Update Time:

This one will be a doozy. The Theme of tonight's playthrough is how procrastination and screwing around instead of doing what you're told can actually be beneficial.

After getting thumped like four times by the Dragonlord, and thumped in such a way where I knew I needed better gear and a full party using endgame techs and magic, I departed from the ruins, but stole everything else. I'm pretty sure I've screwed up all of my chances to deal with the Archfiend Tower, so I plunged into taking out the Four Sinistrals (Lufia flashbacks notwithstanding) and so I dropped Boston and recruited Flurry the Snowman, who was a bad trade outside of the fact the guy is virtually immune to fire magic thanks to the item that lets him leave his village. The Fire Temple was pretty easy, and I was a little surprised how low level the monsters in there were. Aunas the Fire Sinistral was rather tame as a boss with only his permanent Self-Immolation protection causing me serious issues. In fact that spell did most of the damage for him. He still went down fairly easily though.

Next up, I decided to drop Flurry cause yikes, as well as the Minstrel after I stripped all his gear off of him. I went to Loann and picked up Mikhail and then I went to Pidona and picked up Sarah. I didn't make the same mistake with Mikhail as I did with Robin, and I made him my spear specialist which compliments his rapier talents. I did slip into the Ocean Palace to clear of all of its treasures, and it was easily the biggest pain in the ass of the four dungeons just because it loved to use narrow corridors with standard SaGa bajillion enemies trying to bum rush you. was still a little worried about tackling Forneus yet, so I left and decided to tackle fan-favorite and Rocbouquet's successor Buné the Wind Sinistral. I remembered getting my ass handed to me by a different dragon earlier in the game called Gwayne whom my party was trying to convince to help them. Walking back to his den, I ended up hitting pay dirt in a battle where I managed to spark Sky Drive, Yo-Yo, Twin Dragon, and like three different Bow techs. Sky Drive, for those who don;t know is one of the best Axe Techs and one that is ridiculously hard to spark. Once I reached Gwayne, I was ready for another throw down, but this time he actually decided to help me out of his pride as the master of the sky. While this fight was super easy, it wins major points for just being super cool as you battle Buné in the sky with just your lead character and Gwayne. Gwayne is a beast in battle and he has a tech where both of you combine an attack together. Pretty neat. Afterwards, I returned to the boss's den to actually collect all the loot because going with Gwayne makes you skip her dungeon entirely and just fight her. Prety annoying place with the weird ameba monsters.

With that done and the Celestial Armor I made from the Meteorite Shard, I ventured back into Forneus' den to face him. I have a feeling that either he was toned down for this version, I was a little too over-leveled, or the RNG gods were simply in my favor cause I whooped his ass. I only saw Maelstrom once, and it didn't kill anyone either. The only hard part with him was just keeping the elemental field away from water, which I am grateful I bought Earth Heal for Ellen. After that resounding success, I thought I might as well just take down all four.

Alloces lair was not what I was expecting, but I have to remember he's technically hanging out in the old Archfiend's Lair. It was a pretty trippy sci-fi setting which was neat. The hard part of this dungeon was just making sure I don't find the boss first before the treasure, especially since this lair had more bosses guarding treasure like two more Meteorite Shards! Again, I was way over leveled but the boss ended up getting an advantage over me since he was the last Sinistral. Reaching his chamber had my party encounter the rude boy you always find in Pubs who always tells you to scram. Anyway, with the previous Sinistrals, when you find their chamber you usually have an opportunity to choose whether you'll fight them or come back later so you can heal up, but this story sequence plunged my party straight into a fight and we were a little more beaten up than I would have liked, made worse by me trying to level up magic for my party cause I've neglected it for so long I don't even have enough MP to cast some of the ultimate spells with some of my characters. Thankfully, Alloces was a joke though he did smack Sarah around since she had the lowest HP/Def of the team. With that over, I hit the major twist in the game and lost a party member but traded them in for the Boy. So with that all over, I decided to call it night after I turned in my last two shards for their items in the Blacksmith and I opened up the Matriarch Trials, which I'll do tomorrow.

Current Team:

Ellen - Has become a serious powerhouse, I'm still trying to spark the weapons skill off the Axe I picked up in the swamp ruins where the Dragonlord is. I have made the Bowler Axe as well, but I haven't decided if I'm going to upgrade just yet. I've been trying to power up her Earth Magic and get her more MP. She'll need a lot of work in that area, but honestly now that I have Skydrive, I only have one more tech I need for her Axes, which I hope I will spark since it looks like it's an upgraded group hitting attack. Axes have always been a weapon I underestimate int these titles, glad I went with them in this entry with Ellen. She's my powerhouse of the team. She using a Celestial Armor, Lightning Shoes, Power Gloves and the Royal Ring.

Khalid - Has been having a seriously hard time sparking any new techs, but he did finally master Monsoon Blade which is a tech he's had for over half the game and is his go to boss killer skill. Like Ellen, I've been trying to level up his magic, and likewise, I'm sticking to raise his Wind Magic, of which Khalid has serious envy with Robin who has four times as much MP and double his level in the magic. I'm happy I have him focusing on swords, and he's currently using the Dragonscale Sword as his main weapon. I can't remember what's he's equipped with but I do need to finally buy him a Power Gloves like Ellen. I've been waiting to unlock most of the gear before I go on a serious spending spree.

Ward - Has also been having issues sparking the last few techs, but most of them are understandable. Ward has been a serious powerhouse and for the first time now, I finally got him out of full armor. Found a few pieces of good gear for him, and the Ice Sword has been phenomenal allowing his normal attack to do as much damage as his lower techs. My only beef with the weapon is that while I love it has the ice equivalent of Self-Immolation, I'm annoyed that activating the counter it gives substitutes his actual turn. I've had a few encounters get dragged out because the enemy target him and he does his weak ice counter instead of his enemy killing tech I asked him to. Other than that, Ward's been great and I really have no qualms with keeping him on the team.

Sarah - I forgot I gave her the Vivacity Staff in the beginning of the game. That would have been useful... Sarah was having a difficult time catching up, but she was doing a pretty good job, The issue being that I was really bad about mastering bow techniques so she's sparked a ton of techs, just mostly stuff my previous two archer characters had also sparked before. None of them are endgame techs either, but that's fine since I prefer using bows for mobs. I gave her Water magic to go with her Lunar magic, but it's evident she prefers leveling Lunar over water.

Mikhail - While he is still behind my main three, he's making good strides thanks to giving him spears of which I discovered I had a lot of good techs for, and lucking out and acquiring a Titan Armor in one of the dungeons which has made him as durable as my main team. He's sparked a few good spear techs, and as I said the transition isn't so hard since spears and rapiers are leveled by the same stats. I taught him Fire Magic because I have seriously neglected it, I think Tatyana was the only other fire specialist I've used. Though, much like Sarah, Mikhail prefers Solar magic that he started with. I'm probably going to keep Mikhail until endgame. I'll leave Leonid for NG+, though I may play as Mikhail for my next playthrough if I don't pick Katrina.

Robin - Has been benched, and while part of me was thinking of dropping him for either Undine or one of the Far East characters, I may stick with him cause he's been with me through a lot and he's better built for it than trying to train up someone new. So he's in reserved, and may be back on the main squad soon if the new kid doesn't pan out.

The Boy - Haven't had a chance to really use him, but I'm excited he's a greatsword specialist, so I was able to outfit him with some good techs and can now double my chances of sparking the remaining skills. Glad I kept the Flamberge since the kids starting gear was rubbish. I've taught him Water and Solar magic but the kids main issue at the moment looks to be the same problem I had with Flurry where he's so underleveled he may not be able to catch up fast enough. I'm a little annoyed the game dropped him into my party to be honest. This reminds me of Meythia in SF2 who was a decent character that was unfortunately dumped on you in the second to last dungeon and was unfortunately unable to catch up to my main party. Not helped that her specialties overlapped with another character I had longer. I'm hoping this kid will turn out better.

Overall, it's looking like I'm not too far off from wrapping this game up.