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schneefinkHave I mentioned recently how much I enjoy this game? I finally made it to the credits!
Detailed notes under the cut; I will make a mostly spoiler-free promo post eventually but rn I am too busy playing the game.
Sunday: Birdy and Zeke are back! Turns out "taken to the guillotine" meant "taken to the museum to clean it" because there is no death sentence. What a relief. That guard was a dick.
(This subplot didn't happen in D's game, which is curious. I wonder what else can be different.)
While backtracking I found more moonstones, more puzzles (some of which I solved and some I left for later), and another Lunar Artifact and finally got the better frying pan. Then I found the turtle and did the entire trading quest at once, ending with getting the Dream Ore bat. With some more fishing I got enough money to buy the Life Ring, and then I got the Double Crossbow from Thomas. With all these upgrades I feel much more confident about finally tackling the Sphere. (On the other hand, I could try to discover more places and solve more puzzles and get even more upgrades first…)
Monday: I decided not to enter the Sphere until after my exams. That will probably help not to get too distracted from studying, but didn't stop me from spending half an hour trying to make it past Pelna's challenge and I still failed because I keep falling down that stupid platform. So instead I did some more backtracking past the Last Wall and other places and got some more Hearts/Gems/Moonstones and another Lunar Artifact. I also opened the safe in the mayor's house, a sidequest I could have done a long time ago but had somehow missed completely until the second hide-and-seek with Garnet's kids.
Tuesday: After another dozen failed attempts at Pelna's harpies I did some more backtracking, collected some moonstones, found Boar Boy and gained another technique from him, and found another Ouroboros scroll, which meant I was now out of excuses so I finally got the scroll under the Cupid fountain (the second challenge room there took me ages.) With those two I got the Baroque of Battle song and technique from Atri – not sure I will use it much since I prefer to use my spear rather than my bat, but still cool. I also asked D where the musicians could be and then found them in the Moonlight Ravine, where I had somehow completely missed them. I followed them to Daea and then helped Alto find Melody the former Ouroboros bandit at the Cupid fountain and she joined them as a dancer, nice. (I bet I will see Cobette again at some point too.)
D mentioned that she had already met harpies before seeing them at the Aurantia cliffs so I know there must be some place I have missed, and she also said that there are caves like the Mul Caves but without enemies: both those places I have not found and I didn't ask for clues yet, we'll see if I'll be able to find them on my own. (She already got 100% of all Heart Rubies, Energy Gems, Moonstones, and most achievements, which is convenient for tips as a last resort.)
Thursday: Exams are over for now, so I finally entered the Sphere! I made it to the Pristine City, where I got the Spheralis. I also met Cobette/Coby again, found out that the gardener is a robot, and found out that Bart is "His Highness Bartholomew" (still not entirely sure if that, and his brother Bill, was not someone having me on ^^ ) I found where I will be able to fight the ancient monster PHALANX eventually – pretty sure I need to have max health for that, which is a problem because some Heart Rubies are very hard to get. We'll see. In the meantime I made it to E.D.E.N. station. The connecting hallways between the underwater (!) labs are so pretty! I got to E.D.E.N. core and got one Chrystalis key.
D finished the game today and she hopes that I will finish soon so we can talk about it, so I will try my best.
Friday: I collected the keys and discovered the labs along the way. Harpies and trolls being the descendants of genetically engineered super-soldiers makes sense! I felt very sorry for the two harpies and the two trolls that escaped and clearly had been imprisoned there for centuries (though hopefully not aware?), I was sad I had to kill them. Not that surprising that when Grasso found out about some of them living in the wild he decided to live among them and dedicated himself to teaching them (at least that's how I think it went - I'll have to read the computer entries in E.D.E.N. and listen to the stories in Terellum again.) Interesting side-note, D told me she only discovered Aurantia after she'd fought the harpies and trolls in the lab, so at first she wasn't sure at all if she could trust harpies that looked peaceful. Very different first impression of non-humans.
In any case, at that point I already suspected that Gail was a metahuman too, ever since the one woman from the Peace Ministry mentioned it. But I did not expect Adam! "Angel" or "demon", probably-immortal possible-progenitor-of-humanity… Interesting. Iirc Mother Computer did not say directly but it is strongly implied that the Phoenixes were created with genetic material from Adam. (Not sure about the harpies and trolls.) I wonder who stole Gail and her brother and why (and how.)
My first fight against Mother Computer I lost, but narrowly, and I did not carry as much food of good quality as I could have. Then I decided I wanted to see the "bad" ending and chose to rest, that was predictably the wrong choice but not very spectacular.
Then, before fighting her again, I decided to go back to Pelna, and this time I actually beat the challenge and learned the technique! …which turned out to be not at all useful when fighting Mother Computer again ^^ this time with a lot more food and, crucially, a more targeted attack in the drone-phase, and I managed to win. At first I thought I would not have needed to buy that much food – and then there was the fight against the illusionary doubles of myself, and later the second fight against Katash, where I was very glad for the extra food. But I won both, that was nice.
I found the Phoenixes! Now the title of the game makes perfect sense, too. Bart hugging Gail and ruffling her hair was so adorable. (Tangible hologram?) Coby telling Bart that he is missing a great fight when Bart tries to wake up another Phoenix while Gail fights Katash was hilarious. And then Zero actually wakes up, nice. (Later I saw in a video that if Gail loses against Katash, Zero saves her.)
I loved the entire epilogue, with Bart and Leo making an alliance and all the awoken Phoenixes defending Earth against the Astral Empire and Bart's people still searching space for mentions of Gail's brother and the other Panselo villagers, and also Gail can fly now! (Tbf that could have been tech but still.) All the looks at the now humans-and-Stellanites integrated society and the rebuilt towns etc. were great. (I only missed seeing harpies and trolls with them - maybe so it is not a spoiler for those who have not found Aurantia yet.) It worked so well as an ending, yet leaves open a lot for sequels too, very nice.
All in all I played for a little over 55 hours and got to 58% completion. Not sure I will get to 100% but there are several things I still want to discover/see, so I'm definitely not finished playing yet!
Detailed notes under the cut; I will make a mostly spoiler-free promo post eventually but rn I am too busy playing the game.
Sunday: Birdy and Zeke are back! Turns out "taken to the guillotine" meant "taken to the museum to clean it" because there is no death sentence. What a relief. That guard was a dick.
(This subplot didn't happen in D's game, which is curious. I wonder what else can be different.)
While backtracking I found more moonstones, more puzzles (some of which I solved and some I left for later), and another Lunar Artifact and finally got the better frying pan. Then I found the turtle and did the entire trading quest at once, ending with getting the Dream Ore bat. With some more fishing I got enough money to buy the Life Ring, and then I got the Double Crossbow from Thomas. With all these upgrades I feel much more confident about finally tackling the Sphere. (On the other hand, I could try to discover more places and solve more puzzles and get even more upgrades first…)
Monday: I decided not to enter the Sphere until after my exams. That will probably help not to get too distracted from studying, but didn't stop me from spending half an hour trying to make it past Pelna's challenge and I still failed because I keep falling down that stupid platform. So instead I did some more backtracking past the Last Wall and other places and got some more Hearts/Gems/Moonstones and another Lunar Artifact. I also opened the safe in the mayor's house, a sidequest I could have done a long time ago but had somehow missed completely until the second hide-and-seek with Garnet's kids.
Tuesday: After another dozen failed attempts at Pelna's harpies I did some more backtracking, collected some moonstones, found Boar Boy and gained another technique from him, and found another Ouroboros scroll, which meant I was now out of excuses so I finally got the scroll under the Cupid fountain (the second challenge room there took me ages.) With those two I got the Baroque of Battle song and technique from Atri – not sure I will use it much since I prefer to use my spear rather than my bat, but still cool. I also asked D where the musicians could be and then found them in the Moonlight Ravine, where I had somehow completely missed them. I followed them to Daea and then helped Alto find Melody the former Ouroboros bandit at the Cupid fountain and she joined them as a dancer, nice. (I bet I will see Cobette again at some point too.)
D mentioned that she had already met harpies before seeing them at the Aurantia cliffs so I know there must be some place I have missed, and she also said that there are caves like the Mul Caves but without enemies: both those places I have not found and I didn't ask for clues yet, we'll see if I'll be able to find them on my own. (She already got 100% of all Heart Rubies, Energy Gems, Moonstones, and most achievements, which is convenient for tips as a last resort.)
Thursday: Exams are over for now, so I finally entered the Sphere! I made it to the Pristine City, where I got the Spheralis. I also met Cobette/Coby again, found out that the gardener is a robot, and found out that Bart is "His Highness Bartholomew" (still not entirely sure if that, and his brother Bill, was not someone having me on ^^ ) I found where I will be able to fight the ancient monster PHALANX eventually – pretty sure I need to have max health for that, which is a problem because some Heart Rubies are very hard to get. We'll see. In the meantime I made it to E.D.E.N. station. The connecting hallways between the underwater (!) labs are so pretty! I got to E.D.E.N. core and got one Chrystalis key.
D finished the game today and she hopes that I will finish soon so we can talk about it, so I will try my best.
Friday: I collected the keys and discovered the labs along the way. Harpies and trolls being the descendants of genetically engineered super-soldiers makes sense! I felt very sorry for the two harpies and the two trolls that escaped and clearly had been imprisoned there for centuries (though hopefully not aware?), I was sad I had to kill them. Not that surprising that when Grasso found out about some of them living in the wild he decided to live among them and dedicated himself to teaching them (at least that's how I think it went - I'll have to read the computer entries in E.D.E.N. and listen to the stories in Terellum again.) Interesting side-note, D told me she only discovered Aurantia after she'd fought the harpies and trolls in the lab, so at first she wasn't sure at all if she could trust harpies that looked peaceful. Very different first impression of non-humans.
In any case, at that point I already suspected that Gail was a metahuman too, ever since the one woman from the Peace Ministry mentioned it. But I did not expect Adam! "Angel" or "demon", probably-immortal possible-progenitor-of-humanity… Interesting. Iirc Mother Computer did not say directly but it is strongly implied that the Phoenixes were created with genetic material from Adam. (Not sure about the harpies and trolls.) I wonder who stole Gail and her brother and why (and how.)
My first fight against Mother Computer I lost, but narrowly, and I did not carry as much food of good quality as I could have. Then I decided I wanted to see the "bad" ending and chose to rest, that was predictably the wrong choice but not very spectacular.
Then, before fighting her again, I decided to go back to Pelna, and this time I actually beat the challenge and learned the technique! …which turned out to be not at all useful when fighting Mother Computer again ^^ this time with a lot more food and, crucially, a more targeted attack in the drone-phase, and I managed to win. At first I thought I would not have needed to buy that much food – and then there was the fight against the illusionary doubles of myself, and later the second fight against Katash, where I was very glad for the extra food. But I won both, that was nice.
I found the Phoenixes! Now the title of the game makes perfect sense, too. Bart hugging Gail and ruffling her hair was so adorable. (Tangible hologram?) Coby telling Bart that he is missing a great fight when Bart tries to wake up another Phoenix while Gail fights Katash was hilarious. And then Zero actually wakes up, nice. (Later I saw in a video that if Gail loses against Katash, Zero saves her.)
I loved the entire epilogue, with Bart and Leo making an alliance and all the awoken Phoenixes defending Earth against the Astral Empire and Bart's people still searching space for mentions of Gail's brother and the other Panselo villagers, and also Gail can fly now! (Tbf that could have been tech but still.) All the looks at the now humans-and-Stellanites integrated society and the rebuilt towns etc. were great. (I only missed seeing harpies and trolls with them - maybe so it is not a spoiler for those who have not found Aurantia yet.) It worked so well as an ending, yet leaves open a lot for sequels too, very nice.
All in all I played for a little over 55 hours and got to 58% completion. Not sure I will get to 100% but there are several things I still want to discover/see, so I'm definitely not finished playing yet!
