SaGa Franchise

[Wolf Kanno]

I may be starting Romancing SaGa 3 soonish, so any tips or insights? I know this does the multi character choice like RS1, I'm wondering if that means the quest system works the same as well where I'll be punished for grinding?

[Wolf Kanno]

So I started RS3, chose Ellen as my starting hero and I just finished the quest concerning the party escorting Monika to safety at Leonid's Castle. I am at the point where the team has split up and Ellen has teamed up with Khalid to visit Zweig. I have made the terrible choice of talking to anyone who looks interesting and am now currently saddled with the Minstrel and a funky girl going by the name Soufle. Unlike everyone else I've used so far, these two appear to be more blank states with the Ministrel being sort of good with anything, but me being too early in the game for him to have too many good techs, while the girl is pretty much just dead weight at the moment. I did wander into the woods and met the Professor, which was a hilarious scene, and I tried to find her four pets, but the Dragon ended up killing the whole party and I had not saved in a while. I'm not sure now if I'm going to make a second attempt or if I'm just going to try to do the tournament in Zweig.

Ellen - Currently using both Axe and Martial Arts since she has high strength and speed. I've also taught her the starting Genbu and Lunar magics which both give her some more buffing skills. I had here wearing some heavy armor but had her switch with the Ministrels armor since it had roughly the same defensive stats at a third of the weight. Her Axe skills are a bit basic at the moment with series tradition Tomahawk and Helm Splitter which seems to have worst accuracy than I remember. My favorite skill she's learned is a buff skill War Cry. On the Melee front, she's learned Kick, Counter, Eye Gouge, Tumble, and a healing ability I forget the name of. I really enjoy her as a character, though I have reservations about the story she's going to have since she's kind of avoiding all the interesting people. I am also not sure how I feel about using an Axe specialist since I tend to never care for the weapons in the series. I'm already having flashbacks on SF2 where axes were brutal early game but became less and less useful as time went on.

Khalid - I've been trying to build up his Spear use, but I may just forego that and still to his sword play since he starts with a ridiculous high affinity with it and his sword comes with a unique technique. I have taught him Soryu magic and I've transferred a few skills Julian sparked before he left the party to better round him out. He's a powerhouse for sure that Ellen has only recently caught up with. I find him amusing so I'm happy I got him back on the team.

Minstrel - The hard thing about Jack-of-All Stat characters is figuring out where you actually want to take him. He starts with Club weapons, of which I'm giggling to myself cause apparently the Cudgel is a better Mace weapon than his starting War Hammer, but I've also never had much luck with Maces. They do get some cool support techs' but I don't really know how good the Minstrel's Spark class is for that. I've given him a longsword as well. I do like his Harp and the buff skill it grants, though my magic levels are still too low to get any major use out of it at the moment. I just read he won't leave my party until I kill a Sinistral though, which is a bit disappointing...

Souffle - Is pretty much dead weight at the moment. She has terrible stats, uses a Rapier of all things as her weapon, and comes with really nothing, not even some real direction on where to build her. She's amusing and I like her design. She reminds me of Josephine from Suikoden V, though she was a slightly better character in battle...

Overall, I'm having fun with the game. It feels like the game that I was wishing Romancing SaGa 1 would be, with a little more character and story in its scenarios. I am happy I'm jumping into this game with better knowledge of how the series works. I think the only thing that has thrown me off is the fact in addition to sparking techs, you now have to master them in order to transfer them to new party members. Kind of screwed me over as I failed to master a few Bow skills Sarah picked up. I do like naming the four elemental magics after the Four Gods since it s a nice shout-out to the Game Boy entries. Also, can I just say that I find it interesting that magic gets more useful the further the series gets? It's ho-hum after a certain point in the GB entries unless you luck out and learn Flare, it was forgettable in RS1, not bad in RS2 at first but eventually became game breaking. Its starting on a better footing in RS3, and by SF2 its pretty overpowered and detrimental to success by endgame.

[Wolf Kanno]

Put in a good chunk of time last night. I've changed my mind on some characters. I've recruited two new characters with one being the Hunter Ward, and the other being the Zorro expy Robin.

After getting my ass handed to me by both the Dragon pet and in the Zweig tournament. I finally ventured to the local town dealing with a monster demanding sacrifices. Only to get locked and murdered by said monster. I couldn't even figure out what to do for that quest as the monster is a little BS with that Bubonic Plague attack and having no less than nine target spots, so I did cheat and look it up. Before that though, I ventured to a snowy town and recruited Ward by helping him clear up the monsters by the frozen lake. With a full team, I was able to go back and finish the pet quest. I simply needed the extra DPS and the journey through the Frozen Lake after handing Souffle a Bow garnered some extremely useful techs. With that done, and a better clue of what to do this time, I retired the Sacrificial Cave quest and was able to escape and get the Rat Poison from the Wonderful, Fabulous, and certified GENIUS The Professor which allowed me to take down her fifth "pet". Afterwards I headed to Lance where I waltzed into a weapon shop and was asked to make a delivery to a nearby town, which automatically sent me onto the road between the villages where I was harassed by thieves who may have stood a chance had I not completed the above three quests. I reached the following town where I was introduced to Robin. Robin, next to Boston and Flurry, was one of the recruitable characters I learned about a way back when I was mildly looking into the series. Having grown up watching a bunch of the old Zorro cartoons, and being a super hero comic book fan, I had to recruit him. So I wandered around the town activating all of his little scenarios. Learned that their was actually two of them, and saved them both during the big clash against the local corrupt merchant group giving me a chance to recruit the chap. I then returned to Lance, where I went back into the weapon shop and was propositioned to deliver stuff to another town. I was propositioned in this town to do some mercenary work, but chose not to so I could return to Lance a third time, ignored the dude in the weapons shop so I could finally get explore the town. Learned some good info about the Abyss Gates and higher tier magic. I took the ship to sail to Pedonia which is the town I vaguely remember Thomas and Sarah said they were heading to when they ditched me. I left that place, but then checked out the shrine of the Matriarch and then decided to call it a night. I really want to go back and try the Zweig tournament since my whole team is competent at this point.

Ellen - She's not doing too bad. She's been a little slow to level up magic, but I often forget to use it so its really more of my fault and she's doing better than Khalid in this regard. My big issue with her is that she's slow to spark new moves and she has a tendency to spark moves that are difficult to master like Counter. Axes and Fists are serving her well, but she's maybe sparked one new move since the initial intro party split up which is frustrating. I will say that Lunar and Byakko magic are working out well for her build as one starts with a move that raises strength while the other has a speed boosting spell, two stats she excels in. She's doing good with stat upgrades though her Axe weapon is a bit lower than I wish, but that may be due to me trying to master Counter so I could remove it from her skills set. She is at least falling into her role easier than some characters I've played during the series.

Khalid - He's a beast, and while its annoying that he insists on having a Scimitar permanently equipped, especially since its already getting obsolete, I finally got him a silver sword I use all his attack with making him back into another powerhouse with Ellen. I did start making him use that spear he carries and the asshole managed to spark some really powerful moves including Windmill (which I'm already dreading to master), Double Strike, and freaking Aim. Sadly, he is not been such a good boy when it comes to sparking sword techs, but I blame a lot of that on myself again and the fact that the Scimitar's innate skill was easily his best move for the longest time. So now I'm going to try and get him to start living up to that swordsmen moniker he has. I've taught him both Soryu and Solar magic, but he's really slow to grow in this field which isn't terribly surprising.

The Minstrel - Is now the new dead weight of the team. He may start with good stats, but he seems like he grows pretty slowly. He's mostly been successful with Mace weapons, and while they are nothing to scoff at, they're one of my least favorite weapon types and they always seem to spark less often than I would care for. His biggest contribution now was teaching him Genbu magic and learning that healing magic will actually bring downed characters back up, so he's been team medic, though I've had to transfer the self healing martial art tech to him to keep him alive more often than I would care. He's a good support character, but he's lacking in offensive capabilities and even trying to switch him to another weapon has been a slow process. The annoying thing was learning that he won't leave my team until I take down an Abyss Gate (which I haven't even reached the point in the game where they are an issue yet) or simply letting him get perma-killed in battle which I'm less inclined to do.

Souffle - I learned from the TV Tropes page her real name is Tatyana. She's gone from being the dead weight of the team to being my badass archer. She is still a glass cannon who tends to get KOed the fastest on my team, but switching her to a bow from her crummy rapier was a godsend as she was able to not only spark most of the skills Sarah had done in the intro, she managed to spark two super useful skills with Flash Arrow (hits all enemies and inflict Blind) as well as Beast Slayer (does extra damage to beast type enemies, a godsend against the current crop of bosses) so she's done a serious 180 on me. I also taught her Suzaku magic, but I haven't tried it out to see if she's any good with it. I was originally going to drop her, but now I'm growing a bit more attached.

Ward - His character art and sprite are amusing. The guy looks like Slash from G&R. It was nice to have a character who specializes in Great Swords, especially since that weapon type served me really well in the two previous entries. He's sparked a few really good skills like Sunder and Riposte. He second uses maces but seems to be awful with them for some reason. Not going to teach him magic, but it is nice to have a real meat shield on the team.

Robin - I have not really had much of a chance to really figure him out. He start with a rapier, but I'm hoping he'll be able to spark some actual techs with it. Rapiers were pretty troutty in RS1 but were surprisingly more useful in RS2 if you bothered to use the Mole People to spark their move sets. I'm hoping RS3 carries this tradition, though I know not to expect and high damage coming from him. I'm glad I got to recruit him, but not sure if he's going to be a long haul character yet.

I feel one of the biggest issues with RS3 at the moment is that it has too many cool characters to recruit. My team is largely falling into place, so the idea of switching people out for new characters that will need to be broken in doesn't sound appealing. At the same time, there are a lot of cool characters I wouldn't mind recruiting, including some of the other main heroes. Whenever I get around to a second playthrough, I'll probably choose Mikhail next since I'm getting plenty of Khalid (he was my original second choice behind Ellen) in this playthrough. The other thing that slightly bothers me is the magic system names cause the four elements are mixed up except Suzaku. Genbu is water, Soryu is Wind, and Byakko is earth, but traditionally, and even going all the way back to the first SaGa game no less, Soryu is suppose to be Water, Byakko is Wind, and Genbu is Earth. Was a little confusing in the beginning. I also have no idea what the Crown that appears next my SP stat means, so I'll have to look into that. Oh SaGa and your refusal to ever explain yourself.

[Rez09]

You can sometimes cheese through the tournament early in the game due to the semi random matchups you get, but I'd generally recommend putting that off until later in the game, generally around the time you are planning to fight the four main bosses, as the big reward for the tournament itself is opening up an item and character for recruitment, but doing so requires beating one of the game's nastier bosses.

I don't know if you've been doing this or not, but you can change formations in the menu and Khalid grants everyone the Desert Lance formation at the start of the game -- the formation gives a speed boost to the pointman and has them draw additional aggro, which makes it an excellent position to master Counter from. That said, I'd actually recommend removing Counter from Ellen's move list; she can spark it whenever she is physically attacked and hasn't acted yet if it isn't learned or mastered, but you HAVE to select it from her skill list to use it if it IS learned or mastered. This basically means you can use whatever attack you like if you don't have it learned and she can randomly counter with it if she is attacked before she gets her selected action off, but you lose your action for the turn if you know counter and choose to use it but an enemy doesn't attack you or uses a skill that won't trigger it.

There is a workshop in Pidona you can upgrade Khalid's Scimitar in, and its built-in Demi Rune attack can upgrade into the AoE Demi Echo attack if you keep using it against stronger enemies, and it is a contender for the best damage vs. TP cost skill in the game. Windmill is a super useful tech, and even if it is a pain to master there are several fights it'll make a lot easier if you can pass it around.

I don't know if you got skinny or fat Robin -- Skinny Robin's biggest boon is his high starting MP and good selection of wind magic, while Fat Robin starts with the very strong, and notoriously difficult to spark, Screwdriver; both characters are quite good and worth using. The biggest advice I can give for either of them is to grab an Estoc from the town you recruited them in then push for a Meteor Fragment from an early spelunk into Forneus' dungeon to forge the ultimate Epee in Pidona. Both are decent at sparking its built in tech, which is a powerful, low-ish cost AoE attack; the fire dungeon also has the Nightingale rapier in it, which has a built in heal spell they are both decent with too.

That crown next to your SP means all SP requiring skills cost 1 less to use. You earn crowns for specializing in either physical or magical attacks, and some characters have 'invisible' crowns for specific things they specialize in, the ones I recall being the Robins for Epee techs, Water spells for Boston (I believe), and, due to some odd oversight in the original, Earth for Undine.

[Wolf Kanno]

Ooh good to know about Khalid's sword and crowns. Unfortunately, I've already mastered Counter so no good there. I have been playing with Formations, just earned a new one last night from the couple who make you do the dream world. I'm also using skinny Robin.

I tried my hand at the tournament and made it to the second round, but got knocked out quickly in the second round by an annoying mage team where it seemed like every enemy used Life Drain. So I gave up there and did my first mercenary gig for Fazos I think? I saved just before I did it, because the UI is a bit misleading. I figured I simply needed to reduce the enemies moral to 0, but it turns out I needed to push the leader unit into the end field of the enemies side instead. I got the hang of it after my third attempt.

After that, I couldn't really find much else to do in the smaller towns, so I headed to Pidona where all the action seems to be. I met up with Sarah and Thomas. Was a little disappointed that Ellen and Sarah's reunion was a simply "Hi" I mean we've both been adventuring for ages, I was expecting a bit more of a scene when they reunited, especially considering they didn't leave on the best terms. Followed Thomas to Muse's house and helped saved the kid tapped in the Archfiend's old castle. You would think the people in the slums would just move in there considering its abandoned. Afterwards, I entered Muse's dream world to face off with the Dream Eater. This was a nice ode to Cyan's dream eater experience, but sadly I enjoyed VI's version a little better since we were watching a character we grew with whereas here we're getting glimpses of the psyche of a person we just met. Like both, I had to eventually look up a solution to it cause its not very good about cluing you into what you do during the loop part. I really wish I didn't have to be stuck with Charl and Muse for this mission. Not helped that only after the fact did I learn that I was meant to give him the Silver Armlet to make him less useless. Of course, I had a funny moment where again, I really wish the game gave you better item descriptions, cause I convinced myself that Khalid, whom I had given the Silver Armlet to for the defense bonus could dual wield if you gave him a second sword, not realizing it was the silver armlet doing it until again, right after the fact. Charl wasn't a bad character per se even without the item. He sparked a pretty decent Spear move. My real issue was just not having access to my fll party because the dream world turned out to be a really great place to level. Since I was stuck with Charl, I opted to bring the Minstrel since I had him as a bench-warmer, but I really should have chosen Robin so I could spark some more moves with him. I ended up getting Riptide and Dragon Tailspin for swords, Big Swing and Cranium Splitter for spears, Thunderkick for melee, Incorporeal Stance and Running Slash for Great swords, Rotator for clubs, and Megahawk and Hyper Hammer for Axe. I also learned Avoid Hypnosis and Avoid Decimate (though that one was in the Archfiend Keep) as well. Great place to level except for Muse who seriously could never catch up. I dragged her into the final fight anyways since the rest of my team was so beefy and learned later it helps you avoid his nastier second phase.

With that done, the circus is in town but I couldn't actually see anything so I left and saved for the night.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oof I did a lot today, so much I'm probably going to forget some details.

• Rescued the Fairy from the circus, though she ran off.
• Found Tatyana's hometown and she's no longer on my team.
• Found Black's Treasure
• Kicked the crap out of Undine and Volcano and stole the Archfiend Shield for myself.
• Sopped a Lovecraftian inspired serial killer in Vanguard.
• Transformed Vanguard into a ship.
• Recruited Boston
• I have found the Tower in the desert where the religious cult is. I can't seem to get in though.
• Got my ass handed to me by Gwayne I want to say. The baby dragon the Matriarch raised.
• Found the jungle city with hints to where that fairy ran off to.
• Nearly won the Zweig Tournament thanks to Backstab but got my ass handed to me in the final round against the final Goblin enemy from Team Gob.
• Got my ass handed to me by the plant creature guarding the Shifting Sands.
• Restarted the Blacksmith shop in Pidona and have acquired most of the item I can that don't require a secondary item.

I think I've unlocked like 80% of the map by this point cause I'm running out of places to go. I'm actually currently doing a quest with Boston which will probably open the door to Forneus, but I really don't want to fight him as my first Archfiend. I've explored the Archfiend's Castle cause I heard the earth archfiend's location is near, but can't seem to find it. I feel I'm at the point now where I need to start fighting these elemental lords but I don't really want to face the one I'm well on my way to finding, and while I have a strong idea of where the other three are, it seems like I'm missing an event flag to activate them cause I can't really enter the tower or climb the fogged mountain. The Archfiend's Castle led me to a dead end with a magic door requiring a ring, but that almost feels like something end game. My party has grown pretty well, but I am reaching the point where I want to drop some people.

Khalid is doing okay, especially once I upgraded his scimitar to a Falchion. He seems to spark new moves more with curved blades that regular ones. I really need to develop his magic better.

The Minstrel is doing okay, but I'm also kind of bored with him already. He's been a Mace/staff specialist so far, but I'm still not terribly impressed with this weapon. He does get perks for sparking some interesting moves though.

Ward is the guy I'm the most conflicted with. On the one hand, I was never partial to his character but he's been a pretty good badass and I feel like a Greatsword specialist seems a bit rare in this game so far. I may still drop him though despite being one of my better characters.

Robin is amusing but my god it seems like an act of god to get him to master moves. I blame that for why sparking new rapier moves has been rare with him simply because I'm wasting too much time trying to master the few he has sparked. I do love his high wind magic though, and I keep forgetting he has them. I will probably drop him eventually as well, but I can see myself picking him back up later.

Ellen is not doing so bad, she's been sparking some really good crowd controlling techs, but I wish she would spark a few more boss killing kinds cause I'm getting smacked around a bit more than I am comfortable with. I really need to focus on her magic, I've been severely neglecting it. I wish she would spark more melee abilities, but perhaps Boston will fix that area.

[Rez09]

The Divine King's Tower is part of a quest chain you have actually already started, but you lack a required character to move it on. It is fully optional however, though, I'd argue, is pretty worth doing, as long as you can deal with the Red Dragon there, since it is harder than the actual boss of the tower.

Forneus is the hardest of the four fiends, but his dungeon is super easy to access and has some decent loot with no sub-bosses guarding them. The Meteor Fragment is only a few screens in, hidden in a side room along the right side of one of the walls, and alone is worth running in to get, as it makes a good items in the workshop.

The mountain fiend cannot be fought until one of the other three are taken down, so you aren't doing anything wrong with that flag or missing a conversation anywhere or anything.

The locked door a the bottom of the castle isn't end game and the earth fiend is probably the best one to start with. His dungeon has several mini-bosses, but all can be skipped, and the ring itself is a pretty decent accessory I'd recommend picking up as soon as you can even if you want to put off fighting Arakes himself.

Dobis and Master Dobis, those little goblin archers, are stupid nasty, but you can find a shield called a Wonder Bangle that offers something like 99% evade against bow attacks; I believe one is in Arakes Dungeon, which is the one I usually pick up.

As I recall, only 4 characters in the game are especially good with greatswords, and since two basically don't count due to limited recruitment, Ward and Paul are your options for that.

[Wolf Kanno]

The Divine King's Tower is part of a quest chain you have actually already started, but you lack a required character to move it on. It is fully optional however, though, I'd argue, is pretty worth doing, as long as you can deal with the Red Dragon there, since it is harder than the actual boss of the tower.

Good to know. Is this the quest that requires the old pirate in Arch Stone? I can't seem to recruit him even though I've picked up his treasure. Funny enough, he was the first guy I talked to about the treasure in that town.

Forneus is the hardest of the four fiends, but his dungeon is super easy to access and has some decent loot with no sub-bosses guarding them. The Meteor Fragment is only a few screens in, hidden in a side room along the right side of one of the walls, and alone is worth running in to get, as it makes a good items in the workshop.

Yeah I remember reading that in one of your earlier conversations in this thread no less. Don't really want to deal with him yet, but I may take up the offer to explore his dungeon.

The mountain fiend cannot be fought until one of the other three are taken down, so you aren't doing anything wrong with that flag or missing a conversation anywhere or anything.

Good to know.

The locked door a the bottom of the castle isn't end game and the earth fiend is probably the best one to start with. His dungeon has several mini-bosses, but all can be skipped, and the ring itself is a pretty decent accessory I'd recommend picking up as soon as you can even if you want to put off fighting Arakes himself.

So I just need to find this ring. Hm...

Dobis and Master Dobis, those little goblin archers, are stupid nasty, but you can find a shield called a Wonder Bangle that offers something like 99% evade against bow attacks; I believe one is in Arakes Dungeon, which is the one I usually pick up.

Yeay, I was doing really well until the Master variant, who is wickedly fast wiped out three of my party members in the first round and Ellen probably could have taken him out if he didn't pull off that Arrow spam attack that did over 500hp of damage. I was really piss how close I was to finishing this quest.

As I recall, only 4 characters in the game are especially good with greatswords, and since two basically don't count due to limited recruitment, Ward and Paul are your options for that.

I've noticed a serious lack of Greatsword users. Maybe they were compensating for having too many classes in RS2 that could use them. The starting Heavy and LIght infantry had a lot of people who could use the class. Ugh, that makes dropping Ward a bit more difficult for me cause his techs have been pretty great overall. I have yet to encounter Paul.

[Rez09]

Yeah, Herman is the person that tells you about Black's Cave and is also the person you need for the quest. You've already gotten Vanguard to move, so I don't think you can recruit him any longer, but it may be possible by recruiting Nora then visiting the tavern in Pidona and talking to the barkeep. The flag for him telling you about Red Coral around where Herman is has always been wonky and might not work, but it is probably your best shot.

Paul can be recruited in two ways. The first is to lose to the thieves during the missions from the man in the Lance weaponshop with an open party slot and a non-Nora/Ellen female party member. The second way is to visit Nina's house after clearing an Abyss Gate -- she's in the town with the Sacrificial Cave quest in the bottom right house.

You've been in the town with the Ring, and probably talked to the person that has it honestly, but he won't mention it or give it to you until you've seen Arakes' door. You are supposed to piece together where it is from one of the comments you hear in the top-right house in the northern part of Pidona, but even then the hint isn't super clear.

[Wolf Kanno]

Found the ring, thank you for the tip. Sadly I don't think I can recruit Nora as I started the blacksmith scenario but have yet to see her since. I've recruited all of the former blacksmiths though. They are currently making me a Francisca and the Beastial Leather I think?

Anyway, wandered the caves beneath Boston's home and met the dragon Forneus sent to murder his species. Took him down and managed to spark three really good techs finally giving me a high damage axe skill and another great high damage Greatsword skill, as well as Pressure Point for melee. I really wish Robin would start sparking better rapier techs. I also wish someone in my party would spark Blood Suck or Life Drain Immunity so I can finally be done with those two annoying enemy skills. The dragon enemy also gave me my first taste of one of the more annoying aspect of the Archfiends which will likely be them manipulating the elemental field to get that doozy of a regen bonus every round. The most annoying part of the fight was having to make two party members go from using high damage skills to elemental spells/skills just to change the field effect so the boss would stop regenerating 999hp every round.

With that done, I opted to go to Zweig and do the tournament which I finally won. I even got my revenge on the Goblin team. I forgot to mention this last time, but I also did the quest for the professor to take out her demon car running amok, which was a pretty cool battle I remember seeing glimpses of from screenshots. The music track for the fight is pretty stellar, though I would say that Romancing SaGa 3 has probably the best soundtrack so far of the three SNES entries.

With the tournament done, I was asked to go meet out neighborhood vampire and retrive the Holy Grail he's guarding, and so now I'm doing a standard RPG flavored version of Castlevania with all the sub-bosses guarding the rather lackluster treasure of his castle. I hope I don't need an open spot to recruit Leonid when I finish this and can come back, cause my team is still at full capacity.

Boston by the way has been interesting, very similar to the non-human races you can recruit in RS2 although Boston is leagues better than the Nerid race.

[Rez09]

If you didn't opt to recruit Nora at the start of the blacksmith mission she is gone forever -- you still might be able to get the coral message from the tavern without her though, so I'd give it a shot.

Fun story about those elemental fields: you can use them for regeneration and evasion as well. There is a water spell called Water Pole (I believe, I'm not super familiar with the Remake names), and Dancing Leaves in Wind Magic that grant the target the magical shield status, which grants end of turn regeneration and something like a 20% chance to dodge attacks when the spell's respective field is active.

You seem to be fairly developed stat wise, so there are two easily missed quests that you can open now. If you talk to the Astronomer's sister in Lance she should have an option to ask about the Aurora, which she should tell you is approaching now. To find it, after you see that message, exit to the region map, then again to the world map, and wait for a good long while (Feels like around 5 minutes to me, but I'm super impatient, so it may be less) -- don't leave when it starts, make sure it fully occurs, then return to the region map around Lance and you should see the Aurora Path. There is an item called the 'Dragon Scale' you find in Leonid's castle (and in two other locations, though one is permanently missable) which makes end-game tier gear in the workshop, but you can't use until you encounter one of a certain class of enemies, the first of which is at the end of Aurora Path quest.

The other is a hidden cave that opens by talking to an old woman in the bottom left house of the left of the two towns that are fighting each other with mercenary armies -- I believe the second 'transport-goods-past-thieves' mission leads you to the right of the two towns. It's the one below the Thieves Cave if you went there earlier. She'll tell you about either the Thieves Cave or Ancient Cave. You'll need to find a password in the Devil King's Castle to fight the boss in the ancient cave, but it is the best grinding spot in the game outside of the new bonus dungeon or Khalid's unique dungeon.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oh well next time I guess for Herman and Nora. Maybe when I do a Katrina run.

[Wolf Kanno]

Proper Update:

I finished the Holy Grail quest, and damn Yami is a an asshole. I should have known from the name since he's a mythological bigwig. I had to read up on why he was regenerating 999hp per round was because he had one of the Celestial environment magics going, but while I was able to change it a little with some of my Solar/Lunar magic I have simply not leveled up my magic to make this a worthwhile endeavor.

The real killer for me was just not having a good set up. Two of my characters were sporting good armor that unfortunately gave them a Lightning weakness while the few who compensated for that had Blunt damage weakness which made his headbutt move almost a TPK. Between his annoying regeneration and spamming the Group Suction spell my next biggest problem was that he kept killing Boston who had all my Water healing magic and his melee did great damage to him, whereas Robin tended to be one of the last men standing but he has no good techs for damage. In fact this fight has made me start to consider dropping him because the man will just not spark new Rapier techs, loves to spark defensive ones, but they are never skills I would love to have a defense against like Charm, Life Stealer, or Blood Suck which were all too common in this dungeon. Thankfully my other three characters had great damage techs that could compensate for Yami's healing every round but it still turned into a "finger cross" as Ellen was the last one standing. I was a little annoyed I had to stick to techs cause boss fights are great places to spark new techs. The other issue was just finding a decent formation to use. Yami's lightning skill attacked a line, but outside of Free for All, most of my formations had some part of the team lined up. I ended up sticking to Genbu Stance for the regen effect since this boss could hit really hard, despite this stances terrible penalty to speed. I did pick up a few good items in the last part of the dungeon including a nice piece of armor I wish I had for that fight.

With that done, I got the Grail, but decided I wasn't going to give it to the king of Zweig cause smurf him and his tournament. I was debating about dropping Robin by this point for Leonid, but kept him on cause I really would like some new Rapier skills that aren't the usual "inflict status/skip turn" variety. Went back to Pidona to pick up my new gear and set my blacksmith shop to make new stuff. I took Rez09's advice and opened up the ruins by the warring towns. I really wish I had fought more battles here, I kept dodging a few cause I was bee lining for treasure but ended up finding the boss first. After Yami, this thing was a joke. I just made sure it didn't turn the field to Earth magic and largely smacked it around. Killing it ended up making all of the enemies disappear but at least I acquired a Deathstone for crafting. I did thankfully fight enough battles to get my next set so I'm getting a Dread Ring for my trouble.

I did forget the other place Rez09 told me, so I instead wandered back to Archstone and Vanguard. The Pub owner does mention Red Coral in the Tepid Sea, nut it doesn't seem to activate any kind of quest, so I opted to head back to the desert and quicksand area. I took out the plant guardians by just treating them like the boss they really are and now I have been swept away to the Great Plains, which seems to be a popular locale in these games as all three Romancing SaGa titles have some Great Plains area and a character/class associated with a nomadic tribe that lives on there. Boston has now been kidnapped by some elder lady who wants to study him, and I have her granddaughter leading me on a trip to visit a not-so-friendly tribe to the south to figure out better relations before the Elder Lady will give me Boston back and send me to the one nation in the east that can possibly get me a boat trip back to the main area of the game.

Since I have a source of free healing and a new Archer character, I'm thinking I may grind some levels in magic for Khalid and Ellen while giving Robin and the new girl a chance to spark some much needed techs for their weapon types. I am happy to finally have some money after the tournament, but I'm hesitant to spend much of it since money seems to be a lot harder to come by in this entry compared to the first two entries. I figure I may try to craft some better gear before I invest too heavily since I've sort of hit a plateau on available gear in regular shops.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Rez09]

If you can beat the green Dragon Ruler, you should be able to take down all of the Sinistrals. ;p

If you want Julian, Monica, or Mikhail, they can only be recruited until Byunei is defeated on Taftan -- once she is down, unless Mikhail specifically (as I recall, anyway) is in your party, the Loanne Castle doors lock up again.