Let's Play Atelier Rorona! Update 9, Part 2
Continued from Part 1...
Here's some of what Hom picked up from the Dark Woods. Mostly the same sort of stuff we've picked up in the previous forest areas, although with higher quality and traits.
But here's what we really came for. We've seen Night Lady before, from Rorona's parents, but this time the traits are much better. We'll be able to make some nice armor out of this... but we need more of them. So I sent Hom back there again.
Anyway, we picked up a recipe book, so...
This is it, the best item in the game. Or at least, I'm having a hard time imagining anything better.
To try it out, we're going to head to the mines, and that one really annoying area. We've had bombs strong eough to get through here for a while, but there hasn't been a reason.
But now we've got one. We've got to fight super dangerous monsters!
Well, actually it's just one monster.
Scarlets are another boss, but instead of getting bounties for them, they're just hanging around. Apparently every area gets one when Rorona hits level 30 or so.
This one is pretty nasty. They can throw a fireball or claw someone for around a hundred damage, but it's their special abilities that are the real problem.
First up is a nasty debuff. Lionela has a status cure ability that will get rid of this, and you'd better do it. The defense down is strong enough that a normal attack is likely to one-shot any of our characters who get hit with it.
This one is the big issue though. Once it's hurt badly enough, it starts using a move that drains life from the whole party. This one can do enough damage to wipe you on it's own, and losing that much progress hurts too. Curse just adds insult to injury... whatever the heck it does.
It's possible to just power through this, but it's both slow and risky - Lionela and Rorona can revive each other, but if they're both knocked out you're done for.
Even later in the fight, it'll boost their it's attack. Actually not that big a deal, since it's not enough to one-shot anyone from full health if they aren't debuffed.
Scarlets also seem to be resistant to ice - Lionela's skills can barely hurt it.
Now, there's several ways to handle this enemy. You could, for instance, come back when you're higher level. But where's the fun in that?
Or, you could do what I did, and exploit the protectiveness of Rorona's friends.
The first step is to use Mystery Ankh's to put regen on Lionela and Cory. But not, it's important to note, Rorona.
Next step is to get Rorona's HP down to orange. Just using her strongest skill every turn, and not having anyone assist her is usually enough.
And at that point, you're pretty much set. If it attacks Lionela or Cory, they'll get healed up on their next turn. And if it attacks Rorona...
Cory's got that covered. And since the life drain ability always counts as an attack on Rorona (which is somewhat different from how things worked in Mana Khemia), it will never be able to use it as long as Cory has assists.
At that point, it's pretty much just a matter of beating it down.
The experience and Cole from beating Scarlet is pretty enormous, but it's the items where things get interesting.
Most of the items bosses have been dropping have been, if not worthless, at least relatively uninteresting.
Not this new set though. Everything they drop is going to have four or five equipment traits, usually high-level ones.
...Of course, you'll be pretty lucky if it's anything you'd actually like to put on a piece of equipment.
And this Dark Dew? It's a new item, but I don't know of any equipment that can be made with it, so there's no way to get these traits onto something even if you want to. Still, getting it is the entire reason I came out here.
There's a chest with a Tinc ingot. That might have been useful back when we first explored the mines, but it's been a long time since I got a request for anything using it. Did they seriously expect you to be willing to spare the bombs when this would be a nice find?
And now it's time to show off why Windrider is the best item in the game.
It's got a pretty cool looking animation, but of course you can't see much in these mines.
And just like that, back at the workshop. But check the date. No days used for exploring the area or returning to town, we're just back immediately.
Time is the ultimate resource in this game, and these give us a whole lot more of it.
So. Get the recipe for these as soon as possible, make one, register it for wholesale, never leave town without one.
I ended up screwing up this sequence a lot though. I'd either leave town without sending Hom out again, or leave the area instead of using the Windrider, and in one case I even lost the fight.
That got kind of tiresome, although it did give me a chance to refine the strategy I used (and which will probably come in handy again sometime). And there was something else interesting that happened once.
It started with Lionela saying something new when her turn started...
I'll do my best!
And a new skill has appeared. And it looks impressive, with all those stars. So let's try it out.
Please, lend me your power.
Oops! Was that too much?
Um...
Oh my.
It's Giant Horoholo!
He stomps toward's the enemy, and...
Well, it's not the most dignified way to go.
And then Lionela lands back on the ground with a plop. Um, your followthrough could use some work, Horo.
Since it's hard to get the full impact of this in screenshots, I bit the bullet and posted a video of this. (Which probably delayed this update by an unreasonable amount of time. It didn't take very long when I actually did it, but it felt like it would be a pain to do so I kept putting it off...)
Unfortunately, depsite it's coolness this doesn't seem to be all that useful. Using this requires water element at 5, and it's reset to 0 afterwards. Any enemy that lasts long enough to get the element level that high is probably going to be strong enough that I'm not willing to lose access to Lionela's stronger healing abilities.
Our next stop is the Dark Woods.
It's exactly what it says on the tin - although not nearly as dark as the mines.
Here's a new enemy - Gold Punis. Their main schtick is being a lot faster than anything else so far.
But their HP is... less than impressive.
If you get a big group like this, one might get a chance to attack.
And suddenly, it looks a lot more threatening.
But it's not all that threatening.
I think they also have a move that boosts their attack and defense, but they don't last long enough to make use of it.
The next area has a well, with water exactly like what we can buy from Tiffani. You can get as much as you like, just like the well at home too.
I haven't really needed it that much lately though.
This area is also home to the next tier of Mandragora-type enemy.
Alaraune's are tougher than their predecessors, and have a shockwave attack that hits the whole party, but aren't all that exciting by themselves.
There's a ton of them here though, which makes it a bit more exciting. Or at least time consuming.
We're mostly picking up typical forest stuff, just like what Hom got us.
We'd have to look long and hard to find an Uni that would do more damage than this one.
There's a guard on the exit here, but it's just a group of three Alaraune - exactly the same as every other group here.
The next area is full of wolves.
Forest Wolves aren't exactly weaklings, but they aren't up to the standard set by the Mountain Wolf either.
For soem reason, I just think this section looks pretty.
This is the first area here where there are multiple exits, and the way it's set up is kind of a pain. It looks like we're leaving to the south...
But somehow we end up going this way. With the other exit being to the east... What kind of alien geometry is this?
Oh look, it's a charging lizard.
Salamandra are red, and noticably tougher than the last charging lizards we saw. They're also hard to avoid since the path here is so narrow.
Another mysterious question mark. This one gave us a Mysterious Ankh, which seems fitting. I kind of wonder how the game decides where and when these show up, and what's in them...
I turned it in for a request, since the ones we've made are (unsurprisingly) a lot better.
At the end, there's a rock you can blow up leading to another exit. If you want what's arguably the most interesting thing in this zone, this is -not- the way to go. But I messed up.
Going that way, Night Lady starts showing up. But it's not as useful as what Hom finds.
...You know, I've been saying that a lot lately. From a gameplay design perspective, I don't think I like that.
There's also these bushes with what look like *enormous* blue berries, but I don't think they correspond to any item you can find here. Unless those are supposed to be Cobaltberries, I guess.
The enemy groups are getting more dangerous too, even if the ghosts that are showing up aren't the toughest ones around.
And then I headed back to take the exit I should have taken...
This area is a bit reminsicent of Nabel Lake, with the bridges between smaller bits of land, and the charging lizards.
This one's gotten stuck behind the bridge railing, which amused me.
And down at the end of this path is...
...nothing but some pretty lights.
If you come here in month 11, you're supposed to be able to get Dunkelheit. But I guess if it's too close to the end of the month, it disappears.
Well, it might have been nice to have, but not getting any isn't a major loss. Especially since you can't actually find much of it here anyway.
Still, I was a bit disappointed. So I went home. (Besides, I was getting low on time anyway.)
The fast way. <3
Hey, Ryan's at home. I think this is the first time that's happened. (Although I think it's supposed to be possible for either of Rorona's parents to be there for these scenes. No idea what controls it though.)
He gives us two each of Marinelite, Sea Puddle, and Salt. ...I don't know if I'll have a use for any of it.
Now, with all the free time I've got, you may be wondering what I'm going to do now.
The assignment was easy enough - I already had a Cannon registered with Pamela. It took 20 of them to take me to ten stars. (Barrels would have almost certainly been cheaper, but I'd have had to make one, and at this point I'd rather just spend the money.)
With assignments not an issue, the obvious choices are to seek money or power. And I chose power. The first step there was going and fighting Scarlet.
Since we got Dark Dew from it, and it's a liquid, it can now appear in Spring Cups. (Sea Puddle can too, but it's not that interesting.)
I made some really nice soap. Range Booster is a great trait for my purposes - it provides the maximum range increase without reducing power. It only took a couple days to make this, between items I had left over and all the stuff with +3 traits that we've been gathering. Quite a contrast to what it took when we were making Bird Statues.
And I went through all 10 Spring Cups I could buy to get a bunch of Dark Dew. I'm making a Beast Statue right now, and some (but only some) of them will give us this effect with three big stars. I needed a pair with traits that would cancel out and still give me the effect I wanted.
Turns out Quality +2/Bad Quality +2 does it. I find it weird that Bad Quality can lead to a better item than a lot of good traits though.
That makes a Dragon Statue, the highest effect available for this item. And with a lot of strong traits too.
And then I sold all the leftover Dark Dew. For a bit over 25,000 Cole. When I think about how that number compares to what I made doing all those requests after getting wholesale... I don't think I like that.
This is actually considered to be one of the easier ways to make the large amount of money required for one of the endings. It'd probably work even better if you avoided picking up some of the other liquid items. But it seems like a really boring way too...
I've read that in Atelier Totori Plus, they changed the sell price of Dark Dew so it's not so ridiculous. Some people complain, but I can't help but think "Why didn't they make the price non-ridiculous when they made the game on the PS3?" It's one thing that they missed the way these two items interact in Rorona, but they ought to have known by then...
Incidentally, check out the encyclopedia page for Dark Dew.
...Should I be worried about making this available on the open market?
Tiffani's shop is a lot quieter without Those Three Guys hanging around. I doubt she misses them.
Lionela requested one of these. I think I made it from cloth I got from Cole. The picture looks like it ought to be made of metal though...
Ahhh! Lionela's just so cute!
Even if her requests paid nothing I'd still do them just to see this smile!
I made a Secret Bag too. It's the second best item in the game... maybe.
Let's try using it at the castle...
Free Transfer means "access the container from anywhere". It's the tool of a thousand uses. Out of space? Secret bag. Get a request for something in the container? Secret bag. Need another bomb? Secret bag. (But only if you left one in the container...)
The main limit on it's utility is that I haven't been filling up my basket that much anyway.
That, and my container is again overflowing. Yikes. Still, it's nice to have. The recipe comes from the book we got from Pamela at the beginning of the update.
There's one more item from that book - Graceful Crystal.
I don't think I've ever really found a good use for these. They aren't really worth making for requests, they can't be used to move around equipment traits because it won't carry them, there's nothing I can find that requires them to make... Oh, and the part about using it? They don't actually seem to *be* usable, so that doesn't really work either. I just don't know.
Hom came back with some more Night Lady. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the exact mix of traits I would have liked, even savescumming what Hom brought back a bit.
Here's what I ended up with. It may not be perfect, but it's still pretty good.
Scale Cloth is the only kind that can be used to make this ?Silver Outfit?.
Although I see no part on this that looks silver. It's a good upgrade for Rorona across the board.
Similarly, there's only one kind of cloth that can make this ?Beautiful Dress?.
Or Gorgeous Dress. I kind of expected a weird conversation with Hagel, but there wasn't one.
It's a boost in everything but ATK for Cory and Lionela... but I really don't want to give up the attack boost.
So I made another pair of Rose Maiden with it for her and Lionela instead. The stat difference is only minor, but the traits should help their skills a lot.
To test out our new Dragon Statue, we're heading out to the Ortoga Ruins, where another "super dangerous monster!" awaits.
Well, it looks dangerous.
And Fang lives up to it's looks, too. Like other wolves we've run into, it's going to get to attack twice when it gets it's turn.
It can go with this ominous red lightning, and hit someone for over a hundred damage...
...or be engulfed in flames, and hit someone for over a hundred points of damage. If it picks the same person both times, they're going down.
Unlike Scarlet, I never found a special strategy that helps much with this guy - it's pretty much down to keep healing and reviving, and hope he doesn't decide to one-turn Lionela more often than you have items to raise her.
Or Rorona could use one of these.
And that was all it wanted. We're back to having a reusable item that can one-shot bosses that would kick our ass otherwise.
And we get another big chunk of experience and money.
And this stuff. It's unlikely I'll ever have a real use for any of it.
It's not even worth fighting the normal enemies here anymore, so we're headed home.
And here's an animation of using a Windrider. Somehow, it doesn't seem as cool looking now... Did I lose my taste for shiny objects somewhere in this process? Surely not.
...
I'm taking you home with me!
Well, okay, I'm not. People have definitely changed how they react to Rorona now though.
With only four days left until the assignment is due, there's not much I can do. There weren't any interesting jobs, and there isn't anything else I really need.
So I kill a lot of time without doing a lot of stuff in Part 3.