It's a Name...Your Name...
A New Tale for Tales continues...
Since I last wrote, we have gotten to 11 hours in game. Along the way, we had our first semi annoying moment of backtracking, where we had to sneak into a city, find a demon to kill in order to get people to fix our ship, go to dungeon demon was in, head back to city to confirm death (we didn’t kill him because he could help us cause some chaos in the future), head back to port just for the game to tell us they couldn’t fix our ship before finally heading back to the city and being told we couldn’t sneak in anymore because our lovely non-party member Magilou basically gave the exorcist everything they needed to know about us (including our hidden path).
The backtracking was slightly irksome since the game was making us run back and forth just to tell us something wouldn’t work, but afterwards, we began to make visible forward progress. We formed a pact with Dyle, entered through the city through the main gate, and had our second fight with an exorcist Teresa, the sister of Oscar.
It was Ray and myself that participated in this battle with Ray playing as Rokurou and me playing as Velvet. Engaging in this 3v2 was fun, especially considering one of the three characters was Laphicet, currently called number 2. Without even having to say anything, Rokurou engaged the malakim, while I focuses on 1v1ing Teresa. She wasn’t too tough, and all I was doing was buying time as Rorkurou ran back and forth to prevent the casting of the two malakim. Eventually one dropped, but soon after, Rokurou was knocked out because of a mistimed dodge on a cast.
This was when we realized that we only had 2 life bottles and no dedicated healer/reviver in the party as of yet, so we could not afford to die any more than one more time. It was not a problem. Rokurou quickly finished off the remaining malakim and together, we double teamed our unfortunate female exorcist. She got bodied, eating a nonstop 80 hit combo to death.
Afterwards, our distraction was successful, we escaped with a newly stolen ship (and a stolen malakim: Number 2), that was again soon destroyed when we met Eizen and his pirate crew. After being a little apprehensive, and a slight, 3v1 against him (Laphicet was now playable despite being called Number 2 still), we were able to convince him we were worthy of traveling with him. This was important because he is known as the Reaper, and any who follow him experience immense amounts of bad luck. We joined forces with him and for the first time, we had a fully playable party.
Currently, Ray has switched to Number 2, Mayra has picked up Eizen, and Shell is currently playing Rokurou while eagerly waiting for our reluctant to fight mage to join up. She is more excited about Magilou than anyone else.
Having finally secured a four person party, we were able to have the four of us play together in battle. Each of us continued to learn our characters, delving into each individual’s break souls. Ray and I have begun tinkering with the equipment level up and dismantling system. We made some pretty broken weapons in Tales of Graces F and are looking to see if we can do the same here.
We enacted our plan to let the Van Eltia through the exorcist base by invading it and finding the key to open the gate while simultaneously taking out the enemy exorcist ship so that ours could pass through safely.
While playing, Number 2 found a new compass and had a moment with Velvet. She has begun to show a softer side to him, which is refreshing considering she has been a little hard on him to this point. After a few battles, a soldier we had currently punked, and tortured, show himself to us again. (It should be noted that this team needs someone happy like Laphicet soon because they are all way too cool with hurting or killing any and everybody).
The solider suffered from daemonblight, turning himself into a demon. It was in this battle that we finally unlocked our BG gauge, which would give us access to Mystic Arts. After finally doing a Mystic Art with Velvet, we were thrown into battle. The boss was harder than expected, having an attacking that would simultaneously break our guard and eat our health. Despite attempting to play to his weaknesses we were unable to keep him from guarding for long or securing power hits against him. Our BG also rose slowly so I was unable to get a Mystic Art off against him as Velvet. Eventually, we were able to drop him and move on.
From here on, I will attempt to remember to save our battles against bosses at the very least so I can begin posting videos of the fights.
Once we dropped him, we were given a cutscene where the Van Eltia had begun sailing through and we needed to catch a ride…the quick way, jumping from the roof to the ship below. We were ready but Number 2 was looking for the compass he lost at the beginning of the fight. He found it beside the dead boss, but the boss was not so dead.
Rokurou and Eizen were already gone but Velvet was not. She tried to run to Number 2 just as he was knocked off the side of the roof much the same way her brother was thrown into the pit at the beginning of the game. After seeing the image of her brother falling again, Velvet calls out his name in a truly emotional moment, grabbing Number 2 before he can fall to his death.
After telling him to be more careful, the two jump to the ship and escape below. Number 2 is curious what’s a Laphicet and Velvet says “it’s a name…your name.” This is nice because I thought that perhaps this actually was a reincarnated Laphicet but now it seems this may just be a random malakim given the name of someone Velvet once held dear. Only time will tell.
We arrived in our new port, played some mini games, restocked on items and saved our adventure for the next time we would turn on the game; however, we finally discovered why Magilou has been unwilling to fight with us despite being in the party and it is because she is looking for someone who allows her to use her magic, a traitor she mentioned before. We’re guessing this is the mascot character seen during the opening theme song of the game running from Magilou terrorizing him.
We’re excited to continue. It’s clear at this point Eleanor will be the last to join but it will be nice to see if we can finally officially add Magilou to the party because my cousin is eager to play with her “Magiquinn baby.”
