Update Time!

Only a minor one. Quests take way longer in this game than other entries so this game may be a slow burn but I'm starting to "get it" and it's becoming quite enjoyable.

I moved the plot along and got a damn CGI cutscene no less. I keep going back and forth with the VA work in this game. Some people work, others are terrible, and then some people go back and forth. Laura is such a character where her VA is sometimes pretty good and other times groan worthy. Henri's voice only throws me off because he's voiced by a girl who is not trying to hide the fact. Michelle's is bubbly and fun, Judy's is a bit too squeaky for my taste, and Francis... well I feel his VA wasn't even trying with him.

Laura's plot is starting to get interesting, and I'm grateful my copy of the game still had the manual in it because it actually delves into a lot of background lore that made the cutscene actually more powerful than it would be otherwise. Manual fails to explain how to play the game, but gives you important plot details considering the significance of the festival the whole game revolves around. We're now on a quest to return to Henri's fallen kingdom and figure out what's up with this fancy dagger he's carrying around. We also picked up a new character in the form of Francis who compliments Michelle's design of both of them looking like ninjas.

I then did a small quest involving a local custom from a forgotten tribe near the islands that involves exploring a cove and finding two alters to receive a blessing. By blessing I mean it sucks away all your HP, takes one LP from my whole party, and then has me face off with a trio of powerful monsters. To make matters more hectic, I'm only allowed three party members on the field at a time. My first attempt was a success after battling some annoying mermen but the panel selection I got from the missions was hardly ideal so I reset and tried again. This time I got stuck fighting some really beefy whale monsters and learned the hard way that if a character fall in battle, I can't switch them out with a living party member unless I use an action called Rescue which takes up a turn to remove the fallen comrade, still prevents me from bringing in a new character that round, and can fail based on factors like the character weight and who is trying to do the rescuing. Suffice to say that Judy can't rescue anyone. My second attempt still had me fighting the whale monsters, but I managed to get through the fight with most of my team's LP intact, the second fight was tough as the whales do massive damage and Francis bleeds LP despite having the most on my team. He was taking 3 LP per attack from some of the attacks. The fight ended with a standoff between the last Whale monster and Laura who had 4 LP left when the fight was over and only Judy was left alive because I couldn't drag her out since both Henri and Francis were dead. I still managed to complete the mission and got a much better panel selection this time around, allowing me to finally give Michelle some much needed strength/skill boosts, scored a Lv. 3 Familiar for Henri that allows him to use magic without a medium, and scored another one for Judy that finally gives her a permanent offensive fire spell to use.

Afterwards, I hit up all the shops for new materials and managed to forge two more Damascus items. One is an accessory I gave to Laura and I'm really hoping it will have Life Protection on it, the other item is a sword for her as well which I'm going to hold off on until closer to the end game.

Laura - Is still doing pretty awesome and sparking more moves. She even managed to spark a new move for fists and she has at least one move for most of the weapon types I have her using. I am still on the lookout for certain panels for her build but I'm okay with her current setup outside of her low Fire affinity.

Henri - Has finally come into his own. He's bad at sparking new moves but he's pretty damn good at parrying moves so I've moved him to point for a lot of fights. His new Familiar also give him some more utility with magic that won't cost me weapons or accessories. I really hope his story mission improves his unbreakable dagger because I have a lot of good moves for it, but it's low stats are starting to show.

Judy - Is a beast of a character to be honest. Her spells are powerful, she has some great crowd control moves with her bow and giving her a staff that has block has improved her survivabilty. I am debating about switching her tablets after I learn my next spell for it because the spell growth of the Forbidden tablet is really slow compared to more conventional ones and I would like to expand her spell repertoire.

Michelle - Has been way more useful than she looks. I mastered her Earth Magic tablet so she has some good spells, managed to get her good weapon panel in a decent spot that finally raised her two attack stats to something respectable. I just need to find her a good sword with deflect as a secondary ability to improve her survival rate. She's honestly better with melee than weapons though...

Francis - Ah the new guy. He's a bit of the opposite of Michelle who looks unimpressive on her stat sheet but manages to work. Francis looks great on his sheet, but me thinks he's padded his resume. He's got 19 LP which is great and he even starts with a shield panel and a bunch of strength panels. He sparks moves okay but I'm starting to think he may be using the wrong weapon with spears and I should move him to axes instead. His biggest problem is that since I don;t have much gear with Life Protection (it's an armor skill that lowers the chance of taking LP damage from attacks) and the few I have is on Laura, he is not as tanky as he looks. His HP is pretty bad, but the rest of my team has a few missions under their belt compared to him so I'm sure that will change. I just need him to tank damage better so his high LP pool doesn't got to waste. I'm starting to think shields are useless in this game even with a panel.

I'm currently attempting the Abandoned Castle one more team and it's been going a bit smoother than normal, helped that I'm ignoring treasure chest to conserve time, and one of the scripted fights net me a Magic Tablet, so I have a bigger incentive to actually complete this mission. We'll see if I finally succeed.