Update!

After traversing the Desert of Death, I ended up on the plains where I had an archer forcibly placed in my party at the loss of my Lobster man Boston. I did as the old woman said and traveled to the south the to speak with the natives. Kind of clever how they did this cause half the cave system is a dungeon. The elven looking figures walking around turn out to be monsters while the creepy insect people turn out to be the tribe you need to talk about. They inform us of a great evil summoning the Sinistral forces up in the north. With our missions complete, I lose the archer girl and get Boston back and sent on my way to the Eastern capital, where as the old lady had predicted, I was immediately captured and imprisoned since I am a foreigner. The old lady turns out to have some sway over the captain of the guard and so I get sent on a mission to hunt down whatever dark force is summoning all of these monsters. Turns out its the Archfiend's Armor which was buried in a cave. Had to fight it and the minions it summoned but now I have me some cursed armor to go with that Shield I stole right from under Volcano and Undine's noses.

With peace restored, I was finally able to explore Xuan proper and leave to head back to Pidona to get my new items. Afterwards, I did the Aurora quest Rez09 mentioned and I'm glad I got a heads up, cause I have no idea how you would have figured out how to do that with otherwise. That sent me to Snowman village and an ice themed dungeon where I acquired the Eternal Crystal that I can use to enlist one of the snowmen, as well as the Ice Sword which was a much needed Greatsword upgrade for Ward. Picked up two more items from my shop and I also unlocked the new remake dungeon, though like RS2, I'm going to ignore it until near the end of the game.

I headed back to the Jungle to see if I can find that fairy, and instead found the Fire Sinistrals temple, so now I have a better option than Forneus as my first Sinistral. I eventually found the fairy village after looking up a guide to find it since the Jungle is super confusing and has a bit of a Lost Woods vibe to it. Not really worth the trouble outside of stumbling on the Fire Temple. I then headed back to the plains and heard about an elephant village who said go west on the plains. I misinterpreted this as having to travel through the plains and wound up back in the Desert of Death where I discovered the Crystal Ruins. Got some nice gear here and left. I then learned that talking to guy actually had the village appear on the map proper, so I went in there and learned about some ruins. I traversed the ruins and picked up a few good pieces of equipment though I'm still missing a few rooms. I discovered the final treasure which through me into a boss fight I wasn't expecting and I got totally wiped for my trouble, so I'll need to redo the ruins altogether. I chose to close there for the night.

While I do want to play with some other party members, having the archer character in my party sort of re-introduced me to the hard truth that recruiting a new character will likely be a pain in the ass since they'll be underleveled compared to my main team. We'll see. I will also apologize to Robin cause I finally looked up a Tech guide for this game only to discover the poor boy has largely sparked most of the non-weapon specific Techs for rapiers. It's just a crappy weapon, as usual. Unless of course we're talking the first two SaGa games where they are a great weapon class. Back to techs, I've honestly sparked more techs than I thought I did and with the exception of staff/hammers and spears, I've sparked a good chunk of techs for every weapon type with only a few endgame techs, techs that can only be learned by using other techs, and weapon specific techs being the things I'm missing. I'm also chuckling because one tech I am just having the hardest time sparking is Yo-Yo which has been a tech that always gives me a harder time than I feel it should sparking than any other Axe skill. I may not learn it now since I one of the items in the Ruined Sea is an axe upgrade to replace the Francesca. So here's my team rundown.

Ellen - She's my main powerhouse for the team after learning a few high end Axe skills that allow her to get close to the 2000hp damage mark. I still need to buff her magic, but I've stopped leveling her melee to focus on getting her Axe proficiency as high as possible. She's been a really good party member this whole game. I'm trying to Spark Yo-yo, Sky Drive, and I think there is one more skill I'm missing associated with her Twist and Turn tech. Other than that, it's mostly weapon specific skills.

Khalid - Has been pretty stable compared most sword experts I've dealt with in the series. Very reminiscent of Grey from RS1. Not having the weapons tech tree split among five different tech types certainly helped. He's missing a few more skills than other characters but sword has more techs than most other weapon types I've noticed. He has been using an Evil Eye for his main sword, which I've already sparked it's two token skills. I do need to get him to work on spears and magic more.

Ward - Has probably been the biggest surprise within the party. Greatswords are just a badass weapon in the Romancing series and whereas Khalid and Ellen have one token high end skill to use in boss fights, Ward has two, and technically has two more I need to spark. These weapons are so good, I didn't even realize until after I acquired the Ice Sword that Ward has been using one of the weaker Greatswords in the game. Currently I'm trying to spark both of the Ice Sword's unique techs as well as the last two regular techs I need that are connected to earlier techs.

Robin - Has been a little disappointing, but in hindsight it's really more of the fault of Rapiers just kind of being more of a debuff weapon than a pure offensive one like Axes and Greatswords. The other issue is myself, cause I could have built him into a better character if I hadn't been stubborn about using him to his strengths and instead focus on building him with more practical skills like one-handed swords and Genbu magic. He did finally spark a good tech for dealing with Undead, but I think I only have two skills left including the highest end tech and one that can only be taught by using the Mesmerize tech. I get the feeling the real big damage techs are directly linked to specific weapons, making this closer to RS1 where the rapier was a useless weapon until you got the rare story based fourth tier weapon. His Soryu magic has been great, though I should have invested in Tornado earlier in the game.

Boston - Is not a bad character, but certainly one that is built for very specific things only. He has largely doubled the amount of Melee techs I have unlocked, and he's a real powerhouse. His high end Genbu magic was also super useful once I taught him a few more useful skills. His water immunity is also super useful in places. Boston's only problem is his crappy equipment options, turning him into more of a glass cannon than I would care for. He also tends to get targeted more often than any other character, likely due to his lower defensive stats to the rest of my better geared team. I'm liking him, but I may also drop him for the moment until I need to deal with Forneus.

The Minstrel - Has been on the backburner for quite some time. If I had known he would not be able to be dropped until I took down a Sinistral first, I would probably had avoided him. He's largely part of the issue of why I haven't really been able to play around with more party members cause he's the character I'd love to drop, but simply can't. He's not a bad character at all, but I find that with SaGa titles, it's better to stick with a specialist and just build a well-rounded party than to deal with Jack-of-All types. It's part of the reason why I rarely used mercenaries in RS2. He has sparked some great skills, and I did try to make him a staff/club specialist, but that's another weapon type that is pretty subpar outside of a few weapon specific techs and the endgame ones. I remember it took a long time to like this weapon type in every entry I've played.

My gameplay for the moment is to finish the Rotten Sea dungeon and finally tackle one of the Sinistrals. I kind of want to save Earth for last, and I know Wind doesn't unlock until I beat one first. That leaves Forneus, who has a reputation as the hardest boss in the game and whoever the Fire Sinistral is. So I may tackle the Fire Sinistral first, but I'm probably going to drop Boston recruit the snowman cause I've heard there may be a special scene if you bring him to the fight. Once that's over, I'm probably going to drop the Minstrel and snowman so I can either recruit Sara or Theodore to get a bow or spear specialist on the team. I may even drop Robin as well and simply grab both. I read somewhere I need to leave a slot open if I want to recruit Mikhail and his group who have been non-existent since the prologue. I may also dabble with Leonid as well.

I'm pretty sure Khalid and Ward are not going to leave my team, they are both just too useful to drop at this point, especially since it look like Greatsword experts are in short supply in this entry in Ward's case.