Angelo & Jessica 21

Forgetting we have the ring, we return to Farebury to see if it’s the lady’s. She claims hers is far grander than what we have. Finding her husband, who turns out to be a Royal Minister, wandering around outside the church, we show him the ring, which, after being surprised we found it, quickly changes his tune and denies it’s his wife’s. To shut us up and keep us from mentioning it to his wife, he gives us a seed of wisdom. Speaking to the priest at night, he tells us Rylus was a descendant of the great sages, which falls in line with the JRPG convention of the big baddie killing off the descendants of heroes of the past to unlock some great power. Unable to find the guy who knows about recipes that we were told about in Pickham, we zoom back to the Swordsman’s Labyrinth, as it’s the closest location to Red’s. Showing the tear to Red, while she’s impressed, she decides we can keep it and she’ll keep Medea. Yangus begs her for Medea, and she has a change of heart, saying she was just joshin’ him and gives back Medea and the cart in exchange for the jewel. Ok, that COR BLIMEY bit is getting annoying. Trode asks what our next destination is, and Yangus suggests we try Brains again. Yay! We got our alchemy pot back!

After finding an iron shield (which would have been really nice if we hadn’t already bought a couple) in a very out of the way chest, a witch tries to puff-puff Jessica and Jessica wins her first Battle of the Bulges (I’m guessing Jessica is completely immune to puff-puff). So we brave the poison pond for a chest and all we get is a farmer’s scythe? Well, at least the thief’s key worked. Oh, hey, two farmer’s scythes work in the pot. Taking the scenic route back to Pickham, we run into the hipster special, the Pelvic Thruster. Back in Pickham, we’re told Dodgy Dave wants to make it up to us about selling Medea and has some info. We’re also told something’s afoot in Baccarat. Since we missed the fortune-teller last time, we head there to learn nothing. Well, at least it was free. Stopping by Dodgy Dave’s, he spotted the alchemy pot in our cart and proposes a deal where we make special items for his customers. Hmm, not really juicy information, if you ask me. The first order is for a special medicine. Is this the same as a strong medicine? Well, we have a ton of medicinal herbs, so what the heck. If it is, he’ll buy it for 500 gold. At Brains’ place, we find out Dhoulmagus was seen walking over to the western continent. Now we just need our own ship. He then tells us to go to a wasteland to the west of Port Prospect and we’ll find an abandoned magical ship. We’ll then just need to somehow get it operational again. With a short stop at the casino and a run of good luck on the slot machines, we leave for Port Prospect.

Actually, before heading to Port Prospect, we collect the Hollow Knight. Heading back to Ascantha at night, we find the king giving Emma some much deserved time off. Now, on to Port Prospect. Ah, so special medicine and strong medicine are different as I went through every strong medicine combination, stumbling on a few more recipes. That ate through most of our medicinal herb stock. Huh. Brains said ships weren’t sailing to the northern continent, and here we are, taking the ferry to the northern continent.

Heading west along the now clear path-- I really don’t care if you think we’re overleveled, Trode. Anyway, we pick up a dirt path and arrive at a cabin with a well. Jumping down the well, we land on what looks an awful lot like the top of a king slime. Trying to pick up the crown, it is a king slime. It got stuck in the well and the crown got stuck on it, and it wants us to pull it off. Doing so, the king slime breaks into several regular slimes and lets us keep the crown, a nice upgrade for Yangus. The slimes also tell us about the ship and give us the recipe for a meteorite bracer. The jar in the cabin, which is called the Hilltop Hut, holds a mini medal. Talking to the men outside, one tells us about the high quality rock salt he finds in the wasteland. Alchemy pot ingredient? Since the inn is so cheap, we decide to stay the night. During the night, Trode is shown pounding on the alchemy pot.

Noticing that the areas I’ve been to, and combed through, are still missing several monsters, I’m guessing a future event will add more powerful monsters to them. Leaving the Hut, we head into the wasteland to find us a boat. Killing a rockbomb, it randomly drops some rock salt, and, yep, it’s an alchemy ingredient. Arriving in the vicinity of the rather obvious spot on the map, we find the boat. Trode grabs the map and notices how close we are to his castle and suggests we head there to look for possible mentions of the ship. There’s a mountain range between us and Trodain Castle, but a pair of caves on either side of the range can be seen to the west on the map. Unsurprisingly, we can’t open the lone chest in this area. Looks like we have some spelunking to do.

First exploring to the tip of the continent, several of the monsters around here can hit hard, and I don’t like the snippet on the garuda’s description about how it’s rumored that they can cast spells that can wipe out entire parties. We finally run into the full set of mum, boh, jum, and boe, and they get all Voltron on us and form a mumboh-jumboe, which isn’t as tough as I thought it was going to be. It just has a lot of HP (probably just the sum of the parts). As we near the coast, we take care of the jargon special, a Potty Dragon. It was quite a bit tougher than the previous specials, and dropped a silver monster coin instead of copper. Grabbing some milk from the cow, we enter the cave, which turns out to be a simple tunnel through the mountain. Oh, no! The cow was frolicking around and got itself stuck through the trunk of a tree! Stopping at the West Trodain Church, the merchant inside tells us of a rumor of a magic key at Trodain Castle. I really hope that’s true because there are a lot of chests for us to go back to and open. Spotting a cannibox special below the path to the castle, we run down the rather frisky Man-eater Chest. With a pretty devastating desperate attack on top of being able to attack twice, this marks the first time Yangus got killed, and the first opportunity for Angelo to use Zing. And, ha, ha, the chest it was kinda guarding is a standard cannibox. Oh, hey, looking at the map, there’s a cave on a small island to the west of the castle. As the castle comes into view, there’s a lovely purple haze floating above it. Just south of the entrance, we defeat the slime special, Slimy Smiley, the final monster in Morrie’s memo quest. Finishing the exploration of the area around the castle, we take down the puppeteer special, a Punchin’ Judy.

Approaching the castle gate, it’s overrun by vines. Oh, we get to fight monsters here. Whoopee! With our hero unable to open the door, Jessica burns down the vines at Trode’s behest (well, that unexpectedly worked), and we enter the castle to the same sad music we entered Ascantha to. We then get treated to a flashback of the when Dhoulmagus cursed the castle. During the whole scene, we’re never shown Trode’s or Medea’s face. After the scene ends, Trode points us to the castle library. But there are 19 treasures to start finding first! After finding a mini medal, we encounter a liquid metal slime. Dang it! It fled after about 5 rounds. Yay! The magic key! And another mini medal. With our intrepid adventurers unable to surmount some rubble that comes all the way up to their waists, we’re unable to get to the spiral staircase. But we can go up and around. In what could be the royal bedchambers, we find another mini medal. Arriving in the throne room, Trode doesn’t seem too happy to see the cursed Minister sitting on the throne. Another mini medal is found in the kitchen. We end up in the library and find a handful of new recipes from the rows of bookshelves. One of the books mentions a Goddess Statue on the Holy Isle of Neon and the Lord High Priest’s residence floating on an island in the sky. I’m guessing we’ll be visiting them at some point. Finally finding a book about the ship, it turns out the area used to be the bottom of an ocean. While reading it, it suddenly becomes the middle of the night and the windowpane’s shadow extends to the opposite wall. Looks like we’ll be visiting Ishmahri again.

Finding Ishmahri in front of the globe thingy, he’s surprised to be meeting us a second time. Asking us what wish prompted us to visit, we tell him about the ship. Playing his harp, the strings break, not being powerful enough to have the ocean rise again. He then senses a Moonshadow harp somewhere in our world in a place we’ve already visited. Talking to him again, he tells us that someone in our debt will guide us to it. Hmm… Trying to remember who’s in our debt… The king of Ascantha? Still with a few places explorable in the castle, we find a garter for Jessica in a bedroom cabinet. Other than shorts scenes at the grand piano and in the room where the scepter was, there’s nothing else to do here. The remaining treasures must be beyond the one locked door (other than the main entrance). So, time to rest up, start pilfering all those locked chests we couldn’t open, and then head to Ascantha to see if that’s who will guide us.

Eight terror tabbies attacked us, and I believe this is the first time I’ve ever noticed any slowdown in this game. Speaking of terror tabbies, I’d really like to get a leather whip drop from them, as no place seems to sell them and I’ve got a recipe that calls for one. Staying the night at the nearby church, Trode is again seen banging on the alchemy pot, this time looking around and smiling at the camera. Checking out the alchemy pot, we can now use three ingredients! As Vizzini told a certain duo, we’re heading back to the beginning. Stopping in Alexandria on our way back to Farebury, talking to people rather abruptly has Jessica pop out to speak to the townsfolk. Other than several people being happy to see Jessica back in town, nothing of note is here, so we head back to Farebury. Several people are talking about Kalderasha being back to his old form, so we check in on him. I do recall him telling us to see him if we were trying to find something. Speaking to Kalderasha, a short scene plays and he tells us to go to a castle with a young king. So, I was right. Now to loot all those still locked chests!

Exploring the area north of Maella Abbey, which we neglected to explore before, we take out the Golem special, the Bricklayer, in amongst some ruins and receive another silver monster coin. After visiting Emma at her grandparents’, and getting a brief scene, the chests we couldn’t open before to the north of the church hold a mini medal and a nice agility ring. Arriving back in Ascantha, the old woman by the well tells us that a former king had found the Moonshadow harp and claimed it as a national treasure. Speaking to King Pavan, he affirms that the harp is in Ascantha. He then escorts us to a secret vault below the castle, only to find it having been raided. Telling us the tunnel the thieves used is too dangerous for us, he runs off to summon his guards to retrieve the harp. What sort of scoundrel would invade the royal treasure chamber? Yes, who would indeed? *whistles and looks around* Heading back up to the throne room, he’s assembled a handful of troops, but is pussyfooting around, not actually sending them after the thieves. Well, we can’t wait around forever, so I guess we’ll go after them ourselves.

Huh, has it really been that long since the real life Mars Rover? Time flies. Making our way through the rather straightforward tunnel, we surface north of the castle on a small peninsula with a cave visible on the map. After getting our bottle of milk from the cow roaming around here, we defeat the mad mole special, a Mole Major. Beyond the Mole Major, we find a mini medal in a chest. Entering the Mole Hole, we find a mini medal in a pretty well camouflaged pot. Speaking to one of the moles, who are the culprits, it seems their boss has the harp, and has been playing in incessantly. The mole pleads with us to do something about it. We arrive at the mole boss, who’s torturing some normal moles with his atrocious playing. Speaking to the boss, and after having him hit us up with his mad groove, we try to take his harp, entering into battle against Don Mole and four soul moles. The Don’s performance caused us some issues, but thanks to Angelo having Zing, and it working almost every time, we didn’t have too much trouble. The Don calling for backup when we defeated a couple of the soul moles, rather than attacking, helped out. With the moles thanking us by saying nothing but “dig” and “dug”, and with some magical translating, one of them gives us the harp as thanks. With harp in hand we leave and head back to the castle. Arriving back in the throne room just as King Navan has decided to summon something, he allows us to keep the harp as promised and wishes us well in our travels.

On to Morrie’s Place to take care of his memo quest. Taking the mini medal from the chest behind it, we take the ramp up to the roof and Morrie relieves us of the three memos and allows us entrance. Following Morrie downstairs, we find ourselves in the Monster Arena with a bunch of monsters fighting each other in the ring. 200k Gold to become a team owner?!? That’s pretty steep! You’ll pay our entry fee? That’s pretty generous of you, Morrie. Yeah… I swear to fight to the top. Yeah… That’s the ticket. Woohoo! We own a team! The Belly Bruisers (since I really don’t feel like naming it). Let’s see what our team we already collected can do. With a Michael Buffer impersonation, we GET IT ON (“Let’s get ready to rumble!” is much better) and win. Woohoo! Oh, there’s more than one round. Well, we made it to the final round before losing. Oh, well, we’ll get much better monsters. Now, on to Pickham.

Aw, the magic key doesn’t work on the cell door. Since we’re here, we might as well spend some quality time in the casino. Channeling our inner 80 year old grandmother, we clean up at Bingo, get a couple platinum headgears, then leave for Trodain Castle and back to Ishmahri to raise that boat. But first, we pick up the hipster and scorpion specials to replace the khalamari kid and slime on our monster team, leaving the restless armor on it. We head back to Morrie’s and completely obliterate the Rank G battle, receiving a strength ring. Morrie is so impressed, he allows us to have three reserve monsters. Nice! Let’s see how far this basically high HP team can go. Rank F wasn’t much tougher, and we get a bunny suit. Hmm… And Morrie allows us to play with ourselves! Um, yay? I thought having Jessica equip the bunny suit, bunny ears, and bunny tail had her appear as a bunny girl. I guess I misremembered. But the bunny suit is a very nice upgrade over the dancer’s costume. And that’s as far as we can make it, thanks to some magic casters in the final round. Hmmmm… Trode tells us to get cracking on getting Jessica some fishnet stockings on the Battle Records screen. Maybe it’s bunny suit, bunny ears, and fishnet stockings for the outfit change? Heading back to Trodain Castle, we pick up the jargon for our team and open what I think is the last locked chest we couldn’t before. All in all, the chests weren’t really worth it as just about all of them held seeds. Stopping at the nearby church, this seems like a good place to take a break.

Arriving back in Trodain Castle at night, we head to the library, enter the Moonshadow land, and present the harp to Ishmahri. We’re instantly back at the ship, and with a whinny from Medea, Ishmahri is able to raise the ancient ocean, the ship rises, and we row it out to the current seas (not sure who’s operating all the oars). The first stop is the small island dead ahead that we could see during our original ferry ride. This turns out to be the kingdom of the mini medal collectors. Finding a mini medal in a chest outside and one in a pot inside, we head upstairs to find the sickened king in his bed, as well as the princess, who has taken over the duties of ruling in the meantime. We have enough medals for the fishnet stockings for Jessica, and, yep, the bunny suit/bunny ears/fishnet stockings ensemble has her now shown in the bunny girl outfit. Talking to one of the people, we learn that Dhoulmagus should be landing on the western continent by the town of Baccarat.

Since we have all the time in the world, let’s explore the open seas first. Checking out the X on the map, it turns out to be a formation of rocks jutting out of the sea, and nothing else of note as of right now. The nearby large barren island turns out to be the Holy Isle of Neos we’ve been told about. Standing at the base of a rock formation, we find the gold golem special, the Goldbricker. Its pretty powerful desperate attack took down the hero, but we defeated it for our first gold monster coin. Of course, we’re adding it to our team. This island is a bit too tough for us, so we head back to the Monster Arena to see how our new updated team of gold golem, redtail hipster, and jargon can fare. That dang volpone kept casting Boom, but with no other issues than that, we won Rank E, receiving a ring of clarity. Mr. Sexual Euphemism rewards us with being able to have our team fight outside the arena. That sounds useful. Winning Rank D (I wouldn’t think a golem could get put to sleep), we receive a mighty armlet, and Morrie expands our team’s bench by three. Rank C might have gone differently if they wouldn’t have kept trying to hit the see urchins in the first round and failing.

Back to exploring the ocean, the small island off the southwestern tip of the southern island has nothing of note, other than one lucky cow. The very small island west of the next larger island, which we can’t disembark onto (although the map does show the secret to where to land, but a waterfall currently blocks our path), has nothing but some stray cats and the see angel special, Colossal Clione. Dang, those tentaculars are tough. Hmm, I guess the world doesn’t wrap north to south as we just seem to keep sailing into open waters, and turning around, the island we left behind a while ago is basically right in front of us. After a stay back in Farebury, heading back to where our ship is after a Zoom, we missed this area and end up defeating the hacksaurus special, the Axoraptor, which will be a nice addition to our team. That must have been the powerful monster we were told about at the start of our journey. We just didn’t go north immediately before. On a small island to the east of where the boat was docked, we find some metal slimes and the riptide special, Terror Talons, which seems a bit tough for dropping a copper coin.

With a group of redtail hipsters almost wiping us out, we head back to Farebury again, rest up, then check out the chicken-shaped island to the northwest. On our way, we stop at that tiny island just to the south and find what looks like a prison. Unable to get past the cell door just inside, we leave. Landing on the chicken island, our bestiary says it’s the Savella Area. Talking to a bird that ran up to us along the southwest path gets us a seed of magic. I guess they kinda want you to interact with it as it follows us around. Another bird gives us a seed of life. I like these birds. Entering Savella (mostly to just get it in our Zoom list), this turns out to be where the High Priest resides. Since we’re here (and probably unable to do much of anything), might as well spend some money. And spend we do, pouring through the 30k+ gold we had amassed. Pilfering the armor shop’s chests right in front of the shopkeeper, we find a mini medal. Entering the entrance to the lift to the High Priest’s quarters, Marcello comes down to greet us. Well, that was unexpected that something actually happened. After a short scene, he leaves. Not being able to ride the platform up, we exit as well. A very young monk mentions the Goddess saving the world from the Lord of Darkness, Rhapthorne, in the distant past. Hmm, has a kind of end boss sounding quality to it. With nothing else to do at the Cathedral, yet, we leave. Ooh, I like the visual effect of when a shade either attacks or gets hit.

Heading to the final small island in the northwest corner of the map, aptly named the Northwest Isle, near a chest with a set of zombie mail, we add the bone baron special, the Occult Rider, to our team. Taking the path that leads into the purple mist on the map, we enter an area with a structure that seems to be the source of the mist. I guess you automatically get lost in here and rather quickly exit, regardless of the direction you take. Directly across from its entrance is an obelisk stating we’ll need some magical light to break through the aura. We do find a mini medal from one of the huts, or whatever, so it’s not a total waste. Waiting for us down another path is the skeleton special, Old Soldier. At the end of this path is another mini medal. I guess it’s time to get back on Dhoulmagus’ trail, but that’ll have to wait for next weekend.

With a quick stop at Minnie’s castle to collect a posh waistcoat, we’re off to the western island. Not sure which of the two large islands to head to, we spot what looks like a landing point on both along the river between them, but this turns out to be what looks like a town built on a land bridge connecting the islands. Arriving at the church across from the river’s outlet, we’re on the right path as the large fellow mentions Baccarat along the road south of here, but something’s amiss since the casino is closed. Oh, no! There’s another woman here that can tell us about our skills. Taking the mini medal from the cabinet, we then take advantage of the free rest. Behind the church, a chest holds a tough guy tattoo… Okay. Noticing a chest on the northern island, we see if we can land on it, and high mountains form the entire coastline, except for the bridge, meaning the southern island was our only choice. We did pick up a leather whip from a king squid, though. Landing back on the southern island, we trek south towards Baccarat and come across a statue of a great sabrecat by a small crescent shaped pond. I think we might be close to being able to ride a sabrecat, as the manual mentions. Having explored everything between the Seaview Church and Baccarat, we enter the city.

Upon entering, we find out that the casino’s proprietor, a man called Golding, had been burgled and appears to be after the perpetrators. Golding’s two adopted children are mentioned a few times. A poet tells us one of Golding’s bodyguards is leaving for the Dark Ruins. Finding a mini medal in a barrel outside and inside the western house, the armored fellow warns us about mentioning the name Dhoulmagus here. Finding another mini medal in the hotel, one of the gentlemen here says someone has been murdered. Another one? Heading upstairs, we overhear a conversation between the hotel’s bartender and some unnamed man and learn that Golding was killed during the break-in at his mansion, and by none other than Dhoulmagus. I believe that puts it at three descendants being offed. Speaking to the bartender back at his post in the bar in the hotel’s basement, Golding’s kids, Cash and Carrie, have hired some muscle to avenge his death. They’ve headed to some ruins on an island to the north. We find another mini medal in the house east of the hotel. With the casino and Golding’s mansion closed, we take in the bunny girl show in the hotel bar at night and then leave for the northern island and what I’m guessing is the Dark Ruins.

Before trying to find our way to the Dark Ruins, we stop off at the nearby Chateau Felix. In addition to the chateau’s entrance being a huge great sabrecat, there are a couple cages with two sabrecats in each. So, we have Master Felix and his helper, Tom. Likely names for a cat-based place. Answering all of Tom’s questions correctly on our second try, he allows us in to see Felix. Entering the chateau and passing between a couple more caged sabrecats, we see Felix filling out some paperwork at his desk. He then asks us to help out his old friend who’s gotten himself lost. We’ll need to find him at a tree only visible at dawn, located at a spot where four sabrecat statues all look at, and give him some sand of serenity Felix hands us. He promises us something special upon completion. Leaving the chateau and speaking to Tom, who is now standing next to one of the great sabrecats, we can now ride a sabrecat! Woohoo!!

Climbing the nearby hill, we can spot the two statues Felix told us about, which is all we need to figure out where the tree is. But, the bridge to the area it’s in is out, so we’ll have to find another way there (or get the bridge fixed). Before realizing that the ruins are probably on the Northwest Isle, and not the large island connected to this one, we did find a mini medal in a chest along the path south of Chateau Felix. So, it’s back to the Northwest Isle.

Docking, we just happened to have docked next to a small boat. What looks like a mercenary warns us not to go near the ruins. Having already explored the island, we ignore his advice and head straight to the ruins. Just as we’re about to pass the obelisk, we spy Dhoulmagus entering the ruins, disappearing into the mist. We follow him in, and after a handful of steps, we hear Dhoulmagus cackling, then are automatically back at the entrance and the people from the boat have appeared outside. Speaking to the same guy as before, he mentions the magic mirror of Argonia, which is said to dispel darkness. Argonia’s to the southeast of Baccarat, so back to where we kinda were heading before.

Heading back to the Seaview Church to rest, I have a forehead-slapping moment and realize that the chest seen earlier isn’t on the northern island, but on an island on the southern one that simply has a small river separating it, and can easily be reached, along with the tree, as we can just dock on the target island. Getting the gold from the chest (bummer) we take out the orc king special, the Wild Spearman. Finding where the tree is, we wander around until dawn and as the moon disappears, the tree and a blue great sabrecat appear. Speaking to the sabrecat, he says he's lost his way. Producing the sands, a short scene plays, and we head back to Felix. With a cricket reference, he thanks us for taking care of the matter. He then makes us members of the Great Sabrecat Trust, giving us a bell that allows us to call a sabrecat. Yay! Now we don’t have to keep coming back here to get another one to ride.

Along the way to Argonia, we stop at a trading post and are told of an old blind man living in the nearby forest. Not bothering with the old man, we continue along the path and head north to a short river and waterfall, and find a locked purple door in the side of the cliff. Hmm… Arriving at Argonia Castle, we find out from Trode that Medea is betrothed to the prince here. Before entering the gates, we snag a mini medal from a chest outside the west wall. Beginning our hunt for the 33 treasures here, we find a mini medal in the inn. It seems a bazaar is about to begin. Another mini medal is found in a barrel in the southwest corner. We learn of the standard prince trying to skip town to avoid going through an initiation ceremony. We also learn of a wasteland to the northwest with a shrine where dark rites are performed. Sounds fun. Finding a couple more mini medals in the castle, we arrive in the portly Prince Charmles’ room. Nothing of note happens, so we continue exploring the castle and find a locked treasure room and a place we can send Munchie through to view an empty room from a hole in its ceiling. Asking the king for the magic mirror, he says if we escort the prince and he completes the initiation ceremony, we can have the mirror. Of course, the price has run off again, so we’ll first have to hunt him down.

Finding the servant’s room Charmles has locked himself in, we head back up to the room with the hole in the wall, and send Munchie through again. This time there’s a small green lizard just hanging out. Running around the lizard, Munchie sees Charmles sulking at the desk below. Stupid lizard! You walked right over the hole! After successfully getting the lizard to drop on Charmles head, making him flee the room, it’s back to the king. With the prince being sent to the wagon ahead of us, we follow a bit later and, after a scene showcasing his wonderful personality, Charmles tells us the hunting grounds are to the east.

Staying on the bank of the river, we take out the natso macho special, King of Dumbira. Arriving at the hunting grounds, a woman outside the house here tells us to use the salamangos lying around to draw out the Argon lizard. Finding a mini medal inside, we take our free rest and head into the grounds. Since Charmles stops us whenever we try to enter without the lizard humour applied, we apply it and head in. Directly in front of us as we enter is the lizard we’re after. But first, we explore around and find a mini medal in a pouch hanging from a tree. Creeping up behind the lizard, we defeat it and receive a rather small “heart”. Of course, this isn’t grandiose enough for Charmles, so we’ll need to find another. We wake up the snoozing lizard by the field of salamangos, defeating it to receive the same sized heart. After the third lizard yields the same sized heart, we camp for the night. After Charmles tries unsuccessfully to ride Medea, Yangus runs in yammering about a huge lizard. We eventually find a larger lizard and enter battle against a Great Argon lizard. Oh, hey, Charmles actually did a point of damage before running away this time! Just using the simple strategy of psyching up everyone and staying healed is enough to win, and we receive a great big Argon heart for our troubles before the lizard walks off, seemingly not much worse for wear. With the prince satisfied, we leave the hunting grounds. The woman who originally told us about the salamangos’ usefulness mentions that the blind man in the woods is a relative of hers.

Riding a sabrecat back to Argonia, the bazaar has begun. After checking out all the stalls, and being unable to buy much of anything, we run into Charmles buying an even bigger heart from a rather unsavory chap. King Clavius watches his son’s transaction from the castle balcony and is quite disappointed. Entering the castle, the talk of the staff is the size of the heart Charmles brought back. Going to the throne room to witness Charmles presenting the heart, his father then has him swear to the Goddess that the heart is from a lizard he killed. The prince of course says he slew the lizard and his father walks off. We talk to the king again and relate what happened, showing him the actual heart we obtained, and he allows us to take the magic mirror from the royal vault while keeping the heart. He also says that this shows that Charmles is too immature to lead, or take a wife. I’m sure Medea would be heartbroken to hear that. Making our way to the vault, in addition to the magic mirror, we find a mini medal. As we leave the vault, one of the castle scholars takes a look at it and can’t sense any magical power. He then tells us that we could recharge it with the right kind of magic, and says the castle’s old wizard would know how. So, we’re off to the forest we ignored earlier. As we are leaving the castle, two of Golding’s people from the Dark Ruins are trying to see King Clavius to try to get the mirror, but are being prevented by the castle guard from even gaining an audience.

As mentioned, at the signpost for Lake Argon at dusk, we encounter the hoodlum special, the Hooded Hacker, which was a little annoying since it can act multiple times per round to psyche up and attack. We now can make an all humanoid team. Taking the path through the forest by the trading post, we eventually come to a small house. After speaking to the slime and magic marionette, we peruse the house’s library. We learn of the secret cave of Captain Crow. I wonder if this is behind that purple door. Taking the mini medal and seed of skill, we head to the mystical spring to find the wizard. On our way to the spring, we defeat a more powerful dracky special, the All Day Sucker.

Arriving at the spring, the blind Seer can see Medea’s true form. Suggesting she drink from the spring, her curse is lifted! Well, just great, now there’s no one to pull the cart. Thankfully, that issue is quickly rectified as it was only a temporary fix and she’s back to being a horse. The Seer then tells us that to life the curse, we need to defeat Dhoulmagus, who placed the curse. The Seer heads back to his house. Having Medea drink from the spring again, she asks us to return here periodically so she can talk, just like back at the castle. The spring also fully restores our HP and MP. Returning to his house, we show The Seer the magic mirror. He then mentions a spell that casts a blinding light being cast on it long ago and suggests casting the same spell on it, but can’t remember what the spell was. After a moment he remembers it being the sea dragon spell, and we’ll need to go to a stone arch to the north where there are sea dragons and reflect its spell with the mirror. Ah, so that’s why we kept fighting nothing but sea dragons under the land bridge.

Thinking we’ll have to use the mirror during battle, the hero pulls it out of the bag. After zooming to the Seaview Church, we set sail and rather quickly get into battle against a sea dragon. Using the mirror, the dragon is extremely helpful and casts gigaflash for its first attack. Even though it affected everyone, the mirror absorbed the attack and turned into the sun mirror. We head back to The Seer to see if he has anything to say. He simply congratulates us, so we collect a staff of divine wrath and gold nugget from Princess Minnie, then see how well our all humanoid team can do at the Monster Arena. Other than the team getting a special name, does anything else happen by having all of the same type of monsters? We won Rank C and receive an urn of saint’s ashes. Ok. Replacing the terror talons with the hacksaurus, we try Rank B. We couldn’t even get by round 1. Oh, well.

Zooming back to Seaview Church and staying the night for free, Medea speaks to the hero in his dream. She hopes Prince Charmles can change after getting married. …… Back at the Dark Ruins, we place the sun mirror in the recess in the obelisk, and it promptly shoot a beam of light into the ruins, dissipating the aura. Entering the ruins and speaking to the lost soul floating about, it tells us that this place was built for the revival of Rhapthorne. Oh, come on, that area we obviously will have to get to is head high. Just grab the ledge and pull yourself up! Navigating our way through a gate maze, which I’ve never been fond of, we pick up a mini medal and continue further into the shrine. Defeating a random troll to fill out this habitat’s monster list makes me think there won’t be a boss here. Making it to the altar, the firespirit tells us that to approach the Lord of Darkness, we’ll need to strike the wings of Empyria, then bemoans that having no physical body, it can’t move the statues. Hmm… Stepping on the button at the base of one of the statues, it briefly has us look at the bird on the mural, then the statue starts rotating around. Getting both statues’ beams to touch the bird’s wings, the stairs between the statues drop, allowing us deeper access. Descending the stairs, a convenient spring of restoration awaits us.

Arriving in the final room, we find Dhoulmagus suspended inside some spherical thingy hanging from the ceiling. With a lot of braggadocio, Dhoulmagus exits his healing thingamabob and attacks us. Going all out with everyone, he isn’t too tough, especially with a 3x psyched up Kaboom from Jessica. Dhoulmagus merely says we wouldn’t have stood a chance if he wasn’t healing up, and unleashes what I’m guessing is the same thorn magic used at Trodain. Some unknown barrier forms in front of our hero and we’re unaffected, much to Dhoulmagus’ amazement. He then transforms into some purple and blue winged demon, showing off his “true might,” brings down the sphere, and we enter battle again, I guess inside the healing sphere. Withstanding his barrage of full party attacks and status-nullifying annoyance, we manage to defeat him again. He transforms into a statue and promptly explodes, leaving behind the scepter. Trode runs in, and he has not been transformed back. Well, someone should really grab that scepter about now. The scene ends with a suspicious pause showing Jessica holding the scepter inside the glowing circle. We then leave the ruins and are back in Argonia. Resting in the inn, Yangus runs in yelling about Jessica being gone. Well, she did avenge her brother’s death. Speaking to the woman downstairs, she saw the big-bosomed Jessica leaving for the northern checkpoint. It looks like we have our next destination, since this little adventure obviously isn’t over, given that we received experience from defeating Dhoulmagus.

Along the way to the checkpoint, we defeat the slime king special, the Slime Creator. Arriving at the checkpoint, a note has been tacked to the wall. It seems Jessica’s been adversely affected by the scepter, as I had a feeling would happen. I guess we’ll be knocking some sense into her soon. Just beyond the checkpoint, we enter the stonemasons’ town of Arcadia. Jessica’s been causing a ruckus and everyone has left their abodes to see what all the fuss is about, blocking every path and doorway, except for the route to Jessica. Arriving at the mansion of Dominico, I’m guessing this’ll be the fourth descendant. Entering the mansion, we’re implored to help out some David fight off Jessica. That can wait, as we’ve got a mansion to loot first! Nothing of value, you say? Nothing but this mini medal. Entering the room upstairs, we find David protecting Dominico from a rather undead looking Jessica. Four heirs? Hmm… Rylus, Francisco, Golding… Who am I forgetting? Just as she’s about to off Dominico, we enter and she up and disappears. In order to cast a more powerful barrier for when she returns, he asks us to get a couple powerful jewels from a family in town.

Leaving the mansion, everyone’s gone back to their homes and we can explore the town. The item shop is another place we’ll need to come back to, as there are some chests behind a locked cell-like door. A gentleman in the inn tells us he was sent to this town by a wealthy gentleman to buy a statue of a woman. Heading to the Kranbartle house, his son informs us that we’ll have to talk to his father regarding the jewels, and that his father, Rydon, is in a tower to the north. To gain entrance, he gives us a stone sword to use on a sort of keyhole. Woohoo! Some dragon dung! Oh, yeah, that bag must be smelling quite nice by now. Aw, dragon dung and cowpat isn’t a valid combo. One of the books we read tells about a Dragon Graveyard. Unable to find the 3 treasures besides those behind the locked door, we exit through the north entrance.

Shortly after leaving town, standing in the middle of our path is the bodkin fletcher special, a Poisonous Sniper. Being pretty weak, we don’t add it to our team. As we near the tower, a sign says there’s a chapel up ahead, so we go there first. Outside the chapel, we defeat the cureslime special, an Angel of Curing. That fullheal might be useful, so we add it to our team. Arriving at Rydon’s Tower, we use the stone sword and gain entrance. That was nice of him to put a map to the place in the foyer.

We start making our way up the rather tedious ramp puzzle and find a very nice recovery ring. Arriving at the top of the tower, Rydon is chiseling away on a massive piece of stone. Talking to him, it turns out he doesn’t have the jewels and never even seen them, as they haven’t been in the family’s possession in many a year. He then tells us that one of his ancestors used them in one of her statues. Hmm, the statue back at the tower near Alexandria? That statue did have a couple jewels for eyes. And considering that he says his ancestor’s name was Alexandra, that seems like a pretty good guess. Ok, with the Cherub’s Arrow skill, that Cheiron’s bow we found here is a pretty nifty little piece of equipment.

Since we’re looking for something, let’s see if Kalderasha has anything to say, so we zoom back to Farebury. He divines what we’re looking for is in a tower in the southern part of this continent, affirming my guess. Staying the night at the dirt-cheap inn here, Medea again talks to our hero in our sleep. Nothing of note is said. Not feeling like fighting a bunch of battles against super-weak monsters, we zoom to Alexandria. Huh, I didn’t notice that it was Alexandra’s Day, not Alexandria’s Day, before. Back at the Tower of Alexandra, we lay waste to the monsters here and make it to the statue. Hmm, nothing seems to happen when we examine the statue other than it stating the statue eyes are jewels. Turning around and leaving, just as we are about to descend the stairs, the voice of Alexandra calls out to us. She then relates the story of the sages. Ah, so Alistair was the fourth descendant. Completely forgot about that bit of the plot. She then tells us to take the Kran Spinels from the statue and aid Jessica. With that, the jewels drop from the statue’s eyes. With Kran Spinels in hand, we leave the tower, then zoom back to Arcadia.

Back in Arcadia, we head back to Dominico’s mansion to find him tormenting David over feeding his dog, Sir Leopold. Following Dominico into his mansion, we hand over the jewels. Accepting the job as his bodyguards, he then sends us into his secret library to retrieve The Big Book of Barriers so he can create a barrier strong enough to stop Jessica. That solves the riddle of those three treasures we couldn’t find before, finding a mini medal in one of the chests. Completing our 2 minute task, we find the book in one of the three bookcases in the small room and return to Dominico. As we climb the stairs, Jessica just happens to have returned. Handing him the book, he then runs to the large cauldron in his room, asking us to stall her while he fashions the Final Barrier. He then fully restores our HP and MP (which happened to be a whole 1 HP to the hero). We run outside and as we approach the group of people in the mansion’s courtyard, we find Jessica perched atop the statue in the fountain. So, it turns out there were seven sages and it’s David, not Dominico, who is the descendant of one of them. We then step in between Jessica and David and enter battle against her. Well, that was ridiculously easy. Other than some fire spells, she doesn’t have any dangerous attacks. Just used a bunch of psyched up attacks and she went down. Just as she’s about to burn the town down, Dominico runs in and casts what I’m guessing is the Final Barrier, knocking the scepter out of her hand, which lands in front of Sir Leopold, and returning her to normal. Sir Leopold has now disappeared.

After a short dream sequence with Jessica and Alistair talking, Jessica awakens and relates how Rhapthorne was controlling her via the scepter. Now we need to find the scepter. Looking around the entire town, we can find neither the scepter nor the dog. And why isn’t Jessica rejoining us? Thinking Leopold went to Rydon, we check there to no avail. Maybe it’s the northern checkpoint. Since it’s nighttime, we zoom back to Acadia to see what that walking corpse is selling, and buy a seed of skill. Now to check out the checkpoint. Well, we can’t get through here due to the bitter cold. So… Let’s head south instead. Checking out Argonia, Cash and Carrie’s people have left, so maybe we have to head back to Baccarat? Oh, wait. Now there’s a new person talking about a big beach over the mountains to the south. And Yangus hopes the scepter didn’t fall into the sea or something when you do the party chat. Maybe it’s there? Or maybe Lake Argon, which had nothing of note earlier? Nothing changed at Lake Argon, so we zoom to Baccarat. We can’t get into the mansion, so let’s see what Kalderasha has to say. He has nothing of use to say, so let’s check out that beach. Nothing at the beach. David did say Leopold is very intelligent, so maybe a library? Back to Trodain Castle. The windowpane on the library has disappeared, so the Moonshadow Land won’t be accessible here anymore. Nothing here. Seeing if Medea says anything useful at the Mystical Spring, she only says that she turned 18 and that we’ve known each other for 10 years now, and that our hero showed up at the castle as an orphan of 8 years old. Might as well see if we get anything from Minnie, and we have just enough medals for a meteorite bracer. I guess it’s time to methodically go through everywhere we’ve been in order of most recent to least recent.

First stop, Savella Cathedral. Nothing here. Thinking of what Yangus has been saying, maybe it’s at that jail on the tiny island. Nope. Wait. Tentaculars just ran away. The X-shaped rock formation? Nope. Since we’re over here, and we’re a bit stronger now, let’s try exploring the Isle of Neos again. This time actually making it to the city of Neos, a young monk mentions that the High Priest Rolo (mmm, Rolos) and Marcello are here for an inspection. Maybe we came to the right place. Approaching the shrine… Man, these templars are pushy. We just wanted to talk to you and you shove us back? Sheesh! Rolo and Marcello then exit the shrine and Marcello mentions a magnificent jewel that was just donated to the abbey. Rolo then wants Marcello to bring him the jewel. Hmm… Back to Maella Abbey? Or Savella Cathedral? Exiting Neos at night, we take out the living statue special, the Crazed Colossus (seriously, just a silver coin?), and add it to our team. Noticing that there’s a habitat called Pirate’s Cove in the river south of Farebury that’s appearing in our battle records that we’ve never been to, we head there to see what it’s about. Other than finding a mini medal, the bulk of this area is beyond a locked door we can’t open.

Back at Maella Abbey, neither the jewel nor Marcello is around, so we zoom to Savella, being the other place we’ve crossed paths with Marcello. Aaaaand, still nothing. Exploring the southern part of the southwest continent, we dispatch the bag o’ laughs special, a Bundle of Joy, leaving it behind, and finding what might be a useful Lightning Staff in a chest at the tip of this area. Laughing heartily at the sign warning us about heavy monster activity, we head into the desert. We leave behind the skullrider special, the Jockey, which we defeated. With the battle background here having a dinosaur skeleton, I’m guessing this is the dragon graveyard. We then take down the dancing flame special, a Living Torch, leaving it behind as well. Heading into the center of the desert, near the big dragon skeleton, we defeat a weaker dancing flame special, a living flame, again leaving it behind. Unable to find any sign of Leopold or the scepter anywhere, we head back to Arcadia to see if we missed anything.

Somehow, I completely missed going into the dining room in Dominico’s mansion. After talking to Dominico, David’s in trouble again. Heading outside, it appears Leopold has killed David, thanks to the scepter. Well, not quite killed him, but I guess done enough damage to break his ancestor’s seal. Now we have an evil dog to hunt down and kill. As David breathes his last, Dominico runs out and it all dawns on him. Feeling extreme remorse for being unable to protect David, he asks us to seek out and destroy Leopold. Dominico then unlocks Jessica’s true magical power as thanks for everything we’ve done for him. He finally mentions people saw Leopold heading north. Jessica finally rejoins (well, it wouldn’t have been “finally” if I wouldn’t have inexplicably avoided the dining room).

I guess I didn’t get all the outfits that change Jessica’s appearance during my first playthrough, as I don’t recall seeing her sporting the magic bikini (the asking price probably kept me from buying it). I hope it protects from cold, since I’m pretty sure we’re heading into the bitterly cold northern lands. Entering the cave to Snow Country, the guard posted there confirms that Leopold came through here. Oh, hey, there isn’t even music for the animation when you call a great sabrecat to ride. Shortly into our travels in Blizzard Peaks, we get buried in a minor avalanche and wake up in a house of some kind staring into the face of a St. Bernard-like dog. Waiting out the blizzard overnight in the house, in the morning, Marta, the old woman who lives alone here, asks us to give something to a man called Marek at our next destination, the town of Orkutsk.

Along the path to Orkutsk, we defeat the killing machine special, a Roboster Mk I, and add it to our team. Near the town, we defeat both of the frostburn specials, Cold Fire and Big Blizzard, and leave both of the rather weak fellows behind. Arriving at Orkutsk, Trode runs over the dog that greets us (well, that’s what the graphics looked like), and enter the completely indoor circular town. I like how the visiting merchant continues to walk around the entire town. Not finding Marek in the circular part of town, and with the drunkard passed out and blocking the stairs down to where I’m guessing the people actually live, we head into the central courtyard to find a building in the center. There is also a sign posted warning about wolves. Speaking to the mayor and his wife in this building, it seems Marek has gone missing. Heading down the stairs in here, Marek is supposed to live in one of the rooms here. We can also access the areas behind the counters of the shops from here. Speaking to the item shop owner, we’ll probably find Marek growing herbs in a cave to the northwest if he’s not in his room. Finding Marek’s room, he’s not here. Yeah, shocker, I know. So, it’s off to his herb garden. Wow, it actually recognized that I entered his room, as the mayor and his wife’s dialog reflect this.

In the Herb Grotto, as we start to cross the ice bridge, a humongous icicle lands right behind us. Oh, no! Oh, great, we have to creep across it to prevent sliding off the edge. Ah, so the falling icicles are only there to create bridges. Picking up a nice icicle dirk during our descent into this cave, we eventually come across Marek on death’s door lying on the ground behind a trio of huge icicles. Hey, another job for Munchie! Munchie triggers another icicle to fall creating a bridge to Marek. Making our way around to him, he notices the bag Marta gave us. Eating the nook grass from the bag, it warms him up something fierce and he’s back on his feet. We then escort him back to town. Safety in numbers, indeed. While we’re escorting him, we get into zero battles, which is good because there’s one treasure we need to find. And that treasure turns out to be the area map in a room right at the beginning that I totally missed.

Exiting, a pack of eight hellhounds are laying in wait for us. Making rather quick work of them, thanks to the lightning staff and staff of divine wrath, more hellhounds surround Marek. Rhapthorne, via Leopold, interjects (you know, he sounds kinda like the Cryptkeeper) saying Marek is not a chosen heir, calling off the dogs. Arriving back in Orkutsk… Good to see us again? What, opening the door took that long? Marek then tells us he needs to discuss something with us in his room. The drunk has passed out again, this time not blocking the stairs down, which will make it a bit less tedious. Heading to his room, he tells us that Marta is his mother, then asks us to accompany him back to her house as he fears for her safety, being descendants of one of the sages. A drunk who passed out in the snow enters in need of aid, so Marek stays to tend to him while asking us to go on ahead.

Making the short trip back to Marta’s house, we find a pack of hellhounds just lounging about inside. Approaching one of them, they all attack. Well, no issues here thanks to the lightning staff (I hope that doesn’t set fire to the wood flooring), icicle dirk, staff of divine wrath, and our hero’s boomerang. Heading downstairs, we fight off another small pack of them in each room, but Martha is in neither room. I guess she’s in the barn. Not here. Oh, hey, there’s a path around back I missed earlier. Heading into the tunnel in the side of the hill, we get fenced in by some more hellhounds and Marta calls out to us from inside. Once in the ruin and by her side, she erects a magical barrier preventing the hounds from reaching us. Speaking to Boris, the St. Bernard, actually triggers the next event. Reading the stone monoliths, we find out that to enter the Godbird Isle (the one we couldn’t land at earlier) without flying onto it, we’ll need to find a sea chart, and then follow “the light.”

Exiting the cave, we find the house ablaze and Marek pinned to the ground by Leopold. Just before Marta goes to face Leopold, she hands us the ultimate key. Woohoo! Looting time! As Mr. Indecisive just stands there watching, Leopold skewers Marta, breaking the 6th seal. Rather than fight Leopold, who has sprouted wings like Dhoulmagus did, we get another large group of hellhounds to brush off. As Marek lays Marta to rest in the ruins, he says Leopold flew off to the east and that the Lord High Priest’s island is in that direction. He then suggests we enlist the Godbird Empyrea’s help. Even though we read all the stones before, we read them again and get a short scene with Trode. It’s a good thing we looted her house when we first arrived, since it looks to be impossible to get the items anymore. Oh, hey, we’re fully healed. Now, it’s off to Savella. Just as we arrive at the Chapel of Autumn to save, I’ve hit the 100 hr mark.

Rather than head to Savella, we decide to use our new toy, the ultimate key. We first go to Alexandria to see if there are any good bits of dialog. Just a comical bit with a girl who just learned the transform spell. Aw, yeah, the always useful at a later time rusty old sword. Red is not at home, and speaking to her stable boy, we learn that she’s gone off to search for some pirate’s treasure. While we’re at it, we receive a miracle sword and suit of sacred armor from Princess Minnie. In Baccarat, we can now actually enter the mansion as Cash and Carrie are holding some sort of competition to determine the rightful heir to Golding’s fortune and want bodyguards during the competition. We walk in on the siblings having an argument that seems to be stuck in the ‘90s, or maybe ‘80s. During their exchange, Cash mentions it having to do something with the Dragon Graveyard. Speaking to them, they tell us that they need to obtain the mark of the family from the Graveyard. Choosing to protect the green-haired Carrie, we’re treated to another banquet and stay the night in the mansion.

Having overslept thanks to some sleeping powder Cash had a servant put into our food, Carrie leaves ahead of us. Hopping on a sabrecat, we make the long trip to the desert. Since we already explored the desert on our unintended world tour (oh, nice, the hero just hit the Courage level where he casts spells at 3/4 cost), we head straight for the dragon skeleton in the center, finding Carrie waiting for us at its mouth. Man, these tyrantosauruses hit hard. Dang king metal slime ran away. We really beat the crap out of that dragurn. Ah, ha, ha… haaa… Running into all of Cash’s guards, and finding a lovely dragon shield, along the way, we finally arrive in a large circular chamber with a couple rather large monsters closing in on Cash. After acting like she doesn’t care if he gets killed, just as one of the monsters is about to attack, she runs in, only to be slammed against the wall and falls unconscious. I guess it’s time for us to save their bacon. Just wanting to strike up a civil conversation with the blue fella, Red Horn and Blue Fang attack. A kafrizzle at super high tension does a LOT of damage. Withstanding their physical onslaught, we defeat them. After a touching moment between the siblings, we approach the Doors of Judgement. Of course, the burning knobs require both of them to open. Entering the inner sanctum beyond, our hero touches an orb floating atop a pedestal and Golding’s ancestor appears in kinda hologram form and speaks in old-time recording fashion. With their deciding to split the family fortune, we’re instantly back in Baccarat and they announce the casino will be reopening the next day. Woohoo! After spending the night in their mansion, they pay us our wages of 600 casino tokens. Gee, thanks.

With all that completed, it’s time to rejoin the main quest and head to Savella Cathedral. At the bridge north of Baccarat, we take out the fowlfighter special, a Raging Rooster (I guess we came through here at night before). Actually, before heading to Savella, we zoom back to the Pirate’s Cove. Opening the previously locked barred door, Red sails in. She’s after Captain Crow’s treasure, which is rumored to be here. Catching up to Red in Captain Crow’s study… You call yourself a treasure hunter and couldn’t even figure that out? Seriously? Arriving at Cap’n Crow’s treasure room, Red’s beaten us here. As she goes to open his treasure chest, the ghost of the cap’n appears, and promptly defeats Red, knocking her unconscious and opening the door for us to take his treasure. Here, take a super high tension Kafrizzle! After a drawn out battle of psyching up, we take down Crow and he drops a pirate hat. Y’arr, matey! We then take the illuminated sea chart from the chest. Yay! We can access Godbird Isle. Red comes to, is none too impressed with what we found, and leaves. Heading back to Red’s place, she’s being a sore loser and says she doesn’t want to see Yangus anymore. After picking up a piece of orichalcum from Princess Minnie, it’s off to Savella.

Arriving in Savella, a couple new blokes tell us what we already knew and found out about the Pirate’s Cove and that Captain Crow is rumored to have the sea chart. After saving, we head to the lord high priest’s chambers and… nothing happens. Hmm, I guess we need to go to Godbird Isle first. Using the sea chart, the X on the map finally shows its purpose (and I was wrong about the waterfall). Looking at the world map, the path appears on it, which is convenient. Heading due south to the X, when we arrive, I guess the sea chart activates the stones, a short cutscene plays, and the illuminated path is now visible to us. Following the path painted on the sea, another cutscene brings us onto the island.

Taking the lone winding path, we arrive in the village of Empycchu. Speaking to the village chief, he tells us a story about Empyrea. It seems her shadow sometimes creates a doorway to the world of darkness. Heck, yeah, I’ll trade Medea for your two horses! Other than some pretty expensive equipment, there’s not much to do here, so we leave to explore the island. Aw, you can’t call a great sabrecat on this island. Nearby, we take out the very weak puppet master special, Puppet Pugilist, and leave it behind. We defeat another slime special, the Slime Designer, and it drops a gold monster coin. Ok. Finding a nice magical mace for Angelo in the middle of the poison swamp, we check out Empyrea’s perch. Its shadow appeared and we chased it for the entire day, but couldn’t catch up to it. Wandering around until the next day, by midday, its shadow didn’t appear, so we head toward where the shadow disappeared the other day, defeating the gigantes special, Gigantes Guardsman, adding it to our team. Nothing is found at the spot she disappeared, so we head back to town. Resting up and heading back out the next day, we spot its shadow again near its perch. Chasing after it again, this time not avoiding the poison lake, we eventually reach an area where it circles around, then creates the Eye that we were told about. Of course, we aren’t fazed and enter the vortex.

Now in the World of Darkness, everything is black and white, except for us. Well, the poison lake is still purple and the sea is still blue, so not quite everything. The world map still works, and it seems to be the exact same terrain. We didn’t get a dark world boat, though, so it looks like we’ll only be able to explore the island. Unfortunately, there are no chests here. Checking out Empyrea’s perch, nothing is there, so we head to the village. Entering the village, our colorful appearance causes quite the stir. Being surrounded by the villagers, the chief comes to us, figures out we’re from the World of Light, and then says he wants to discuss something with us. Speaking to the villagers, it seems Empyrea has turned on them. Speaking to the chief in his house, he wants us to find out why Empyrea attacked them. The man across from the chief mentions that a very unusual monster has appeared. Now that we have a purpose in this world, we head back to Empyrea’s roost.

As we approach the perch, Empyrea is seen flying above and swoops down to attack us. That was one tedious battle. Empyrea gets two attacks every round and does the wall of ice just about every time you put up any buff, so it just turned into hero and Yangus attacking, Angelo using the Cheiron’s bow or a Fullheal (with a Kazing the one time Empyrea attacked the hero twice), and Jessica casting Oomph on the hero (and Yangus the rare times Empyrea didn’t nullify effects), EVERY round. The only thing always throwing up a buff did is made it a rare round where she got a zap and physical attack off in the same round, which does a pretty good job of crippling the team. After defeating her, she perches atop the stone roost, and tells us that she has been searching for people strong enough to help her. She then tells us that a minion of Rhapthorne, Gemon, is holding her egg hostage and wants us to fight Gemon. Her nest is in the area of the island we couldn’t reach before, and will take us to the base of the mountain. We head back to town, surviving a battle against 6 dark macarbors with their annoying death dance, to heal up first.

A rest and save later, we head back to Empyrea and she carries us to the base of the mountain. So, what is the air speed velocity of a horse and cart laden godbird? The more I see the water, the more I like its blueness. Making it to Empyrea’s nest, we enter battle against Gemon, a dark turkey, and a dark condor. Yay! Gemon can’t dispel, which makes this an easy battle. A handful of Oomphed psyched up attacks and they go down rather easily. Gemon basically self-destructs, destroying Empyrea’s egg behind him. The soul of Empyrea’s baby appears and as thanks for trying to help him, transforms into the Godbird’s soulstone, which allows us to fly as a bird. Empyrea then flies us back to the World of Light.

Back in the Empycchu of light, the chief now tells the story of Rhapthorne, and to create a gate between the two worlds, constructed a floating castle. A floating castle? Geez, how cliché. Now that we can fly, let’s check out the mountain on this island we couldn’t access before. Oh, hey, the World of Darkness Godbird’s Eyrie map works for the World of Light’s version. Oooh! Liquid metal babbles! Aaaaaaaaand they all ran. Other than getting some decent experience (finally getting 1000+ with some regularity), there’s nothing of note in here. Woohoo! A liquid metal babble stuck around long enough for us to defeat it! I think that leaves the king metal slime as the hole in my bestiary for where I’ve been to. Now it’s time to see where we can fly to that we couldn’t reach before.

Flying east to the southeastern continent, we spot a valley with a town we haven’t been to, which our bestiary says is the Untrodden Groves. Landing as near the town as we can, we enter Tryan Gully. Remembering we have a good collection of mini medals built up, now that we have the new town in our Zoom menu, we head to Princess Minnie to receive a metal king helm. Nice. Back to Tryan Gully, we’re greeted by a berserker. Being a town where humans, elves, and monsters live together in harmony, Trode doesn’t have to stay outside the town. And we get to have Trode be our walking about person. In the bar, a lethal armour tells us that Rhapthorne was sealed away in a huge rock somewhere. Enjoying a nice dry gigantini at the bar, the bartender then regales us with the story of Tryan Gully. The sage Kupas being a part of it makes me think this is where Leopold and the scepter are. I gotta say, Trode definitely has the best barrel smashing animation. Man, this place has some nice equipment. Too bad we’re so poor. We can’t afford anything. How, um, fitting that an imp is the priest here. Finding Raya and the gigantes Kupa aided long ago, Raya senses David’s presence within us and asks us to stop Rhapthorne. Hmm, let me think about this… Examining the hanging scroll behind Raya, we learn that the rock Rhapthorne is sealed in is in the center of the world and turned into a sculpture. I’m pretty sure that would be the goddess statue on the Isle of Neos. Going back to Raya and accepting her request, she grants us access to the treasure room to allow us to take the Darktree leaf, which is supposed to show where a great evil is when placed on a map. Still no luck finding the scepter or Leopold. Using the leaf, our next destination seems to be the northern part of E Argonia.

Leaving the gully and exploring the area, another metal king slime runs from us. Arrgh. Defeating the archdemon special, the Arch-archdemon, we add it to our team. Near the eastern end of the groves is the cyclops special, the Big Blue Bully, which we add to our team. Because we have more important things to do than save the world (which, as everyone knows, won’t ever actually be in jeopardy until we decide to save to world), we continue east and find a little island in the lake at the end of the river running through the southeastern continent, defeating the berserker special, the Bushwacker. Is that a George W. Bush reference? He’s about on par with our weakest member, so we leave him behind. Since we’re right close, we try again at Morrie’s, this time with an all demon team of Gigantes, Archdemon, and Cyclops. Woohoo! We’re Rank B champions! We get a bardiche of binding for our troubles (a nice upgrade for Yangus over his moon axe) and Morrie rewards us with a second team. The Banana Benders? Wow, that’s just… Um, no. Trying Rank A, we make it to the final battle, only for them to concentrate on the two enemies that do just about zero damage, and lose.

Heading back out to exploring the world as a bird, it appears the leaf moves around. Avoiding the leaf, we land atop a mountain on a sort of shrine with a statue of a dragon. Nothing happens here. Since I can’t find any other places that look to be accessible, we head for the leaf. Approaching the leaf, Leopold is seen flying along. Unable to catch up with him, he eventually leads us to Savella. Landing, we’re now outside the Lord High Priest’s residence. Entering the mansion, High Priest Rolo asks us to help the Lord High Priest. Ok, that voice work sounded more like a proclamation, not fitting the circumstances. Not so fast. We have a holy mansion to loot first. Heading upstairs, we see Leopold facing down a couple guards protecting the priest. Don’t mind us, we’re just trying to find that last item. That done, we see what the issue is. Hey, guard dude. The dog is just standing there, not doing anything except breathing. Instead of waving your sword around 5 feet away from it, why not trying to get close enough to, I don’t know, actually make contact with it? Talking to Leopold, we enter battle. Ok, that intimidating scream of his worked way too well. While the hero wasn’t able to be brought back to life at the end of the battle, we are able to take him down. While Rhapthorne is talking, the lord high priest collapses behind us for some reason. Leopold breaks into several pieces, dropping the scepter, only to be shortly revived without the evilness, and then, too collapses. A cutscene revives the hero, and Rolo and Marcello enter the room. Marcello accuses Rolo of trying to assassinate the lord high priest, sending him to Purgatory Island (I’m guessing the little island with the jail), along with us. Marcello then picks up the scepter, and we’re then rejoined in a cage in the jail.

Back at the mansion, it seems the lord high priest died of shock and we see the scepter try to control Marcello to no avail. We’re rejoined and Rolo explains how he’d planned to succeed the lord high priest, and then are placed in our cell. Dang it, we can’t play with the alchemy pot while in jail. It’s a good thing they didn’t take our belongings. Jessica still looks dashing in her bikini while in the cell. And I can still use the ultimate key, or at least, that would make logical sense. These are some fast days, or some extremely short shifts, as speaking to the priest lying on the ground triggers that event, even if you instantly talk to him again. 4-on-1? I think we could take the guard. Dang cutscene keeps preventing me from using the key. After a month, we find out from the guards’ banter that the lord high priest died, slowly making this sequence move along. Rolo then formulates an escape plan… Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I have an idea. Why not use this ultimate key and just wipe out the guards? We do have ALL our equipment, after all. After luring the pair of guards into the cell with promises of a swallowed gold rosary, we overpower the guards and head to the cage. With someone needing to operate the lever (um, couldn’t we just wrap one of our whips around it and operate it from the cage…?), Rolo volunteers. Somehow, Trode has found out where we are, and is waiting for us with our boat, probably extremely conveniently arriving just as we escaped.

Well, that stay did wonders for our health as we’re fully healed up. Woohoo! I’ve been crowned the Dawdling Dallier of the Year. After saving, we head to Neos to view the inauguration of the new lord high priest. After listening to a long speech from Marcello, he really doesn’t like us, and sics the guards on us. As we’re surrounded, Empyrea’s son transforms us into a bird, taking us up and behind Marcello. Hey, we finally get to battle the little brat, and in front of an audience. Hooray! Well, he does have the wall of ice, but doesn’t use it too often, so we are able to keep Oomph up as well as get off some high-tension attacks. Sap also works on him. So, all in all, it’s a pretty easy battle. I guess because we weakened him, Rhapthorne is able to gain control of him now. Conveniently being at the location of his sealed body, Rhapthourne is able to complete his resurrection, and we get a cutscene of the temple and a good chunk of the land below it becoming airborne. After another touching scene between siblings, we can begin discovering what’s happened to the world with Rhapthorne’s resurrection.

First stop is Empycchu to save. Other than dialog, nothing changed here. We stop by Princess Minnie to collect a dangerous bustier. It’s a major downgrade from the magic bikini, but, hey, it changes Jessica’s appearance. And it goes right into the bag. After checking out Kaldarasha and Tryan Gully, since they were shown in the Rhapthorne resurrection cutscene, neither says anything of note. Since I don't feel like going back to everywhere just to read new dialog, we head for the flying castle.

Landing on the former temple, it was nice of Rhapthorne to stock it with a bunch of treasure. There’s another staircase to the obvious goal that needs to be raised, but this time the ledge is actually realistically too high to reach. If only there was a nice wide and flat handrail on either side we could walk up. Oh, wait… This place is a definite step up in difficulty. Exploring most of the ground floor (love the corridor of pots), we head back to Empycchu to rest. Heading to Baccarat, we get our degenerate gambler on, and after a few hours at the slots, everyone’s equipped with liquid metal armor and Jessica got a gringham whip. We also got a few falcon blades for when we run into metal slimes.

Heading back to the Black Citadel, we find the last treasure, which is an extremely nice Sage’s Stone. That just removed most of the difficulty of this place. It would be really nice if a metal king slime wouldn’t instantly run. Making our way into a circular town-like area, the plaque at the beginning restores our HP and MP, which isn’t really needed thanks to the Sage’s Stone. I like how the hero’s statue has no head. After making a complete circle without turning around, like one of the plaques hinted at, the town becomes rather dilapidated and we start getting into encounters again. Making it back to the statues, they’ve all lost their heads. Another circuit and the statues only have our feet and calves. Heh. We head down the stairs and at the end of the straight path is the Lord of Darkness. Ain’t he a cutey? After a little speech, Rhapthorne attacks. Other than his desperate attack, he’s not that dangerous. He tends to get infatuated with his dispel, performing it rather frequently, even actually performing it for both of his actions in a round. Jessica’s Twin Dragon Lash is pretty darned useful against him. Yangus isn’t able to get Kazinged before we take down Rhapthrone. Um, not a single reaction from anyone? Of course, that can’t be the end (after all, he only had one form), but we don’t receive any experience points for defeating him. Everyone’s fully healed, as well as Yangus being revived (yay!), and now we have to figure out what to do next.

Rhapthorne’s throne doesn’t yield any clues, so we head back. About halfway along the path, the citadel starts falling apart. Winning one scripted battle, we make it back to the beginning of the circular town area, and… Oh, no! Our statues are attacking us! Well, that was easy. After another easy scripted battle, this time against a couple megalodons (yay, one of them dropped a yggdrasil dew), we get to fight the rubble of the castle! This is another easy battle, which probably would have been even easier if I would have tried Sap on it at the outset. We seem to be stuck, as the gate has closed behind us, stranding us on this balcony. Why exactly did the cutscene run us into what we already knew was a dead end? We do have the godbird stone, so let’s use that. Flying away from the castle, it transforms into Rhapthorne’s next, rather humongous, form. He then unleashes his dark minions from the World of Darkness, having opened the door between the two worlds. With the door open, Empyrea also comes through and saves us for now. The new first order of business is to destroy his shield of invincibility he has erected around himself. Oh, boy! Now we get to hunt down seven orbs and then return to Empyrea’s Roost. Well, at least her two servants tell us where one of them is. Off to Farebury!

Zooming to Farebury, we enter and play the echo flute we received from Empyrea. It resonates, as expected. Now to find the orb. Maybe Kalderasha has a further clue. Just as we start heading there, we see some sparklies at the burned down house of Rylus. This leads me to believe the orbs will be at the locations of where the descendants were killed. Following my hunch, the next stop is the Statue of Alexandra. My hunch being correct so far, while not at the statue, we find it at the top of the stairs leading to the statue. Next stop, Maella Abbey. Making our way through the templars’ revelry and into the abbot’s chambers, we find the orb. The next descendant to be offed was, IIRC, Golding, so we zoom to Baccarat. We find the fourth orb in what I’m guessing was Golding’s bedroom. The next to go was David, so off to Arcadia. In front of Leopold’s cage, we pick up orb number five. Now to Marta’s Cottage. Right where we channeled a deer in the headlights, we find her orb. That leaves the lord high priest, so we zoom to Savella. Yay, we can ride the platform to the mansion! Heading to where he died of shock, we find the seventh and final orb. That was rather quick and painless. With a quick save in Empycchu, we head back to Empyrea’s roost.

Approaching the perch, she then produces the Godbird Sceptre that was source of all the troubles. It no longer contains Rhapthorne’s soul, and is what we’ll need to penetrate his shield. As we’ll each need to use the scepter, she then turns it into four scepters, fully heals us, and flies us to the final (?) battle against Rhapthorne. Again being infatuated with dispelling effects, a good number of Rhapthorne’s actions are completely wasted while we all pray to the scepter to release the souls of the sages. He even spent a round laughing defiantly twice. Ha! Everyone but Yangus, who used the Sage’s Stone, was defending and Rhapthorne’s Kafrizzle did a whopping 27 damage to Angelo. Taking about a dozen rounds to be able to have everyone pray seven times, the sages break down Rhapthorne’s shield and we’re all fully healed again. The battle with Rhapthorne proper is pretty darn easy. Sap works on him, so Jessica takes his defense down twice, then unleashes her Twin Dragon Lash doing about 350 combined damage. The hero equips the miracle sword (yeah, I really haven’t been using the alchemy pot) to get a bit of healing every round. Yangus uses the Sage’s Stone every round. And Angelo switches to the Cheiron’s Bow, either uses Cherub’s Arrow to stay at full MP or casts Fullheal if a second healing is needed. Only had to use Kazing once, when Jessica was hit by the double hit ball attack and an all-party attack.

Empyrea then flies us back to Trodain Castle, where she had already taken Trode and Medea. Aaaaaaand, the curse still hasn’t been lifted. She then says this world is no longer in danger and takes off, along with her son’s soul. The curse then lifts and everything is back to normal. It’s time for a banquet! And let the credits ro… No, wait. There’s more. The hero’s been promoted to captain of the guard and a few months later, we’ll be escorting the princess to her wedding with Prince Charmles. Looks like we’ve got a marriage to prevent from happening. After a lengthy scene at the wedding, we finally get the credits. A rather ominous little scene at that mountaintop shrine plays and the game freezes at the copyright data screen, requiring a system reset to get out of it. I don’t feel like doing the postgame content, so I’m ending this here.

Final stats:
Playtime: 140h 49m
Hero: Lvl 43
Yangus: Lvl 43
Angelo: Lvl 42
Jessica: Lvl 41

I give it a 9/10. I really liked it, but really wanted it to end by the time I got to Godbird Island.