Rogue Galaxy session 10

Ever since becoming employed I've had difficulty setting aside time for Rogue Galaxy with my old method, where I'd just randomly start playing.  It wasn't until I really sat down and scheduled things out that I found time to do it, and I have all day today, so let's go.

On Juraika, I worked my way through the ruins of the Leo King's castle to find the last key piece.  The guy we'd fought at each of the other key pieces was there again, this time referred to as "the masked man" even though previous cutscenes have called him "Seed".  After a terribly simple but annoying battle where I kept having to heal every two seconds, I defeated the Mad Witch and got the key piece from the Leo King... who so happened to be an infant.  Ooooookay.

Anyway, with my newfound psychic ability to determine where unopened chests reside, I worked my way back through the jungle getting what I'd missed.

Once that was done, I teleported back to the Dorgenark and saved.  Which ended up being a good thing.  Foreshadowing through cutscenes basically told me that Zegram was going to betray us, and he did.  Jaster pursues and fights him on the ship's deck, but after a short battle Zegram hops on a smaller ship and gets away.

Next, there was a cutscene with Zegram about to hand over the key pieces to Daytron.  He has a condition though, Daytron is currently "revivifying" his girlfriend, Jane.  This and that get discussed, he basically says that the experiments in Zerard prison are for turning humans into monsters, and then Seed shows up.

Next fight is Zegram vs. Seed.  Seed is annoying enough when I have a full party, but one on one?  I got a game over.  Keep in mind there was no save point between the two battles, so now I had to fight Zegram with Jaster all over again.

So I did precisely that.  Beat Zegram faster this time around, then beat Seed.  Seed wounded Zegram in a cutscene (and we all know that in RPGs the only wounds that matter are ones that happen in cutscenes), and the Dorgengoa arrived.  Zegram switched sides again and it was up to him, Jaster, and Kisala to fight Seed.  Partway through the fight the tablet started reacting to the key pieces.  At this point, Seed stopped taking damage and the only thing I could do was place the key pieces.  What followed would be a lengthy cutscene explaining Seed's past and showing him utterly failing at solving the puzzle put forth by the tablet.

After having been told all his life that he was better than everyone else, Seed was unable to cope with both his failure and his creator's disgust for his failure.  Apparently some cells from those experiments in Zerard prison were implanted in him, and he turned into a beast.  Partway through the battle with Beast Seed, Jaster gets pwnt in the face and becomes surrounded with this red glow.  The battle continues with just Jaster available... and Beast Seed pwnt him.  Sigh, reload (STILL no opportunity to save, so I had to do the whole sequence of fights all over again).

This time I beat Beast Seed with just Jaster.  It was a rhythm of "hit him a bunch, get knocked down, use heal potion, repeat" for quite a while.  There were a few times he ran to the other side of the area, so I used my sub-weapon then while I waited for him to come back.  After the fight, Daytron GTFOed the area thanks to cone-tit-lady.

Jaster, in red-glow-state, is somehow able to solve the puzzle.  The rest of the crew somehow now knows of the existence of a fourth king, the Star King, from a long time ago, and infers that Jaster could be his descendant, and having inherited the Star King's powers was able to solve the puzzle.

Finally, after all that, I was able to save.  These words have never been used in a better situation: FUKKEN SAVED.

Progressing on into the ruins that the tablet revealed, shit happens with Kisala, and then we find a robot that seems to know her, but needs repairing so it can communicate with us.  The party decides to press on further and see if they can find anything to repair the robot with.  After a while, I killed a sand kraken boss and it dropped the piece of equipment the robot needed.  Headed back to the robot and...  long cutscene time.

Apparently Kisala is a princess.  Of the very planet that we're trying to get to, that we call Eden.  Its real name is fairly long but shortens to Mariglenn.  The robot we found was designed to protect Kisala.  At the end of the conversation it gave us a key that we need to open the doors to Eden.

We're just about to use the key when apparently Daytron decided to attack the main city on Rosa.  We went to see what was going on, ended up getting saved by Raul, the priest at the church where Jaster grew up, and then Daytron killed Raul.  Just before dying (you know, one of those typical "I'm dying but have all the time I need to tell you this" moments) he gave Jaster the Star Pendant, which points out a location in the desert on Rosa.  So, now we're headed there to see what's up.

After working our way into the desert and finding several people who we helped and then they promptly faded from view right in front of us, the sandstorm intensified.  Kisala then noticed something off in the distance, so we headed towards it and all of a sudden we were in a village.  With grass, trees, and windmills.  In the middle of the desert.  Yes.  It's name is Johannasburg.

After walking around a bit getting chests and noticing I didn't have the item necessary for the quarry in the middle of the city, we found the village elder, who so happened to be the very first guy I helped in the desert.  Apparently all of that was a test or something and only people who pass the test can find the village.  I dunno, I see a choice in the middle of a cutscene and I immediately think, entirely gamer sense, "this choice matters later on" and choose the things that generally will make the best impression.  Well, it seems to have paid off here.

The old man spoke of a woman who had the same birthmark as Jaster does, but said she left the village a long time ago.  He suggested we ask some of the villagers, so we did exactly that, and found that she used to live in the house up on the hill.  Went up there, and she's there (in ghost form) and challenges Jaster to a battle to fully unlock his Star King powers.  You know, where he glowed red about five miles up the page.

You know, one thing I really hate about this game is the game overs.  Any time you die, you have to see that screen that says "GAME OVER" and then you can't just immediately reload from your last save, you have to go all the way back through the logos and the main menu before you can finally get back into the game.  It doesn't add anything worthwhile to the game at all, forcing this large amount of downtime after a death.

Yeah, I died partway through the fight and had to do the whole thing over again.  Bosses don't take enough damage, and sometimes I'll hit the button for the sword and Jaster will just charge right past my target before swinging.  It makes no sense.

I did eventually win the fight.  The next bit of cutscene would see both of Jaster's parents identified.  His mother was Johanna, the woman I just fought, and the person that the village is named after.  His father, Desert Claw.  To be honest, I called Desert Claw being his father long before I reached the village, and as soon as I found out that the person with the birth mark that looked the same as Jaster's was female, I figured she was his mother.

On my way back to the tablet I picked up the quarry in the middle of the desert, which wasn't that hard.  With it in the bag I jumped up to 5th overall in the hunter rankings.  There's still a few of them that I either haven't found the place where you trigger the fight or haven't figured out which item triggers the fight yet, but you're pretty much dependent on them for point boosts when you're trying to make it through the top 10 ranks.

It was at this point that I remembered I'd gotten the Sun Key in Johannasburg, and I went around to all of the locations where I'd previously encountered Sun Key chests and grabbed my loot.

After that, I went through and cleaned out a bunch more quarries, getting myself up to Hunter rank 2 in the process.  It's worth noting for anyone who's trying to hunt these things down that they tend to be slightly mislabelled.  The one on Juraika in Path to Burkaqua stands out, go to the Creekside transporter and explore from there to find it.

With all available quarries either complete or requiring an item I don't have to trigger the fight, I decided to continue the story.  Remember when I said "long cutscene time" up there?  This next one clocked in at around half an hour.  Used the key, opened the gate to Eden.  Kisala had asked me to keep the fact that she was the princess of Mariglenn a secret, this secret predictably eroded quickly once we set foot on the planet.  Apparently, the source of all beasts in the galaxy, Rune, comes from a being called "Mother" on this planet, and only the Star King can stop Mother.  So, I ran around the area looting chests and buying stuff at merchants and generally upgrading everyone.  Next session, I tackle this area, and ultimately, Mother.