This song is weird, I love it.
Can someone break down the time signature here for me? I’m counting 5 beats then 7 beats but I don’t know what that means
Neat! As much as I enjoy music, I’ve studied very little about it so stuff like the time signature alternating is interesting to me.
Last we left off, we made it back to Daphne’s home, which means one thing. Lots and lots of exposition!
Dang it. This is why I’ll never make it as a speed runner.
Is that man Zaygos?
It is!
And there you have it folks! Noi Gren and the monster of Noi Gren are basically going to be our practice run for when we deal with the monster of Dal Gren. I for one appreciate the chance to practice, it really helps with the performance anxiety.
Time for more pop quiz action!
Can you imagine if you were playing Final Fantasy IV, and when you met the elder in Mysidia he quizzed you like this?
At least we know not to talk to the weapons merchants, that’s a big tip right there.
So we begin making our way down the cave tunnel.
The path splits right and left, and we’re going down the right hand path first.
This nets us a Glow Bow, which we can give to Midia for an additional group attack option for her.
And now we get new enemies. Redrocks explode, Sticky likes to try and paralyze you.
And Wild gains a level. We return to the original section and proceed down the left hand path, only for it to split on us again. This time we go left.
And here we get free healing, in case you’re not feeling confident about your power levels and want to grind.
More new enemies who don’t get to do hardly anything because I ambushed them. Main thing to note is that GWhip is most vulnerable to fire.
We go down the second right-hand path and…
Run into more new enemies. The Pakgrass can hit for decent damage.
He also gives us some levels so he’s all right by me.
Chezni is 13, I put nothing past him.
As we exit into Saskuot, I want to mention an enemy I did not run into in this run, the Dashcrab. The Dashcrab can do as many as five attacks a turn, which can lead to a lot of hurt in a very short amount of time.
We do have a preemptive strike on Eyebirds and Microrats who all die pretty dang quick.
We then move onto the southeast to enter a new town. There is also a robe network station here, but they won’t let us use it.
This is Misuto. Three guesses how this place got that name!
But yeah, even the mist can’t cover up the giveaway smell that gives us away.
Gubo’s Milk won’t help the smell, but at least we’re a little bit stronger.
This person is no help whatsoever.
Hmm, could this mention of Joyce be a clue on what we’re supposed to do?
Well, let’s talk to this guy standing by the bakery.
If we say yes, he promises violence in our future.
And if we say no, Zaran says this. What a charmer, am I right guys?
We talk to the remaining people in town before moving on to talk to Joyce.
And by that I mean we go to the spirits shop.
With this we now obtain the Air spirit.
With this we get Magic Wall, Fire All, Warp, Escape, and Bolt All for Chezni. Now we don’t even need to concern ourselves about Flight and Home Doors for the rest of the game. But that’s not what I’m really excited about here.
Midia now has the Bury spell. Why am I so excited about this? You’ll see…
Also, the merchants won’t stab you, but they won’t sell to you either.
But for now we really go to see Joyce!
Upon entering her bakery we are greeted by the same peaceful music as in the gag room from Rekuon. More importantly, she doesn’t immediately tell us to go stink ourselves.
Joyce will serve as a free inn and a free medicine recharge here. Now, the game is a little obtuse, but what we need to do is to talk to her again to progress.
Huzzah! We now have a way of making our time in Saskuot a whole lot more pleasant. Still, I wonder why Joyce is so nice to us when everyone else around hates our guts? Probably not important.
What is important is that since we talked to Joyce, Zaran’s going to come and deliver the promised violence.
And by that, I mean we are going to bury him.
You see those two piles of dirt? They travel across the screen to damage enemies on their level. Because Midia’s earth magic is maxed out, I get two of them. As I level up her Air magic, there will be a third one added to the mix, which will let Bury hit all but the highest possible enemies for a lot of damage. How much damage?
146 damage. And its only going to get better from here. Now, something to note about the Zaran fight. He only gives 1 experience point, but he also has a rare drop, the Adult Clothes, or Adult Swimsuit. This is an armor for Midia. It has 1 defense but applies Attack Back to her passively. Even if I had gotten that drop, I would not equip it on her for several reasons.
Zaran runs off after this, leaving us to move on grateful that Chezni and Midia’s innocence has not been spoiled by learning that this guy is carrying around a bikini on him.
8 Likes
is there a romhack that allows us to spell daphny correctly
1 Like
Unfortunately no. The only Romhack that exists for Paladin’s Quest is one that sets everyone’s stats to 500 at the start of the game.
This is how Misuto looks from the outside.
And this is the cave that we need to go to. Note that building behind the mountains on our right, and how there was a similar such building behind the mountains near the equator on Naskuot. Remember that for later.
And here we have new enemies, the Crushers. These guys can drain HP with their attacks and are overall resistant to fire and bolt damage. Use Break and physical attacks on them.
And now Wild’s gained a level.
Our first path to the right is a bit of a dead end. Wonder what’s going on with that bridge over there.
On our next island, we find these things. Could these be the elusive Kaiyowa grains?
Nope! This is the enemy known as Fake, and while it is very weak, it is also very annoying to have to fight them.
Fortunately, you don’t have to fight them; the fights are only triggered by walking up to the green plants and then examining them with the A button. As long as you do that, you can avoid unnecessary fights. In order to progress and make sure we get everything, we go to the left.
We also gain some levels and max out Chezni’s Light Spirit so now he can focus on finishing off Sky and working on Air.
Knife Boot, from the makers of Knife Wrench. For kids! We equip that on Chezni.
Wild gains a level and we open a chest of Gubo Milk. I sadly fail to screencap the stat gain, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that Chezni gained four strength.
Chezni and Midia gain level again.
And here I want to show that Bury is very powerful, but right now it is very limited in the range of targets that it can hit. This will change with time, but we will have to be patient for that.
FastJo gains a level, and we find this one red plant here. Could it be?
It is! We have found the Kaiyowa Grain and can get out of here.
On the way out, Wild gains a level and has maxed out her water spirit. She’s not far from maxing out her Sky spirit too, which means she will soon be as strong as she’s really going to get.
I just find it funny to have won the fight when I’m paralyzed and my mercenaries have to do all the work.
And finally we get one more set of levels for Chezni and Midia and a stat boost for Chezni. After that we leave the cave and return to Misuto with the Kaiyowa grain for Joyce the baker.
We then get a bit of Joyce running around and sound effects being played to convey that she is baking the bread.
Joyce also apparently likes to narrate what we are doing.
We don’t have to talk to her again, but if we do…
A resistance! Looks like the people of Saskuot are not all in lockstep with Zaygos. Hopefully if we run into them we can explain that we are also dedicated to kicking Zaygos’s ass.
In any event, upon leaving the bakery the peaceful music continues and Zaran does not accost us.
And because we are no longer smelling like Naskuot, Zaran can’t recognize us. Makes me wonder if the people of Saskuot are really near sighted? Well, we tell him yes just to mess with his head.
And hopefully he will stop picking fights he can’t hope to win for a girl who probably doesn’t even know he exists on account of him never actually talking to her.
Also it turns out I forgot to check the trashcan here for an Air Card. WHOOPS!
At least it was the best bonus I could get.
Just like Zaran, the rest of the people in town can’t quite recognize us.
Little kids can’t figure us out.
Now that he thinks we’re one of them, he is very calm about Zaygos conquering everything.
The equipment here is better than what I’ve got, but not by much and I want to save my money. There is something specific I’m going to be doing with that money.
Nowhere you’ve heard of, I’m sure.
Good riddance, they need to go home and teach everyone in Naskuot proper hygiene!
The item shop will do business, and seeing as we are now perfectly blending in, we can see that prices here are just higher overall. I guess living under an oppressive dictatorship isn’t all its cracked up to be.
This lady said we’d never get her to talk, but the jokes on her.
This is what she says if you tell her no. A bit incoherent. Let’s say yes and see if we can get some elaboration.
Its very understandable, there are many out there who don’t want to risk losing their family members even for a righteous cause.
Back on the overworld I do a little exploring to the south to make sure there aren’t any chests that I’d missed and FastJo gained a level.
We also run into the Gubo, who is our resident metal slime monster. Alas, I was unable to kill it before it ran so I can’t show you how much experience it would drop.
Sadly, “You can’t walk to Karon!” didn’t catch on as a meme. It took Peter Jackson hundreds of hours to realize that the key was to add the word “Just” to the declaration. It was hundreds more hours before he finally figured out where to put it. Creating memes is hard work people.
In any event we pay our fee, get on board, ride the network, hear that jaunty music…
Get blown up by the resistance…
And now we have been captured by the resistance. Not the best first impression.
Grunt is understandably skeptical about our intentions, and we as plucky protagonists will have to prove ourselves. That’s okay though, between Chezni and Midia’s magic, there’s nothing they can’t handle!
Saying no results in this particular “but thou must” loop.
Wait hold on we did not agree to that you can’t do that I’m still working on leveling up her Bury spell!
That’s not helping!
At least she’s being a trooper about it.
You’re on thin ice old man. But for now, let’s go and talk to the people in the resistance.
First we check in on Midia, who I know can bury anyone who tries to give her trouble so she’ll be okay.
That’s right, having pride in your people and opposing tyrants goes hand in hand!
These three and one other guy all say the same thing.
The inability to refer to Gods and such makes things a little awkward here.
Here’s hoping someone comes up with something good.
It is at this point I remember to check Grunt’s profile.
He’s a pretty cool looking dude in my book, and he’s well equipped. Sadly, no magic.
You got this, Zaygos won’t know what hit him!
Remember this guy for later.
With this guy’s help, we can stay topped off no problem.
And now for the first time since we arrived in Saskuot way back when, we now have a new mercenary option, Gunny. He is as you can see, a very stronk dude. No magic, but considering he’s swinging around trees and big fuckoff rocks, he doesn’t need magic.
I will also give a bit of a spoiler so that the thread can make an informed decision; there is going to be a point very soon where the rearmost mercenary in the party will be forcibly removed. There is no way to avoid this. Therefore, in addition to whether or not to recruit Gunny, we also have to decide which party member is going to be kicked out on top of that. Personally, I’d like to keep Wild, she is just all around very useful; group attacks, healing, self healing, defense boosts, she’s got all the bases covered. But this is your call to make and I will make whatever the thread decides work.
9 Likes
bye grunt
also, the phrase “i will show you what knives can do” is both awkward and intimidating
friendship ended with fastjo. now gunny is my best friend.
We got what we wanted from fastjo
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I demand gunny join our party at all costs
yeah kill fastjo. his smug aura mocks me
Well I can’t kill him but I can do the next best thing.
So long to FastJo and welcome to the team Gunny!
And now as you can see, my party order is now Chezni, Grunt, Gunny, and Wild. Sorry about what is going to happen Wild, but you’ve had a really long run and it wouldn’t feel right to ditch Gunny so quickly.
We take the eastern exit out of the cave to find ourselves in this confined region. Conshuito is to the west, and there are going to be twists, turns, and sand and much to slow us down. Fun!
And here we have somem new enemies, the Redjaws and Wolfworms. The Redjaws can either use devastating physical attacks, or they shoot fireballs at the whole party. The Wolfworm will zap the entire party with lightning and like the Splitbugs using physical attacks will cause them to split which can rapidly escalate out of control. Not that I would be foolish enough to do that.
In any event, we now arrive at Conshuito. Thankfully now that we are here, things will get less inhospitable, right?
Judging from the number of exclamation points here, Chill was named ironically. In any event, we don’t need you, we have a good party here.
And if you tell her no, she forces her way in and kicks out whichever optional character is in the rear most spot. Sorry Wild.
Even she is shocked if we choose to answer yes.
And here is Chill’s stats. Note her bizarrely low HP for a level 36 character.
If we leave Conshuito, she leaves the party. When we return to town, she forces herself back in. The game is being very thorough here.
That is a very bizarre thing to say, but this is a bizarre place. Also, note the unusually linear town layout. Nothing to worry about there.
Both of these statements are nothing but lies.
I think he’ll find himself in for a rude awakening if he tries. We’ve got the legendary arms of Kormu after all.
What a pleasant chap. He would totally support police brutality.
All the guards here say the same thing.
And here we have a priest of the official state religion of worshiping the fascist.
We are getting closer and no one suspects a thing.
Grunt runs up, unlocks the door, grabs Wind, and runs back with her.
I don’t think Chill is being very chill. Does anyone have a snickers?
And here I goof up; there is a “boss fight” with Chill here, but she is really no threat whatsoever. Even so, my failure to screencap anything from the fight is still a failure.
Unfortunately she is still able to sound the alarm so now we have to fight our way out of here.
Its okay, everyone makes mistakes. Just look at me.
Oh by the way during all of this a very annoying siren has been blaring out the entire time and it will continue to blare out until we get out of Conshuito. Grunt also says something here but I end up clicking through it too quickly to read it. Probably something on the order of how we have to get out of here. Already on it.
But not before we take a quick look to see what Wind’s combat training gives her. All in all, could be better, could be a lot worse.
Say hello to the Preast. Not the priest, the preast. What the fuck is a priest? Sounds like some sort of fake made up thing.
Anyway the main thing the Preast likes to do is summon in Guardians to fight you. And the Guardians like to summon in more Guardians. Fights in here can drag on if you don’t do good group damage. Incidentally, I should mention that the weapons in Grunt and Gunny’s right hands will let them hit enemy groups while the weapons in their left hands will allow them to do more damage to a single target.
Chezni gains a level. All my hard work to keep Chezni and Midia’s levels lined up, ruined.
Also talking to any of the guards and priests around will just result in an encounter and I just want to get this sequence done with.
And now that we’ve made it out of the prison plaza, we get to fight civilians! The Girl has an attack where she cries at you to inflict a status ailment, but it never goes off so I don’t know what it is. Best way to deal with this formation is to have Chezni cast Heat while everyone else attacks a single target. Wind’s high heels are actually a pretty good attack option for her.
Also there is the possibility of a kid encounter but that doesn’t crop up on this playthrough.
Chezni and Gunny gain a level.
And now we get the Widow and Butcher as we get closer to escaping this town. They are actually pretty damn strong. The Widow especially has some unusually high defenses going on.
Grunt and Wind both gain a level together.
And now we have more new enemies on the outside. The Barerats die super quick to group attacks, while the Bronzas like to spit single fireballs at us.
And Chezni gains a third level by the time we get back to the resistance cave.
Grunt and Wind depart from the party. None of the other resistance fighters have anything new to say, so let’s get back to Midia.
You’ve got to appreciate a girl who just wants to throw down and kick evil’s ass.
Its okay Grunt, everything worked out in the end. Sure we lost Wild, but that was going to happen eventually.
The Secret Message will prove a very helpful tool for us.
I was going to ask how we were supposed to get out of here. Thanks Grunt!
So that’s what this was all about! We’re onto your game now Grunt!
In any event, this update’s gone on for a while, so I’ll stop here and continue again in the next post.
5 Likes
Thanks to the resistance’s hard work, we are now able to get back onto the rope network and to the next station.
The station looks like any other at first glance, but the creepy music playing lets us know that this is not like any other location we’ve ever been to before.
It may not be much, but its where we have to go next on our world tour of Saskuot. Fortunately, the trip to the west is short and uneventful, which is good since we only have three party members right now. Hopefully we can pick up someone in the ruins of Karon.
And the creepy music is joined by a disturbing welcome into town. We’ve seen plenty of places in Lennus that have been in great danger, but this is a place where that danger has already come and gone with no one to save the day.
We’ve heard a lot of stories about Gabnid up to this point, but this is a new one on us.
And in the inn we meet this fatalistic chap and…hey, doesn’t that lady on the other side of the table look kind of familiar?
That’s right, its Joyce!
Well ain’t that something? No wonder she was so willing to help us out when we were as stinky as any other person from Naskuot. And what more luck, we can now put that secret message we were given to work!
Time for our classic but thou must!
Saying no leaves us trapped here forever. So let’s say yes and break the bonds of destiny.
To summarize, he tells us that Zaygos is planning to use the Specters of Karon as part of his plan to conquer Naskuot, and in order to exorcise them he needs us to get the Glow Seeds from the island to the southwest, since we are Spiritualists and all. Note that once you’ve shown him the Secret Message, you won’t be able to use his services as the inn until you’ve gotten him the Glow Seeds. A bit inconvenient, but we can deal.
Going back to Joyce, it seems that things are actually going pretty well between Joyce and Zaran. The world is full of surprises.
He’s right, we’re still full up on medicine.
This specter is not having a good time. 
In the tavern we learn all kinds of things. For example, there is a big open structure in the middle of town that serves as the temple.
Well let’s not do that.
Karon continues to be a very grim place.
So only we can actually see the specters all over town. Everyone else just has to hear them chanting their revenge.
I wish we could tell this guy that his mother just wants him back safe and sound. Unfortunately, that is not an option for us.
There’s one more guy in the tavern to talk to, but before we do, I want to talk to the rest of the people in town.
It slices, it dices, it brings back the dead! The Noi Gren can do anything!
Cheerful.
Sorry, I don’t have any eyedrops.
And now for the last guy in the tavern.
This is our next mercenary candidate, the specter Bean. He’s only 233, not comparable to the guys who’ve been here for 10,000 years, but that portrait paints the picture of a man who’d lead a grim, grim life. Right now we only have Gunny, so there is room for Bean in our team. How about it folks? Will Chezni recruit the spooky ghost swordsman, or decide that he’s had enough ghostly nonsense for one day?
4 Likes
ATTN: @vincenttoups
Recruit Bean, how could you not
Someone change my nickname to “I have no equal in sword fighting.”
4 Likes
Also, what is with this person’s portrait? Is that a hood or part of his body or what?
I like to think that he’s just jacked to the gills.
bean is in i swear to god if you dont recruit him i will be mean to you on discord
still thinking about that bean
2 Likes
In accordance with the will of the board, Bean the specter has joined the party. I myself can’t answer the question of what is going on with his portrait. Your guess is as good as mine.
On our way down to the tower we meet a new enemy, the Headless. They operate exactly like the other swordsman type enemies we’ve fought, they just don’t have heads.
When they said island, they really meant a peninsula.
Upon entering we are greeted by a continuation of the same haunting music, and a Saint Robe, which I equip on Midia.
The first halve of this dungeon is having to climb up these narrow stairways over and over again. Its like six floors I think, I lost count.
And here we have some new enemies, the Buzzsoul and the Sleeper. The Buzzsoul, despite the appearance and name, is actually a fire-based enemy. As for the Sleeper, that is a very special enemy.
This was Midia’s Bury. As you can see, it does next to no damage to the Sleeper. The Sleeper has very high defenses, both physical and magical. In addition to that, they can split if they are hit by a physical attack. Their actions in battle include powering themselves or their allies, trying to freeze the entire party, and running away. This Sleeper runs away.
And Midia gained a level from that fight. Lovely.
But when we start walking, we notice we have someone following us! How peculiar!
Upon entering the next fight, the Sleeper that was following us floats up to the bottom of the screen to join the battle. Also, the Thirdeye enemies can do single-target electric attacks or do a physical attack that absorbs HP.
Gunny gained a level after that fight.
We reach the top floor of the tower with two Sleepers following close behind.
We get into another fight where Chezni levels up and has now maxed out his Sky spirit.
The sphere card is pretty much useless to us, unless we find a mercenary who can use Sphere magic. The Sky card though, that can go right onto Midia.
That worked out very well.
Another fight, another level.
In order to advance, we need to fall down one of these holes. I drop down the bottom right hole, and that results in me falling all the way to the beginning of the tower, with glimpses of each room with treasure chests in them on the way down. Which means we need to climb all the way back up.
Bean gains a level, and more importantly, after this fight we now have six Sleepers following after us. When this happens, the moment you take a step in any direction…
You trigger a special encounter with the Bigboss! What does the Bigboss do?
This. He casts Heat at you and does massive damage to everyone but Chezni since Chezni is the only character up to this point who has Fire Magic. Fortunately this means that this fight is just a simple damage race, one we can easily win.
ESPECIALLY THANKS TO MIDIA’S BURY GETTING HIGH ENOUGH IN LEVEL THAT IT CAN HIT ALL BUT THE HIGHEST POSITIONED ENEMIES ON THE SCREEN NOW ALL SHALL DESPAIR IN TERROR AS MIDIA BECOMES THE MIGHTIEST EARTHBENDER IN ALL OF LENNUS MWA HA HA HA HA!
I’m sorry but I have been waiting for this moment for a long time and it could not have come at a better timing.
That’s the kind of damage Midia’s going to be doing to any enemy on the ground, and its only going to get even better; her Air spirit has a long way to go to getting fully leveled up.
I gain a bunch of levels from that fight, but unfortunately despite multiple uses of save states I’m not able to get this one to drop a certain item that I want to show off. I decide to progress on in the dungeon, but from now on when I have an encounter with Sleepers in them, I’ll be sure to hit the sleepers with physical attacks so that they split and thus I can get six of them to run away in a single fight and thus get another shot at the Bigboss.
In any event, upon returning to the top floor, I drop down the top-left hole.
And I get the S Tavern, or Summon Tavern; this is an item that lets you summon any mercenary that you’ve recruited throughout the game and have them join your party once again. This is pretty nice, but there is an almost game breaking exploit that we can use this to take advantage of. In addition, there are enemies around here that can drop S Taverns after battle, so that’s nice.
This is the Prayer Staff, which you can equip as a weapon to try to freeze enemies. Note that Bean, in defiance of all logic, somehow has this equipped in his belt slot. Go figure.
Another glorious High Bottle!
And here in this otherwise unremarkable chest is the Glow Seeds that we came for. A bit anticlimactic, but hey, mission accomplished all the same.
Here’s a new enemy, the Flamer. They make obnoxious posts on the internet and Midia slams the banhammer on them so hard that they literally die.
Finally, after several more tries, when I’d lost all hope, I finally obtained what I was looking for from the bigboss!
This is Chezni’s attack power when equipped with Kormu’s sword.
And this is his attack power with the Goumutai. The Goumutai is a two-handed weapon with 300 attack power. It is the single most powerful weapon in the game by far. It has no special properties, it can’t attack groups or anything like that, but it is a godsend if there is a single target enemy that needs to die yesterday.
Look at that. 214 damage from a single attack with the Goumutai. Bean is doing half of that. And this is without buffing Chezni’s strength or reducing the enemy’s defense. The damage from the Goumutai can get absurd.
Technically Midia gained her level back in the fight that gave me the Goumutai, but I was too excited to remember to screencap it there.
And so with that very exciting development out of the way, I conclude this post. I hope I get a truly worthy opponent to test my Goumutai on; these dinosaurs are dying too quickly to its power.
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