Mizuho We get to the secret Ninja Village, Mizuho (though it’s not so secret) and lengthy talk between the chief and we leave. Next!
Dark Woods Now we take a different exit from Gaoracchi Woods and this time, and on this side, we can enter Ozette. I really like the atmosphere of this place as well as the music, because it feels really melancholic and ominous. This also happens to be Presea’s hometown so we visit her house and it’s not happy. We leave Ozette and go to Altessa’s house. He doesn’t like us so we get kicked out. Well, off to the mines, but first, we are going to have to use a boat to sail on water. My goodness, this seriously is like the hardest thing to control because the boat is so slippery. You can’t make sharp turns so it is really to the small docks. Oh well, it’s rather brief so I make do with this terrible thing.
Toize Valley Mine Upon entering, there is a gate that doesn’t let us pass, so what do we do? That’s right, we fight it! Boss battle time! This is an extremely bizarre battle so we attack a wall while we are constantly getting hit by weird things.. oh well. Not much to say about this dungeon either, except that we turn our sorcerer’s ring into a bomb to blow things up! We also meet a Bacura, which is literally a spinning block (appears in Xillia too!) that deals a lot of damage if you get close, so we crush it with a boulder. It drops the Evil Eye, which is important for a quest later. We give a random gnome a Palma potion because we need him later elsewhere. At the end we blow up a few crates to find inhibitor ore.
Bye Bye Colette…. (again) Upon returning to Ozette, we fight a few Papal Knights but Colette gets kidnapped. Oh well, we go back to Mizuho and now we can head to the Lightning Temple to forge a pact with Volt
Recap: We go to Mizuho, Ozette, Altessa’s House and the Mines. We lose Colette along the way
I didn't realize how much more advanced the PS3 game is until seeing this...goes to show they did a good tidying job.
This image is from the GameCube version
My previous post (with the Sewers) is the PS3 version :p
But yes, the PS3 does look a lot nicer
Edit: I get what you mean now :p
Yeah my previous post wasn't really a cryptic one. Will be interesting to compare the Wii levels of DotnW to the PS3 version, because this is pretty much how I remember it looking.
Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.
Whoops, I forgot to write the log day for the last post. At least I caught it now, right? Haha. Alright, last time was a bit of a doozy, with a lot happening, ending with a comet falling from the sky, which was our heroes. Luckily we didn't die, or we would see the credits role already, haha. Welp, let's get to it!
The Underwater Human Ranch, the Epic Conclusion of the Purple Man, and an Unlikely Sad End
Alright, so we just landed back in Sylvarant like a shooting star, probably granting a wish of an onlooking kid from somwhere. And we are somehow still alive, haha. Sheena is shocked and upset at Zelos for budding in. Zelos however did not want her to make a pointless sacrifice, since let's face it, the ninja and the knights would have killed us anyways after killing Sheena. So Zelos can be smart sometimes, only 10% of the time...
With no clue on what to do, someone suggests we check out some human ranches, since we have nothing better to do. Unfortnately, we have Mithos the Hero half elf kid, who can't really do anything. He wants to join us in our quest, but since he can't fight, we decide it's best we leave him in the care of someone, the people in Palmacosta of course x ) So we drop the little bugger with the mayor, er... person in charge. Remember, the mayor, Dorrmat the Dunce, died because he was unfortunately dumb.
We also hear reports that desians were spotted at the ruins of the Palmacosta Ranch. We decide it would be good to investigate it, but before we leave, Mithos gives Genis a momento of his, a panflute. He says it belonged to his sister, and if they are ever in trouble, he should play this flute. So Genis accepts, and we take off to the Palmacosta Ranch ruins.
At the ranch, we find not desians, but the renegades, who are our allies, I think? They tried to kill us many times, but now want to join forces? Kinda hard to trust them. However, we trust them anyways, since what else can we do..? We agree to help each other save the world and stop the Cruxis's plans to... do something evil. I don't know that the cruxis group is up to... They want to revive the Goddess Martel for some reason...
So they take us to the entrance, which is a weird tiny island with a hole inside of it. It turns out, this human ranch actually is in underwater, and is HUUUUGE... in appearrance at least, haha. This is yet another dungeon area with of course, a special ring function. I am shocked the development team made this many functions and puzzles. Anyway, the new ring power is this weird glowing light that can change directions for machines, and change colors for teleporters. This dungeon is rather puzzle heavy.
So upon entering, there are a few branching rooms, but the one to advance further has this interesting puzzle. There is a path that branches into different connecting lines, with some of the paths having some lights. Each step you take on these paths, a square and light will turn on. Step on it again, and it turns off. You also can't go backwards. There is a force field that prevents you from going back. Basically, you have to go around in circles and turn on all the lights on this path. Once you do that, some switch triggers and lets you continue. Ugh, this is hard to explain. I'll just call it, the light switching puzzle! There are 2 of these. The first one is easy, since it introduces you to the puzzle mechanic, but the first one is trickier, with more paths to take. However, I managed to figure them out. After you pass this, you finish this section.
The 2nd room has another puzzle, which I really dislike. This one is a 'elevator' puzzle, as you board a moving platform that moves, and you can change the direction it will turn, using the sorcerer's ring. There are multiple advancing platforms that take you up per floor. If you pick the right one, you advance further up. Make a wrong choice, and you will likely fall back down to the previous floor. So you have to navigate each floor, changing directions and hoping you get the right platform. There are many floors with many platforms, and some traps, like electricity to shock you. This puzzle is very annoying, as it is hard to distinguish which way you will turn. I got confused and went the wrong way a lot. I also got shocked. Also add in trying to find the right platforms and you're going to have a bad time...
Raise your hand if you had a bad time with this puzzle... (I know I did..)
Eventually, all things get conquered, and I passed it. I forgot to mention, there is a section where you have to ride an elevator to advance in the dungeon. I forgot where this fits, because honestly, it's a pointless section. You can't ride the elevator since it can only be used by ranch soldiers. So you make this plan to release prisoners, get the attention of the guards, and get the jump on them to use the elevator. It was really rather forgetful. It does have some not-so-hidden treasures in it though.
Anyways, onto the 3rd puzzle. Yes, this one is packed with 3. Ugh... So this 3rd puzzle is a... teleporter puzzle. This one took me some time to figure out, and is sort of painful. You are intruduced to a white circle of light. You use the ring, and it changes color! It can become red, blue and green. You use the ring to change the colors and access parts of this giant maze. You will teleport to the nearest teleporter of the same color. So pay close attention to the other platforms around you. It will make navigating this maze easier. I was doing random for awhile, which caused me confusion and somewhat some dizziness, as you jump around everywhere on this map. The exit is at the top, but you have to flip 3 switches hidden in this giant rat maze. And there are treasures scattered all over this maze. So you will be jumping around a lot, with minor headaches included. I figured it out in time, and I navigated the maze with relative ease, and snagging all the treasures. It was still tiresome though. The maze is big...
Eventually, I cleared it, and gained access to the final room. Inside resided the Purple Man, who we came to stop. He scoffs at this idea, calling us inferior beings, and sets his machines to flood this base, as well as everyone inside it. He also uses an exsphere on his body, which turns him into a tyrant from Resident Evil. We fight him in this form, which is surprisingly tough. He hits hard, cutting down on the HP of my party. Sheena died a few times as well. Why do I use this girl?! I should switch her out... I do manage to win, barely... Being a sore loser, with his dying breath, he falls on one of his machines, hits a switch, and sets off the self destruct button.
Normally, letting the place blow up is fine with us, but the renegades told us not to blow up this one, as it is needed for its mana for the great seed and to save the world and such. Huh, I guess I should have explained that before. Either way, we need to stop the self destruct sequence. Raine looks at the machines for a moment, when one of the renegade bosses shows up with 2 soldiers and says they will handle it. We escape, and they work on it. However, water is reaching them, and they closed the door behind us. The water continues to rise, and we realise they are going to die. We try to break them free, by kicking and cutting at a glass window, but it does nothing. They tell us to pass the message that they have succeeded, and iron walls close behind the window... D:
Not much esle to do, we head for the exit, when suddenly, more bees! winged dragon birds from last time!!! D: We fight them off and kill them, but there are still more! The party exhausted, Genis does the only thing he can do, play Mithos's panflute, which causes lightning to come from the now exposed sky, and kill the bird dragons. Also a bird shows up. Ho-oh came to rescue us!!! And for some reason, Mithos is speaking to us with his mind, telling us to escape with the flying machines. Somehow, he got a air ship himself and came to save us. Oddly good timing Mithos... Either way, we escape and land safely outside the base. And also, Genis broke Mithos's precious panflute that belonged to this sister, whoops.... Oh well, Mithos is not mad... Or maybe he is...??? O:
Is Mithos really okay with Genis breaking the flute? How did Mithos know when to come and save the party? Where did the lightning come from?? And will Cloudman finally stop talking nonsense when writing these logs??? Find out next time in the next log of Dragonball Z Tales of Symphonia!!!
Okay, i am back with the next update of my Tales of Symphonia playthrough! Just as a little side-note, sorry if my updates may not flow that well into each other, i haven't get a very good memory to remember everything that happened :P, but anyways, let's get this show on the road!
So anyways, our next stop is the Iselia Ranch, where we have to..erm....stop some mana flow or something, but the important thing is that you have to do it for the story! Oh yeah, and to get Chocolat, you know, the girl who refused Lloyd's help because he put her grandmother out of her misery? Yeah, that one. The ranch itself sports a fairly simple dungeon, if you really want to call it that. Most of it is searching around for goodies really, and freeing the trapped prisoners, but getting to the boss isn't really that much of a challenge. Speaking of the boss, he is one of the Five Grand Cardinals, also known as the Desian Hero. Well, for someone with such a mighty title, he doesn't seem to be that powerful :P
So yeah, he's taken out, and we deactivate the mana flow thing, thanks to Colette's blessed clumsiness. Upon leaving the ranch, we discover that Colette has some sort of illness on her skin. From this discovery, the gang immediatly focus their efforts on finding out what this illness is and how to cure it. The gang head to Meltokio to take a look at the Derris-Kharlan records, as per Altessa's advice. From this, it is discovered that a Rune crest is needed, with it being made of something called a Zircon and a Mana Leaf.
The Zircon was fairly easy to find, but the Mana Leaf requires you to go through a dungeon, and a pretty hard one. Just for some backstory, the Mana Leaf is only known to the Elven Village, which resides inside the Ymir Forest, the dungeon. It requires you to find some seeds that you plant in an area at the start of the dungeon, which allows you to interact with different things in the dungeon. We could just walk through it, but this kids refuses to let us through unless we get a Ymir Fruit for his ill mother. Thing is, this dungeon is very cryptic and you can be very confused as to what to do, and it is very tedious to travel around the dungeon. In addition, if you make a wrong move at a certain point of the dungeon, it means you have to start it all again, which takes about 10 minutes each. While it might not sound like a lot, if you keep failing, it can add up.
So after the dungeon, we reach the Elfen Village, where we are told the Mana Leaf resides in a mine close by, and that we have to go get it ourselves as they 'can't afford to give us some' =____=
But anyways, I make my way to the mine at-hand, which is where i end my playthrough. I hope you enjoyed reading, this was a little rushed, so sorry if something weren't explained in full detail :P But regardless, i hope you read my next update, and i shall see you next time!
ahem. Just as I got started on Symfonia I realized that Xenoblade Chronicles X actually was releasing in the EU as well and not only in the US so I bought a Wii-U and fell deep into a Xenoblade-shaped hole for quite some time..
Since I am closing in on 100 hours in XCX, I climbed up from that hole and played some Symfonia for a bit.
When I left symfonia I was just about to enter the fire temple.. Now I entered the fire temple, and my first encounter was with a Fake chest and to my surprise I was soundly defeated by that chest. Well a quick reload and running back to the temple. This time avoiding that dangerous chest and completing the temple. Somehow the fight with that chest was harder than the boss fight in the temple. One thing i noticed when I was defeated was that the chest did not have a lot of HP but i looked like it was immune to all physical attacks. So I Went back to desert city, stocked up on supplies and attacked the chest again. This time I applied fire stones to the weapons. And now that fight was fairly easy.
The journey continued, via a mountain trail and a small fishing camp to a coastal city on another continent. Here in this city it felt like I missed one puzzle (?) I had to get a special potion, and a boy had dropped a barrel with potions in the river. It looked like I should be able to help him and hopefully get a potion as thanks. But I Think I did something wrong and ended up having to buy a potion instead. Well, no problem,´this far in, money have been plenty.
Hunting after the impostors I went to hilltop. While doing some quests I was sometimes unsure where I was supposed to go and ended up running a couple of times between the coastal city and hilltop, and doing so I think I happened to accidentaly overlevel a bit since all random encounters are trivial (as well as taking on those desian guards in the city)
Right now I finally found where to go to retreive the statue to get the book back. And also to fight some desians when I find their slave camp - if I understand correctly it is on the other side of hilltop.
With my long XCX break I am now even further behind all others but its OK, I am really enjoying this game and happy to play it in my own pace.. The combat feels good and is actually deeper that I initially thought. This is also the first Tales Of game where none of the main characters are annoying. All in all, this game has a chance to maybe end up being my fav game in the entire Tales of series
And I see you are doing good progress with Symphonia, and I'm glad you are enjoying it, it definitely is my favorite Tales of game.
I'm actually nearing the end of the game, tho I'm juggling XCX, Tales of the Abyss and Zestiria as well, so it may take a little more time to beat it hehe
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