Rogue Galaxy session 8

I realized between sessions that I've kind of gravitated back towards my normal style of playing RPGs, which is of course to farm stuff at every available opportunity and grind levels/skills.  It makes the gameplay a lot more repetitive and boring, and is only going to artificially lengthen this playthrough and make it take longer for me to get to Project 'Bout Fuckin' Time.  I only really needed to do it for Deego anyway since he's rather underpowered when you get him in comparison to Gale.  So from now on I'll try and keep the farming to a minimum.  The farming would be more suited to a playthrough that's supported by a guide, and this is not one such playthrough.  I'm going in totally blind and trying to have a completely organic gameplay experience, similar to how one would have played the game right when it came out.

That said, I still need Hunter Coins so I can get that Platinum license, which I really really (really) want ASAP.  Ah, conflicts of interest.

So, final list of stuff I will do (and anything not on it I won't do, except for anything unforseen):

• Follow the storyline
• Unlock abilities as I get the necessary items
• Go up hunter ranks if I have the points to do so
• Weapon synthesis as I am able to do so
• Backtracking for missed chests once I can see them on the map

Now, on to session 8.

Since I had the Key Piece from Vedan, I set out to get the ones from Juraika and Zerard.  But as I did so, a new planet became available, named Alistia, that's apparently 90% water and travel is blocked to it most of the time.  So instead I headed there.  It seemed like a pretty big "um, hey, you might want to go there" flag to me.

After exploring a bit I overheard a conversation involving a local racial war and how they really needed to put aside their differences and fight against Daytron, who apparently polluted the ocean.  You know, the ocean that makes up 90% of the planet.  Reason for being on this planet discovered: beat the living shit out of Daytron.  The way this is going, Daytron is really shaping up to be the main enemy of the game.

Working my way towards Daytron's underwater lab I got the notice that I'd hit all the transporters on the planet and could now see chests.  Scrolling back through the area I'm in revealed two things to me:

• three chests I somehow missed entirely, in addition to the Sun Key chest I made note of
• the entire planet is one big explorable area

I guess this fairly well cements this area in place as a side quest, if it wasn't obvious from how it was just suddenly brought up.  The reward?  A new sword and costume for Jaster.  Plus all the other weapons I found in chests along the way for the rest of the crew.

I moved on to Zerard, despite really wanting to stay and get a few more challenge battles.  That pesky Platinum license was only nine Hunter Coins away, after all.  But regardless, I figured I'd probably get some challenge battles while ascending the two towers I need to ascend to get the Key Piece there.  Pretty early on I got a cutscene showing that Zegram's still being a douchebag.  Basically, the cone-tits woman that works for Daytron knows where we're going and what we're doing.

Well, they're not actually conical.  It's just that her dress has concentric circles over each breast...

Anyway.

I got up to the fourth floor of the towers before getting really tired and deciding to get some sleep.