Update Time!

Well, I don't actually have much of an update other than to say I ended up having to start over. It's been a mixed bag. I learned that one mission I screwed up earlier always has a dumb ending no matter how well you do. I ended up losing all of my nifty bow techs from Judy. Laura is also just not earning weapon panels like she did the first time through. I worked my way back to where I left off.

There is a side mission involving a really obnoxious haunted mansion. It's filled with treasure, undead, and demons and unfortunately for me the enemy types are the ones that will pursue you and attack on sight, so the place is obnoxious, especially when I keep screwing up diffusing traps or lock picking treasure. I got farther than IO did the first time, but I'm thinking of tackling this dungeon once I have another party member or two.

I'm going to re-attempt the Cemetary mission since it was another one I screwed up my first time through. I have to find a key among some graves, but if you fail to acquire the key from the right grave, the grave disappears and you can't see how the quest really ends. It was screwing up all of these minor quests that drove my OCD to restart. Unfortunately, I saved over my first file... This game is starting to become a bit like Demon's Souls where my constant failure is driving me more than "I am having so much fun" but hopefully like DS, I'll breka through and start to really appreciate it. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm still technically in the early game.

Laura - Has been doing better unlocking skills for her gear, and even a few techs for them. Sadly she has not been getting weapon panels as much as I would like. I'm guess it may have to do with trying to avoid combat too much in some missions and the few I fight a lot in I can't seem to complete within the mission time limit. She has managed to get a high level lockpick skill which I'm happy that I have, I just wish Henri had gotten it instead. She also managed to get a Fix-It panel which allows her to repair weapons in dungeons as long as they have some durability left. I need to clear her panel of all these skill based ones cause they are not doing her any favors stat-wise.

Henri - Is still a mixed bag. He's the one who keeps learning the weapon panels I want for Laura and he keeps getting haggling skills as well. He has managed to get a higher tier diffuse skill so that's been a real boon. Yet he's having a hard time unlocking weapon skills or techs. He did manage to gain a Shield panel which was nice since shields are useless without one. He's still a work in progress overall. I'm trying to turn him into a thief build since Skill is his highest starting stat. Now if he would only learn lockpick...

Judy - Isn't quite as awesome as she was in my first file. I did manage to unlock all the skills for her starting weapon, and I made sure not to burn through her spell uses. She learned Detect Undead, which doesn't do what it says. In fact I've learned a good chunk of the game's magic spells have incredibly misleading names. Detect Undead actually lowers the stats of all undead enemies on the field. All of the "Detect" skills do this with their appropriate enemy class. I am annoyed that I lost the item in my old file that taught her to use Purify. That spell turns out to be a Healing/Esuna spell all in one. So I'll need to keep an eye out for that. Otherwise, I'm just trying to get her awesome bow skills back while looking out for fortuneteller.

As of now, I only wish I knew how I can get blacksmiths to repair weapons. I've tapped out two really good items and I don;t want to reforge them through weapon creation in case I lose some of their awesome skills. I also don;t want to resort to save scumming just yet, but this game almost seems to be built on it. I'll clear out the next set of quests and hopefully hook up with the other character I met in an inn who looks like she may may be a potential party member.