Shadow Hearts: Covenant - Reach Out and Punch Someone

Welcome to the World Map. This is less a thing we'll be using to travel to assorted areas and more just a notice of moving to a new location. At least for the... err... well, the better part of the game. Karin Koenig's commanding officer may have told her to turn around and head back to Domremy to give it the ol' college try again taking the town from a demon with a fresh deployment of men. But on the other hand, a mysterious Vatican Cardinal pretty boy showed up and that clearly overrides a military general in the chain of command. Thus our next destination is...

It is 1915. Transportation isn't exactly the fastest thing at this point in history. So it's taken a good week for this field trip some 1,300 km from Luxembourg to the Vatican. I like to think the men stationed outside Domremy are really starting to wonder when the hell that scout is going to show up. That or General Heimann is just sending waves of men into the Demon of Domremy grinder until Karin and Nicolai are finished doing... whatever it is they are doing...

Is this your first time at the Vatican?

<nods> Umm, yes.

I need to do some careful preparation before we go to Domremy. There's a certain item that I must have in order to complete this mission.

A key item, you might even say.

A certain item?

Yes, a sort of good luck charm. It's used for exorcisms.

Many think the Luck stat is a useless vestigial trait full of randomness and uncertainty. But I have always found great benefits in topping it off with a spare point or two when the occasion calls for it.
Umm... OK?

And that's where we're going now?

NEW Music: Death is the Great Leveler ~ Tower of Atonement (Not exactly the tune I'd picture when thinking of The Vatican.)

Yes, it's inside the Apoina Tower. Also known as...the Tower of Atonement.

<stops walking> ......

Nicolai stops and turns his head toward Karin.

It seems you know of it... For many many years, dangerous heretics and others like them were kept imprisoned there. It's filled with the spirits of those who went mad from the torture. That's why it's a safe resting place for the item that I seek...

A spirit-filled torture dungeon of the Vatican is a safe resting place for this lucky exorcism charm...?
<nods> Naturally. Where else?
...OK.

The two begin walking down the corridor again.

But why am I coming?

Well, to get to the top of the tower, I need your help. I'll feel much safer if you're with me.

A second target for the restless spirits of the tower will make the trek much more manageable.

.........

Wait... Are we sure this is the Vatican and not the El Nido Archipelago? Is the Frozen Flame the relic Nicolai is after?

Karin is very impressed at the evil rear end looking prison tower the Catholic Church had right in the middle of its home base.

<continues walking forward> It's this way, Lieutenant.

In we go to our first proper location of the game -- ~~The Tutorial Dungeon~~ Apoina Tower.

It's filled with real monsters and ghosts, you know.

Monsters?!

Oh yes. I was not speaking metaphorically about the spirits inhabiting the tower. It is quite literally full of angry ghosts. I heard a curious Bishop was torn asunder by their ranks just last month.
......
There were talks of putting up a sign warning anyone unprepared from entering the tower. But such tacky signage would ruin the ambiance of the structure, in my opinion.

But don't worry. Compared to that demon in Domremy, these should be a snap to handle.

B-but don't I need some sort of holy relic to stop a spirit?
You have your sword about you, no? That should more than suffice. Even your service pistol will do in a pinch.
...You can just... shoot... a ghost...?
Naturally.
......

Now make sure you don't wander too far away from me. Let's go.

Welcome to Apoina Tower. Shadow Hearts: Covenant has far more of just a straight up direct tutorial dungeon compared to the original game just sort of tossing the player into the thick of it with an in-game instruction manual and only bothering to explain the more arcane mechanics directly. Granted, there is still quite a robust FAQ in the game's menu too. But Covenant will hold the player's hand a bit if they so desire.

With that said, taking so much as a single step forward will immediately thrust us into the first battle tutorial.

NEW Music: Vicious 1915 ~ Battle in Europe (It's the common battle theme. You should probably listen to it at least once. Lord knows it's gonna pop up several dozen times.)

While doing the battles themselves for the tutorials are mandatory, the tutorials themselves are completely optional. Which is real nice on subsequent playthroughs or when giving a cliff-notes version of what it's trying to convey for an LP or something. Like this first tutorial, which is about attacking.

I am playing this on an emulator, if you cannot tell by the fact it doesn't look like a jaggy mess running at 480i. Shadow Hearts: Covenant runs perfectly well for the most part. Except... there has been a bug where the Judgment Ring, the thing that pops up every time an action is performed in-battle, results in either a black screen or a weird copy of an earlier shot in memory overlaid on the background. Unfortunately, that bug seems to have existed since inception on the only decent PS2 emulator in existence (I found "hey how do I fix this" forum posts as far back as like 2014) and looks like it will never be fixed.

Other than switching the thing to Software Mode which outputs in the original PS2 480i resolution. So bear with the game looking a bit like rear end while we make it through these tutorials. Technical issues aside, this is the Judgment Ring -- the chief gameplay gimmick of the Shadow Hearts series. It is largely the same as the original game, but I'll go over it again as a refresher. Feel free to skip to the bolded part below if you're not interested.

When performing any action, this glyph will appear with assorted colored sections and a dial will spin around the circumference of the circle. The player must tap the action button (X) at the right spots on the dial's revolution in order to successfully perform an attack. The tan colored areas of the Judgment Ring are called Hit Areas -- they result in a successful action. The red areas are Strike Areas, these will result in a more powerful version of an attack with a chance to land a Critical Hit. The white area of the ring is a Miss and hitting that will fail an action. The X button must be pressed on all of the Hit/Strike segments on the Judgment Ring or the attack will also fail. Any colored region separated by a white Miss area counts as its own segment.

Nicholai hit both Hit Areas so he attacks twice with his basic physical sword attack.

Meanwhile, Karin only manages to hit one of her two Hit Areas and only does a single attack on this spooky Vatican skeleton.

In addition to physical attacks, characters can also have Special Attacks aka Magic. Or at least Nicholai can perform White Mage being a pious JRPG churchman and all. Karin is currently unable to perform any magical attacks being a normy just getting introduced to the fact that she's in a weird alternate history full of wizards, monsters and transforming rude heroes. Pay no attention to that early title card splash screen where she clearly had a flaming sword.

Apparently, Catholics just innately are taught White Magic in this universe's Sunday Schools since Nicolai is privy to the same White Magic abilities that Alice Elliot had in the first game. Although the way magic works is somewhat different this time around.

The original Shadow Hearts was an Allies stand on this side of the screen, Enemies stand on that side of the screen. Everyone take turns hitting one another before returning to their line affair. This time around, everyone moves about the field when attacking or getting hit and the positioning of characters and enemies matters to an extent. In this case, Nicolai's Blessed Light has a small radius of effect. If we just targeted this single uppity skeleton Revenant over here, it'd only damage that single guy.

But if we targeted this skeleton over here hanging out with his bones buddy, then both enemies will eat the magic attack. There's no real way to corral enemies together. Nor is there a way to manually move our characters beyond selecting who to attack physically which causes our character to run up near 'em (assuming they're a close range fighter.) It's basically down to targets of opportunity.

For Magic Attacks and other Special Skills, the Judgment ring adds a green colored region that has to be tapped for the attack to be successful. These bonus regions get more complicated/frequent the stronger the attack in question gets. You don't really need to concern yourself with that since you're not the one playing the game. But it's worth a note to see how the game goes if you ever did get around to playing it yourself.

If you're wondering, sadly this entire series is AWOL from any legal front other than being bought used online and playing on actual PS2 hardware. Azure, the parent company to Sacnoth/Nautilus, got out of the video game industry and went into the lucrative weird pachinko pseudo-gambling trade back in the mid-00s and has basically sat on the rights to anything it owned since then. RIP.

In any event, Blessed Light is more than enough to wreck these tutorial dungeon jobbers. There's some other stuff with magic like elemental affinities and whatnot. But that is beyond the scope of this point in the game.

So let's just finish mopping up the last of these jerks and move on.

TUTORIAL OVER!

Music: Death is the Great Leveler ~ Tower of Atonement

Well, that's that I guess.

YOU GET! After every battle, we get the fairly standard JRPG Experience Points and the ubiquitous currency of the Shadow Hearts universe -- Cash. Skeletons with rotting flesh hanging off them in the Vatican's prison camp tower naturally have a least a few bucks hanging onto their dry bones.

C'mon Karin. You're acting like you've never fought a reanimated skeleton before. Get it together, girl.

Those were easier than most. Are you all right?

Uhh...

Lt. Koenig hastily climbs to her feet and walks off. It's not like she needed your help or anything, b-baka!

We find ourselves back in the main hall. It's not like we moved much of anywhere fighting those skeletons. That big blue circle is the game's Save Point, if you're curious. You can save the game there. The in-game justification is you need a place to save because this is a 60 hour game. What more do you want?

Before we move on further, let's take a few minutes to shuffle through the game's menus. They're a touch sparse at the moment. But we're taking baby steps in the tutorial zone. More options will fill out as we progress through the game.

Items:

Nicolai and Karin took some preparation on for their assignment and have brought along an assortment of goodies in their Item inventory. Much like the first Shadow Hearts and Koudelka before it, each and every item in the game gets unique art and a lore fluff blurb to go along with it. Let's take a moment to sort through what we're carrying.

Yuri used to just crumple these up in his fist and shove them in his mouth. I assume this is how it also goes in the Resident Evil franchise. This consumable heals 75 HP.

Sadly, these cannot be mixed with a Thera Leaf to somehow turn into a yellow powder for a full heal. It just restores 50 MP.

You've never had a high like a Mexican Pure Leaf. These restore 3 SP or Sanity Points -- a returning mechanic we'll touch on later.

Those idiots going around carrying bird feathers when just doodling a phoenix on some old paper would have sufficed. This restores a KOed character with 30% of their total HP. Hopefully, we won't need to use many of these.

I'm glad 1915 camping technology was so environmentally friendly. Like it says, this fully restores HP/MP at a save point. I usually carry like 20 of these in any JRPG that has them available. You never know when you need a top-off and cannot be bothered to find an inn or use a bunch of consumables.

Equipment:

Characters in Shadow Hearts 2 can equip a weapon, a set of armor and up to three accessories to provide assorted benefits just like they could in the first game. We're a wee bit lacking in that third department at the moment. But Karin and Nicolai both come packing a weapon and armor which also have their own lore blurbs.

Who knew World War 1 Germans were closet weebs? Or maybe it's just Karin. :v:

In the real world, the German military didn't have any female members until the tail end of World War II when things were really going to poo poo for the Nazis. Even then, they just served in Luftwaffe artillery support roles (along with young boys.) After that, German went hardline conservative and didn't allow women into the military until 1975 and even then it was only into the Medical Corps. And it wasn't until 2001 that they actually allowed women into combat units. So the Shadow Hearts universe is WAY more liberal in this regard...

Nicolai literally has Galahad of the Knights of the Round Table's sword as his weapon of choice. Which just by itself lends a bit more evidence to an evil heel turn than dying unceremoniously by the end of the tutorial. Expendable Red Shirts usually don't get relics out of mythology. Usually...

It's worth mentioning that way back in Koudelka, broken duplicates of Galahad's Sword were a potential weapon drop from... evil zombie dogs.

Let's be real, you could stick any Catholic Church upper echelon attire into a JRPG without skipping a beat. So Nicolai's uniform isn't that outlandish.

Personal:

Finally, there is just the stat page for our characters. Most of the upper values are self-explanatory if you've ever played a JRPG before and if not... I'm not sure why you started with a LP of technically the third game of a franchise. But you live your life how you want to... As for the rest of the stats, they've retained everything from the original Shadow Hearts in that department and haven't altered their uses all that much. For a brief rundown:

Strength - Governs physical attack ability. Mostly gets affected by weapons equipped.
Intelligence - Governs special attack ability (read: Magic.) Also gets boosted by weapons for more magically inclined characters.
Vitality - Governs defense against physical attacks. Armor boosts this stat greatly.
Power - Governs special attack defense. Same deal as Vitality for the most part.
Agility - Governs the number of turns a character receives in combat and to a lesser extent their potential evasion rate.
Luck - It is Luck, so it's a vague mish-mash of obscured mathematical calculations the player will never see such as potential Critical Hits, rare item drops from enemies, evasion rate potential, attack accuracy and probably some other crap the game will never mention. My feeling on Luck stats being dumb as hell has not wavered.
Dominance Capacity Points - Ergh... that's a heck of a name. Don't worry about this one right now! It won't be relevant for a little while.
Weight - All characters have a weight class which affects how likely they are to be flung around by enemy attacks. There's no way to alter this so... don't worry about it either. I forgot it was even technically a displayed stat.

There are also elemental affinities for each character. Karin Koenig is a Fire Elemental character, like all redhead women. While Nicolai Conrad is a Light Elemental, like all Catholics, no matter how somewhat shady they come off. The elements of the Shadow Hearts universe and their opposites are:

Light - Dark
Fire - Water
Wind - Earth
Non-Elemental (This does count as its own thing and takes reduced damage from all other elements. It's mostly reserved for late game junk.)

That's about it for now. You may notice the Affinity and Profile tabs in this menu. We're going to ignore those for now. Affinity is a mechanic that won't come into play for a while and Profile... straight up spoils some stuff were we to take a gander at those at the moment. Whoops!

OK. Let's try to make some actual progress now and make it out of the first room of the game.

I actually got a wee bit lost here the first time I played this. There are some spiral stairs on either side of the room. But these only lead to semi-hidden chests with some less than noteworthy loot (a Pure Leaf and a Talisman of Luck.) Any time a big Question Mark thought bubble pops out of a character's head, it means there is a point we can click on to interact on the map.

To progress the game, we actually need to walk backward toward the direction we came in. Turns out Nicolai and Karin just wandered into a dead end for no particular reason. There are two sets of stairs a bit back from the main chamber. The staircase to the left leads to a locked gate. The one to the right is the one we want. However, as soon as we so much as approach the steps... well, we ARE in a tutorial dungeon, so...

While the previous tutorial was just recapping returning elements from the first game, this one is actually something new and pretty fun added to Shadow Hearts: Covenant's battle system -- Combo Attacks!

Scrolling the battle menu down to the bottom reveals a couple more options. Combo is a new one.

Selecting this will allow us to initiate a combo with a team member. Obviously, Nicolai will be doing this with Karin. There will be more to it after we gain additional party members. Selecting Karin will make Nicolai run up to her side to get into Combo position.

From here, we can select what Nicolai will do after initiating the combo. It's either just hang out or enter a defensive stance. You can see at the top of the screen, there is now an indicator of enemy and ally turns, not unlike Final Fantasy X. Shadow Hearts 1 had this same system but obfuscated the actual turn order for no particular reason. Strangely, the fourth icon on the grid is actually the current turn, not the first one. Could not tell you why that UI decision was made. But here we are... Anyway, we'll just have Nicolai hang out since Karin's turn is up next.

Another addition to combat is Hit Classes. Instead of just the standard physical attack being the only option, there is also special degrees of attack. These are:

Standard - Just the normal, run of the mill attack.
Hard Hit - As the name suggests, performs a heavy attack that will stagger an enemy but keep them on their feet.
High Angle - Performs an attack that will launch an enemy into the air.
Knockdown - A hit that will trip the enemy without launching them into the air.

These all have their uses with different Combos we will be performing in the game. But for now, we'll do a High Angle launcher with Karin to initiate the Combo.

Starting a combo also makes this weird QTE appear where a random button will flash on the Judgment Ring for a couple of seconds. We have to hit the appropriate button or else the combo will fail. I'm not sure why they felt the need to include this step. But there you go.

In any case, Karin's High Angle strike is a sick cartwheel flip using her sword as a springboard to send that unlucky bondage ghost flying about ten meters into the air.

Since we succeeded in the combo, Nicolai gets to cut in line and have his turn next to perform his end of the Combo (he still needs to complete a Judgment Ring like a normal attack, but the enemy is frozen in place until he does so.) Since these are Level 1 tutorial schmucks, he instantly annihilates the enemy with the next strike which ends the Combo with three hits.

The game does keep tally of Combos length and damage. During special fights (read: Bosses) and it will reward bonuses for pulling off cool team-up attacks. Combos and Hit Classes are nifty additions to the battle system and certainly make the fights more dynamic than mashing the same attack string over-and-over until health meters are drained like the original game frequently devolved into by the end.

Music: Death is the Great Leveler ~ Tower of Atonement

Don't underestimate me because I'm a woman.

That all said, that concludes the first rather tutorial dense room of Apoina Tower. Tune in next time as we finish out the rest of the tutorials (there's only one real one left), maybe fight a boss and discover the mysterious exorcism good luck charm Bishop Conrad is after as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

Video: Episode 3 Highlight Reel (You should see some battle stuff in action.)

Lieutenant Karin Koenig Official Art - Knee high, high-heeled boots were a fully necessary part of the uniform.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 3, 2019 20:23

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode IV: Glint of Light

Let's actually make it out of the first room of the game, eh? At least before another tutorial ambushes our duo.

The architecture of Apoina Tower isn't exactly the most compelling I have ever seen. But despite the outside appearance of the tower, there are only like... four floors we need to traverse to make it to the end of the dungeon. But not before hitting another...

Music: Death is the Great Leveler ~ Tower of Atonement

Tutorial. Kinda. I suppose this is technically a tutorial. All shows off is the fact that it's possible to gain the initiative in a battle (and likewise get surrounded and with enemies getting in free hits.) Personally, I feel like ambushing Level 1 tutorial mobs is kind of mean spirited. They're just clocking in to give new players an easy time in the beginning. They're probably working multiple tutorial shifts to cover living expenses and the kids at home. Sheesh.

Many have been imprisoned and died here over the years. Noblemen who lost in battle, tragic princesses who were thought to have died of illnesses.

Assassins who saw it fit to get into fist fights with the Pope.
That's happened before?
Oh yes, indeed. It's a story for another day.

You can still feel their malice...

Or should I say, their Malice.
...You just did, though.
No, Malice capitalized -- a proper noun.
Is there a difference?
Hmm... Don't trouble yourself with that for now.

Spooky howling noises from afar fill the air.

<gasp> I knew it...

What is it?

Don't mind the howling. You grow accustomed to it after a while. I barely take notice of it most nights anymore.

I'm not sure... but when I met that demon in Domremy, I didn't sense the malevolence that I feel from the people in this tower.

<approaches Karin> Huh... Could it have been because you were so afraid then?

That may be part of it. But... he was beautiful.

......

Interesting word to use.

He filled out those leather pants really well...
I... see...

Also...

Also?

He seemed sad.

HATE sad demon boys.

Continuing forward, we find a mysterious item in a chest around the corner. We'll just put a pin in that for the moment since perhaps there is a tutorial for this trinket just a few steps away.

What looks like it ought to be a Save Point in another JRPG appears before Karin and Nicolai. They are very surprised by this turn of events. Even more so when it begins speaking to them.

W-what the...?!

The two approach the Ring Soul.

F-fate...?

I can see it... I can see thy future... This I entrust to you...

The power to command the Judgment Ring. Such power will help you carve your way through destiny...

Wait! Why...why give this to me?

The Judgment Ring has the power to change the world... Fate only follows a straight path if it is used well...

Fate...? A straight path...?

There is nothing more to say...

That is demonstrably not true! I have a LOT of questions here.

I will appear to you again, to bestow upon you more power... But beware! I am always watching...

A-Always?
Always.
Even when...
ESPECIALLY when you poop.
......
That was NOT what I was about to ask!

Watching to see if you are truly the one to command destiny...

And with that, the Ring Soul vanishes. As it said, we will be seeing that... thing... later. The party's relationship with that entity is... interesting...

......

I don't like anything about what just happened.

<turns to Karin> Don't keep your new power all to yourself!

A new system is unlocked. Well, more like a revised and streamlined system from the first game.

In the original Shadow Hearts, every weapon could be enhanced to have more attack power (which narrowed the Judgment Ring's Hit Areas) and could also have the Hit Areas expanded to counteract that. This was done via a gross old, peeping-tom stalker old man piece of poo poo called Wanderer Meiyuan, who provided an absurdly expensive acupuncture service to enhance the party's weapons. He also molested the male characters while doing this, including the fourteen-year-old boy one, because everything about that character was a big yikes old gay pervert stereotype. Wanderer Meiyuan was hopefully sent to prison or died somewhere in the ravages of the Great War and will never be seen again, thankfully. Judgment Ring rejiggering is now done via a per-character Ring Customization option at any time, free of exorbitant monetary fees.

Using items, like the Hit Area Expand we just received, will boost the size of Hit and Strike Areas on the Judgment Ring. While these items are limited, they're not consumables. We can add and subtract points at any time with no penalty for reconfiguration. We're given a handful of these to play around with initially.

There are also Add-On Effects that can be equipped for additional bonuses. Right now we've only got an Evasion Down, which reduces the enemies ability to evade attacks. That seems nebulous to the point who knows if it even works. But it might help a player sleep at night.

The Attack Boost we received from the Ring Soul can be used to expand Karin's (despite his suggestion, we're not actually going to give Nicolai poo poo since he's already way better than Karin at this point) number of physical attacks from two to three (which was default in the OG Shadow Hearts.) We could also reduce it to just one attack. There's not remotely a reason to do that at the moment. But, the option is there.

Another new feature is also Ring Types. In the original Shadow Hearts, everyone just had a three string combo for their basic physical attack. This was non-negotiable and stayed static the entire game.

The game itself provides an on-point and brief summary of each Ring Type with visual aids. So I'll let it speak for itself. Normal Ring is fine for now since we can't do anything too fancy and I've been playing Shadow Hearts 1 for the Internet for like seven months in the prior LP so I am KINDA used to one at the moment. We'll probably swap over to the more spicy versions later on in the game.

Also, if you just aren't good at pseudo-QTEs or timed button presses, there is the option to essentially just turn the Judgment Ring off. This does limit characters to just doing one single strike with no possibility of critical hits. I'm never touching that. But it's nice there's an option to just turn off that kind of stuff.

That's it for Ring Customization's tutorial. But it is worth checking out the fact that all the Ring Customization items also have artwork and blurbs just like any other item.

Shankar, god of shiving snitches.

I never pictured William Tell as some kind of shinobi archer. But I supposed I never gave much thought to what the hell William Tell looked like, either. Maybe he was a ninja? How are we to know?

That horse is no Roach.

Is it really tenacious if you're hunting loving BABIES?! That is the most low-hanging fruit prey I could think of for a predator. Boo this spider!

Continuing to ascend the tower, we come upon an INCREDIBLY evil looking door. Unfortunately, it's locked at the moment. That's two locked doors in the tutorial dungeon now. I sure hope this joint doesn't come back as a mid-to-late game dungeon restaffed with much higher level baddies the second run.

Non-tutorial random battles continued as we make our way through the tower. We've already seen the only two enemy types in this region during the tutorials, so further fights aren't worth going over. What is worthy of note is the fact that Karin made it to Level 2 along the way. There is no stat distribution or anything upon Level Up. It's all automatic. Unfortunately, Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues the trend pioneered by Koudelka in having characters gain HP and MP on Level Up but not having their meters filled up at the same time (i.e. Karin went from 13/25 HP remaining to 13/35 HP.)

As someone that kind of likes everyone's meters topped off between battles, that has always been really annoying.

Past that the door with the giant demonic hands is the Vatican's patented teleportation runes which let the party skip straight to the top of the tower. Animated skeletons, spooky noises and 4th wall breaking entities all concern Karin. But a mystical instant transmission glyph? Meh. Doesn't even qualify for a cutscene comment.

Just past the teleporter, we're given a save point we should probably use since there may or may not be a boss fight coming up in the near future. Seems like a good time for one of those biodegradable tents while we're at it.

Conrad and Koenig approach the door at the top of the tower.

Be careful now. There's a familiar keeping guard in there.

<nods> ..........

Ahh... there's the opulence I expect to see in a Catholic Church building. The rest of this joint was downright shabby.

And here is what is presumably the relic Nicolai was after. That's quite the uncomfortable looking stylus.

Music: Flame of Strain to Blaze ~ Tension (The official "hey there is a boss fight coming up" track.)

There you are!

<gasp>

Is there a Green Room equivalent for mid-bosses where they hang out waiting and getting makeup done until the curtain call for warping in for a boss fight? I feel like there must be.

Alright, who is the joker that put boobs on a gargoyle? Fess up!

Karin is less than thrilled at this turn of events.

But Nicolai...?

Nicholai is ~~LOVING~~ suspiciously into this poo poo!

Music: Glint of Light ~ Mid Boss in Europe (It's the boss battle music. You should probably listen to it.)

Meet the first boss of Shadow Hearts: Covenant -- the Gargoyle. Gargoyles have certainly fallen a long way from being a super boss back in the Koudelka days to the end of tutorial dungeon boss we have before us here. The Gargoyle is a Dark elemental enemy with only 140 HP. That's equivalent to like SEVEN skeletons!

Since this is a Dark elemental enemy, Nicholai's Light element Blessed Light attack knocks off around a quarter of the best's total health. Nicolai has enough MP to cast that spell five times, so he could easily solo this boss fight.

Having Karin here just makes it even more one-sided even if she can only produce around the 25 HP of damage range per turn. Teaming up for a Combo only manages to output slightly more damage than just having Nicolai cast Blessed Light, so it's overall less effective than just having the two attack separately.

Gargoyle on has two attacks. Evil Ray, which err... well, it shoots a ray blast. I'll assume it is quite evil. But despite being flashy, it only does around 7-12 HP of damage.

Far more dangerous is Gargoyle's physical attack string. This can do in the range of 15-20 HP of damage in a single turn. Considering our characters are topping out at a mere 35 and 38 HP, that's can turn into bad news quickly if Gargoyle decided to focus on a single party member.

That is, you know, if it got the chance to live that long. Spoilers: It did not. It got two turns before getting wasted by our protagonists. Pfft. The last Gargoyle I fought took like thirty agonizingly long turns to take down using underhanded super weapons obtained from leaving the game running for hours. This was a sad excuse for a Gargoyle.

I pray for their souls.

Boss Battles track assorted stats such as highest combo achieved, number of turns the boss took and competence at the Judgment Ring awards addition items and experience points for doing well. I think that was about as well as we could possibly manage here.

Music: ENDS

Now that the lackluster guardian of the Vatican's doom tower is vanquished, Nicolai claims his prize of... whatever the hell this thing is...

Is that it?

...Yes. The ultimate tool for exorcising demons.

So we gain a new key item -- Holy Mistletoe. Uhh... sure, if you say so. We'll learn more about that on another occasion. For now, our time in Apoina Tower is concluded. Tune in next time as we return back to France to sort out the Demon of Domremy. I'm sure this will go without a hitch. When's the last time anything ever went wrong with a winged demon and someone fiddling around with supernatural arts? In Europe, at least...

That's the end of the first proper chapter of the game. With it, we've gained a small sampling of new entries from the ghouls and ghosts of the Vatican.

MONSTERS:

Now I'd been calling these skeletons, but looking at how much flesh is still on them bones... Would you classify this thing as a zombie? I think like Revenant is just a cowardly catch-all of "man I dunno what to call it" with the undead.

They kept catching this jerk smoking behind the bleachers at the Vatican and had to ground it.

"I want the tower guardian best to have big ol' yaoi hands, a nose-mouth, tiny baby feet, and Double-D titties!" - Official Decree by Pope Benedict XV, 1914

CHARACTERS:

Nobody is prepared to learn more of the Ring Soul.

Video: Episode 4 Highlight Reel (You should see this big dumb boss in action.)

Karin and Nicolai Calendar Render - Where were YOU July and August, 2003?

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 5, 2019 00:13

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode V: The Demon of Domremy

Now that our side venture to the Vatican is concluded, we can resume our main mission of sorting out Domremy, France for the German Empire.

Fun fact: Domr�my is a real location in France. It is currently known as Domr�my-la-Pucelle a village in bumbfuck rural France with a population of 126 people according to the 2014 census. The town is noteworthy for being the birthplace of Joan of Arc. Aside from that factoid, Jeanne d'Arc has zero relevance to anything in the plot so don't fret about that part too much. Though don't be surprised if we run into a character named Jeanne in the area. :v:

Before we venture any further, it's worth mentioning that the (still completely pointless) Score system from the first game has returned and been expanded for Shadow Hearts 2. I see they kept Distance Traveled in kilometers this time but it's still completely jacked calculations since Nicolai walked all of around a city block's distance the duration of that tutorial tower.

There are also now per-character stats for Judgment Ring successes and number of battles participated in during the game. I'd be curious to see what those kinds of stats were for the first game. I think Keith Valentine barely ever broke double digits for the number of battles he was active for the whole first game LP playthrough.

I'll probably show off that report card at the beginning of new chapters. But that's going to be a while. Let's stop dawdling and finally get to Domremy before the dang war is over.

NEW Music: In Darkness of a Labyrinth ~ Dungeon (Very moody.)

These men have been idling without food or water at this position for like half a month now.

Good to see Super Mario had three identical brothers to take up the fight after his unfortunate run-in with the demon. There used to be a fourth brother but... Well, look... The rations and other provisions ran dry five days ago. We don't talk about that time...

A guard, eh. Don't worry, I've made the necessary preparations.

Preparations...?

<nods> Yes.

Are you going to tell me what that entails?
...
......
No.

Karin lets that vague remark slide and turns to her men.

Split up and surround the church!

Lt. Koenig has now taken over duties as the lead character in the field. She's dressed somewhat more appropriate for forest combat than the guy in the all-white Jesus pajamas.

Nothing is getting past ol' Johann here up to and including his superior officer. Funny, I don't remember Karin telling anyone to guard the rear like this. But, there is no getting past the wall that is Johann now.

I suppose we'll just have to continue forward. There is assorted loot to be found in chests or hidden in alcoves only indicated by a question mark thought bubble erupting from Karin's head. But they're all the same generic brand consumables we had with us initially, so we'll just skip mentioning any of 'em and continue our stroll through the woods. There is a mini-map now to help us navigate and it often indicates nearby treasure. So that's a helpful new feature.

Just so you know, the demon seemed impervious to bullets. And grenades...
Hmm... What of a bayonet between the ribs?
It stood nearly two meters taller than most men and could fly, so... I cannot say anyone tried.
Aha! There is our chance!
...OK. Maybe just be on the lookout here for now.
Yes, ma'am!

I couldn't say why the game felt a brisk two loading zone hike through the woods was a necessary precursor to reaching the town itself. But soon enough we find ourselves in Domremy proper.

As soon as we enter the town, Samuel here will provide infinite HP/MP restoration. The training wheels are still firmly on the bike at this point. Technically, there were random battles in the woods. But they weren't worth bothering to go over since...

There is this little wrinkle scattered around the village. There are tripwires down nearly every path in Domremy. Unfortunately, Karin was never properly trained in the highly technical art of "jumping" during her time in the military. Indeed, even the concept of stepping over a very obvious trap is a foreign concept to the Deutsches Kaiserreich. So our only recourse is to blunder into it like an idiot. Which results in...

An ambush by animated wooden children's toys, of course. What else did you expect? A grenade satchel? A spike trap? Pfft! You're thinking too simplemindedly when you could have a Wooden Lion roll up to bite an unsuspecting intruder's knee caps.

Or worse yet, a Ducky Toy banding together for a deadly ice attack. Toy Story goes and gets involved with Kingdom Hearts the one time and now all toys suddenly have knowledge of arcane arts. It's a drat mess, I tell you.

However, since we ARE still firmly in early game with a limited toolset, these magically enhanced toys pose a very little threat to our party and go down in a single physical attack string.

<brushes himself off> They were foolish to face me in combat.

Nicolai says the same sort of thing when smashing an ant he catches crawling on his kitchen counter with a smug sense of satisfaction. He's one of THOSE types.

<places hand on chest> Where is everybody, I wonder?

Not that we have actually checked any of the houses yet, but...

<turns to Karin> They are probably hiding somewhere. I bet that wolf that was howling was warning the villagers.

What?! Demons and wolves protecting a village?

As well as... animated toys? I'm not even sure what to make of that...

Yes, admirable, aren't they? Foolhardy, little volunteers...

Whoever set up these tripwires was clearly not a master of subterfuge. That said I wouldn't be surprised if German casualties are still in the double digits solely from vicious toy surprise attacks. Some poor 18-year-old kid from Hamburg was torn to ribbons by a particularly fierce trio of Ducky Toys. The first World War was a dark page in human history indeed.

Oh, it's you, Commander. I thought I heard some people around, that's all. Is there some other unit besides ours, I wonder?

.........

Nothing suspicious about unnecessary ellipses when an NPC is pondering if a mysterious third party might be present during a military operation. It's probably nothing. Let's just keep heading toward the church and investigate no further.

May be that demon called in his boys.

Stay on your toes, Lieutenant! We lost Private Hans to a particularly barbarous Wooden Lion early this afternoon. There wasn't enough left of him to fit in a lunchbox. Poor boy...

<nods> Thanks for the warning, Sergeant.

The rest of the troops in town wander up to the church.

As we all know, a cleric overrides all structural chain of command when dealing with matters pertaining to a spooky church. That's just plain common sense, people.

Gunfire and screams immediately spill in from outside. Karin turns around rushes to the door to go help.

Stop! It's dangerous to leave now!

<stops and turns back> But why?!

He has come.

The time has come and so have I!
I... don't know what that means...

I bet the Demon of Domremy sort of regrets its grand entrance smashing through the church stained glass window was wasted on like only one named character and a bunch of nobody NPCs. Now there are multiple primary characters with portraits and everything and the best he can manage is crawling through the same window and doing a superhero pose landing. What a goof.

Show your true self, Demon of Domremy!

The demon strikes a sassy pose and...

<gasp>

Aww, snap! It's your boy -- the Rude Hero himself, Yuri Volte Hyuga! Tune in next time as Shadow Hearts II: Covenant actually begins.

Video: Episode 5 Highlight Reel (You should watch this if you want to see Nicolai get bopped by children's toys.)

Karin Koenig Uniform Concept Art - Guess the whip didn't make the cut. Or having two female characters with whips was a bit much.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 19:05

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

There's a reason the coat is gone but I don't think it comes up directly for a very long time. It's a little too busy wrapping up Alice's corpse and buried to be worn anymore. :smith:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 20:35

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode VI: Godslayer

I've been wanting to meet you, Godslayer.

Meh...That sounds way lamer now that I hear it out of someone else's mouth.

All those dead soldiers outside... Are you the one who killed them?

<nods> That's right.

......

Wait, what...?

You see, I don't want any witnesses to what is about to happen here.

<gasps> !?

<starts walking toward Nicolai> Give me the girl.

W-what's going on...?!

<draws sword> Come and take her, if you can.

......

<rolls eyes> Hmph.

Yeah sure, champ. You got this.

You thought Yuri was going to return and punch someone. But then you get a swerve ball and he kicks them instead. Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a game full of twists.

On a different topic, I am... not sure about Yuri's redesign. I miss the big trench coat. Especially when its replacement is a giant fanny pack with big ol' dangling belts because Yuri doesn't know how to tie the thing properly.

...Yikes. Are you OK?
I'm fine! This is fine. Nothing to worry about!

<picks himself up and scowls at Yuri> You!

Give me Jeanne.

N-Nicolai!

Karin isn't quite grasping the fact that Cardinal Conrad is taking a heel turn here and tries to intervene. She gets shoved on her rear end for her trouble. It's going to take a little bit more time before Karin stops being QUITE so oblivious and perpetually confused about everything.

Lenny!!

The church door opens and several people shuffle in.

Oh hey, it's this crew of kidnapping sentai villain jobbers and the man who could not possibly scream "Mid-Boss" any louder.

.........

You're late again!!

Ha ha ha. Relax. I had a stubborn sergeant to deal with.

And like his five identical twins or... clones or... maybe it was all just different guys with the same mustache? I dunno. It was freaky!

Huh?!

Stop right there! One dumb move and the girl here dies.

Go ahead. Then you'll die next.

Hey. That's not how a hostage negotiation works!
Yep. We're just doin' an if-then statement on the state of your head attached to your shoulders.

I wouldn't expect any less. That's exactly what makes my long search for you worthwhile.

You've been looking for me?

I was ordered by the Lord to destroy a certain... traitor. A man who brought god down from heaven and tried to lay waste to the world.

......

But before I could, a man with the power of a demon defeated that traitor and the god he had brought down from heaven with him.

......

<points at Yuri> Yes! It was you who did it!

...Yup. That sounds like me. You gotta point?

I'm glad to finally meet you, the man who stole my prey from me.

Wow... you really sucked at your job. There were like... months we just ignored that old fart and wouldn't have minded if anyone else stepped up. Where the hell were you?
That traitor was a difficult man to track down.
Did you try the floating doom fortress over Wales? It was up in the sky for like two months. It was KINDA hard to miss.
That's beside the point!

But before you grow into a problem for me like that traitor, Albert Simon, I'll root you out like the weed you are!

Who are you guys?

We are Sapientes Gladio (Sages of the Sword). We alone possess the light of new hope to guide us through the 20th century.

Never heard of you.

What are you like a villain start-up or something? Between your pajamas and the gimp squad back there...
H-Hey!
Y'all really need to workshop your uniforms. Albert Simon, now there was a baddie that knew how to dress. This is just embarrassing.

<brushes back hair> Hmph. That's fine. Once we destroy you, Godslayer, the world will learn our name.

Nobody is going to remember a big dumb French name like that.
It's Latin, fool!
Nobody cares.

Nicolai pulls out the Holy Mistletoe.

Your life will be our ticket to renown!

......

...Huuh?

What you want my autograph now...?

And your soul... will be brought back into God's grace by the power of the Holy Mistletoe!

<snort> OK... Sure, buddy...

Nicolai!!

Would you look at that? Karin finally figured out that maybe her partner is a bad guy. It only took him straight up saying his guys killed all the soldiers outside, said guys taking a child hostage, ranting about belonging to some cult for a few minutes and finally taking out the holy relic that they probably actually just straight up stole from the Vatican to clue her in.

Incidentally, backing up for just a minute. I mentioned in an earlier update that the Profile section of the character status screens is a wee bit spoilery. Karin's doesn't have anything out of the ordinary.

But Cardinal Nicolai Conrad. Well... Maybe this should not be something you can read literally the moment you gain control of the game.

Hey there, is she changing sides on us?!

Was she ON our side to begin with?! You gotta tell me these kinda things, boss!

She's nothing to us. She's merely a tour guide. She'll die here along with the others.

<backs up nervously> Who are you really?!

You really should pay more attention to context clues. The Godslayer and I just had a discussion on this very topic.
......

It doesn't matter. Thanks for bringing us here. You might have made a fine ally. It's really quite sad.

<looks at Lenny> Let that girl go. Or else...

Yeah. Or else what?! You gonna shoot her too? Huh?

The little girl wakes up and starts struggling in Lenny's arm.

Huh?! You brat!!

Karin decides now, with a wiggling child in his arms, it is time to open fire on the kidnapper.

Hey, what the hell!? I was bluffing before! Do NONE of you know how hostage taking works!?

Lt. Koenig manages to miss with the first shot and hit literally the only armored part on the body of this seven-foot tall hulking man. I think I can now see why she uses a sword as her primary weapon.

You!!

Nicolai rushes Karin with intent to seemingly stab her with the Holy Mistletoe. Apparently, the Lieutenant burned through all of her action points firing on Lenny and is utterly unable to defend herself from a jackass charging from ten meters away. However...

You really shouldn't turn your back on Yuri when he's in a punching mood.

Music: ENDS

On the other hand, this probably isn't great...

......

W-what the... hell!?

<scowls> ......

Ahh... a-all according to plan!

......

...Is that good?

What... the HELL IS THIS?!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

And then Yuri exploded.

Video: Episode 6 Cutscenes (You should definitely watch this!)

Yuri Volte Hyuga Official Art - Yuri, why do you have like a pirate jacket's giant cuffs?

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 7, 2019 19:27

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode VII: Bonfire

Don't worry too much about Yuri exploding like that. It's probably fine. Probably. Let's just move on to something completely different instead.

Jeanne, the little girl that was taken hostage earlier, wanders over to Yuri accompanied by her pet ~~dog~~ goddamn white wolf.

<pulls some food out of her basket> Supper's ready. Mama made it. Here, it's still warm.

Thanks.

Mmm-hmm.

He really likes you, doesn't he?

Yeah, we've been together ever since Papa died.

S-Link Established!

Wow. Up until now, he's never taken food from anyone but me!

Nobody has ever really tried since he's a big wolf and all, but...

......

I wonder if they'll come back...

They will.

Because they left soldiers alive in the town?

......

I wonder what they want with the village, anyway...

<leans back> Hmm.

<pets wolf> Anyway, if they come back, this guy will let us know right away.

Yuri lays down in the grass.

...Yup.

A new party wanders over to the bonfire.

Grandpa!

Jeanne, your mother's worried about you.

Oh.

Don't you have a bedtime or a school night or something like that?
I don't really have a set bedtime and it's a Friday night.
Hmm...

The old man sits by the fire and unscrews the top to his flask.

<knocks back a shot> Mmm... that's good!

<clears the air around her nose> Ooh, that stinks! Are you drinking again?!

Is it a day that ends with "Y"? I only drink on those days.
I told you it was Friday.
There you go!

Heh heh. Don't be so hard on me. This is my one true pleasure.

Hmph!

Yuri sits back up.

Well, better get to bed. Your mom's waiting for you.

You don't want her mad because you came home smelling like booze again, do ya?

O-okay.

Jeanne grabs her basket and gets up with her wolf buddy.

Goodnight Yuri, Goodnight Grandpa.

G'night.

I'll see you in the morning.

The two depart.

You too. Shouldn't you be turning in soon?

Hehe. After I have a few more drinks. Hmm...

Pounding shots out of a flask by a pleasant night campfire dressed like some manner of leprechaun pimp. This old man knows how to live out his twilight years.

......

Lemme see that.

<stops drinking and considers> Hmm...?

Ehh... Just a little sip.

Yuri proceeds to fuckin' pound the rest of that flask. The old man is not pleased by this calamity.

Eh? Hey! Hey!! HEY!! G-gimme that back! Gimme!

Oh!!

<desperately tries to coax another drop out of the flask> _{Ugh... I can't believe it... Ngh... ohh...} UGH!

Ahhhh... That's good!

_{_{Ugh... Wonderful, that's...}}

Say, how long are you planning on staying in this village, anyway, eh?

<stretches> ...Hmm. I'm not really sure.

Never been really a plan for the future sorta guy unless some voice is yelling junk into my head. And I do NOT wanna go back to that...

What about you? How long are you gonna stick with me?

...Hmm. I'm not really sure either. Hmph.

Lazy old bum.

We get a quick flash of just how long the old man and Yuri have been hanging out together. It... wasn't very long after Shadow Hearts 1 ended...

They're gonna keep coming back. No matter how much you beat 'em. They always do.

Yup.

This war's not over by a long shot.

This war is different. It's some kinda... tremendous or I dunno, maybe even global war. I'm sure they'll think of a proper name for it someday.
Mmm-hmm.

We need...

A safer place to stay.

That's right.

There is no safe place. Not around here. You know that, don't you?

......

That's why I'm staying right here. I'll protect this village until I die.

What's with you?

Eh?

It sounds to me you're just looking for a place to die.

Well, you're wrong. I don't plan on throwing my life away, old timer, if that's what you're thinking!

Is that so?

Tch. I punched out a god once. I think I can handle a few more waves of guys with rifles and bayonets.
Oh yeah? You gonna kick over a tank next if those roll in?
The hell is a "tank"? Pfft... Whatever, I'm sure it's a few notches below space god.
Maybe.

Yuri stands up.

Besides, my life isn't my own, anyway.

This life of mine was given to me by her...

Uhh... Yuri. I know you're busy stargazing and thinking fondly about the departed Alice and all. But you may want to pay attention to the fact you're slowly slipping into the abyss...

Hmm...

Huh...? HUH!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!

I know you're eager to help. But you've got to watch your footing in the nightmare dimension. You may just trip over...

Oh no! Wolf buddy! And we'd just established an S-Link with him.

Gah!

Either Amon got smaller in the transition from CGI Zone to in-game or Jeanne is just a big kid for her age.

Welp. Make a note. There's your unfortunate LP tradition of dead children down at the seventh update mark.

OK. Don't freak out. Don't freak out...

AAAAAAAHHH!!

......

...Huh?

Wolves can sense when you have surreal nightmare sequences alluding to their death and will react accordingly.

...?

The old man from Yuri's flashback wanders onto the scene. Yuri attempts to stand but weakly falls back to kneeling.

<points to Yuri> We can't go back.

Don't worry about it...

I'm fine living in a cave now. This is all fine...

I barely managed to pull you out of that light in time! You can hardly walk!

I can walk just fine.
Oh yeah? Well get up and let's go.
<groans> You know... Just gonna rest my legs for a few minutes.
Uh-huh...

What happened to the village?

The soldiers came and took the villagers away.

Well, not the first batch of soldiers. They were all dead. Another one came... I think... There was a lot going on getting you two out of there.

......

No...!

Yuri stands up.

Can you walk? We can't stay here.

I'm feeling better...

I don't have a good feeling about my current experience level though...

<pats Yuri's back> Don't push yourself. You barely even survived. You're a lucky man.

We'll head for Paris through the woods. I've got an apartment there.

I used to take fine bitches there all the time back in my youth. Oh, those were the days...
......
Oops. Sorry! I'm sure you're a lovely young lady.

B-but...

If they find you, they'll kill you too. Miss, umm... err...

Karin.

<nods> Hmm. I'm Gepetto the Puppeteer. This here is Yuri.

<groan> Yo.

First you have to think about surviving. Right? Hmm?

......

Or you can live in this cave. I wouldn't recommend it. It'd probably get lonely. The wolf is coming with us, you see.

<nods>

Karin stands up and tries to help Yuri. But our rude hero is having none of that.

<pulls arm away> I'm fine! I told you I feel all right now.

Just gotta walk it off or punch the source a few times. It's not a problem...

Hmph... That Mistletoe... Hmm... We'd better try to figure out what kind of curse it put on you. Hmph. Yeah...

Kids these days and their curses. I swear...

Sapientes Gladio, huh...?

Not even a full year since Alice Elliot sacrificed herself to save Yuri from a curse and this loving guy turns around and gets another full-blown curse. This ain't a good look, Yuri. This ain't a good look at all.

Video: Episode 7 Cutscenes

Yuri Volte Hyuga Render - Are those cuffs growing...?

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 9, 2019 04:46

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode VIII: Crestfallen

Welp. Yuri is cursed again and stuck with another group of weirdoes (and one very good boy) out in the middle of nowhere due to some magical bullshit he didn't really want to deal with in the first place. I suppose we should chat up with our new party while we're here.

Not sure what else I expected to come out of a wolf. But at least he's finally given a name -- Blanca.

Nah. I need a save point to pitch a tent to rest so...
I think there is a save point right outside.
...
......
...Yeah, I'm still not gonna rest. What am I MADE out of tents, lady?

<slams fist into palm> Oh, and I should give you this.

You got the Andras Crest.
You got the Furfur Crest.

What do you think? Pretty spiffy, eh?

...What's the matter?

<waves dismissively> H-he hehe! Umm, thanks, but, uh, no thanks... I don't need magic like this. I can do my fusions.

You know, I can just pop into Charon or something if I need to set anything on fire. I like to keep in simple. Heh...
You know, I haven't seen you fuse into anything but that big devil thing the whole time I've known you.
Yeah, well... Don't fix what ain't broke.

You sure? It's a pretty handy thing to have...

Yuri turns away from Gepetto.

...Hey, wait a minute! Don't tell me it's because you can't remember spells?!

Did you never actually get around to learning how to do proper magic?
Ehh... well, you know... I've been busy...

...Well, never mind. Blanca and I will use it, then.

You're gonna give magic scrolls�
Crests.
Whatever to the frikkin' DOG?!
It's a wolf and yes. It's something even a canine can easily learn. Or so I thought until I met you bumbling your way through life as you do.

<sits up> Awroo!

......

Awroo!

Well, what do you know...?

So magic has undergone a big change in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. In the first game, it was a matter of just leveling characters and they will eventually gain new unique special abilities (magic) of varying utility. This time around there is Crest Magic, where different crests can be equipped on characters to imbue them with magical abilities at the player's discretion. Except for Yuri, who is an idiot which has his own gimmick that definitely didn't get the Metroid treatment from that Holy Mistletoe debacle.

We will get into Crest Magic a little bit more in a minute.

Awroo, awroo!

We are given the chance to speak to everyone again. Talking to Karin, in particular, will advance the plot. But first, let's do some menu diving now that we've acquired a new party. Karin is sitting out for this entire chapter of the game for no particular reason. She's not hurt or shell shocked from losing another squad of men/being betrayed by the bishonen bishop. She just plain doesn't seem to feel like fighting. Sometimes you're just feeling lazy, ya know?

You know, I could have sworn Yuri Volte Hyuga was around Level 40-something last time I saw him. But apparently, he has been slacking off in the last year since Alice bought the farm. Or maybe his new curse de-leveled him from punching out a god level. Regardless, Yuri is down to a Level 4 busta again. By default, Yuri is Dark elemental but don't worry about it too much.

Gepetto is a puppeteer and by that I mean he's basically a puppet wizard that can straight up do magic with toys. He is the reason there were murderous wooden lions and toy ducks back in Domremy. In battle, Gepetto attacks using the Cornelia doll though he is more of a caster character. Right now Gepetto is Non-Elemental. But that is because there is a whole... interesting... sidequest system associated with playing doll dress-up. Like many things brought up this update, we'll be getting back to that at a later date.

Finally, Blanca is just a Wind elemental good boy.

Like with Nicolai and Karin, everyone also comes sporting some default equipment. Though our new batch of characters had the good sense to also equip an accessory each as well.

Yuri is now running around with some rusted Vega bullshit claws. What the gently caress, Yuri? I had to do a TEN spin Judgment Ring of absurd speeds and teleport Roger Bacon to the goddamn moon to get you that ultimate weapon Nightbird Claws in the first game. Did you pawn them off to get your stupid puffy pirate cuff leather jacket? You're a goddamn mess, Hyuga! That aside, Yuri gets assorted glove weapons with varying degrees of pointy bits on the end for punching better.

Both Gepetto and Yuri are sporting a Cotton Shirt. Sure, I can see that being under Gepetto's coat but you're not hiding any white button up color shirt under your outfit, Yuri. C'mon.

Yuri is also wearing a Leather Belt. I mean, technically he seems to be wearing two leather belts with two more hanging off his fanny pack and we won't even get into the two mini belts buckling closed his shirt. But this one particular belt raises a wee bit of attack power. So that's nice.

Gepetto's weapon class is assorted strings for his puppets. Kind of weird but makes sense, I suppose. Granted, I don't think at any point you actually see Gepetto using strings. But, details...

Both Gepetto and Blanca are wearing this horsehide Leather Cap from the horse-riding tribe of... don't worry about it. Sadly, this is before the era where we could have widespread advanced dog hat tech so it's limited to menu screen artwork only.

Blanca doesn't use weapons since... well, it's a wolf. It can bite and scratch things. Instead, we get him different qualities of rasps and brushes to clean his teeth. Proper dental hygiene is very important, even for a rad wolf buddy.

Blanca also comes equipped wearing this for whatever reason. Armors are kind of weird in this game in that there are some that can only be worn of characters of certain sizes, some that are male/female only and a few other parameters that kind of make sense when we know these characters better but... eh. I've never been a big fan of character specific sorts of armor.

The only other item of note is the Key Item of Yuri's Periapt charm. This thing was tied to a rather obnoxious system in the first game that has thankfully been dumped in the trash for the sequel. But it's function of detecting Malice (read: bad demon energy mojo) is still a thing.

That's enough about items. Let's take a moment to check out this Crest Magic business. Every character, other than Yuri, has an allocation of DCP or Dominance Capacity Points. Gepetto comes with 10 DCP and Blanca current has 7 DCP. For what it's worth, Karin has 6 DCP and Nicolai had 9, not that it mattered back then.

Each Magic Crest has a certain level which corresponds to the amount of DCP it will take to equip. So in theory we could equip all three crests on Gepetto right now and he'd still have 1 DCP left. But that'd be dumb, since putting all our magic on a single character isn't a good move, especially with the very limited MP pools available in the early game.

Magic Crests are all named after the demons from The Lesser Key of Solomon book of demonology of which a TON of monster/demon/magic poo poo names from in all sorts of video games, anime and whatnot originate. There are 72 Magic Crests in the game, one for each and every demon in the grimoire. Each Magic Crest contains a Crest Magic (yes these are different things.) For instance, as you can see above the Focalor Crest contains Hail Beak, a 16 MP Water elemental spell. The other crests we received are:

Andras - Crest Magic: Mirage - Increases Evasion Rate for one ally. 12 MP per cast.
Furfur - Crest Magic: Gale Spin - Wind Class Special Damage. Circular, small. Two hits. 16 MP per cast.

There may be a way to upgrade Magic Crests to unlock a secondary magic spell for 'em (at no additional DCP cost.) But that's a story for far in the future.

For now, we're gonna pop that Water spell and the Evasion increase spells on Gepetto. We'll give Blanca the Wind elemental spell since he IS the Wind elemental characters. Also, its crest is called Furfur. It'd be wrong not to give it to the wolf.

The Magic Crest system is pretty basic for now in the early hours of the game. But there you have it for the time being. Let's chat with the party before we gather up and venture forth into the great unknown of another dungeon.

Awroo!

Yeah, just kick me while I'm down why dontcha?
Awroooo!
Look, I'm trying alright?!
Awroo!
Tch. Tell me about it...

What are you afraid of wolves?
No, I'm afraid of having to use Blanca to sniff you out if you keel over into some dark ditch.
<shakes head> Pfft. C'mon. When is the last time that happened?
Yesterday. At the church.
...Yeah, OK. We should probably get going.

Yeah.

Out into the world, we go! Earlier, I didn't know why they felt the need to include a few maps of walking through the woods to arrive at Domremy mostly because the very next area is a semi-lengthy running through the woods dungeon.

The party walks a few paces through the woods. Karin stops and starts looking around.

...Something seems... strange.

Uh-oh... Be careful, everybody! Here come some monsters!

Right out the gate, we get ambushed by two of the three monsters roaming Ardennes Forest.

This winged plant nightmare is a Skeeter. Apparently, the French have a much different definition of what constitutes a mosquito than I do. These buggers have a meager 20 HP and just kind of smack around folk with their vine appendages for 6-10 HP of damage. The only other noteworthy fact about them is their Japanese name is Entwife as in lady versions of the giant tree dudes from Lord of the Rings. Unlike the first Shadow Hearts, most of the enemy name translations are on point with the original text unless, like here, they you know... directly reference other properties. I don't think the Tolkien estate would be cool with that back in 2004 just months after the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy concluded.

The other enemy present is a death snail. What if a snail had a skull for a shell! The spook meter is off the bloody charts! These jerks just ram people for 6-7 HP of damage. They only possess a piddling 19 hit points.

Once we do get a chance to attack, there isn't much trouble to be had handling this trash mob. Other than the fact Yuri's toolset is... rather limited. You know the Fusion monster transformation thing he is known for in battle and is the reason he cannot use Magic Crests? Yeah. That's not an option at the moment.

Granted, that's not going to be too much of an issue when dealing with these scrubs. Especially the ones that are literally sentient scrubs. But still, that's probably a tad bit worrying.

<cracks neck> If that's all they got... no problem.

The victory screen has added a new value in a "Soul" digit. It seems we already have accumulated some 53 Soul Energy. It's almost like the game had been tallying that since we began the game and is just now providing a UI to display it to the player. Just keep that Soul Energy is a thing in mind for now. We'll put a pin on that with the rest and come back to it later on in this very dungeon.

You're the one that's drawing the monsters to us, you know!

What?!

I just got some dumb magic stick stuck in me. I didn't get frikkin' branded!

Influence?

Yeah. It's a curse that works on your mind and spirit. I bet you can't do fusions anymore, right?

Yeah, maybe... I'm just a little off my game today, ya know?

Your soul has become unstable, and it's emitting waves that draw the monsters.

You mean they might be able to kill me while I'm like this?

That's about the size of it.

But I punched out a goddamn god!
Oh yeah? What Level were you when you did that?
I dunno... Forty-something?
And now?
Still four... err... Wait, poo poo... Where the hell did the second digit go?!
I was afraid of that.

The Malice that fills the world and the Malice that's trapped in your soul are both growing and creating hatred.

<steps forward> What can I do about it?

Gepetto turns away and strokes his beard.

The only thing we can do right now is concentrate on staying alive.

So you have no useful advice?
I'm a retired puppeteer and this is the first day this week I've been sober past five o'clock. What do you want out of me? Be happy you got that much info out of me, kiddo!
Awroo!
...Fair enough.

Meanwhile...

<Narrator Voice> And so the party gets away without the least bit of trouble.

Video: Episode 8 Highlight Reel (You should check out our characters' attack animations.)

Blanca Official Art - A good boy.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 04:00

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode IX: Grave Consequences

Back to it in Ardennes Forest. Fun fact: Ardennes is an actual real-world region in France... on the border of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany with the closest edge around 200 miles north of Domr�my-la-Pucelle. But ehh... don't sweat the details! Or Lenny and his goons at the end of the previous update. We could turn right back now to the cave we just left and that whole lackey squad has evaporated into the ether, not to be seen again in this dungeon. But what we will (or at least I will) be seeing a lot of in this dungeon is...

...random battles, of course! We actually saw 66% of the trash mob roster in that forced fight earlier. There is only one more critter stalking the woods of Ardennes and that is this nightmare bee -- Zosim. Zosim is apparently a reference to Saint Zosimas of Solovki who is the patron saint of bees and beekeeping in the Russian Orthodox Church. I'm just going to assume this was an ancestor of The Pain.

Zosim the Xenomorph Headed Bee is an enemy with a trifling 28 HP which technically makes it the strongest of the three enemy types. Yuri can still take it out in one three-hit physical attack string, but still. Respect where respect is due. Beyond that, the hell wasp is slightly more dangerous due to its ability to inflict the Poison status with its attacks.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to go over the Status Abnormalities present in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Almost all of them are returning from the first game with just a couple new additions:

Poison - Each turn, a character loses a small amount of health. Mildly irritating for most of the game but spell trouble early on when everyone has embarrassing low HP values.
Deadly Poison - Each turn, a character loses a large amount of health. New to Covenant. This will gently caress up anyone's day taking off around a fifth of their HP per turn. Doesn't appear until later in the game.
Paralysis - Character can only use items or defend. All other actions are blocked off. Probably one of the least harsh paralysis effects around considering the character in question can still heal themselves with consumables.
Silence - Character cannot use magic/special abilities (this includes Fusion.) Bad news for magic caster oriented folks.
Berserk - Character becomes uncontrollable. Will proceed to attack at will (including allies) and waste consumables. This only occurs if a character runs out of SP (Sanity Points.) Should be avoided at all costs.
Confusion - Character attacks party. Friends don't let friends get Confusion.
Petrify - Character cannot act at all. Big boy version of Paralysis.
Evasion Down - As it says, reduces the Evasion stat. Which makes characters more vulnerable to getting hit/critical attacks. Also works like Slow in other RPGs and makes turns come up less often until it is cured. New to Covenant. Also, only appears in Covenant.

As with the first Shadow Hearts, all Status Abnormalities are canceled out as soon as a battle concludes. So that's nice.

That's about all we need to concern ourselves regarding random battles. Across this dungeon, Yuri and the gang eventually all gained a single level. That should be helpful later should we run into troubles of the boss variety. But what are the chances of that happening?

Now as for actually traversing this dungeon. Bucking the original game's trend of having like two to three map screens that the party goes back and forth twenty times to progress or sprawling copy and pasted mazes (well, OK maybe there are still a couple of those) Shadow Heart 2's dungeons have a bit more going on in them. Mostly. This one, in particular, has two distinct paths that lead to the end of the area. The whole dungeon is basically a big circle with some connecting tissue in the center and several small alcoves with goodies jutting out.

The thing is one of these two paths is much longer. If this area is a circle, we're starting in the southwestern corner of it. The exit is roughly due east.

So heading clockwise around the circle is gonna take a while longer. It's also a much duller path since the only scenery is a rock wall face for the most part with the only noteworthy bit of it being this treasure chest containing...

They don't make 'em like K&A Corp used to... We have no reason to lug around an industrial battery. At least not yet...

But if we continue up a hill, along a winding cliffside road, we eventually come to an old mining elevator that just so happens to need a battery to operate. We have well departed Koudelka's relevance, but there's still a tiny bit of survival horror DNA floating around in Shadow Hearts: Covenant.

Taking this elevator drops us off at a save point, beyond which is the end of the dungeon. If that seemed quick, that's just because I cut like five map transitions which all take 15-30 seconds to run through were there no random battles. We hit at least 1-2 random battles per map which each last at bare minimum about a minute. Also, there were several offshoot paths that lead to treasure (all just repeated consumables.) Furthermore, we could ride the elevator a second time to go to a hidden top floor to get an additional Leather Cap for Yuri so all three of our boys could be sporting horsehide hats.

The point is, that was fifteen minutes of dungeon crawling all together.

Anyway, that's one path. The path counter-clockwise from our starting point in the cave path is a much more scenic route with a lovely stream following along denser foliage.

There's quite a bit of loot scattered about the woods. But the only actually noteworthy thing we acquire is the Barbatos Crest located in a path not far into either of the two routes which connects them through the center if we wished to switch trails. This provides the magic spell Air Edge, which can imbue an ally with the Wind elemental class on their physical attacks. We're gonna stick that on Blanca as well since I like to keep elemental magic on characters with the same class. Also, we might want quick access to that spell in the near future and Gepetto is one of the slowest characters in the game.

After a bit of jogging through scenic rural France, Yuri and the gang come upon a raised bridge. The creek here seems to be all of about a foot deep but... I mean, there's a bridge right here. We may as well use it.

Of course, since this is a video game drawbridge in literally the middle of nowhere, miles from any civilization, the drawbridge controls work on video game puzzle logic where there are three switches and each one that is toggled will make another handle toggle as well.

We could resort to trial and error to figure out which handle manipulates which other levers. Or... the solution is to just pick every option in order down the list and we're done. Sure, why not?

Doing the puzzle correctly results in a Hit Area Expand to be lying on the end of the bridge near a save point (and the end of the dungeon just past it.) However...

If the player is particularly bad at puzzles/experimenting, there are a couple of additional scenes of Yuri being a doofus.

Why the hell is there even a draw bridge out here anyway? Are there tiny boats passing through here? This is dumb.

Gepetto wanders over.

It shouldn't be too hard if you can just figure out which lever's gonna move...

<turns to Gepetto> ...I hate having to use my head!

You don't have to tell me that.

Yuri continues messing with the control panel fruitlessly.

What?! Why are you looking at me like that?! Jeez, gimme a break! Why don't we just move any old lever...!

Isn't that what you'd been doing already?
Yeah, well I tried considering my choices. Now I'm just gonna jam on it willy-nilly. Puzzle solving is for nerds.

Yuri starts yanking levers rapidly.

That's just gonna make it even more confus�

The bridge slams down.

<points at Yuri> A fluke! That was just a fluke!

Sure, probably. I don't care. Puzzles deserve no respect.

Having the game auto-solve the bridge puzzle results in that Hit Area Expand evaporating. No rewards for puzzle skipping Yuri. You'll never get ahead in life doing that. Look up a FAQ with a solution like a respectable adult. This game is old enough you can still easily do that. Meanwhile, I want to know where one goddamn Blue Orb is in Devil May Cry V and I have to float through a fifteen minute long Youtube video and now my recommendations have all decided I need 18 lore analysis videos or basement dwelling British goblins telling me why the game I am playing is actually bad. God DAMMIT, I just need to know an obscure spot to jump up to. :argh:

Music: ENDS

Ahem... Regardless of which of the two paths we took (I definitely didn't just do both) to arrive at this point, both converge in an open field where Yuri suddenly becomes extremely winded.

Hang in there. We're almost out.

*pant, pant* Lemme take a little break. I'm so... sleepy...

NEW Music: Holy Mistletoe ~ Graveyard (I love constant droning when I'm visiting a metaphysical mind palace.)

<groans>

Yuri rises to his hands and knees and looks around.

This place...

The Graveyard. The one in my soul...

It's a lot flatter than I remembered. And... less gravey...

Yuri stands back up and starts walking forward.

What the hell...?

There's a tree here.

......

...Whoa! What's going on here inside my soul?!

<starts looking around frantically> Something strange is happening!!

I mean there were trees here before but this one is like... worrying, ya know?

Is it... because of that Mistletoe thing?!

Huh?!

<looks at source of light> W-what the?!

That's me growing there...!

......
...Is that good?

Hey! Hold on a minute! What the hell does this mean?! What's going on here?! Are you alive?! Are you?!

......
...Where the hell are your nipples? What does THAT mean?! And where are my legs? Is my junk a TREE now?!

......

This is bad. I'm starting to feel sick.

Yuri slumps to his knees.

What do I do now? I can't do soul fusion anymore either... <sighs>

That was like my one thing. What am I gonna do? Learn basic rear end magic now? "Even a canine can do it"? What does he know...?

Yuri stands back up.

Guess I better have a look around in here. Inside my soul...

What a creepy tree. It looks like that Mistletoe thing could've come from it. That "me" growing in the trunk is breathing slowly, like it's sleeping or something.

Welcome back to the Graveyard. It is looking a touch different from its Shadow Hearts 1 incarnation. What with the Yuri tree and all the graves being reduced to floor textures.

Other than the Yuri Tree and the gate we arrived from, there are three other gates to be found in this area. The Graveyard is now cordoned off to several individual sections. The Gate of Death with Atman and The Four Masks hanging out talking poo poo to Yuri have all packed up shop and left town. They were a bunch of malicious curse creatures residing in Yuri's soul but they did stay true to their world after, you know, killing Alice and all. We won't be seeing any of them ever again. Those baddies just plain won and knew better than to show up for a sequel to potentially bungle their victory. I can respect that.

Anyway, let's get to exploring the Graveyard. Let's start with the door directly behind the tree.

What's that mean? You get lost if you go through? Hehe. Sounds like fun.

Unless it's like a dungeon or something... I don't think they could fit a dungeon in my soul. A boss fight, sure. But... a dungeon? Ehh...

The Door of the Labyrinth leads to another pair of gates. The entire Graveyard is now segmented into gates leading to other gates.

It doesn't budge.

Pretty thick door...

Yeah, this definitely isn't where the later game content special Fusions live. No sir. Let's double back to the Yuri Tree room and head toward the east this time.

Instructions from hell, is it? What in the world does that mean?

Well, let's head on in and find out.

Hey, I know! I bet their presence has something to do with why I can't do fusions anymore! Hehe!

Why do I suddenly have the chilling feeling that I'm gonna have to unlock all this crap... again...

Guess I'd better take a look!

There are three additional gates in this room. They're marked with a Water, Earth and Dark elemental symbol respectively. We'll just keep in mind these are over here and head back the way we came to check out the western gate next to that bark butt Yuri.

Instructions from heaven, maybe? What's that all about?

Over here in the Heaven's Commandments region, we have Fire, Wind and Light elemental crests marking three more gates.

At this point, we're given free rein to pick one these elemental gates. They're all unlocked but for now, we can only interact with one element of our choosing. If you cannot guess, this is going to lead to which Fusion Yuri will unlock first. Today, we're going to go with the Fire element for our initial unlock.

Any of them are perfectly viable and we'll be unlocking them all eventually. It's just that the Fire element Fusion is the strongest initial one in regards to physical attacks and with our limited toolkit and miniscule MP reserves at the moment, "punches good" is probably our best bet. Earth element is also a decent choice since it has the best defense initially and is only a wee bit weaker than Fire physically. Wind could also be a respectable choice as well since spoiler: We're fighting an Earth elemental boss at the end of this dungeon.

Soul Energy is back as a mechanic and is once more tied to unlocking Fusions. A HUGE goddamn improvement to Shadow Hearts: Covenant is the fact that Soul Energy is just a universe currency now dropped by all enemies.

In the original Shadow Hearts, Soul Energy came in six different flavors, one for each element. Enemies of their corresponding element would drop elemental Soul Energy and what have you when slain. The thing was, Shadow Hearts 1 started off extremely linear for the first ten hours or so with nearly every dungeon being a one-off event. This would lead to issues with large stretches of the game where some elements just plain did not appear and if you didn't happen to reach a Soul Energy threshold to unlock a new Fusion when certain elemental enemies were available, you were just SOL for a good stretch of the game. It sucked and led to a lot of frustration grinding, especially trying to max out elements for end game Fusions (as was a requirement) where the developers just kind of forgot to include many of certain elements. Looking at you, Earth Element.

But don't worry about that anymore. It's all been streamlined. Universal Ammo? Goddamn terrible idea. I'm still salty about pre-ordering Deus Ex: Invisible War to this day. Universal Soul Energy? Great! I'll take just general grinding over "grind this one specific enemy in a potential pool of four different encounters in this dungeon" any day.

In any event, we need to pump 40 Soul Energy into this altar. All initial Fusion unlocks are 40 Soul Energy, so we could actually unlock two Fusions right now. Except we're about to be auto-forced out of the Graveyard.

Wh-what the...? What the hell was that flash?! Unh! S-something is flooding into me!

Fight fills your heart once again...

And so we gain our first Fusion -- Karyl. Also an improvement in Shadow Hearts: Covenant is the fact there is no longer a crappy piss easy leveled mini-boss encounter against the Fusion in question when unlocking a new Fusion Soul. It just gets dumped in Yuri's lap as soon as he pays the Soul Energy toll. No fuss involved.

Okay, I get it. All I have to do is beat monsters out in the real world, collect their souls, and come back here! If I revive the other classes the same way, I can do fusions with them too.

I'm getting some real d�j� vu here. But... I do like transforming into monsters. Guess it just is what it is...

This time around Soul Energy is not only used to unlock Fusions, but it is also used to buff Fusion power. We can pump more Soul Energy into our Fusion boys to level 'em up to nine times.

For instance, Fusion into Karyl at Level 1 results in a stat boost for Yuri of:

Strength +5
Vitality +5
Agility +0
Intelligence +3
Power +3
Luck +4

At Level 10, Karyl provides:

Strength +10
Vitality +11
Agility +4
Intelligence +8
Power +7
Luck +6

Not bad. Granted, we are not going to be pumping up Karyl to Level 10 because every Fusion has a Level 2, much better form and an end game Level 3 version.

Edit: To clarify, dumping points into Karyl counts towards all of its replacements in the Fire elemental class too. It's not JUST buffing Karyl and having to restart leveling the Level 2/3 Fusions. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Karyl also comes with a pair of special skills.

Rage increases Physical Attack power of one character by 30% (36% for hitting the Strike Area of the Judgment Wheel.) Just like in the first Shadow Hearts, this ability is pretty good. But Fusions, in general, are MUCH more balanced this time around, so we won't be spamming the one Punch Better attack for every single fight for a third of the game's run time. Mostly...
Blaze is a fire element magic attack that targets a single enemy for six hits. This is pretty decent if used in a Combo to rack up a decent tally. I mean, had we other characters that could hit more than 1-2 times in the active party.

That's about all we can do in the Graveyard for now. Let's head back on out to the main room, where...

...Wake up!

Huh?!

...Wake up! Wake up!!

WAKE UP!!

Video: Episode 9 Highlight Reel

Karyl Fusion Concept Art - This looks like some dude Kratos ripped in half in one of the earlier God of War games.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 20:51

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Arcade Rabbit posted:

This might be treading close to spoiler territory, but about how quickly do we get our whole party in this game? Because Keith, and Haley especially, came in really late last game, and then kinda didn't do much of anything after a certain point.

Vaguest of terms spoilers: Karin gets her poo poo together and rejoins the party next chapter. The next two come in within the next few areas. One isn't until several areas past that. The final one isn't until the second half of the game. Everyone's usefulness is debatable but there isn't really anyone like Keith who is a non-entity immediately after he joins or Halley who may as well stop existing after his arc is over as far as the plot is concerned.

I dont know posted:

So I take it all of Yuri's level 1 fusions are less transforming into a monster, and more putting on a goofy costume?

All the Level 1 Fusions are either low budget sentai monster of the week running on a shoestring budget or Yuri forgetting he was going to a costume party and putting on the most half-assed mask and dumping some paint on his body in an alley. Level 2 they all become proper monster transformations. Level 3 is pretty much just Level 2 but with more armor and/or flair.

Nohman posted:

Did they ever mention how Yuri got cursed the first time back in Shadow Hearts 1?

He was doing the Harmonixer thing wrong and got his soul all gunked up with demon energy going nowhere until it cursed him.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2019 19:43

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode X: Arachne

Welp. So much for getting out of the forest before sundown with Yuri off in metaphysical dreamscape la-la land for the time being... While he's sorting out his mental baggage, we return to Gepetto and Karin hanging out by yet another bonfire.

Is he human? Or maybe...

Or some sort of man-devil or has a devilish trigger of some sort...?

Hehehe. Eh, he's human. Ehh... But he's a strange one, all right.

I once found him trying to fry an eggshell.
Wha...? Why?
He told me he heard egg whites were good for you. Thought they were talking about the shell. I tell ya, the boy is a disaster at taking care of himself. If he couldn't fight so well I'd call him a lost cause.

Karin sits down at the fire.

......

Have you been with him for long?

Hmm? Well, over half a year now, near as I can recall...

I forget the exact date. It was just after that Austrian Archduke was assassinated, roundabouts.
......
See, it sounds real bad when you use that as a date reference point...

He suddenly appeared one day along with my late wife's niece.

Your wife's... niece?

I suppose that'd make me her uncle-in-law. But I don't like the idea of being anyone's uncle. Too old sounding and weird a title for my tastes.
...Sure.
Anyway...

Hmm... she was more like my own daughter. But unfortunately, she was already dead when he arrived. She and Yuri were lovers... He dug her grave with his own hands.

......

<sigh> We've both lost people in our lives. We just try to live as best as we can. Hmm? Hehe.

......

With his own hands... Wow.

Sometime later...

<grunts> Ahh... ugh...

Yuri's stirring wakes Karin up. She wisely backs up from the guy that can turn into an eight-foot tall demon on command.

Eh? What's going on?

I was just getting to the good part. The size of the jugs on kangar�wha?!

Yuri surges with energy from his talisman and then proceeds to take another dirt nap. I think he just acquired the Karyl Fusion on the other side.

Gepetto and Karin rush up to Yuri.

What's happening to him?

Hey, Yuri! What is it?

<bark>

...Is that normal?
What do you think?!
Y-Yes...?
Why would you think that is normal?!
I don't know! This is all new to me!

OK. A giant spider is one thing. Putting a nose on a giant spider? Not a fan. No sir... Not a fan at all. And that is not even getting into the fingernails on the end of its legs. That's a bad scene all around.

What's that?!

No! Malice is pouring out of his body... It's formed into a monster!

The creature starts stomping toward the party. Karin runs up to the comatose Yuri and starts shaking him.

<snores> Ngh... N-Not yet... C'mon... Just f-five more... min...utes mom...
Wake up!

With that, we're thrust straight into the second boss battle of the game -- Arachne. This nose sporting hell spider is an Earth elemental with 300 HP, making it tougher than every previous enemy we've faced combined health pool wise. Which says less for it and more the pitiful amount of HP everything has been blessed with up to this point in the game.

The name Arachne comes from Greek mythology (I mean it literally means "spider" in Greek too, but...)

Wikipedia on Arachne posted:

Click here for more info

In Greek mythology (and later Roman mythology), Arachne was a talented mortal weaver who challenged Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest; this hubris resulted in her being transformed into a spider. There are many versions of the story's weaving contest, with each saying that one or the other won.

Most versions boil down to Athena being a salty rear end in a top hat god and turning the lady into a spider for getting uppity. It feels like Athena gets a big pass as being slightly chiller that most gods in a lot of modern stuff referencing Greek mythology. But nah... She was a huge shithead like most of the rest of them.

Back on task, to show off its Earth elemental abilities, Arachne immediately blasts Yuri awake with Crag -- a magical attack that does a good 33 HP of damage to our rude hero. Thankfully, it VERY rarely performs this attack since while Yuri only loses around half his HP from that technique, that's enough to put poor Gepetto or Blanca in critical status (Blanca taking additional damage since he's a Wind elemental good boy.)

Arachne's only other attack is a three string combo that hits for 25-30 HP of damage but also potentially inflicts the Poison status effect. This again is enough for anyone to be concerned about at this early stage of the game.

Now that we've had our first romp in the Graveyard, Yuri once again has access to his Harmonixer Fusion abilities. Or at least one of 'em. Using a Fusion drains from Yuri's (way larger than everyone else combined) Sanity Point pool. All the initial numbers in Shadow Hearts II are much smaller than they were in the opening hours of the original game. As such, instead of draining like a third of Yuri's total SP using a Fusion it is only a mere three Sanity Points out of his total 26 SP. Yuri also seems to have gotten less stable with using his Fusions again and is back to looking like he has to pass a kidney stone every time he transforms.

We could go straight on the offensive with the newly buffed Karyl Fusion. Or we could play it smart by tossing a handful of buffing spices on Yuri before letting loose. For instance, we can use his Rage technique to buff his Physical Attack by a healthy amount.

And if you'll recall, we gave Blanca Air Edge which can be used on Yuri to give him Wind elemental punches which work wonders against this Earth boss. After that, we'll have Yuri go on the offensive with Physical Attacks and Blanca back him up with Gale Spin magic and physicals too once he runs out of MP.

Meanwhile, we'll just have Gepetto spam the Hail Break spell since he's rather worthless otherwise with his single physical strike. It's worth mentioning that not all magic attacks cast the same way. The wind spell we gave Blanca and the Light spell Nicolai was carrying back when he was playable were both limited range AOE attacks that exploded from a target's position. Hail Break, on the other hand, actually has a path it will cruise along damaging all enemies in a line between it and the target before exploding in a sizable AOE. So that can result in some extra collateral damage against the enemy if some chump happens to be in the path of the spell. Not that it will help us here against this big goofy bruiser. But it's good to know for the future.

There isn't a lot more all told to be said about Arachne. It is a REMARKABLY slow enemy. Other than having the initiative at the very beginning of the fight, it only took roughly one attack turn for every character in our party getting two rounds of attacking.

Needless to say, these numbers do not work in Arachne's favor...

Haha! We sure showed them!

That's a wrap on the boss of Ardennes Forest. We get some extra Cash for doing a decent Combo to it during the battle and also waxing it after it got only two attack turns (the opening attack does not count.)

Additional, we picked up another Magic Crest. This time it grants the Surge magical ability which can buff Special Attack Power (read: magic.) Gotta spend magic to make magic, you know? I'm sure a wizard somewhere said that once.

We also got lucky and got a rare drop of a ring add-on that potentially will poison enemies on attack. That could unreliably come in handy.

And naturally, everyone leveled up from that boss battle. The lack of gaining a full bar of health after leveling is really egregious after a major fight. Even if everyone did flawlessly in the clash without taking a single hit, it still makes it look like everyone took a ton of damage just thanks to the HP caps going up. Oh well, I'm sure we'll find a place to heal soon enough.

Music: ENDS

<looks around confused> What's going on...?!

<points at Yuri> That thing just jumped out from inside you. Mmm-hmm.

That was worse than the first time I let you swipe some of my hooch before going to bed.

......

I'm sorry about that. It's all because of that weird "holy" stick thing. The monster souls inside me are starting to get a bit unruly.

I'll tell the kids to keep it down next time.
......
...Probably.

Monster souls?

Yeah. He's got a strange power. Hmph. Whenever he beats a monster, he takes their souls and then can fuse with them.

I mean... that's not EXACTLY how it works. It's not like I can punch a random wolf out and then suddenly turn into a wolf.
Awroo!
Don't worry. I wouldn't even try to punch a wolf.
Awroo...
Yes, OK. Maybe I've punched a few wolves in the past... But they were all bad!
Awroo.
Look, the point is...

I can change into a monster, okay?

Gonna be real... That Fusion back against that spider thing? It wasn't my best work. I know I just kind of looked like a guy with a tan in armor that lifts a lot of weights. That lousy curse has me a little off my game...

<crosses arms and looks suspiciously at Yuri> ......

Huh... Hmph. <stretches and walks off>

Anyway, it's good we're OK. Heh. Let's get out of this forest before something else happens.

<turns back to Karin and nods before walking off> Hm.

......

Ugh...

Karin briefly protests and lingers behind. But a growl in the distance quickly challenges her resolve and she runs off to catch up with the others. And so ends our time in Ardennes Forest. Tune in next time as our story continues with awful fashion decisions, questionable collection quests, dog fights and more in the mean streets of Paris as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

Technically, this is Domremy and Ardennes Forest's entries rolled into one. But there was no real breakpoint between those two areas. So let's just get 'em out of the way now.

MONSTERS:

MC Moe, Jdog and Lil Sqwalk put out the freshest beats of Summer 1915.

That's a hell of a robust spring.

I feel like there is an upper limit to this snail's skull shell growth potential before it just becomes a homeless slug bum.

It's a very small springboard between photosynthesis and man-eating in the plant kingdom. Also adherence to the laws of gravity.

Aww. I didn't even notice its little cartoon snake tongue. That looks like an enemy from Donkey Kong Country.

We made this creature full of poisonous sacks. No, we didn't make it immune to said poison. Who'd want that?

CHARACTERS:

1915 Leon S. Kennedy was a huge dick.

Lenny has his faults but the man clocks in at 9:00 AM on the dot each morning and puts in the hours every day with no complaints.

Video: Episode 10 Highlight Reel (You should watch this.)

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 15, 2019 02:24

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XI: Memories of Melodies

Back to the world map we go with our destination of Paris, France before us. We could go back to Ardennes Forest if we so desired. It's not locked off like the now German-occupied Domremy or the not particularly welcoming to demon transforming punch hobos Vatican. But there is zero reason to do so at the moment.

But first, an intermission back at the Graveyard! Hey, isn't it kind of weird that little girl Jeanne just vanished after the events at the church in Domremy...? Well...

<approaches Jeanne> Huh?! ...Jeanne?! What're you doing here?

You shouldn't be wandering around here alone. Or... ya know, inside my soul...

Tee hee hee! I came to see you, Yuri!

Far, far away?

Yeah. 'Cause I died, you know.

Died...

I'm sorry that probably made everyone really upset.
<rubs neck> Yeah... everyone is super broken up about that...

<steps forward> Before I go far, far away, there was something I just have to check first. That's why I came here.

Something you wanted to check? What?

Jeanne turns and looks toward the black void at the edge of the Graveyard.

<scratches head> Inside my heart?! Don't go digging up anything embarrassing, you hear?

If you find any memories or something of me with any weird looking magazines. Well, that stuff ain't for kids.
Tch. I wasn't born yesterday, Yuri. I only died yesterday.
...Yeah, you keep saying that.

...So what are you looking for?

<turns to Yuri> Ha ha ha! It's a secret! But don't worry. I'll tell you if I find it.

Jeanne starts walking off in the other direction.

Hey! Wait!

Huh?

The journey of living your life alone? Are you scared?

N-nah, of course. I'm not scared

......

Maybe a little.

...I see.

Jeanne turns back to Yuri.

And with that Jeanne teleports away. She can do that now as a ghost, apparently. Also yep, I wasn't joking about getting the (somehow) obligatory LP child death out of the way early. That post-church dream sequence wasn't entirely fictional. Jeanne did, in fact, get smoked back there. The game never specifies exactly how she died. Also, nobody seems to particularly acknowledge it or care much at all. Both the old man that Jeanne was fond enough of to call Grandpa and literally her pet wolf have zero input on that kid's death ever. It's really weird.

Anyway, we might see more of Jeanne's ghost in the future. For now, let's actually head to Paris...

Music: ENDS

Hmm...

<nods head> Hmm... Uh-huh... Mmhmm...

I'm starting to suspect Yuri doesn't know how chairs or beds work. Literally, every time the man has been found asleep it's either been sprawled out on the floor or slumped against something. There was exactly one time they showed Yuri in an honest to goodness bed and that was an illustration from the non-canon path where he rescued Alice from her curse in the first game.

The door to the room opens. Blanca and Yuri wake up and get to their feet.

Well, have you learned anything?

<grunts> The Mistletoe is a powerful item...

Oh you don't say? It only cursed and de-leveled me from defeating a god status.
Could I finish talking before the peanut gallery interjects?

Gepetto squats on the floor and opens up a heavy tome.

The church has used it for centuries... hmm... yeah... as a tool... for guiding lost souls. Hmm. Well... That's what it says here, anyway. It's now being kept at the Vatican.

Or it was... Guess this book needs an updated edition now, eh?

So it's going to guide my soul too?

<nods> I suppose so. Mmhm.

<stands straight and crosses arms> That's bull.

It is NOT bull!

Is there some way to fix it?

Hmm. Ehh...

Gepetto stands back up.

Well, you've gotta do something.

I think you're screwed.

......

OW! Ugh! Stop! Let go! Eek! Ow! No, my nose!

Aww! Ya old man!

No! Let go! Let go of the beard!

Ugh! AAH!

......

Gepetto and Yuri's roughhousing is interrupted by someone else entering the apartment.

Err, umm...

Huh?!

_{...Look at that.}

_Whoa...

NEW Music: Memories of Melodies ~ Peace (A nice pleasant tune.)

I'm sure wandering around France in a full German Empire's officer uniform probably isn't the hottest idea. But Karin has made some... questionable fashion decisions in the interval since we've arrived in France. Better get used to it since it's her character design for the rest of the game.

Whoa!!

......

Ugh... ohh...

Ahh...

...You guuuuuuys!!

Aaah!

Oooh!

Let's get the obligatory sexually harassing the lady party member anime poo poo out of our system early. We don't need to slip back into early Shadow Hearts weird perv Yuri again.

NEW Music: Town of Twilight ~ European Town (You should listen to this. It's probably one of my favorite tracks. It's very cozy.)

<nod> Yeah.

All I could see was stars.

That's all?

<strokes beard> Hey! You mean you saw something else?! What did you see?!

<puts hands on hips> Paradise.

<looks away and shakes fist> You did?! drat! I couldn't see a thing. Paradise, eh!

Karin approaches the duo. They both quickly scatter from their panty shot chatter and revert to not being dirtbags.

Hmm... I've run out of ideas.

You've gotta be kidding me!

Hey, I looked up the thing. It's not my fault the text said "Yuri is screwed" in bold letters.

Thanks to that miserable Mistletoe, there's something definitely off about my condition.

And I've heard the word "Mistletoe" so much that it's stopped sounding like a real word.

And to top it all off, my body seems to be sending out waves that attract monsters from miles around!

That's all I need is random battles against monsters.
Wasn't that a common occurrence in that region already?
Yeah, but the monsters were just being jerks then. That was fine. I didn't need an ACTUAL lore reason why I'm getting randomly attacked wandering around. Sheesh.

Isn't there anything you can do?

I have one idea. If this old fart can't do anything for me, I'll go ask an even older fart.

What?! Who you calling an "old fart"!

The guy that is older than everyone else in the room combined.
You don't have to be rude about it.
Anyway, this elder fart...

There's this weird old creature I know, living in Wales. This guy is really, really, really old.

Like grandpa Gepetto here is like toddler age compared to this guy. He's that old.

So this guy knows a lot, eh?

Yup. He's been alive for centuries!

His name is Roger Bacon. He's kind of creaky and broken down in places, but we can depend on him!

Like "bacon" is the texture of his skin he's such a shriveled up old mummy.
We get he's quite old, Yuri.
O-L-D!

<strokes beard> R-Roger Bacon?! You mean that legendary magician?

<nods> That's the one. I told you about him before, right? Told you I knew him.

Yeah, but I thought you were kidding.

Why would I kid about being friends with a 13th-century Franciscan monk from Wales?
Did you just hear the sentence that came out of your mouth?
......
...OK. That's fair.

Well, sure! A great magician like Bacon ought to know about that Holy Mistletoe, and about Sapientes Gladio, to boot!

Well, it's settled, then. We're off to Wales, in the U.K.!

Gonna warn you right now. That place, Wales? SUPER frikkin' evil! I'm surprised I never got cursed just hanging out there for a few weeks.

Hmm?

If we just go north to Calais, the port town, that's where the front line is, so it'll be hard to get a ship there.

Oh... right. There's a big war going on. Kinda forgot about that.
It's sort of a big deal.
Meh.

Le Havre, huh...?

Umm, "Karin," was it? We don't know what kind of danger we're gonna be running into, so you should be heading home, now, little lady.

<shakes head> Look, I trusted that man! And trusting him got my men killed... I can't go back to my country like this. And even if I could go back, they'd probably just find me and kill me.

Also, I think even if I'm not listed as KIA yet it would probably count as desertion by this point. And knowing Nicolai's true nature now I may have helped steal something from the Vatican and that cannot be a good look for my record...

You wanna come with us, then?

......

<nods>

But you see what kind of shape I'm in. I can't guarantee your life, you know.

Music: ENDS

I hope you don't mind...

Karin whips a rapier out from behind her back and holds it in the air.

<points at rapier> Ahh... That's from my university days... Hehe.

You can use a sword?
I dabbled in my day.
Could you use that in a fight instead of the weird doll? That thing gives me the creeps!
Never! And watch it, kid! Cornelia is not creepy!
...It's a little, teeny-bit creepy.
It is SUPER creepy!
Grrr...

Karin swipes the sword through the air a few times to show off her skills.

I found it over there. Is it all right if I borrow it?

You're welcome to it, my dear.

The party's conversation is interrupted by something banging on the roof.

...They've chased us all the way here? Hmph. They sure are stubborn.

It would have been funny if this mook tried to smash through the window and got caught in the frame by his dumbass three foot long claws.

Time to throw down with the goofy Clawed Soldiers of Sapientus Gladio. Being the biggest jobbers to ever job, they only have 37 HP a piece with a Fire elemental affiliation. Apparently, these guys are straight up supposed to be a homage to the Shocker Combatmen from Kamen Rider (they make the same exact high pitched "YII!" sounds when attacking/dying.)

The Clawed Soldiers are actually able to hit pretty hard, especially given they can link up for their own combos and unleash a devastating three-person string on a single target.

That is... if they were given the chance to actually attack ever. They were not. Especially, given Karin has officially rejoined the party and the fact that Shadow Hearts: Covenant's battle system has expanded the active party from three members to four members able participating in combat.

As such, the Clawed Soldiers were all smoked in two total turns with two more on our side to go before they would have a chance. Guys, you can't waste initiative by making a flashy entrance and then doing nothing with it.

Hee hee!

Why the heck didn't you help out in the forest?
I lost my weapon back in Domremy.
You coulda just used a stick or something. Half the things we fought were just angry insects or... I dunno what a snail is... Is that a bug too?
It's a gastropod mollusk.
...Not even gonna pretend to know what that means.

Say, I know! If you're this good with swords, Karin, let me give you this.

What's this?

It's a script, written by the very hand of the famous opera composer, Wagner, himself. There's a scene in there that could be very helpful to someone who wanted to polish up their sword techniques. With your great reflexes, I thought you might be able to learn a new trick or two from it, so I brought it with me.

Gepetto, I'm going to be real and say I'm not exactly seeing the connection between fencing techniques and a 1870s manuscript of a German opera about Norse mythology by Richard Wagner.

But as it turns out, Shadow Hearts: Covenant has many sidequests that of this nature. Other than Crest Magic, most characters also have specialized techniques that are unlocked by sidequests usually involving collecting certain items of note. For Karin, she learns Sword Art techniques for collecting manuscripts of the Der Ring des Nibelungen opera. The Nibelung Prelude has unlocked Heuervelk -- a 16 MP Fire element attack.

Sure, why not? It's not like that is the remotely most peculiar way to unlock abilities.

<shakes head> Think nothing of it. ...But we shouldn't be hanging around relaxing like this. The entrance to the subway should be just up ahead. Let's hurry!

Before we depart Gepetto's Parisian apartment, Yuri automatically notices a shiny trinket on the floor by one of Gepetto's desks and collects it.

...OK? What the hell is a "Mr. Sommelier," you ask? Well, let's just look in the Key Items tab of the menu and find it is...

A trading card with French beefcake porn on it, naturally. What else would it be?

What the gently caress, you might be asking yourself now. Well, remember how I said Karin's Wagner manuscripts weren't the most peculiar way to unlock new abilities. Maybe this is related to that statement. We'll slip that into our inventory in the folder labeled "Taxes" or something and move along for now.

While we're in the menus, we can see that Karin has officially rejoined the party. Unfortunately, she hasn't gained any stats since the end of Domremy so she is lagging a tad bit behind the rest of the party at the moment. It's only a couple levels. That'll even out soon enough. This game is much better about having long stretches of party members leaving the party and falling behind on levels than its predecessor.

Karin's profile has also updated. Yeah... I dunno if I'm buying her new outfit being meant for a doll that appears to be a six-year-old girl. I mean, that'd probably explain the world's tightest shirt and the skirt that may as well be a slightly longer belt. The thigh-high adult sized boots seem a bit much for that doll...

Karin's weeb faux-katana has also been replaced by the one she borrowed from Gepetto. It has otherwise the same default stats.

Additionally, all of the Ring Customization items we picked up in her couple of chapters with Nicolai have transferred over to her new party. We could redistribute them if we wanted to but ehh... Karin is one of the better physical offensive characters in the game so she'll be fine keeping what she has equipped.

We can poke around Gepetto's remarkably detailed for a 2004 PS2 game apartment a bit. Not that there is anything to inspect.

There is a chest in here containing the Crocell Crest which provides both a 6 MP Cure spell, which does exactly what you would expect, and an 8 MP Aqua Edge spell that can add the Water element to a character's physical attacks. We're gonna stick that on Gepetto for now. I prefer using him as a utility/healer character. Karin could fill that role as well, but having the one female character always being the healer is a little played out at this point... back in 2004. It's still extremely played out in 2019.

Gepetto, just how lucrative was the puppeteer business that you have retired for years and still retain a spacious loft Paris apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower?

We were told the subway station was just up ahead. Now you would think that means just going down the street, right? Dead wrong!

Doing that results in an immediate ambush by more Sapientes Gladio Clawed Soldiers.

Not that it is anything resembling a threat. But, alas we cannot head that way without an infinite supply of Kamen Rider villain knock-offs attacking.

Obviously, walking down the street is not what Gepetto meant at all.

He, of course, meant a secret hatch in a run-down empty lot back behind his apartment. What else would he have meant? There's nothing weird about that. Let's just all pile down and make doubly sure no cops are following us. As you do...

Video: Episode 11 Highlight Reel (All your bickering and titty ogling needs.)

Jeanne Official Art - F

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 17, 2019

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 20:29

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XII: Wolf Bout

I suppose it is time to trek through the undoubtedly monster-infested Paris Metro.

What sort of untamed horrors could await Yuri and company in the decre�

...Wait, what?

It was just a twenty-second walk to a subway platform? Gepetto did you just find a maintenance tunnel hatch and have been using it to bypass paying for metro tickets? What the hell, old man!?

Progress makes our lives so much easier!

Breaking of protocol aside, Paris is the first proper town of Shadow Hearts: Covenant. This game actually has towns that are more than 2-3 screens big and aren't just doubling as a mini-dungeon that happens to have a couple NPCs wandering around until the calamity of the day rolls into the village. As such, let's chat up the locals to get our bearings.

(Worried Jessie) You've got to mind your manners, now! Or you're not getting on this train, you hear?

I didn't say chatting up the locals is necessarily going to be helpful or anything. That said, I am glad they kept all of the portrait lacking NPCs having titles and names. That was a cute detail in the original game.

Despite Gepetto's insistence to go to the subway, we cannot actually board the train at this time. So let's head back above ground for a bit. More folks are loitering about the streets here. Maybe some of them have more insight than those metro dwelling degenerates from before.

You don't have any cat demons or vengeful ghosts planting curses on people running around, do you?
What? No.
<shrug> Yeah, I guess it's a pretty OK town then.

There's a wonderful painter lodging in my neighborhood. Maybe I should get him to do my portrait...? I bet he'd even do a nude for me!

You're very confident to just blurting that out to a random guy passing by you...

Naw, I haven't rolled with any spies for over a year now.

C'mon. I'm sure nobody plays Chopin like you.

I hate Raymond, With Nothing to Do because he wanders a circuit around the stairs here and you cannot go past the little poo poo. There are 25 stairs, you idiot child. Get the gently caress out of my way! I'm trying to play an RPG here!

Guess I'd better go try to find another lottery ticket...

Alphonse, Foreshadowing a Side Quest Return more like it.

Lots of people have heard 'em howling in the middle of the night. That must be real spooky...

I'll ask Blanca if he knows them. Hmm... wait, is it racist to assume all wolves know each other? Or that like... species...ist? Hmm... Maybe I better rethink this.

In order to progress the game, we need to shuffle inside Paulette Bar here next to Timid Salvador. Not that there is anywhere else we could go. That second flight of stairs just leads to a dead end with some forgettable treasure.

The party enters the Paulette Bar.

...Well, look who we have here! It's Gepetto! Haven't seen you in a while! You disappeared all of a sudden. When did you get back?

But I'm caught up in a bit of a situation. I'll have to be leaving Paris again right away.

You don't say? But you just got here! You sure haven't changed... Always sticking your nose into things. You've got to start acting your age!

When I want your advice, I'll ask! But, listen. We want to go to Le Havre. You know any ways to get out of town unnoticed?

<crosses arms> Hmm... You don't want to attract any attention to yourself, eh?

Trouble with the cops again?
No, not this time.
......
<looks over shoulder> ...No pigs have been asking about me, right?
Not recently.
<nods> Good... let's keep it that way...

Ha ha! Hey, I know! You could use a subway tunnel. That way, you could go where you want without being seen! Rumor has it there are a few abandoned tunnels, and some of 'em even reach to the outskirts of Paris.

<strokes beard> I see! Subway tunnels, eh? That's a great idea.

Hmm... How about we ask somebody that would know? Like somebody that worked on the tunnels...? Or one of those train freaks that can name every single station...?

Or mole men. I bet you got mole men in those tunnels. I'll fight a mole person to get where we need to go.
We're not going to start a bum fight to get information, Yuri.
Not with that attitude.

In that case, why don't you try going to the Champs �lys�es? They're enlarging the subway over there right now. You'll find Dr. Gautier, the design engineer, in a hotel there.

The chandelier who?

<turns to Yuri> Champs �lys�es! The next station over. I've met Dr. Gautier a couple of times before. He used to come to my theater.

Your theater? You mean you used to be famous, Gepetto?

What, did you think I did puppet shows in a seedy back alley?
...I umm... hadn't put much thought into it...

He quit the stage when his wife died, but his show used to be celebrated all over Paris!

<shakes head> Shh! Don't tell them that! That was all a long time ago.

We got too much on our plate already to get bogged down by anyone's tragic backstory.

...Anyway, we're off to the Champs �lys�es!

We're off! In... just a minute. We've got more NPCs to chat with here. We wouldn't want to be rude to the patrons of this fine establishment. Or... fail to be rude to them, I suppose. I'd be personally pretty annoyed if some JRPG protagonist shuffled over to my table and glared at me until I spat out a generic line about local happenings, recent events or unrelated nonsequiturs.

Meh. She's OK, I guess.

She cooks me meals, buys me painting supplies... She's a wonderful woman! I've got nothing to offer her right now, but someday I'm going to show the whole world her beauty through my art!

I see you're well on your way to that goal day-drinking in a dive bar.

Seedy? Eh. This place is pretty tame compared to some of the dumps I've been into. I don't think this place has any witches camping out in bathroom mirrors.

My daughter is going to be three this year. I wish I could take her to see one of your Cornelia performances!

Do the French just like to traumatize their children at a young age? That some kinda rite of passage or something here? That'd explain a lot.

My dream is to one day stand on the stage of the Moulin Rouge! You'll come to see me then, won't you?

Hard pass.

Old Friend Louis just reminds us of our next task. I suppose we should get on top of that.

Which means returning back the way we came to go take the subway. However, on our retread of Montmartre, we come across...

Better than yours, anyway.

<turns to Ernest> Awroo! Awroo! (Grrr! These guys think they're tough, Ernest!)

<turns to Tetsu> Hmm, that sounds like a challenge. Tetsu, why don't you show them whose fangs are sharper!

...Awroo, awroo? (What am I getting caught in the middle of, here?)

Awroo... (I don't want to waste energy on a meaningless fight...)

<turns to Blanca> ...What do you say, Blanca? Sounds like they're asking for it to me!

.........

Yeah, look at that look in his eyes. He's gonna whip that hound's rear end!
Awroo... (You can't be serious.)
See, he's got some fightin' words for that pooch.

NEW Music: Soul Comet ~ Spirit of the Wolf (Theme of "Oh poo poo the Wolves Can Talk to Each Other!")

That's a childish reason for a fight! I say no.

Blanca actually gets voice acting when speaking to other wolves. It's very jarring to hear him speak out of nowhere. Blanca also occasionally in-game translations of other dialogue from now on. Not that many people can actually understand wolf barks. Least of all Yuri.

NEW Music: Glint of Light ~ War of the Hungry Wolf (Wolf bouts get their own dramatic rendition of the boss battle theme and you should listen to it.)

Welp. Too bad, Blanca because this is happening. We're now thrust into a mini-boss fight with Blanca flying solo against Tetsu the rival wolf.

Calling this a boss fight of any kind is being VERY generous. It's just two wolves smacking into each other. At most, Tetsu is capable of randomly inflicting a 30% defense decrease with his 9 HP of damage output every turn otherwise. Meanwhile, Blanca's physical attacks can do 20 HP of damage every turn against the only 90 HP possessing Tetsu. Plus he can use consumables and has magic if we were desperate.

In this battle of attrition, our good boy has this one pretty handily beat.

Blanca's victory lands him a small payday and an accessory that slows the rotation of the Judgment Wheel. But there is a more important earning after the battle.

Because you're just a little runt.

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ernest, a humble zoologist. This is for you, Blanca.

Congratulations! You are now entitled to join the "Wolf Bout," a competition to find the world's strongest wolf!

Wolf Bout?!

You battle the wolves you find throughout the world and gather pawprint stamps as proof of your victories.

<walks up to Blanca> Awroo! (Like this.)

Karin has collecting excerpts from a German opera to unlock her unique techniques. Blanca has participating in ~~dog fights~~ Wolf Bouts. Defeating Tetsu has unlocked the first of Blanca's "Manifestations" -- Soul Comet, a 20 MP Wind Elemental attack.

...you'll be the strongest wolf in the world! What do you think, Blanca, ol' boy?

Wouldn't that be cool? The strongest wolf in the world, Blanca. Hehe.

Blanca turns and walks away.

...Yeah, he's super into it.

Come ask if you ever have any questions! And good luck to you!

Hey is this sorta stuff, ya know, legal?
Well there are no laws say it is ILLEGAL as of yet.
......
<shrug> ...Good enough for me.

Yuri walks off after Blanca.

Never mind, Tetsu. You're not a real wolf anyway -- I guess there's room for a few improvements. And I'd better get ready, before he gets any stronger...

We may see more of Ernest in the future as we progress in the entire game spanning Wolf Bout sidequest circuit. It is worth mentioning that Ernest is based on Ernest Thompson Seton a naturalist and animal fiction writer as well as one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America. One of his earliest and most popular works of fiction is Wild Animals I Have Known which features the story Lobo the King of Currumpaw which is a fictionalized account of Senton's hunting wolves in the southwestern United States in his youth. It'll take us a while to see how that translated to setting up a worldwide circuit of underground fight matches between actual wolves.

The Wolf Bout sidequest might GO some frikkin' places...

Semi-related, while browsing Ernest Senton's Wikipedia page I came upon this factoid about this life:

Wikipedia posted:

On his twenty-first birthday, Seton's father presented him with an invoice for all the expenses connected with his childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him. He paid the bill, but never spoke to his father again.

Seton called his father, Joseph Logan Thompson, "the most selfish man I ever knew, or heard of, in history or in fiction." He cut off ties completely after being made to pay off an itemized list of all expenses he had cost his father, up to and including the doctor's fee for his delivery, a total of $537.50.

Wow. What a loving rear end in a top hat dad!

For now, our time in Montmartre is concluded. Time to hop on a subway to scenic Champs-�lys�es as our Paris adventures continue.

Video: Episode 12 Highlight Reel (You should watch this, it has talking dogs!)

Ernest Concept Art - I wonder how the real Ernest Senton would feel about being a dog fighting organizer in a Japanese video game...

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Mar 18, 2019

# ¿ Mar 18, 2019 19:58

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XIII: Dear, My Dressmaker

Yuri seems surprisingly OK with riding trains considering his last few experiences on them were having his arm cut off, getting beaten up by a wizard and having his girlfriend drop dead.

So... I think we found our way into the secret paths of the tunnels. Unfortunately, Victor the Foreman is blocking all entry into the under construction area at the moment. Since that is the job of a construction site foreman, right? Security guard well away from where the actual construction is taking place.

Oh well. I'm sure we'll be back there later. For now, let's go above ground to the scenic avenue of Champs-�lys�es.

Before we head any further, there is a new Add-On Effect item for Ring Customization just discarded behind the metro entrance. Who would leave a perfectly good regretful slime lump like this behind? Disgraceful.

As we venture further into the area, we're stopped by these two... colorful gentlemen. I hope you're ready for some cringey dated gay stereotypes! I'd like to say this is the product of being from the mid-aughts and all. But Persona 5 only came out two years ago and had something exactly like this pair. It was probably actually way worse there.

NEW Music: Dear, My Dressmaker ~ The Tailor

Oh, we certainly have!! You quit the theater so suddenly. We had no idea where you'd run off to, naughty boy!

<looks at Gepetto> Umm, wh-who are these guys?!

The Magimel Brothers. Pierre here is a tailor, and Gerard runs an item shop. They're my old theater associates. They used to sell me costumes and supplies to use on stage.

Gerard saunters up to Yuri.

Y-Yikes...

Hey! Don't start scaring off my friends!

Well, I never! ...But, anyway, now that we've all become such good friends, let me give you a fabulous present! Here you are.

Remember the Discount Cards system in the original Shadow Hearts? Well, that's been replaced by a Point Card system (and only the one card) in Covenant. We'll get into that more after we finish introductions with the Magimel Brothers.

That? That's a very, very special card you can use at any shop at all! If you have one of those, you can build up points whenever you go shopping. Those points really add up! And the more points you collect, the bigger the discount you can get. Isn't that just fabulous?

G-gee... Th-thanks...

Hey... what about this Eternity Card I had? I was getting like 50% discounts in shops before. It was great. Can I still use that?
I'm afraid those old discount cards expired back at the end of 1914.
Everything I loved died that year...

Gerard saunters back to his shop cart.

Tee hee. Of course I haven't! And what about you, Gep? You haven't forgotten that little "item" I asked you for, Have you? Did you bring it?

Of course! Let's see... Where did I put it? Ah, yes! This wasn't easy to get ahold of, you know.

Just for that, I'll now sew you a fabulous dress. Just pick the design you want, all right?

We are now given the option of choosing a dress for Gepetto's doll, Cornelia. The first one is "free" since we automatically were given that Stud Card back at Gepetto's Apartment.

There is a variety of dress option for Cornelia. One for each element, in fact. Not really a big fan of several of these being put on what looks like a kindergartener modeled doll. But, that's just how Shadow Hearts 2 is gonna roll, for better or worse. If you cannot guess, this is Gepetto's unique ability sidequest. But moreover, these dresses will actually change Gepetto's elemental affinity on top of providing him with an additional technique.

Since we do not have anyone filling out the Water elemental niche at the moment and there may be an upcoming fight that could use someone with Water-based abilities, we're going to be going with the Water element's dress design. Water.

Perfect colors for summer! The cuffs and neckerchief are a cute and "girly" touch. The waist can be cinched however you like. Mmm! *drool* Simply fabulous! I'm in the mood, now! Just a moment while I whip you up a cute little number.

Music: ENDS. Drumroll begins.

Presenting the latest creation from my 1915 Pierre Magimel Collection! I call it...

Thanks. I hate it.

That's Pierre's genius for you. His dresses certainly bring out Cornelia's beauty!

Somehow this has all managed to get even creepier...
Awroo...
You philistines don't know anything about fashion.
Yeah not chomping at the bits to get into toddler dress trends.

And not just outer beauty alone. Every time a young lady changes dresses, new possibilities blossom, you know! Now, then, Gep. Why don't you get little Cornelia changed? Oh, isn't this just too exciting, people?!

Dresses can now be changed from Gepetto's character menu. They're not like Yuri's Fusions where they can be swapped out at will. Whatever Cornelia is wearing into battle is what Gepetto is using for the duration of a fight. Additionally, they don't provide any stat boosts or anything other than a buff to Offense/Defense for their elemental class. Also, each dress grants a unique Marionette ability while equipped. Sassy Sailor gives Gepetto Aqua Cast which is a 20 MP Water damage magic attack that hits for a decent amount of damage.

Fabulous! Did you bring me what I want, then? My hot little heart's desire?

Nope. Not my department.

What? You don't have on?! How do you expect me to get my creative juices flowing! Come back when you have one!

Anyway. That's Gepetto's game spanning sidequest -- collecting burly men porn trading cards to exchange for elemental magic imbued dresses for his creepy rear end little girl doll. Sure, why not?

Pierre handles the dressmaking. Gerard here meanwhile provides the first shop in Shadow Hearts: Covenant -- La Cage Aux Songes. All shops get unique names, as they did in the first game, but they skimped out on giving them an artwork background. So we're just left with a sterile menu screen. It's one of those things you wouldn't really notice if you didn't just spend like seven months talking about the previous game on a regular basis...

We're not exactly rolling in cash at the moment but this shop does have a variety of new goods for the party. We'll just take a look at all the new items for sale at the moment. We're not necessarily going to be buying them all.

We haven't hit any yet but the Judgment Ring itself has its own share of status ailments it can be inflicted with that are present in the game. This item cancels out those effects. This item is extremely cheap and Ring Anomalies are really annoying, so we'll grab a couple of these for the road since it'll be a while before accessories warding off that kind of crap become available.

Oh, well if it's made of <Darksteel> then you know it's good. Yuri got a real taste for stab-punching with his equipment by the end of Shadow Hearts 1 and that trend continues into the sequel. This gives him +22 Physical and +18 Special Attack (the default gloves are +11 and +9 respectively.) We'll grab this for Yuri since he is doing a lot of hitting things in the face at this point in the game.

Don't try using this poo poo on Pinocchio. He'd hate it! This one is a +18 Physical and +22 Special Attack boost (versus the default strings' +9 and +11.) This too will be getting a purchase.

So is Yuri sanding down Blanca's nails? Is Blanca doing it himself? Do we really want to know the answer? Either way, this provides +19 Physical and +21 Special Attack (+9 and +11 were the default brush's stats.)

There is also a female-only set of armor for Karin with the Cotton Blouse. It provides +9 Physical and Special Defense. But the Officer's Coat (which Karin is still technically equipped as an armor despite her costume change) has +10 Physical and +8 Special Attack so... we can pass on this for the moment.

Lastly, there is an accessory that prevents the Poison status effect. This would be pretty useful... except for the 2770 Cash price tag. That's 75% of our current funds. Even with a discount, that's a bit too pricey at the moment.

Speaking of discounts, the store discount system from Shadow Hearts 1 has returned. Upon checking out from the store we can vie for a reduced price on our purchase by successfully completing a Judgment wheel spin.

Right now we can only try for a 10% Discount (and 5% Mark-Up when selling.) Successful transactions will also result in Points being added to our card. Eventually, we'll get enough points to Rank Up our Point Card level and unlock additional discounts (with additional Judgment Ring spins to obtain them. The rankings are:

Rank E - 0-99 Points. 10% Discount/5% Mark Up
Rank D - 100 Points. 20% Discount/10% Mark Up
Rank C - 400 Points. 30% Discount/15% Mark Up
Rank B - 750 Points. 40% Discount/20% Mark Up
Rank A - 1250 Points. 50% Discount/25% Mark Up.

The point calculation is 1 point for every 100 Cash spent/sold based on the retail value. It's also possible to get point penalties for screwing up the Judgment Ring discount. Those are equal to 1 point for every 100 Cash the Discount would have been worth. Optimally, there would be a lot of save scumming before making big purchases which means reloading from a memory card (hoping there is a save point within reasonable range.) I'm gonna be frank, I'm using an emulator with save states. I've already got to deal with very minor input lag. gently caress this capitalist nightmare mini-game. I'm save scumming the poo poo out of it.

Anyway, as far as the LP is concerned you don't need to worry about that system since that'll mostly be on my end. But it's there.

In any case, now that we're done with our transactions with the Magimel Brothers, we're free to chat up with folks in the city. I really thought this rotund mini-Kingpin was gonna start something that at some point in that previous scene since he's just glaring daggers in our direction the whole time. But no. He's just a rich shithead with little of note.

A wizard blew up Shanghai two years ago and a space god nearly destroyed the world last year.
Hmph. But they didn't do it near me.

Napoleon had it built, but he never passed under it during his lifetime. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Don't even know what a Napoleon is.

You may think that's a usable door next to the very French Chef named Mitsuboshi. But you'd be wrong. It just gives a locked door prompt.

(Short-tempered Emmanuelle) Stop that! Don't go touching it with your filthy hands! What if you scratch it or something?!

Feels kinda mid-aughts console cycle brown to me. The game had been fairly colorful up until now.
What would you know, vagrant? Muted browns are the next generation of graphics. We just need some more bloom in here to liven up the place.
Barf. Hard pass.

And then this huge, spiky man came up to me and said he was sorry. Hmph! Adults should know how to behave in public!

How huge we talking? Like body builder bulky or cartoonishly thick?
The latter. He needs to pick better friends.
Hmm...

At the end of the street, we find our destination. It's the only door we can open here so it better be.

Nice hotel lobby. First things first, time to grab some free guest concessions.

Namely, another Magic Crest. The Haures Crest provides Red Rave -- 16 MP Fire Class Special Damage, small circular single hit area. I was hoping for some bagels. But I guess this will do.

Is it cool if we run around bugging people until we find the guest we want?
I am not being paid enough to see a reason why not.

Do you think all patrons need to provide Stud Cards to get dresses from the Magimel Brothers or is Gepetto just a special case?

He goes by Nick, Out of the Shower 98% of the day and everyone is very concerned why that is so.

Anyway, the next room over has Subway Expert, Dr. Gautier. Locks weren't invented on hotel doors yet in 1915 so we are free to barge right in and pester him, as was the tradition of the era.

What brings you to visit? This was the last thing I expected! I'm very pleased. Very pleased!

Sheesh. Do you know everyone in this city?
I'm sorry *SOME* of manage to be popular and well regarded. We can't all be anti-social hobos like yourself.
Tch. Whatever...

We're looking for a way through the subway tunnels out toward Le Havre, and we thought maybe you could help.

Toward Le Havre, you say?

Yes. Do you know a way?

Hmm... Let's see. Just give me a minute to think, here...

Dr. Gautier walks to the window and considers the question.

They went wild and dug tunnels all over Paris, but they didn't end up using all of them. And if I remember correctly, one of those unused tunnels heads northwest.

Wow, is the subway tunnel system really all that big?

Gautier walks back to the group.

You go down into Champs �lys�es station and go right, and that'll bring you to the abandoned tunnel to Le Havre.

So we already passed right by the way we needed to go. Of course...
Hey, we wouldn't have known that until we asked.
<shakes head> I can see this is your first adventure. I mean it was the only other way out of this area. Of COURSE, that was gonna be the way we needed to go.
...I don't think I follow.
<shrugs> You'll get used to this kinda thing.

Go right, eh? Got it! Thank you, Dr. Gautier. You've really been a huge help!

<shakes head> I'm certainly glad to hear it. I've always been an ardent fan of yours, you know, Gepetto. ...But why do you want to leave Paris by way of the tunnels, anyway?

Oh, I see... Yes, the economy's been so bad since the war started. Things are hard everywhere...

<rubs neck> Yeah... the war... of course...

Listen, don't you worry about a thing! My right-hand man is the site foreman down at Champs �lys�es station. I'll send a message down to him to let you into the restricted area.

That's very kind of you! Thank you very much, Doctor.

If you ever come back to Paris, promise me you'll go back to the stage. I'll bring my grandchildren to see you!

With that, our time in Champs �lys�es is pretty much concluded. Let's head back down to the subway again. However, on the way, one new NPC has spawned in the streets...

Is there some kind of parade or costume contest going on today? But the weirdest thing was they were all lined up in a row, sitting politely and quietly. What was with those guys?

Meh. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Back to the subway we go. Dr. Gautier has psychically transmitted instructions to Victor the Foreman instantaneously. And so...

<moves out the way> The tunnels are pretty vast. Be careful not to get lost.

Yeah, yeah... Tunnel maze dungeon. Got it.

Sure enough, off we go to the next dungeon. As soon as we leave the station, we get one final scene on the platform...

But when is the Holy Mistletoe gonna kick in, I wonder? The drat little punk looks perfectly fine to me.

One of the Clawed Soldiers scoots in front of Lenny.

What kind of way is that to do things? All he needs is one good punch!

Yii!!

What?! Is that drat woman here too?!

<nods> Yes, sir. She said it would be the perfect way to kill some time...

<sags shoulders> *sigh* drat that S&M broad.

<rubs chin> Oh, well. They've got that weird puppet guy on their side. We might as well have a magic lady warrior, I guess. Looks like ol' Nicolai is desperate.

Wouldn't want to accidentally cause a boss rush. That kinda mess is just drat rude...

Gepetto and Cornelia Official Art - Please put some clothes on that ceramic golem. You're gonna get the party thrown in jail. (The artbook version of this illustration has nipples drawn on the doll.)

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Mar 21, 2019

# ¿ Mar 20, 2019 23:35

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XIV: Tight Fit

Who is ready for a subway dungeon aka a dry sewer level? No raised hands? Not a one? Welp. Too bad! We're doing it and it sucks rear end just like drat near every city underground run down tunnel maze dungeon in existence. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 was announced while I was recording footage for this section and I drat near had a PTSD episode to its sewers.

The exit to this dungeon is not far at all. There's just one completely absurd problem that rears its head as soon as we approach the train ahead.

This is the way Dr. Gautier told us to go, right? drat. Looks like we can't get through...

There's a fuse blown on this thing. We can't move it the way it is.

...There is no way we could possibly get around this train with a gap on either end large enough for two full grown adults to stand elbow to elbow and pass by without touching the train or the tunnel. This is our dilemma for this dungeon. And before you ask, no they do not intend to use the train at all. We just need to move the car to get down the tunnel behind it.

So as a result, we'll be spending the next half hour crawling through this joint. In no small part due to...

You guessed it! Random battles! No wonder these tunnels are incomplete if workers were getting attacked every 10-15 steps and having to fight off xenomorph worms and hell hedgehogs. The worms go by the name Ekimmu and are a 51 HP Water class jerk. The hedgehogs are very creatively titled Sting. They are 32 HP Earth class enemies with the innate ability to poison with their bites. Neither is particularly troublesome on their own. The problem is that they come in assorted packs of four to six enemies. Sting critters are more common than the Ekimmu as far as battle configurations go (it's usually 3-4 Sting and 1-2 Ekimmu.)

Unlike Lenny's goons back in Ardennes Forest that evaporated immediately after the cutscene where they were allegedly pursuing the party, Clawed Soldiers actually are port of the dungeon roster this go around. They're exactly the same as the ones back in Gepetto's Apartment but are limited to two to three in any random battles. They will often team up with the other two enemy types. I guess Sapientes Gladio has brokered an alliance with the Parisian underground wildlife at some point.

While they've got more numbers, our party now has quite the blossoming array of special attacks at its disposal. We've got wolf spirit charges.

Folks setting their swords on fire and launching them like missiles.

And praising the sun to receive a holy blessing of err... a giant waterspout beneath an enemy's rear end.

Most battles at this point end before the enemy even gets a chance to attack and last all of 90 seconds tops. We've come a long way since the days of Koudelka where every single random battle was a three to five-minute slog.

Back to dungeon crawling. Eventually, we find ourselves at a three-way split (with a freebie Shell Bracelet right before the junction.) There is another train we simply cannot go around to the right fork.

The left fork? Oh, it's just a dead end. You may see that strangely high resolution looking letters and digits spray painted on the side of this minecart and think that surely this is some kind of puzzle element. And you'd completely wrong. It's just flavor and this dead end is just a waste of time. There's a lot of those in this subway.

In general, we're heading north and crisscrossing to different tracks because there are mine carts and whatnot in the way. After several minutes of this, peppered with the odd random battle, we eventually come to...

...an old acquaintance. Ring Soul appears before Karin and Yuri. Why in some run down abandoned subway tunnel in Paris, France? Don't worry about that. Ring Soul is just gonna Ring Soul.

Yikes! What the hell are you? A ghost?! And why so high-and-mighty?

This looks like one of those kinda crappy enemies that only magic works on. You can take this one, Karin. Not worth my time.

Oh! It's you again... This is the Ring Spirit, Yuri...

Ring Spirit?

No, no... I'm not a spirit. Nor am I flesh. I am the Ring Soul. The will of the Judg--

<puts hands on hips> So what does he want with us, then?

You peddling some kinda mini-game? Not interested.

The will of the Judgment Ring, the administrator of all fate. I can see it... I can see your future... This I entrust to you...

We get another item that increases the number of attacks a character can use. We'll put that on Blanca so he can join the 3-hit crew alongside Yuri and Karin.

The power to command the Judgment Ring. Such power will help you carve your way through destiny...

Hmph.

...Hmph?! Is that all you can say?!

That was a lotta pomp and circumstance for something you coulda just stuck in a treasure chest.
The blessing of the Ring Soul in a common treasure chest?! Why I never...

Oh, um...he means, thanks! Thank you, Ring Spirit!

It does not pay to forget gratitude... I will appear to you again, to bestow upon you more power... But beware! I am always watching... Watching to see if you are truly the one to command destiny...

The Ring Soul vanishes.

H-he seemed a little angry. I hope it'll be okay...

Whatever. I don't like that always watching spiel he gave at the end. Is it gonna watch me poop? No thanks.
......

With that, we can continue our meandering trek down the tunnels.

The only new bit of loot we got this whole stretch is this Special Attack Defense Down. If this effect triggers it gives an enemy a 30% reduction in Special Attack (read: anything that consumes MP) defense. We'll put this on Blanca for now since he's regularly attacking anyhow. May as well get some bonus effects from it once in a while.

At the far end of this tunnel, we find a switch. Naturally, we're gonna yank that sucker. What else are you going to do with a random switch in a tunnel? Find out what it does first before doing anything rash? That's not video game adventurer talk.

Somehow, yanking this switch starts up a generator which... moves a train car across the area? Unfortunately, it's not the train car we wanted. Remember back at the three prone fork tunnel where there was a train car on the rightmost tunnel. Yep. That's moved.

So cue several minutes of backtracking down the same tunnels fighting the same three enemies no less than four or five times. This new path gives us another fork in the tracks.

Along the way, in this region, we find another Magic Crest. The Amy Crest has Heat Edge available -- an 8 MP spell that adds the Fire Class to one ally's Physical Attack. We'll stick that on Karin since she's our Fire class character and isn't using a whole lot of MP at this point in the game.

The other tunnel down this path leads us to a ladder leading to the surface. Well, maybe we'll stumble upon an industrial fuse fit for a derelict early 1900s train car up there. Crazier things have happened.

We've surfaced at a new region of Paris, the Cathedral District. Despite the name and Notre Dame being RIGHT there, we are never stepping foot in there. No hunchback mid-boss battles for this RPG adventure, I'm afraid. There is also a couple of folks hanging out we can chat up while we're getting some fresh air.

Never heard of it.
...Never heard of what?
Notch drat or whatever the heck.
It's one of the most famous buildings in all of Paris!
Meh. I've seen better. It's no Blue Castle of Transylvania.

I'd take crowds over random battles any day.

If you keep going back to look, you might be able to find a real bargain.

Perhaps after hitting key plot beats or clearing future areas and whatnot.
...That's a weird sales pitch.

Indeed, the only actual point of note in the Cathedral District is this Junk Shop. Let's head in and see if there's anything we can scrape together to get that utterly impassable train out of the way.

Wow, this place has everything. Do you know how hard it is to find a 32x64 resolution blown up JPEG of the Mona Lisa in poster size? That's a find right there.

No? You're looking for a fuse? Of course I have one! Brought back a real good one just the other day. If you want it, you're welcome to it!

...I'm not Gepetto and I didn't say anything.

And thus we have our fuse for the train. I feel like just finding this in some random treasure chest would have been way less awkward than this entire exchange.

I didn't ask...

Don't be silly! I couldn't take money from you for that old thing! Take it. Something else you need? I'd have to charge you for anything else, though, I'm afraid.

...Oh, I see how it goes. Get a free key item to get people hooked and then reel them in with consumables. Sneaky.

The Junk Emporium features everything we saw for sale back in Pierre's shop plus a couple of extra accessories that are well out of our current budget. This area will actually carry all inventories (weapon and armor wise) from across the game. If we, for some reason, wanted an early weapon type. There might be other uses for this Junk Shop in the future. But like many things, that is down the road a sizable way.

Now that we have the fuse, it's just a matter of backtracking all the way to the beginning of the subway to move that pesky train car. But, before we do that...

We have gotten quite a bit of Soul Energy. Indeed, enough to unlock quite a few more Fusions. So let's take a trek back to the Graveyard. For the record, accessing the Graveyard is just like in Shadow Hearts 1 and can only be done from Save Points or the World Map.

Yep... Still a weird Yuri growing out of a creepy tree. That's probably fine.

We've got a number of Elemental options available to us at the moment: Light, Dark, Earth, Water and Wind are all still up for grabs.

Let's try filling one of the elemental niches we're lacking thus far. Yuri is technically Dark elemental class by default. So let's go with the Light Class Fusion. Mix things up a bit.

All we need to do is pump 40 Soul Energy into the Light alter here, just like we did with the Fire one, and...

Oh no, Yuri's heart has been filled with an angsty teenager that hates Troy Baker. These curses just keep piling up.

But on the plus side, we have gotten a new Fusion -- Radeus. Let's just open up Yuri's Personal Status screen and take a look...

What...

...the...

...gently caress, YURI!?

Video: Episode 14 Highlight Reel (You should see everyone's Special Arts in action.)

Radeus Fusion Concept Art - Good to see Grobyc from Chrono Cross is still getting work.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Mar 25, 2019

# ¿ Mar 25, 2019 21:32

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm just hella swamped with work and traveling for work. Might get a bit infrequent another week or two.

Episode XV: Minecart Madness

...I lost my train of thought. poo poo. Anyway! I mentioned the Level 1 Fusions of this game were... budget, let's say. So here we are... The Light and Dark class ones particularly are... a goddamn show. We're gonna be picking them all up today. There's really no reason not to do so at the earliest point. Soul Energy is there to be spent. It isn't doing us a bit of good banking it at the moment.

Yuri's poor The Joker cosplay, Radeus, comes with the following stats:

Strength -1
Vitality -1
Agility +5
Intelligence +6
Power +6
Luck +6

There actually are some stat penalties initially for certain Fusions. These can be negated by just leveling the Fusion in question up a couple ranks. For instance, Level 2 Radeus is:

Strength +0
Vitality +0
Agility +5
Intelligence +7
Power +6
Luck +6

.....Yeah, not really a massive improvement. But it's something.

Like Karyl, Radeus also get a pair of Special Skills

Barrier - 12 MP. Increases one ally's Special Defense Power. If someone is getting their rear end whipped by an elemental weakness, this could get some play.
Heaven - 16 MP. Light Class Special Damage. Single target/4 hits/Anti-ground. Anti-ground attacks mean they're a launcher that will fling the enemy into the air. Otherwise, it's just decent low-level Light magic.

That's it for Radeus. But we're still sitting on a healthy stock of Soul Energy. Let's mosey over next door in the Graveyard and hit up the Wind Element Class while we're in the neighborhood.

Yuri will always laugh at a fart or fart joke.

...I don't know about this one either. Why is the wind dude's legs so chufty? And shirtless but giant pauldrons? I dunno, man. I dunno.

Malakia here comes initially sporting:

Strength +0
Vitality +3
Agility +6
Intelligence +4
Power +4
Luck +4

That's an OK spread I suppose. At least there are no actual penalties. The Wind class Fusion's special attacks are:

Gale - 12 MP - Shortens turn interval for one ally. It's a haste spell. Always useful.
Howling - 16 MP - Wind Class Special Damage. Single target/7-hits/anti-air. Pretty standard.

That's everything from the Heaven's Commandments side of the Graveyard. Let's see if we can't pick up a couple of elements from the Hell's side as well, eh?

Of all of these, the Water Fusion might be the most useful for upcoming events. So let's nab that first.

Little known fact: Yuri loves Blitzball.

That description really sounds like it's upselling itself. Amnis is probably the most of this batch of Fusions that looks like its previous incarnation. Granted, it's not a hunched lizard dude with a tail and vaguely Xenomorph features. But at least it isn't Yuri in body paint and a bad wig.

For this scaly boy, we've got:

Strength -1
Vitality +5
Agility +5
Intelligence +5
Power +1
Luck +6

Strength is getting the short end of the stick in a lot of these early Fusions. Beyond that, it has:

Mirage - 12 MP - Increases Evasion Rate for one ally. I've always felt these kinds of spells were useless most of the time. I used a similar spell during the Wolf Bout and it proceeded to do absolutely nothing but waste a turn for Blanca.
Splash - 16 MP - Water Class Special Damage. Single target/3 hits. Very wet.

Shuffling right along, the Earth elemental tablet is just a room over. So let's grab that too.

Always trust solid ground against your feet. You ever seen the stats for gravity-based deaths in the Souls franchise? poo poo's ghastly.

If you say so. It just looks like you gave the last one a bulkier costume and covered it in dirt. Vastitas (that name is evoking Kingdom Hearts real hard and I don't like it) has initial stats of:

Strength +6
Vitality +5
Agility +4
Intelligence +0
Power +3
Luck +3

Literally dumb as a box of rocks. But quite strong. Sounds about right. The brick here has:

Shield - 12 MP - Increases Physical Defense for one ally. Gepetto could probably afford to get this cast on him once in a while because man that guy is brittle.
Crag - 16 MP - Earth Class Special Damage. Single target/5 hits/Anti-ground/ Ironic you claim to be an Earth guy and then are all about the anti-ground, sir.

We actually are just short on enough juice to grab the very last Level 1 Fusion. So we'll depart the Graveyard for now.

I don't worry about. We'll make it up in very short order since now that we're done with the Cathedral District and have obtained a new Fuse on top all the Fusions, it's a matter of returning to the underground...

And retracing our steps back to drat near the beginning of the entire dungeon.

I'll just wing it.

Doing that has only gone wrong like half the time. That's OK odds.

Yuri, I assume, just fastball pitches the fuse into the train and that happens to move the thing out of the way gives us the path to the end of the dungeon. But like I said, we had one more Fusion to unlock and there were like seven random battles on the way back here. So...

NEW Music: Veronica Vera ~ Her Majesty, The Queen

Let's jam some energy into this Dark Stone and claim the last of the elemental Fusions. Remember, Yuri came by default in the original game with the Dark Element Fusion, Death Emperor and that was basically his default look. It was a Devilman that looked like Amon's brother who got into IT support instead of lifting weights and adventuring.

Even enjoys a good Dark Desire.

Tch. Mediocre! Yuri, why are you just a purple K' from The King of Fighters now? And what happened to your shoes? Why are your feet so grody? I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

Strength +4
Vitality +4
Agility +4
Intelligence +0
Power +6
Luck +3

Of course, nobody would walk out of the house with that look and possess any kind of intelligence. I enjoy when gameplay and story intermingle like that. :v:

Beyond the dirty goth boy look, Nox also comes with:

Surge - 12 MP - Increases Special Attack Power for one ally. That's usually an OK opener if we're exploiting an elemental weakness or the like.
Hell's Eyes - 16 MP - Dark Class Special Damage. Single target/3 hits/knockdown. Not really feeling that over the doom lasers and summoning a laser light show Tree of Sephirot or the like the old Dark Fusion had.

In any event, that is all of the Fusions unlocked. That came pretty quick considering we only got to that point like a good chunk of the way through the first half of the game the previous go. Oh well, let's get the hell out of this subway. It feels like it's taken weeks to make it through here.

Awroo, awroo!

Great! We can clear a lot of ground fast with this!

Let's just hope we don't have to jump too many cliffs on this thing. That'd suck.
Awroo...
Planks are easy to avoid. Just lay down on your back or duck the whole time. Heck, you don't even have to worry about it.
Awroo.

NEW Music: Crisis (Yeah, this sounds like the theme of trouble.)

So did you know French minecarts are completely self-propelled? It's true. They can reach speeds in excess of 30 miles an hour if you just lean forward a little bit.

Blanca, being a good boy, is diligently keeping watch of the rear and spots something in the distance.

What's that?!

Not sure where he procured another mine cart from but it seems Lenny and his gang also have mastered the self-propelling subway cart tech.

Ha ha ha!! I gotcha!

That guy is pretty stubborn, ain't he? Hmph!

<poo poo eating grin> Hey, there, spike boy! You couldn't catch a cold of you wanted to! Now bite me!

Why, you little!!

The pursuit continues until Lenny and his goons have made it right alongside Yuri and the gang's cart.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

<in exact same tone> Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

Lenny fixes to jump to the party's cart, positions himself carefully to make the leap, and...

Music tapers off...

Heeeey, where ya going?!

Welp. That was silly. Poor Lenny gets no respect but bless him he's trying his best to mid-boss. Either way, the party's train cart soon comes to an abrupt stop just at the end of the line. Literally. It's stopped two feet from the track vanishes.

While Lenny has failed to even initiate a boss battle even once yet, someone new is waiting at the far end of the metro dungeon...

Welp. That sure is a character design... You better believe those huge honkers have PS2 jiggle physics attached to them defying all known laws of gravity in the process.

Never thought I'd see the day Margarete seemed like she dressed modestly...

Who are you?!

Give yourselves up now and be my slaves, and I just might spare your lives.

Hmm... I don't know, I'm kind of into it.
Not the time, old man...

<points at the party> Such a shame! It'll be too late if you change your minds later, you know. I wonder if you'll be saying such brave things after my pretty pets here have their way with you!

Oh man, you're the drop a monster of the week and split kinda baddie? Weak.
Weak will be your knees after you see my power.

Time for the boss of the Paris region, twin monsters - Castor and Pollux. Both of these boys are both sporting 250 HP a piece and you can probably guess their elemental class by glancing at them.

Yuri just barely has initiative so our first order of business is to going to be going back to the Karyl Fusion. Yeah, I know we just literally got five others we've yet to show off. But there's literally a Water element boss we need to sort out right now and it's the easier of the two to focus on first.

We want to take out these two straight away because their main gimmick while both are alive is Combo attacks.

Combo Attacks which at this early stage of the game are DEVASTATING. One decent full hitting combo with the two brothers can over halve Yuri's HP even in Fusion form and almost outright kill Gepetto or Blanca with their lower overall HP values. Only Karin is also sturdy enough to be able to take one or two combos on the chin before being in trouble. Not only are these combos damaging, the strings they're using includes ailment inflicting attacks like Small Ring or Poison. So that's not great either.

If the two enemies form up for a Combo (they play by exactly the same rules for that sorta stuff as the player) then it is possible to knock the formation out by doing a heavy hit to target the stationary boss (read: the one that doesn't move for the combo formation.) The one initiating the 100% uses the resist attack ability to make it drat near impossible to move from its spot.

Unfortunately, if their turns are still within consecutive range, then they can just reposition and probably the inevitable has only been delayed.

Which is why we should start fighting back with our own Combos and focus on one of the boss brothers to make life much similar. There's a pretty ace combo we can do with Karyl Fusion Yuri and Karin.

Karin's Keuervelk Sword Art is a launcher...

...which can be followed up with Karyl's Blaze attack which is Anti-Air (meaning it'll do more hits to an airborne target. This does over 100 damage per combo, which is nearly half its total health. Not too shabby.

Meanwhile, Blanca can focus on spamming Soul Comet on Pollux as well. While it's not a Fire class damage, it's still 50 ballpark damage range for either boss and that is nothing to sneeze at either. We only have enough MP for about three casts of it. But that's plenty of DPS. Good dog.

Meanwhile, Gepetto doesn't have a lot going on to deal with Pollux so he can instead use Aqua Cast on Castor and... basically handle that boss by himself. Aqua Cast is savage against the Red Oni here.

Once Pollux is eating dirt, the fight is basically over. With the threat of Combo attacks gone, it's just basically Arachne 2.0 but way less creepy.

Yuri at this point can swap over to Amnis and start spamming its Splash ability on Castor to speed up damage. I haven't mentioned it directly yet but the mechanics of switching Fusions in battles have drastically changed from the first game. In Shadow Hearts 1, the player was only allowed to equip three Fusions at a time. And in order to switch, Yuri would have to morph back to human form, perform an action and then the next turn he could switch to a follow-up Fusion. You would NEVER do this since Fusions in that game also had a huge Sanity Point cost up front that made it literally impossible late game without using consumables between Fusions to restore SP.

The way it works in Shadow Hearts: Covenant is Yuri has access to every single Fusion and can swap at will as the battle demands. Also, Fusions just drain a set amount of SP per round (like 3 SP per round instead of just one SP.) It's 100% a better system across the board. As much gameplay elements of this game go.

In any case, RIP Castor & Pollux. Which since they're on their way out, I may as well mention they're also named after some Greek mythology:

Wikipedia on Castor and Pollux posted:

Click here for more info.

Castor and Pollux (or in Greek, Polydeuces[c]) were twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.

Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.

In Latin, the twins are also known as the Gemini (literally "twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire. They were also associated with horsemanship, due to the idea that they rode the 'white horses' of foam that were formed by curling ocean waves.

...Not sure how we got magic goober dragons out of that. But there you go.

<claps> Oh-hoho! I haven't lost a step!

We've received quite a few rewards for wrapping up Paris including two new crests. Zepar contains Shield, a 12 MP magic ability that increases Physic Defense power for one ally. Sitri contains Rage, another 12 MP magic ability that increases Physical Attack Power for one ally. Both of those could have their uses, I'm sure.

But more important than any of that, we've got the very first Lottery Ticket of Shadow Hearts 2. T-terrific... We'll get more into what the sequel's version of that entails in the near future. But for today...

And with that, Veronica teleports away. Karin sees fit to run to her position to confirm she's gone. I suppose technically she's never seen anyone teleport before, huh? What a sheltered girl.

Another weird character to deal with.

Oh, Yuri. You sweet summer child. You're not even close to the most high profile members of that group yet. But what were are close to is the end of Paris. As in... this is literally the end of Paris. Tune in next time as Yuri and the gang's adventures continue the French port of Le Harve. You are not yet prepared for who we'll encounter there. Nobody is...

A lot certainly did go down in Paris and we have a number of new entries in the Library. So let's get down to brass tacks, eh?

Monsters:

Yes and I bet if an entry of Puddies from the Power Rangers showed up here you'd also tell me they're a formidable fighting force as well.

Mr. Needlemouse's inbreeding got out of hand.

You throw ONE guy's corpse in a ditch with a snake you incidentally killed in the scuffle and you never hear the end of it.

The giant thought all that arrow to the knee garbage from Skyrim was highly disrespectful.

That's what happens without basic eye care examinations, kids.

Characters:

Well, I think we're good on child death for a while as far as the LP goes. I think...

Nobody with that white hair streaks in the front has ever been on the level.

Turns out the trading card business was much more lucrative.

Sadly, I don't think we see Nico from DMCV-esque antics. Even if they literally do end up in hell castles and such with no explanation.

I can't even tell you what is going on with that half-Domino mask feathered... thing on her face.

Video: Episode 15 Highlight Reel (You should at least watch the first cutscene with Lenny.)

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Apr 3, 2019

# ¿ Apr 2, 2019 21:08

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XVI : The Bandit of Le Havre

Our journey to the dreadlands of vile Wales continues as we arrive in the port city of Le Havre. For reference sake, that means the minecart ride took the party roughly 200 kilometers. The Parisian metro plans were apparently ambitious to say the least.

We are now are par with Sting as far as our rankings go. It's a toss-up whether they mean the guy from The Police or the WCW.

The rankings on this screen sound like a series of awkwardly translated rap lyrics. MC Demon Sergeant could drop a beat.

I'm going to give it to the next proper dungeon before these stats start dropping.

I'm surprised they keep Nicolai on the total battles stat screen. Spoilers: He will NOT be rejoining us at any point in the game. The Director's Cut version of the game that never left Japan has a bonus dungeon where he's briefly playable again alongside Lenny and Veronica. They never finished that part for this version, unfortunately.

Well that is the Score screen update. Let's move onto brighter horizons like a brand new village to explore. If you'll recall, our goal was to charter a boat to Wales to talk to Roger Bacon to see if he knows anything about sorting out Yuri's new curse and the whole cult wanting to kill them thing. You know, the same Roger Bacon that we saw get kidnapped by Lenny immediately after the CGI intro. But the party doesn�t know about that. Details... Our quest continues! By naturally badgering townsfolk going about their day...

But things are pretty dangerous right now in Le Havre. Better watch out.

So just nobody noticed the doom glyph in the sky last year?
Well, stiff upper lip and what not...

As we continue around the corner, we see a familiar truck. I was not loving about with the comparison to DMCV Nico with the brothers Magimel. But before we approach that, there is an item in the corner and it is...

Hey, Seals are back. There is no longer the in-battle thing they had in the first game. Just use them. You get a stat boost! The End! Use them! That's one more point of resistance against magic attacks! I don't honestly know if that mechanically means a goddamn thing. But it sounds good on paper!

Ah, smell that fresh ocean breeze! Nice place to do a little shopping, no?

Yeah, okay. What've you got?

So Gerard does have new armor in his shop but maybe we should look around Le Havre first before investing. As you do...

Hmm... Let's keep that factoid in the back pocket...

So I have to go to bed early. It stinks!

Again... Let's not worry about this plight yet! We just got into town! Let's go across the bridge here and see what is happening.

She can literally block your path extremely hard in a weird NPC pathing way that nobody else in the game can. I don't know if that's the joke.

OK. We have some direction now from Unemployed Henry. Much more importantly, if Yuri ventures JUST past him we get a new scene with our old pal Ring Soul. This is obviously important!

You again! Ring Spirit, right?

No... My name is Ring Soul! Let me say it again... Ring Soul!

Soul and Spirit are different things. How are you all not getting this?!

Okay, okay! I get it! You're... here to give me another one of those... um... you know, right?

.........

I have little choice. I can see it... I can see your future... This I entrust to you...

Can you see where we can find a boat?
...I cannot share the future. Only observe it.
Hmph.

Another Attack Boost. We could, in theory, give this to Blanca/Yuri/Karin to boost them to the max of four strikes. But we're just going to hang onto it a bit for now.

Oh, boy! Thanks!

Your gratitude seems insincere...

N-no way! Really! I'm really happy... Thanks!

I was having a rough day and this will definitely pull me out of the slump!

.........

My gaze narrows upon you.

I will appear to you again, to bestow upon you more power... But beware! I am always watching... Watching to see if you are truly the one to command destiny...

Ring Soul vanishes.

What a mysterious spirit.
I think he's a soul, Karin. C'mon. Have some respect.
......

We're done going that direction for now. Let's double back and head toward the docks. Logically... there's probably a boat somewhere there, right?

Off the coast, it's crawling with German submarines right now. We'd be taking our lives into our hands, going out there! But we might be able to talk, depending on the price...

OK... I'm a little short on funds. Also, I'm a little caught up what the hell is a "submarine"?

He he. If you ain't got no money, go see the mayor. He's looking for vigilante-group members. See if you can get hired!

...Don't you mean like "town watch" or something? Vigilante has, you know, like... implications.
I used the words I meant.
...OK.

It just so happens the mayor's manor is just down the street. But first! As soon as we approach a man nearby the boat captain, we're automatically pulled into a mandatory conversation.

What is it? You're holding us up.

That ticket you've got. The one for the lottery. That entitles you to hold a lottery with any lottery member in the world. A lottery! With any member!

We haven't got time for that now. Come on, get out of the way!

I already did this questline. Heck, I'm on my way to the Lottery Chairman. Get outta here with this rehash.

Don't try to deceive yourself! You know you want to! Give in to your desires! Play the lottery!

...Not much of a choice, huh?!

The Lottery sidequest from the original Shadow Hearts has returned. It is... virtually identical. We need to find Lottery Tickets, most of which are hidden in the world (not QUITE as obscurely placed as the first game, but...) If we are carrying a Lottery Ticket then NPCs relevant to the quest will suddenly transmogrify into Lottery Member No.XX. We then need to do a rather difficult Judgment Ring spin to gain a prize. It's once more required to gain at least one prize from every Lottery Ticket member in the world. Although this time around, I think it's impossible to fail this quest this time around. Covenant definitely has missable content but it is mostly reserved to dungeons. There is no actual THE FIRST HALF OF THE GAME IS GONE FOREVER NOW split in the story.

In any event, we gained the Bathin Crest from winning the top prize which includes two pretty decent spells. Having an actual spell that can just delete Status Abnormalities is PRETTY good considering that was mostly the realm of consumables in Koudelka 2.

Just past the Lottery Member, we can find Extremely Poor Mahone camping out. Nothing much to be done there. But what is important is that treasure chest next to him.

Extremely Poor Mahone said he's hungry, not cold. So he won't mind if we steal this set of armor. This is a +17 Physical and +19 Special Defense armor that only Blanca and Gepetto can wear at the moment. I'd be pretty into seeing Blanca don a big think fur coat and go about this day. Either way, that�s the more expensive of the two new available armors back in the Brothers' shop (900 Cash.) So a freebie is nice to our wallet.

Doubling back the way we came and continuing past Lottery Member Fox, we find the Mayor's House at the end of the street.

Naturally, the first thing to do when approaching the domicile of a potential new employer is to break into their garage and steal some of their poo poo. As you do.

We've got one of the more useless accessories in the game back here. We want to avoid hitting the Berserk status if we can help it. Having the whole party gain it and having the option to flee the battle we'd have to REALLY be loving up to get in that situation does not exactly sound worthy of an accessory slot.

Now that we've rifled through the garage, let's enter the immediately opulent to the point this mayor is definitely going to turn out to be evil mayoral mansion.

As soon as we enter the hall, an assortment of what can only be referred to as cartoonishly shady goons walk down from either end of the central stairs to address the party.

That's right. We need the money.

The Mayor also descends the stairs to address the visitors.

We're travelers. We wanted to find a ship that would take us to England.

And we finally found one, but now we have to earn some money for the fare.

Doesn't seem like there are any good spots to grind around here. So you know how it goes.

Such a small town needs a vigilante group, eh? Because of the war?

In a way. There's been more crime since the war started. A bandit's been showing up every night! We've been keeping a sharp eye out, but he's a tough customer. We can't seem to catch him. Think you guys can do it?

Do you have any special qualifications for the job?
I can command a magic puppet.
I have sword arts derived from a hundred-year German opera.
I punched out a space god once.
Awroo.
......
...Alright then. The job is yours if you want it...

Sure, why not? We'll get him snatched up before you know it.

Mayor Leonard waddles over and stares directly at Karin's chest for a few seconds. As you do.

The mayor then trots over to a chair that clearly could not begin to support his frame and has a no-clip seat.

We'll start you off on town patrol tonight. Work hard, now. No slacking!

<nods> You got it.

So we've got a job to do. Yuri did defeat multiple wizards and a space god once. A bandit in northern France can't be that much more taxing. We do need to talk with the Mayor and his entourage to progress. But there is something hidden in this room. A Lottery Ticket! Can you discover the first hidden one? No, there is not any visual indications. No shiny glowies. Nadda.

...

......

.........

Of course, it's in the stuffed bear's head! That was an easy one. They'll get more Sierra and Roberta Williams hates your guts tricky later in the game.

Also, I'd just like to remind you how the Mayor and company entered the scene -- all coming from the top of the stairs. If we... actually go to the top of the stairs, there are no rooms up here. It's just a balcony with a low-resolution picture of the mayor. What were they all doing up here and why? The world may never know. Anyway, let's talk to these clowns further.

Messed up his ankle? With a special hold?

And this guy can pick up anything that's lying around and use it as a weapon! Trust me, you don't wanna see it!

Doesn't sound like any ordinary thief!

Can you elaborate on the "special hold" thing?
Naw. Gotta keep kayfabe.
...Wha?

Don't blame me if you get hurt, okay? Or, worst case scenario, if you die...

<nods> All set!

The others are already out on patrol. Good luck to you guys.

And with that, nighttime has instantly descended on Le Havre. Welp. Let's get to this patrol.

<shakes head> *sigh* That bandit sure is scary. I hope we don't run into him!

We'll let them handle that direction and head the opposite way. Now that night has fallen, everyone has some new dialogue for our vigilante patrol.

I'm sorry, but please don't talk to me anymore. I don't know anything about that bandit, understand?

Oops! I can't tell you. It's our town's secret.

We don't need any more hooligans in this town, if you ask me... Huh? Oh, nothing. Pay no attention. I wasn't talking about you, you know.

This all clearly seems on the level. While we're here, we can return the La Cage Aux Songes shop and pick up that armor we skipped earlier.

The Leather Cloak is a +19 Physical/+17 Special Defense armor that for some reason Gepetto is unable to wear but everyone else it constitutes a decent upgrade. It is 840 Cash a pop. We can safely sell our old threads (at 5% mark-up) to recoup a chunk of the losses.

After inventory management is sorted out, the party has to make their way to the very south of Le Havre back to Unemployed Henry. Nothing is found here. But as soon as we head back the way we came...

Time out! Time out! Hey, that attack is illegal! Gaaahhh!

Those voices... Over there!

We'd best hurry back to the warehouse where our NPC allies were patrolling.

What is it?! What happened here?!

Ha ha ha!

Who's that?!

Music: Grand Papillon!! ~ Pro Wrestler (Listen to this corny poo poo right now!)

When the forces of darkness descend! In the name of justice, this fist!

In the name of truth, these muscles! In the name of honor, this blood!

Ha ha!

<concerned, confused looks>

Just a sec here, gotta hoist up this full coffin left earlier on the scene.

Champion of Truth and Justice, Grand Papillon! Ready to fight all evildoers!

If you can face the unfettered fury of my rippling muscles, then come on!

Music: ENDS

......

...What? Huh?

What? Huh? Indeed. Tune in next time for the further startling adventures of Grand Papillon!

Video: Grand Papillon Appears!! (Go watch this immediately.)

Grand Papillon Concept Art - Who IS the mysterious Grand Papillon?!

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Apr 19, 2019

# ¿ Apr 12, 2019 20:38

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XVII: Grand Papillon - Friend of All Children!

Yuri and the gang... aren't quite sure to make of all this new nonsense. But they aren't given too long to dwell on it, because...

It's immediately time to take on Grand Papillon!! I'm contractually obligated by NJPW to add the two exclamation marks when addressing Grand Papillon!! This burly goofball is a 355 HP packing Earth elemental enemy.

Related: "Papillon" just means "butterfly." Hence the mask he is wearing and all... But while double checking because my French is atrocious at best, I found it is ALSO a French breed of toy spaniels having a long, silky coat and large, erect ears held so they resemble the wings of a butterfly. So that's fun to learn.

To counter this Earth class wrestler, we'll have Yuri give the Malakia Fusion a trial run.

From there, we'll have him use Howling a 7-hit Wind elemental spell that... is making donuts. That's like a fifth of his health gone in one turn.

While we're there, we'll have Karin use her Sword Arts...

...and Blanca with his Soul Comet. Both of those Combo with Howling pretty well if we want a bit of extra damage alongside Yuri's attacks.

Meanwhile, we can have Gepetto pitch in with support in buffing Yuri's Special Attack Power with Surge. Not that he really needs it, but hey. Buffs are fun!

You may have noticed Grand Papillon!! hasn't been mentioned much yet. That is because he is S-L-O-W as far as turns go. As in he got like three this entire fight... and the third turn was mostly from fluffing about to see his abilities. He DOES hit like a truck for this point in the game though, doing in excess of around 50 HP of damage in a combo which includes suplexing his coffin on someone's head. Poor Gepetto in this case.

But that's fine. Remember, we gave Gepetto a cure spell and that more or less instantly negates any damage the early portion of the game. We'll have him on heal support the rest of this brisk fight.

Grand Papillon's only other ability, after he takes a sufficient amount of damage, is Drain Touch which does a comparable amount of damage as his main combo. However this one...

...heals him for the same amount of damage. Thankfully, he only seems to utilize this once. It's worth noting that this was also the default ability of Shadow Hearts 1's bored vampire party member, Keith Valentine. Hmm...

I failed!

In any event, that's about all there is to the Grand Papillon battle. Those muscles are impressive but you are against a guy that punched out a god. And go completely de-leveled, but that's beside the point.

What a waste of time...

Yuri points to the Wrestlemania sign following his victory against Grand Papillon!!

NEW Music: Gathering God ~ Thrill (Theme of This Game Might be Way More Goofy Than Its Predecessors.)

Following his defeat, Grand Papillon transforms into a... golden bat... Wait...

Huh...?

Hehehehe! You pack a pretty good punch! Time for me to go now, kids. We'll meet again!

The Golden Bat flies off into the night.

H-he turned into a bat...

Aw...roo...?

Well, he's certainly good at runnin' away.

...Hmm. I'm sure I've met him before...

I've GOT to stop spacing out during character sidequests...

The next day...

...He changed into a bat?! What a very odd character, indeed! But you people must be awfully good to drive the great Grand Papillon off! I'm truly impressed with all of you!

.........

The multitude of ellipses truly shows your dedication, sir.
...

<turns to Cole> Okay, Cole. Show these people to the shop. Get this over with quickly.

Yes, Mayor.

Cole approaches Yuri and the others.

<nods> Fine.

The bandit changed into a bat? Sounds like some kind of magic trick.

The ref should have called that out.

All right, folks. Hurry up and catch that bandit, you hear? And you'll be handsomely rewarded!

We're talking a Money in the Bank match here.
Ehh... Any of you getting these references?
...They're making references?
Awroo! (You've not earned a hot tag from me.)
You're just imagining things.
OK...

As Cole the Vigilante Leader asked, we need to cross Le Havre again to the south end. Where...

What did you want us to come here for?

You gonna buy us a meal or something?

Joint was closed last time we were here. Who doesn't open for lunch...?

Shhh! Look at that.

Hmm?

The party looks toward the bar at the end of the area.

No. That's the name of the tavern! Not that. Look there!

How do you even read that from this angle?
Just because I'm wearing glasses doesn't mean my eyes are shot.
...I mean like physically.

A door opens.

Huh?!

A large, blonde dreadlocked man and a couple of children exit the tavern and converse.

Hmm. I just know I've seen that guy somewhere before...

For some reason the color blue is coming up in my head... I dunno. This is gonna bug me all day...

If you know where he is and who he is, why don't you guys catch him yourself?

.........

G-Gotta keep kayfabe...
It's what creative wants this storyline.

<turns away> ...Um, good luck, now!

Hey!

<turns back> We're counting on you! We know you can do it! Bye-bye!

Cole and the Mayor split the scene.

What do you wanna do? Wanna close in?

Hmm, something's odd... If he really was such a big, bad bandit, would little kids be hanging around with him?

Are... are we the baddies?
Awroo! (I cannot believe I signed up with the NWO.)

But we already took half the money.

Yuri starts walking toward Grand Papillon.

Let's at least try talking to him, anyway.

Worst that happens is we have another kinda easy mid-boss fight.
...I suppose.

Hi, there!

Music: ENDS. The party enters the tavern.

But Joachim isn't a thief!

Yeah, now get outta here!

<puts his hands forward to relax them> Okay, okay! Just relax! Don't get so worked up!

Let's just talk this through... did I meet you in like Prague once...? No, that's not right...

I don't know what the mayor told you, but...

<enters fighting stance> I'll never let you take us alive...

Whoa! Whoa... That seems like a big decision for you to make on your own, Joachim...
Huh... So, you're just... always like this, eh...?
My fighting spirit cannot be broken!

<concerned grunt> Tell me why you're stealing and causing so much trouble in the town.

...And why you turned into a bat. W-what was that about? Yuri, you can't do that, right?
Not recently. Used to be able to turn into a kind of bat... man. Does that count?
...Forget I asked.

The door opens behind Yuri and Karin.

Joachim is protecting the store and the children from the mayor and his cronies.

A short while later...

Music: Memories of Melodies ~ Peace

Hey!

The store?

It's my treasure, I'm afraid. The mayor wants to get his hands on it.

Oh yeah? What is this treasure, anyway?

The deed to this store.

Three months ago, on his deathbed... the man who built this store told me about a treasure buried beneath here.

Treasure. ...Is it really true?

Well, I've been living here for 30 years, and that was the first I'd heard of it. But ever since, they've been bullying me to get me to give up the store.

But I've been getting sauced every day since noon for fifty years so... maybe?

So the vigilante group?

...We're the baddies, huh?

<nods> Yes, that's right.

<motions to Joachim> So that's why Grand Papillon?

Right again.

And you're always like this, huh?
<knowing smirk> You already know the answer.

...Huh...

......

Should we go and take back the money?

<shrugs> Ehh... Sure, why not.

...I don't want to be the baddies.
...What she said.

We can take a brief look around the nicely detailed for a PS2 game Mouette de mer. But there's nothing to be done here other than a brief chat with Granny Lot. Also learning here name is Granny Lot, I suppose. :v:

Thus, we trek once more across the port city's three map screens to find the Mayor and his entire goon entourage hanging out in front of their mansion. That's probably not a great sign.

What? What's the meaning of this?

<shakes head> We changed our minds. Sorry, but we quit the vigilante group.

Hey! Are you guys going back on your word?!

No, we just found out the truth, that's all. And you're the ones who are in the wrong here!

You're the baddies! Not us... except briefly. I've already deserted the German army I can't be involved with this!

<shakes fists> Arghhh! And I almost had my hands on that treasure too! Don't think you'll be leaving here alive! ...Cole!

...You're supposed to like deny you're a dirtbag and say there's been a misunderstanding. Y'all are bad at this.

Men, take care of 'em!

Time to take on two Fat Thugs and three standard addition Thugs. They have 38 HP and 41 HP respectively. Don't worry about their elements.

In theory, if left alone these thugs can form up for massive combos against a single target by... well, just kind of smacking them with a 2x4 piece of wood several times in a row. But they manage some crazy air combos doing it.

In practice, the party effortlessly curbstomps the lot of them before they can even act.

Keep your eyes where they belong.

Karin, this quote and your outfit... I'm just saying. You can't have it both ways. I'm barely scrubbing footage I recorded for screenshots and I already have it ingrained you also are wearing bright blue panties under the rest of that awful outfit because it's there every instant you animate. Why are you like this?

He he he... No...!

What do you mean "no"?!
...That broad jumped twenty feet in the air and blew up three of my men. You are not paying me enough for this.

You ready for some more?

No! We, uh...

Fine. We're leaving.

Yes, yes. Fine...

Gepetto, Karin, and Yuri leave the scene.

Blanca stays behind briefly to tell them what for!

Guy without a character portrait vows revenge. This will definitely go his way if he tries.

Now that we have left the Vigilante Group via acing like two-thirds of the local mafia thugs on the way out the door, everyone has another round of refreshed dialogue on our way back to Joachim and Granny Lot.

He was studying under that odd wrestling teacher that used to live here, but then the teacher left on some trip...

Geez... was it Rouen where that sidequest was with that bat...? No... No, that's not right either. This is still bugging the heck out of me.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen those hooligans around...

Yeah, they're dead...
...Oh.
...I got like eight Soul Energy. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Ah... right. There was a downside to morality...

Got the mayor to see things our way.

I don't think he'll bother you anymore. We gave him a good talking to.

Most of those vigilantes have... disbanded.
...That's one way to put it.

Really?! That's great! Come on in and rest, everybody.

A short while later. Granny Lot comes running up to the group.

What's the matter, Granny?! What happened?

The children!! Yuma and John!

Who now?
The children that were here!
...They had names?
Of course, you fools!

Calm down, Granny! What happened to the children?

The vigilante group... Those hooligans took them! They said if we wanted them back, we had to bring the deed to the wine cellar!

Are you serious?!

Those scum...

We can't let them get away with this, now, can we? We should help.

Awroo, awroo!

You bet. Of course we'll help!

Also helping: Our newest party member -- Joachim!

Now that we have more than four party members, we need to start deciding who will be on the active party. It's none too useful right now but Shadow Hearts: Covenant actually lets the player assign up to three different teams of party members as the situation warrants that can be quickly swapped from the (between battle) menu. For now, both Joachim and Yuri and mandatory members of the party. Karin and Blanca will also be joining us for the next stretch of the game. Sorry, Gepetto. You're just too drat fragile HP wise right now. Blanca is going to be inheriting your support role duties.

By the way, our new large boy here is Joachim Valentine. Yes, he was the Golden Bat from the character sidequest of Shadow Hearts 1's endgame. Yes, he is also Keith Valentine's brother. One through-line of all three Shadow Hearts game is having a Valentine sibling party member. Also, by the way, he's a vampire. His sole MUSCLE ART at the moment is the Drain Touch we saw during the mid-boss fight against his Grand Papillon persona. It's a 20 MP HP drain. Joachythms another ability we yet to have access to at the moment.

Joachim also comes with some unique (at the moment) equipment. Like this giant piece of timber meant to look like a huge coffin as his melee weapon. Joachim has a... unique class of weapons that are itself its own sidequest. That's getting ahead of us...

Heavy Metal manifested way earlier in the Shadow Hearts timeline and Joachim is at the forefront annihilating people in mosh pits.

Also, a bracelet to prevent paralysis. Nobody likes to see a botched wrestling move except in Youtube compilations.

That all said, that concludes our time in the first visit to Le Havre. Tune in next time as our adventures continue to France's Wine Cellar. They just have one huge one in this universe. Don't ask... As Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

That was a short chapter but a LOT did happen, really. So...

Monsters:

The kid from ICO grew up rough.

Perhaps the darkest monster entry of all.

Characters:

Same.

To be fair, Yuri just stood and stared into the middle distance during that whole sidequest. Although, Keith WAS introduced with a greedy mayor trying to steal treasure from a widow lady...

Since that's what you want to see when you go to a bar. Orphans.

Wait... Is Grand Papillon her Stand...?

He lost both his parents and a character portrait in the war. Seriously, he's like one of the only Characters entries that doesn't get one. What an unloved cretin of an orphan.

Video: Episode 17 Highlight Reel (You should watch Grand Papillon!! in action!)

Fat Thug Concept Art - What it says on the label...

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Apr 20, 2019

# ¿ Apr 19, 2019 19:51

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Nimsant posted:

Hi!
I have caught up to this LP, and it is much fun

I have not played SH2 before (only Koudelka and SH1) and I am playing along now.
I realize I miss this kind of PS2 RPG games.

I have been thinking, what kind of alternate outfit could make Gepetto's doll look less creepy.
So I made this. Do you think this works?

This is top notch. Also, sorry for the lack of updates. I am busting my rear end with work and work travel lately and the little free time I have is not something am spending on a LP update. Sorry. Next month... should... be better. P-Probably... probably...

# ¿ Apr 30, 2019 03:12

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Hey, I'm still alive. Work is kicking the poo poo out of my rear end. Short update to prove I'm not dead...

Episode XVIII: Wino

Did you know there is a Wine Cellar in France? Just the one. We're going there now to rescue those kidnapped orphans. With hope, this time they won't turn out to be necromancers or a Shang Tsung.

Joachim is now team leader for this dungeon. I find his run cycle very funny. He looks like he shat his pants...

Observe! Anyway, after we walk a short trek into this region we find...

Where are the children?! Don't try to get in our way!

Diplomacy has failed! It's the same Thugs and Fat Thugs we saw back in Le Havre. They didn't stand a chance against the party when an old puppeteer with a weird Lolita magic doll was our fourth companion.

Now that it has been replaced by a vampire luchador wrestler?

<flexes> Master! A man's road is a hard one!

Yeah... It doesn't improve their chances...

Last few bars of Joachim's Theme then silence.

Why don't you just morph yourself?

I do it all the time. It's VERY useful...

<looks at Yuri> I already told you. Yuma has my mask.

What's that got to do with anything?

Tsk tsk.

A hero has to have one or two weak points, you know. Nobody loves a perfect superhero.

Nobody would like a super man!

.....

Your brains are enough of a weak point, if you ask me.

Nobody asked you, Yuri. You don't have to be such of a dick. Joachim is living his best life.

I, however, am not. Having a bad time of it lately if I'm being real. And this dungeon is not helping? It is a very dull series of corridors like this...

...Broken up by side rooms to the west or east like this. And of course...

And, of course, random battles. It's just the Thug and Fat Thug jobbers in this first segment. If they get a chance to attack mistakes have been made.

Beyond that, the side rooms are stacks of boxes the party needs to navigate. At the far end we find...

Treasure chests with some loot such as another Bhodi Bracelet. We'll put this one on Blanca since he is taking over for Gepetto as support unit for this dungeon. If necessary (it is seldom is but hey.)

On the way out there is also a Seal of Wisdom. I haven't mentioned it yet but Seals still work like they did in Shadow Hearts 1. You can use them in the inventory for +1 or in Battle for +2 and +3 if you hit the Judgment Ring Hit Area. I used all of these off-screen in battle for maximum effect. Definitely didn't save scum because this is a dumb system.

Anyhow, there is a few corridors of wine cellars before...

You're right. ...This atmosphere is aromatic, spicy and pungent, a medium-bodied atmosphere with a crisp finish...

What the hell are you talking about?!

REALLY?! That was a good bit and NOTHING from you all. Tch. _{_{Alice would have gotten that one...}}

Let's just be careful, that's all.

Video: Episode 18 Highlight Reel (You should click every video with Joachim being on his bullshit.)

Joachim Valentine Concept Art - France's Butt!

# ¿ Apr 30, 2019 20:46

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Regallion posted:

D00D like c'mon, i get that life's crapping on ya, but can we at least not have self-contradicting descriptions.

Whoops. I misremembered a 15 year old JRPG mechanic! Hey, don't be like this loving rear end in a top hat....

# ¿ May 2, 2019 03:58

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

So I guess recent events have come up here. My daughter passed away suddenly last week due to... what's it matter? She's gone. To say that was kinda devastating to me is an understatement. She was probably the only aspect of my personal life that actually leaked into LPs on occasion. I probably wouldn't have liked the original NieR as much as I did if I didn't have a daughter the same age at the time.

Anyway, I'm a barely functional husk that just woke up from a day of drinking yesterday. And the day before. And is about to go to another day of drinking. Looking at the schedule for the week that liquor cabinet I had is now just a challenge.

Needless to say, this LP is on an indeterminable and perhaps permanent hiatus in favor of my new series of Let's Play Crippling Depression. I'll keep this thread open for a few days before locking it and... well...

See you around. Or not. I really don't care at this point...

# ¿ May 11, 2019 17:56

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Hey give me to the end of summer and maybe I'll get back to his. Taking a road trip. The end of that we'll get back to idiot good punchboy's adventures.

Hang in there until then.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2019 03:41

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

We're back next Tuesday.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2019 09:42

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

stryth posted:

There's a Dark Id discord? Why have I never heard of this?!

https://discord.gg/427TW2X

I'm back from the dead... There are movie streams again. It's OK.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jul 19, 2019

# ¿ Jul 19, 2019 08:19

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

We'll be back Tuesday.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2019 07:33

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XVIII: Wino ~REDUX~

Did you know there is a Wine Cellar in France? I mean, of course, you knew that. But were you aware back in 1915 there was just the one? It's true! Shadow Hearts: Covenant wouldn't stretch the historical truth. In any event, we're going there now to rescue those kidnapped orphans. With hope, this time they won't turn out to practice necromancy, soul transfusions or be boiled down into bio-mass to resurrect anyone.

For this segment of the game, Joachim is now team leader for the dungeon. The only thing this changed is Joachim must be in the active party. Other than that, I find his run cycle very funny. He looks like he shat his pants but is just going to have to make due since he's in a hurry... for Justice!

Observe! Anyway, after we walk a short trek into this region we find...

Where are the children?! Don't try to get in our way!

Diplomacy has failed! They will, in fact, be getting in our way. This rabble is the same Thugs and Fat Thugs we saw back in Le Havre. They didn't stand a chance against the party when an old puppeteer with a weird Lolita magic doll was our fourth companion.

Now that it has been replaced by a vampire luchador wrestler on the current roster...?

<flexes> Master! A man's road is a hard one!

Yeah... It doesn't improve their chances...

Last few bars of Joachim's Theme then silence.

Why don't you just morph yourself?

I do it all the time. It's VERY useful...

<looks at Yuri> I already told you. Yuma has my mask.

What's that got to do with anything?

Tsk tsk.

A hero has to have one or two weak points, you know. Nobody loves a perfect superhero.

Nobody would like a super man!

.....

Your brains are enough of a weak point, if you ask me.

Your fashion sense ain't far behind for that matter.

Nobody asked you, Yuri. You don't have to be such of a dick. Joachim is living his best life.

I, however, am not. Having a bad time of it lately if I'm being real. And this dungeon is not helping? It is a very dull series of corridors like this...

...Broken up by side rooms to the west or east like this. And of course...

Random battles are plentiful. It's just the Thug and Fat Thug jobbers in this first segment. If they get a chance to attack mistakes have been made. These guys may as well be Level 1 rats in a tutorial dungeon.

Beyond that, the side rooms are stacks of boxes the party needs to navigate. At the far end, we find...

Treasure chests with some loot such as another Bhodi Bracelet. We'll put this one on Blanca since he is taking over for Gepetto as a support unit for this dungeon.

On the way out there is also a Seal of Wisdom. I haven't mentioned it yet but Seals still work as they did in Shadow Hearts 1. You can use them in the inventory for +1 or in Battle for +2 and +3 if you hit the Judgment Ring Hit Area. I used all of these off-screen in battles for maximum effect. Definitely didn't save scum because this is a dumb system and the stat boost REALLY doesn't add up much at all worth writing home about; much like they didn't in the first game. Oh boy, we may do two more HP of damage or even GAIN two total HP.

Anyhow, there are a few corridors of wine cellars before...

You're right. ...This atmosphere is aromatic, spicy and pungent, a medium-bodied atmosphere with a crisp finish...

What the hell are you talking about?!

REALLY?! That was a good bit and NOTHING from you all? Tch. Buncha philistines, sheesh.
<grumbles>
_{_{Alice would have laughed at that one...}}

<shakes head> Let's just be careful, that's all.

The only change in atmosphere here are some very rudimentary puzzles. Or... switch flipping, more accurately. That counts as a puzzle, right?

But before that, the heady, crisp bouquet of more loot beckons in a small hidden alcove.

I'm not too keen on eating the moon. What is it a nut that tastes like cheese? Gross either way. But it is the next tier upgrade of the MP restorative items. It recovers 100 MP a pop. A little overkill considering our current MP levels. But that will not always be the case.

Beyond that, as mentioned earlier, there's a mindboggling puzzle to unlock this door at the back of the cluttered sideroom. I hope you can keep up with the detailed instructions ahead.

Right next to the door, no more than about five feet is a mysterious panel. This turns out to be a switch of some sorts. If Joachim can muster the intelligence to pull this from off to the on position well... brace yourselves!

The door opens! I know. I was shocked as you likely were the first time I solved this one. A ladder also lowers to allow quick access out of this room. But details.

If we head into the door, we find what they meant by the atmosphere of the dungeon changing.

There are new monsters to battle, of course. Pest control in the latter parts of this wine cellar is not up to code as all the attacking creatures are of the giant insect variety.

The omnipresent giant roaches that have appeared in every game in the series thus far make their triumphant return. This time they are going by the name Gregor. If only we had some apples to wing at this thing. This is a Dark Element enemy with 32 HP.

There are also Roach Queens here which... I honestly cannot tell the difference between it and a Gregor. It just happens to have twice as much HP. Though we will be convicted of regicide by the roach kingdom for slaying it, all the same. Dark Element with 53 HP.

Finally, there are centipedes. The hardiest of the pest trio of the cellar, with a respectable 62 HP. They're also most annoying of three since their attacks inflict Poison. Fire Elemental enemy, if that matters.

Music: Veronica Vera ~ Her Majesty, The Queen

Continuing further into the labyrinthine booze basement, there's another Lottery Ticket just down a side corridor. Unlike the first Shadow Hearts, Lottery Tickets seem to be a bit more divided between ones that are just freebies in chests and ones that are point and click adventure game level pixel hunts. I'm OK with more of the former, personally.

More dungeon crawling awaits. But with it, more treasure!

efficacious [ ef-i-key-shuh s ]
adjective
1. capable of having the desired result or effect; effective as a means, measure, remedy, etc.:

Ah. It's "effective" if you want to be a smart-sounding douchebag. Either way, much like the Mana Seed this is the next tier of HP healing items with a 150 HP restorative on use.

Other loot in the cellar includes this little trinket. The description is rather vague, but this prevents the Mental Break status effect from being inflicted (the one that is basically poison but for MP instead of HP.) Also, a 1+ Special Defense as a very small added bonus. We'll slap that on Blanca since he has taken over for Gepetto on healing duty.

We are closing in on the conclusion of the dungeon, evident by the fact there is a save point and a more ominous than normal set of double doors at the far end. But there is one more particularly important treasure we want to nab before we go rescue those orphan. We have to have our priorities, after all.

Flipping a switch at the western part of this room will unlock a path on the opposite eastern side. Trotting in here and ransacking the joint will net us...

A new magic crest -- Raum. This gives the ability to imbue characters with Dark Elemental affinity for a fight and a somewhat decent Dark element magic spell. Unfortunately, it has a fairly hefty 5 DCP and... we're not fighting any White elemental enemies in the near future. So we'll just tuck this one away for a rainy day.

That is just about everything we can do in the Wine Cellar for this visit at least so let's kick open these doors and get to rescuing some children, eh?

Within we discover the Mayor, Cole and a pair of out of control evil anime boobs.

Barf.
(He just muttered the word barf for no reason.)

I am unconscious.
(He just said out loud he was unconscious. These boys need to go back to the remedial league if this is how they're going to sell their bumps.)

Well, we may as well get this over with. What's cracking, Veronica? What's up with the child abduction? That's not how you get ahead selling yourself as evil.

Big brother!!

Ho ho ho ho! I knew you fools would show up sooner or later.

Wh-Who are you?!

Another weirdo. Watch out. She's probably about to drop the monster of the week here and then run off.

I have been tricked and defeated. Ugh.
Barf!

<points at Veronica> You with the silly outfit! How dare you take my family!

<performs sentai hero poses> I, Joachim, will make you pay for your crimes! Ah!

......

<briefly gets pissed> Silly outfit, huh!?

<regains composure and smiles> My name is Veronica, if you must know.

<whips the air> But the time for talk is over!

Joachim adopts a fighting stance and...

YAAH!

UGH! ARGH!!

By gawd! She's killed him! It's a real slobber knocker!

Joachim!!

Big brother!!

......

...What is he doing?

He's overselling this too much. He's losing the crowd, man...

Yuma manages to free herself from her binds. She immediately takes off her head ornament. But what's this? MOTHER OF GOD is that the Grand Papillion's mask?! Is she tagging him in?!

Music: ENDS

...Huh?

...No, for real. Am I missing something?

Lord have mercy! Joachim has drat well near been broken in half! He's struggling just to make the tag.

Music: Grand Papillon!! ~ Pro Wrestler

<looks around bewildered> Wh-what's going on?!

Who started that music? Where is it even coming from?!

Champion of Truth and Justice...

Grand Papillon! Ready to fight all evildoers!

...Huh?

Yeah, he's just like that. You gotta roll with it or he'll just keep posing and flexing.
Don't help the villain!
Whatever, man. This showboating promo is going on too long.

And with that, Veronica gets pissed and accepts this bout. Tune in next time for top billing match of the show - Veronica vs Grand Papillon!

Video: Episode 18 Highlight Reel (You should click every video with Joachim being on his bullshit.)

Wine Cellar Concept Art - Yep... that sure is a cellar for wine.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2019 21:08

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XIX: Solomon

On to the title card match of the night. It wouldn't be appropriate if the rest of the party charged into the ring for the main event. As such, this is a solo fight between ~~Joachim~~ Grand Papillon. I'm afraid every RPG in existence is legally obligated to have at least one of these one-on-one fights despite the entire party being just feet away. And this game sure ain't just going to do this single one.

There isn't a lot to this battle. It is mostly a damage race between Veronica and Joachim. Veronica is a Water element affiliated dominatrix with a none too impressive 220 HP. But we can stack things in our favor a little bit. I'd earlier slapped on all the physical damage/defense buff related Magic Crests on the big boy here. So he has access to Barrier which will mitigate Veronica's damage. This turned out to be a waste of time since she... never bothered to use her magic attack. She has access to Hail Break which without Barrier does 45-50 damage which... that's a lot right now. But again, she didn't bother to use it this fight for whatever reason despite completely wiping me with it back when I played the first few hours of this game before the LP began.

Veronica mostly attacks with a three-hit combo using her whip. This does between 25-30 HP of damage each turn. Given Grand Papillon is a bit of a glass cannon at this point with only 105 HP that is... kind of a sizable amount of damage to absorb flying solo. Veronica's whip also has the potential to lower Joachim's Special Attack by 30%. But that's not of great concern.

Since we're just going to buff Grand Papillon's Physical Attack using Rage. Let's see, +36% to the highest physical damage output character currently in our party. What's that work out to...?

Ah yes, completely destroying Veronica in two turns. Gotcha.

The final battle is still to come!

Alright, then. That seemed a little too easy after all that build-up. But hey, a win is a win.

Music: ENDS

Hmph! Not too shabby, Masked Wonder!

Ha ha ha! No evildoer can stand against my RIPPLING MUSCLES!

Well, I hate to get myself all sweaty.

<whips the air> Here... I've got a present for you.

Boooo! She's just summoning a monster of the week! I told you this was gonna happen. Fire that hack writing staff!

Veronica backs up into the smoke machine cloud and vanishes, leaving behind...

<gasp>

Woah... That thing looks pretty tough!

<bark>

It reeks of booze too. What's that all about?

C'mon! We've got to help <runs toward the monster>

<puts hands on hips> Do we really have to get in the middle of this one...?

...We can just leave. The thing couldn't even fit through the door.
Yuri, get moving!
<sigh> Yeah, yeah... Guess I do need the experience points.

Time for the real match of the Wine Cellar -- Meursault. The gang is all here for this rumble. Which is good because I don't think Joachim could handle this one solo. Especially, given he's still injured from the first against Veronica.

Our first order of business is getting him back up to snuff. A Thera Leaf is enough to do the trick. May as well use them now before they get completely outclassed by Thera Seeds in the near future.

Next up, Yuri needs a suitable Fusion. This four-armed frog demon, Meursault (named after the French town of the same name known for its vineyards and wine production) is an Earth element creature with 666 HP. Very edgy. So Vastitas our Earth Fusion fits the bill here.

And once more Joachim and Rage are a nice combo since hell if he's doing more than hitting things.

Early battle prep aside, it's worth mentioning that Meursault brought in its own posse of a Centipede and a Gregor. We want to prioritize getting rid of them before focusing on the boss. Gregor isn't a threat but that Centipede can and will cause Poison if it attacks and that's not a headache we need.

Especially, when this PS2 era Mortal Kombat reject of a boss has the potential to cause Paralysis on its physical attacks. Thankfully, it only seemed to do physicals against Joachim, who has an accessory to negate that. Nice work, ya dumbass frog.

Indeed, Meursault only has two attacks to its name bucking the usual expansive move list of THREE whole attacks most bosses come equipped with these days. Howling is basically that one attack in Dragon Ball Z where someone gets frustrated and fires a hundred bullshit fireballs at their enemy. You know, that one attack that literally has NEVER worked or even done more damage than causing a pile of smoke to slowly clear revealing the opponent is unharmed. Yeah, Frog Goro here can do that. It does a respectable 35-40 HP of damage but meh...

Meursault's major problem is it is an INSANELY slow enemy. It is trivial to set up a 3-person or even 4-person Combo and execute it before it even thinks of getting its turn in to stop the team attack.

To say the least, that does not work in Veronica's pet frog's favor. You hate to see stomp matches get top billing at an event. But sometimes them pay-per-view specials are just disappointing like that.

In any event, looks like cuisses de grenouille is on the menu tonight.

If that's all they got, no problem!

We get the usual healthy infusion of Cash, Experience, and Souls.

It's not come to this point, but you may notice Gepetto received a boss fight experience despite sitting out this dungeon. Shadow Hearts: Covenant is nice enough to dole out major boss experience points to everyone currently available in the party, whether they participate or not. They have to be an active member of the party (i.e. if they temporarily leave and couldn't be selected at the time, they don't get it) but this game is WAY better about not doing that for extended periods of time. It is not like the first game where Zhuzhen started lagging behind 20 levels because you had to have Yuri and Alice may as well have been mandatory as well. Plus the third character slot was taken and non-negotiable for stretches long enough that it was laughable to ever use the bench warmers again. Having the fourth character slot helps, but so does giving everyone the biggest payout of EXP in a given chapter of the game.

We've come a long way from Koudelka and its mechanics madness.

Meursault also dropped a new Crest. Gale Spin seems kind of eh, whatever. But Gale on its own is basically Haste and that ain't nothing to thumb your nose at... We'll find a good home for this later.

It's not directly mentioned, but Yuma's Hairclip/Grand Papillon's mask has quietly been slipped into our Key Items as well. I literally didn't notice until I was capturing screenshots for another Key Item and saw it was there in the video.

Post-boss battle looting aside, the party is instantly and rather abruptly transported straight back to Le Havre and the Mayor's Mansion. That's fine. I wasn't remarkably eager to have to trot all the way through that boring brown dungeon anyway. Especially, since I'm going to have to do just that for some sidequests in the next update.

Yeah? What do I see?

Cuz the last time I had to deal with some jag-off that kidnapped orphans, I punched them to death and then I punched their mom to death. Granted, she was kind of an unholy abomination. Also maybe... made out of ground up orphan slime. It was gross. Whatever! You get my point!
...Can we back-up for just a second? What?!
Ahh... long story... We gotta talk to these guys. <cracks knuckes>

The mayor and his flunky cower in fear.

And you're to stay away from the Sea Gull from now on, you hear?

Yes, ma'am! Anything! I owe my life to all of you! I'll never let my greed get the better of me or bother anyone ever again! I promise!

From now on I'll only exploit anyone completely through legal local governmental means.

<nods> A c-condition? I hope it's nothing too difficult...

I am only a humble public servant with alleged organized crime connections that cannot be proven in a court of law...

<leaps in front of the mayor and growls> Awroo, awroo!!

Yeah, you tell him, boy!

Yikes!

Mayor!

We need to take a ship to England. You don't need me to spell it out for you, do you?

<shakes head> N-no, sir! I'll make all the arrangements. Just leave them to me!

<nods> He he he. Thanks again for saving us.

Yeah... you two need to stop creepily laughing during statements or I will punch you and possibly your mothers should they turn out to be monsters of the punchable variety.
<frown> My mom's been dead for fifteen years.
...Yeah, that doesn't change what I said.

Despite what Mayor Leonard said, we cannot actually take off for England JUST yet. We need to head over to the Seagull bar and tell Granny Lot we saved the kids and have a general Le Havre debriefing.

All the NPCs in town have new dialogue but it's all literally just variations of "yay the vigilante group is through and crime is solved in town forever." Career criminals and corrupt politicians never backslide into being shitheads a few months after the heat dies down. That is unheard of!

The party heads for the Seagull Bar.

Welcome home!

...I'm not Joachim, but OK.

He promised to leave the shop alone from now on! I feel so much better now!

Did he really?!

Considering we walked back to town with him and his goon then went straight to the mayor's mansion...

We're so glad, Granny Lot!

And we're getting that ship ride we wanted too. It all worked out great.

Y'all going on you can't just punch and kick all your problems away. Pfft...

Thank you for everything you've done! I'll be praying for your safe travel.

As long as there's no ghosts or wizards this time, I'm sure it'll be fine.
Yuri... You cannot just keep throwing stuff like that out there and letting it hang.
Ehh... you get used to it.

Stop by if you ever come back this way again. Joachim, the children and I would all love to see you again.

Granny, I want to talk to you...

...What is it?

I'm going on that ship with them!

WHAT?!

Awroo!? (What!?)

Are you really sure you want to come along?!

You should really know about us first. Yuri is cursed. There's a secret cult after us. I'm AWOL from the German army. We're going to Wales which is evil as heck from what I hear.
<nods> Can confirm.

Granny here rescued me once when I was left for dead by the side of the road... I'm grateful, but now it's time to go.

<nods> ...All right, Joachim. I remember you when you were just a dying bat, but you've certainly turned out fine. Off with you, then! Build up your skills then come back and show me how strong you've become!

Thank you, Granny! Thank you!

You're kidding, right? Coming along with us won't be any fun, you know!

Fighting giant bugs in drab corridors is like half of what we do during the week.

Yuri, you do want to know who I really am, don't you?

Well, yeah, I do, but...

Tch... Were you on the Trans-Siberian Railroad? Like a passenger or something? Naw... I would have noticed a guy as big as you...

<folds arms> If you let me come along, maybe I'll tell you someday.

Son of a...! ...Fine. Do whatever you want.

And with that, Joachim Valentine has formally joined the party. You would think the surname Valentine and the fact he can turn into a bat would tip off Yuri. But then I remembered Yuri and Keith exchanged like maybe five lines of dialogue the whole journey and... well, Yuri is kind of dense.

Granny Lott wanders up to Yuri and stares at him.

Here you are. This is for all of you.

...This is clearly a scroll, which is neither a book nor a ring.

Granny Lott has handed us a new mechanic. We'll go over this in-depth next time. It's a little more complicated than this blurb would suggest. It's more of a completionist nightmare kind of thing than anything.

I did some digging on my own, you see! And that's when I found that book.

...It's a rolled-up scroll. Does book mean something different in French?

Hee hee hee! I just had to find out what was down there! But the only thing I found was that old, rotting book. I wish it were something more valuable.

<sigh> I guess it'll just be serving watered-down drinks to local winos for the rest of my days.

You mean you know what that book is, Gepetto?

It's a rolled-up piece of paper. That ain't a book!
Stop dwelling on details and listen.

No question about it! It's "King Solomon's Key," one of the lost, great black books! This book contains a map of where the 72 demons that were controlled by King Solomon lived. You know those crests we've been collecting along our travels?

<looks down> ...Crests? Oh! You mean those things I've got absolutely no use for? Those the crests you mean?

Stupid dumb crests for idiots that can't do fusion? Those crappy crests?

<nods> Hee hee hee! You don't have to pout, just because you can't equip them, you know. You're just a big baby!

<turns away and looks at the ceiling> Hmph. Shaddup.

Excuse me, I'm talking here, folks! And I'm about to say something very important, kiddos, so listen up. They say that if we place the demons that dwell in these crests properly, we can unleash great magical power!

Yeah, terrific. Unleash great magical power. THAT has never gone wrong. Stupid crests...
Awroo!
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Nothing but trouble.

Oh, I get it. We place the crests on this old map, right? But how do we know where to place each crest?

That's the question, isn't it? Maybe we could guess, based on each demon's preferences and characteristics... But the trip ahead is long. I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually! Granny Lot, this is a true treasure, indeed. Thank you very much!

You're certainly welcome. I hope it'll be useful to you.

Is it actually that valuable...?
Oh, more valuable than you can imagine!
That... that's great... You hold onto it. I did gift it to you, after all. I'll just... stay here in a failing business raising two orphans. Alone. That's fine...

Alright, then. Our time in Le Harve is nearly at its end. However, we're not quite ready to get on a boat and sail to England just yet. You know long boat arcs can last. Best to put it off until we're drat good and ready.

And this chapter IS about the Wine Cellar. Tune in next time as we revisit the only active vineyard in France to see a few new items of interest as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues.

Video: Episode 19 Highlight Reel

Le Havre Concept Art - Very quaint.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 21:16

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XX: Busta Wolf!

Music: Deep Meditation ~ Title

Before we undertake the next bit of optional content, let's take a closer look at this whole Solomon's Key business.

A new menu option has unceremoniously appeared on the second page of our menu. I'll admit it took me a little while to even notice this the first time I played.

Popping in here brings us to the Solomon's Key or the Key of Solomon. The menu itself cannot seem to make up its mind. Either way, it is a reference to the Lesser Key of Solomon an actual compiled 17th-century grimoire about demonology. It's interesting to take a look at that closely and realize like half the weirder Castlevania/Final Fantasy and what have you monsters that weren't stolen from D&D were derived from that.

Proper terminology aside, we're presented with a map slotted with UI elements that look hauntingly akin to the Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid.

Taking a closer look at the Crest List will present us with a multitude of regions on the map we can examine more closely. They are:

Palace of Tranquility
Enchanting Sea
Forest of Passion
Forsaken Hill
Flame Desert
Eternal Boneyard
Wilderness of War
Bastion of Riches
Spring of Wisdom

The game is actually nice enough to just highlight the areas where we currently have available Crests. Also, it auto-sorts the crests to the correct area. I could see a version of this system where you just have 72 things to click on and GOOD LUCK!

At this point in the game, we actually have all the crests of one region -- The Forest of Passion. Furfur is lingering at the end of this list. As such, we can now complete the first part of this sidequest.

For each region, we need to properly place all the crests in their designated locations based on a vague description of the crest in question so we can place it on the ~~Sphere Grid~~ map.

As an example, Furfur's description is: "A deer with a lightning tail. All who hear him fall in love with one another, man or woman. Lives by Gremory in the north forest." So we can deduce it goes in the northernmost part of this map.

OK. So then Gremory only has one possible space nearby. That is at the edge of a lake to the south.

Nearby we have a place that if you squint looks like some sort of arena. And maybe Andras belongs there, eh?

Well, there's only one mansion looking thing on this map so Zepar goes here.

And between that and the fact, there is a forest right next to the ocean where there be dragons, Vassago goes there.

So this Sallos creep hangs out in a weird rape tent in the woods so... here we go! Stay clear of that mess.

And finally we have... boy a lot of these are kind of rapey, huh? Old mythology is kind of hosed. Oh well, this is the only space left and it is a lake so...

The game will immediately confirm when all the crests on the Solomon's Key are in their correct position. If not, we can just reset the region and try again. There's no penalty for a goof-up. So what's the point of doing this?

Not much... Just ALL the Crests in that region getting an additional magic spell added to them free of charge (no DCP increase or anything.) Namely the crests gain:

Furfur - Cure (Same old Cure spell but on a second Crest.)
Gremory - Bright Light (16 MP, Light Class Special Damage. 1 Hit.)
Andras - Hail Break (16 MP, Water Class Special Damage. Piercing. 2 Hits.)
Zepar - Rock Rot (16 MP, Earth Class Special Damage. 1 Hit.)
Sitri - Red Rave (16 MP, Fire Class Special Damage. 1 Hit.)
Sallos - Gale Spin (16 MP, Wind Class Special Damage. 2 Hits.)
Vassago - Evil Ray (16 MP, Dark Class Special Damage. 7 Hits.)

So basically a new elemental spell for all of those Crests. And another person able to use Cure if we so chose. Not bad for taking the time to complete some light word puzzles for a couple of minutes.

That's about it for the Solomon's Key for the time being. We'll check in on that later when more regions get filled out. What's not yet sorted out is the Wine Cellar. The wayward kidnapped orphans and the demon summoning dominatrix may have been dealt with. But a couple of new challenges have moved in since the party's last trek through these musky halls.

Music: Glint of Light ~ War of the Hungry Wolf

All the random battle pools are still the same as ever. Particularly the large concentration of hostile thugs. I guess the mayor never sent word he was reforming. Oh well. Our first destination is to the western part of the earlier half of the dungeon. Heading into the back room of this segment of the cellar presents us with...

What do you say, Mister? Give it a whirl?

A whirl? What kind of business is this?

This better not be some kinda drug deal sting. Are you a cop? You gotta tell me if you're a cop.
No, sir! I am a legitimate businessman.
...Operating out of the back of a shady mobster goon hangout?
It's a grassroots start-up. We all need to start somewhere. But as for my business...

Glad you asked! I thought it up myself. I call it "Lucky Chests"! You pick two out of the eight treasure chests lined up here. If they have the same thing in them, you get it! You get two chances! And the first person that gets all the chests open gets a special prize. The rules are simple and it hardly costs anything to play! Only 100 Cash for one game. So how about it?

Oh, goody! Let's do it!

Here we go, then! Let's play Lucky Chests!!

Lucky Chests! Do you know that card matching mini-game from Super Mario Bros. 3? It's just that. Pick two chests and if they have the same thing you get the prize.

Simple enough. We're allowed to screw-up once before the game is over. The prizes themselves aren't very compelling. Just basic restorative items.

However, the real prize is obtained from matching ALL of the chests correctly. What that occurs...

Come back and play anytime!

Our grand prize for completing Lucky Chest is our second Stud Card. At a glance, this guy looks like Buff Hitler wearing a chef's hat and I think I'd pass on that cuisine offering, personally...

That's it for our first order of business. The second one requires... running all the way to the back of the dungeon again. I'll spare you all that dull ten-minute trek.

Before we head into the former boss arena, let's take the time to rejigger Blanca's load-out. Particularly, we're gonna slap the Pocket Watch on him and the Focalor (contains Hail Break) and Zepar (contains Shield) Crests.

Heading into the Wine Cellar boss room, we find a new opponent has replaced Veronica. The Legend of the Hungry Wolf is about to begin...

Awroo, awroo! (Well, what do you know? I'm famous...)

Grrr! Awroo! (I'm Kelly. I travel the world, looking for strong wolves. Call me hungry!!)

Awroo, awroo! (You don't look very special.)
Grrr! Awroo! (What do you know? I'm on the road to the final victory. The mark of the wolves will be mine.)
Awroo! (You've got some wild ambition, newcomer. But be ready. This is going to be a real bout.)

Awroo, awroo! (Enough boring talk, Let's let our fangs do the talking!)

Sure. I'll take you on.

Music: Soul Comet ~ Spirit of the Wolf

Time for you to get a taste of my legendary skill. Sure you can handle it?

You're raring to go, aren't you? I've got plenty of that, myself.

C'mon! Get serious!

If you're not up to date on your SNK fighting games character references, Kelly here (kind of feel like that one PROBABLY should have been localized as Kerry) is a big ol' reference to Terry Bogard, the protagonist of the Fatal Fury/Garou series and series regular of The King of Fighters. He is a Fire elemental class enemy with 180 HP. Sadly, Kelly doesn't have a Burn Knuckle or Rising Taco in his move list. Indeed... he just has the standard three-hit wolf attack animation as Blanca and Tetsu.

Kelly's version of the standard wolf attack just has the Fast Ring anomaly attached to it. Which would be a problem if Blanca wasn't wearing that Pocket Watch. As such, the hungry wolf just can do around 15ish HP of damage a turn.

Or we can have Blanca use Shield and reduce that to around 9 HP of damage. No sense in taking risks.

Meanwhile, while tanking Kelly's hits we'll retaliate with Hail Break which does a healthy 60+ HP of damage per cast.

That is... pretty much all there is to the fight. Early Wolf Bouts aren't the most compelling of battles, unfortunately.

But a win is a win and nobody got tossed off a skyscraper. Yet. Sadly, there is no Wolf Geese Howard featured in this questline.

Music: ENDS

You got a little overzealous. You've got to keep your cool if you want to win.

As it stands, your moves are predictable. It's too easy!

*whimper* Awroo. (drat. You're as strong as they said... Stronger, even.)

<approaches Blanca> Awroo, awroo! (Okay, Blanca. Here's my pawprint. You earned it!)

One day Blanca will become the King of Fighters.

Awroo! (I'll be seeing you! And I'll have my fangs sharpened for next time.)

Sure we, will Kelly. (We never see him again.) Another thing we never need to see again is this lousy dungeon! We are officially done with the Wine Cellar for good.

We're also done with Le Havre for the time being. All that's left to do is talk to the first mate of our ride to the UK and set sail. Thus closes our adventures in France. Tune in next time as we near blighted lands of Wales and maybe meet an old friend or two along the way as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

No new characters in this chapter but we did do our fair shake of brawling along the way.

Monster:

I feel like if roach the size of a medium-sized dog has managed to get to your stomach you're already messing up badly.

I remembered the time my neighbor Henry's orifices just erupted with a mountain of roach hatchlings. Never let that guy borrow a cup of sugar again.

Mammal flesh only! Get that bird and fish bullshit the hell out of here.

The Belmont clan got real weird and kinky during that down period of Dracula activity between the late 1800s and the 1999 final battle.

Wino frogs -- the most despicable of all of god's creatures.

Video: Episode 20 Highlight Reel (C'mon! Get serious!)

Full Solomon's Key Art - Awful commute.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Aug 7, 2019

# ¿ Aug 6, 2019 19:35

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXI: Sweet Chin Music

You know what? I'll admit I'm not a total expert on the geography of the UK. But I roughly know what corners the assorted countries are in there and last I checked Southampton wasn't exactly in Wales. Though, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if every port in Wales proper was host to an eldritch horror of some sorts so perhaps this as far as any sane ship captain was willing to take us.

Before we continue onward, let's take a look at the current Score stats. It's been ages. No really... like four months real-time if you were reading this as I wrote it.

Well, at least we're not a Fat Thug. That would have been most embarrassing.

Battle Data titles still sound like they are lyrics fixing to appear in a Knuckles stage rap for a new Sonic the Hedgehog game.

I have a feeling Gepetto is going to remain top tier percentage-wise because... I'm not going to use Gepetto much.

Blanca and Karin jocking for position at the top of the battles joined. Though, Joachim's stat seems... lower than it should be. I'm drat positive there were more than 10 battles in both visits to the Wine Cellar. But maybe scripted battles aren't counted. I'm honestly not sure.

In any event, let's mosey onward and see why we're several hundred kilometers from Wales.

Music: ENDS. Rain ambience begins.

Hmm... I wonder if it has anything to do with the huge thunderstorm... Perhaps this cop seeing fit to stand out in a torrential downpour can illuminate us.

Unfortunately, the storm caused a landslide and blocked off the road to Cardiff in the west.

Everyone knows it's simply impossible to enter Wales without passing through to Cardiff. A city... 135.5 miles/213.2 kilometers away. I just cannot be done! All other passages to Wales were sealed off by the great wall and its druid binding runes long ago.

The only other person standing out in this downpour is this guy preventing us from exploring the upper walls of Southampton. Indeed, progress is located in the inn. But first...

Gotta get them delicious Lottery Tickets. This one was apparently just taped to a wall among a bunch of other advertisements. It's a wonder it isn't ruined by this rain.

Anyway, like the watchman said we need to head into the Inn. The Hope and Anchor Bar Restaurant is just across the street. Nothing about that screams "inn" but that's just a side gig, I suppose.

The gang wander in from the rain and are immediately greeted with a couple of drunkards taking umbrage with another bar patron. The guy on the floor is a whimpering mess and clearly about to get his rear end kicked.

Yuri sighs and goes to intervene because he is a good boy despite being kind of a dick that could really use a vacation or downtime from JRPG shenanigans. However...

A caped man intervenes first. There is grunting, the exchange of money and the angry drunks chuckling before backing off and getting a fresh drink at the bar.

The man getting attacked politely bows to his mysterious benefactor -- you know like is tradition with English folk. He quietly scurries off to the opposite side of the bar.

So who is this mysterious caped man?

I'll tell you right now, it was definitely not anyone I pegged seeing again in this series the first time I played through this.

I thought it might be you. It's been a long time.

Huh. It's you.

That's right it's Sergeant ~~Seiji~~ Masaji Kato the giant chinned bumbling sidekick to Lt. Colonel Kawashima of the Japanese Army from the first half of Shadow Hearts.

Last time we saw him he awkwardly confessed his love to the Lt. Colonel only for her to be shot dead by Japanese soldiers due to political bullshit about a minute later and Kato being kind of upset at her death. Seems like he really hit the gym and glammed up following that tragedy. Also, he's important enough to get voice acting and he's voiced by Papa Nier.

Yuri and Kato shake hands. Shadow Hearts 1 was a loving bloodbath for secondary NPCs so I guess it's nice to see someone return unscathed and wasn't a huge dick or into some worrying poo poo when we last left them. I'm still concerned about those London Rats orphans. One of them upgraded a slingshot by apparently ripping out a child's soul and sticking it into the thing off-screen. That's troubling!

How ya been?

Who is this?

Huh? A friend from my Shanghai days...

Before it got blown up... Hey, how'd you survive that? I gotta assume you were like in Dehuai's tower given all the Japanese troops swarming in.
...Don't worry about that.
<shrug> Fair enough.
Japanese troops? Huh? Just who is this guy?

Err... I... umm... Hmm...

Kato bows his head.

Japanese Imperial Navy. Special Agent Masaji Kato.

<whistles> Got yourself a fancy title, huh?
A lot has happened since we last met.

Japanese Imperial Navy...?

Hey! You're all being so rude!

I don't know what a navy or a Japanese means.
...Wait, seriously?
My muscles are always serious!
......

These are your new friends? Quite an interesting group.

A lot has happened since we last met.

Killed a couple of wizards and a god, stopped the end of the world. Been busy...

But what about you? You've really changed your look since the last time I saw you.

<chuckles> Well, yes... A lot has happened to me as well.

Heh heh heh.

It's a tough job, being a diplomat. I just arrived from New York this morning.

Back from the new world, huh?
Indeed. I wouldn't recommend it.

And now because of this storm, I have to cancel my trip to London.

Same old Kato. Still following orders, I see.

We're in the same situation. A landslide stopped us from going to Wales!

Yeah... I don't even remember this "Cardiff" joint last time I had to go there...

Yeah, Wales.

...Have you been to Wales before?

No, but I've heard a lot about it. It sounds like an interesting place...

Nah. There's nothing there at all. Probably just a bunch of weird monsters.

It's just as evil and crappy as you've probably heard. Not looking forward to going back there.

Hmm...

You folks wanna go to Wales, do ya?

Yes, that's right!

I just came from Rhondda, it's west of here. I-If you go through the mine there, ya can go all the way into Wales.

Really?

Well... Y-yeah...

Kato seems concerned by this turn of events. Maybe because it's STILL loving 150 miles/242 kilometers to get to Rhondda. That's no afternoon hike. Plus it's another 90 miles/145 kilometers to Aberystwyth where Nemeton Monastery's Ruins and Roger Bacon's house are located.

...And then the war came along. The price of coal skyrocketed, and they had 'em mining day and night. But then one day they had a huge accident!

Yeah. A huge explosion in the very deepest part of the mine. About a hundred men were down there!

What happened to the mine after that?

There's nobody there now. Completely deserted. Except for... the ghosts and monsters they say show up down there now.

Yep... That sounds like Wales...

And you want us to go through there?!

Look, don't get mad at me! I was just trying to help ya out, 'cause you said you wanted to go into Wales!

Hold on! Once again, aren't you being a little too hasty, Yuri?

<rubs his head> Well, it's the shortest way, isn't it?

It's just gonna be another stupid dungeon. We've done like three of these already in the last month. Whatever.

Guess we don't have any choice. We've got no idea when the road to Cardiff will be reopened.

Gepetto! You too?!

You scared of a few little ghoulies?

Don't worry, I won't let you get grabbed by any of 'em.

<stomps foot and shakes fists> S-scared? I'm not scared! Who do you think I am, anyway? I'll have you know the noble Marquis of Munich is my--!

<turns away> ...Oops!!

The noble who of which what, now...?

<shakes head> Just forget it.

Don't worry. If those big, bad ghoulies show up, I'll scare 'em off for you! Boo!!

That's a euphemism for punch. You can totally just punch ghoulies, ghosts, and poltergeists. You can shoot 'em too and it works. Which I was surprised as hell to find back when I was running with my old crew.

<looks at Yuri> You looking for a slap?

Well, whether ya decide to go to not, let me mark it on the map for ya. Be careful!

Later that evening...

Well, at least now we know where we're headed next.

He he. You haven't changed. Still taking crazy trips, eh?

Ain't my choice. I'd still be beating up Germans back in France if it were up to me.
...That doesn't refute my earlier statement.
Yeah, yeah...

Just be sure you don't get yourself hurt. I'll be staying in this town a while longer. Hope we get to talk again. I'll be seeing you.

<nods> Yeah, be seeing you.

Kato departs upstairs to his room.

<nods> ...Yeah. I think he fell on some hard luck lately...

He was a near comic relief level dingus last time I saw him...

<nods> I guess this means we can all take a break until we're ready to leave. Yuri, I'll leave the arrangements up to you. Let me know when you're ready. I think I'll have a few drinks here...

Yeah a "few" I'm sure.
The definition of a few gets broader when you get older.

Sure thing. And if you get falling-down drunk, we're leaving you behind.

We're now free to explore the bar. Not that there is a whole lot to see at the moment other than Gepetto and Karin getting hammered together.

More text-heavy games should have fun with characters' titles in different situations.

Some of the survivors say they saw some really ghastly monsters down there...

Yah. Probably a ghost or a big stupid monster that did it.
I think the most reasonable assumption is incompetent management and negligence leading to the accident and the monsters were a byproduct.
Tch. Sure. If you wanna be boring.

We're not allowed to leave just yet. So let's head upstairs to see where Joachim and Blanca vanished to.

(Joachim, Sound Asleep) *snore! snore!*

(Napping Blanca) Zzz...

These two seem to have the right idea. But more importantly, we should raid the chest in here for those tiny complimentary soaps and shampoo bottles.

...This inn has a strange sense of hospitality.

What a power play. We should probably turn in these Stud Cards for some more dresses the next time we see the Magimel Brothers. If just for completion sake. I really don't like interacting with that doll, truth be told.

There's only one other room upstairs. I can see why they don't advertise the inn part of the business outside. It is likely where Kato is staying. So let's go have a chat with our old... acquaintance whose name Yuri probably would have totally blanked on if Kato hadn't stepped in and reintroduced himself.

Okay.

Meanwhile...

(Gepetto, Hangover Tomorrow!) Urp! I feel sick...

These two are going to be in rough shape when they discover all the beds are already accounted for upstairs.

Sometime later...

<shakes head and looks down> ...I'm really sorry.

<waves dismissively> Nah. It was my weakness that got Alice killed. I've stopped feeling regret over it. Won't bring her back, anyway...

I didn't feel like grinding. Skimped on some sidequests... What are you gonna do?

And you lost Lieutenant Colonel Kawashima too, huh? Life's been pretty hard on both of us...

Yeah. I couldn't protect her... It's only been a year, but the events of that day seem so long ago now. After everybody left Shanghai, she talked about you guys every day. Guess she wanted that kind of freedom too.

Yuri walks up to the wall.

<looks down> Yuri...

You wanna know what I did after Shanghai? Spent six months in the tower of some vampire's castle in Eastern Europe getting yelled at by my dad's ghost in my head.
......
...That's rough, buddy.

<turns back to Kato and rubs his head> I've got some weird curse on me now.

The four-mask one you mentioned?
Naw. Got another one. Like I said. You don't wanna live like me...

Got it from a thing called the "Holy Mistletoe" or some such thing. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore!

Now I'm traveling around with Alice's pervy old puppeteer uncle, the wolf of some little girl I got killed, a German Army deserter and wrestler vampire to go to Wales to see some shriveled up raisin magician. My life is a goddamn mess...

And I'm being followed by some strange secret society.

<looks up> A secret society?!

<nods> Yeah. It's called "Sapientes Gladio." Heard of it?

<shakes head> ...Uh, no.

Some pretty minor players, I guess.

I'll keep my ears open. If I hear anything about them, I'll tell you.

Okay, thanks.

Just lemme know if you see a guy in his pajamas, a dominatrix or a big bald idiot.
I... see. Will do.

Well, guess I'd better get going.

Yuri.

Yeah?

......

<shakes head> Nothing. Just be careful. I'll see you again someday.

<nods> Yeah, I'll see you!

Yuri returns downstairs...

Well, I guess that's one way to handle the sleeping arrangements. As for Yuri...

He is unceremoniously dumped back into the Graveyard at some point later that night.

What's crackin'? Still dead, huh?
Yeah...
Bummer.

<shakes head> No.

No, huh...?

Jeanne looks into the distance.

......

I'm the Dark class element, actually.
......
Yeah, not one of my best.

Jeanne turns back to Yuri.

My happiness...?

Yes, what happiness means to you. It doesn't matter what. It could be something small, anything at all...

You don't have to try and pretend. I know more about your heart than you do right now, Yuri.

Yeah, OK. So I'm sleeping on a stiff chair in a crummy bar and on my way to Wales with a buncha weirdos. Also, I'm a little cursed so maybe I'm not totally ecstatic at the moment...

Remember you told me once? About your girlfriend that died to save you?

Huh? Yeah...

Hey is it always gonna be heavy stuff with you?
I'm the spirit of a dead eight year old who spends her days wandering around your soul which is for some reason a barren graveyard in a void.
...Yeah, dumb question...
But your girlfriend...

She died for you, so you feel like you've got to live. But you're actually sad and don't feel much like living... That's the problem that's been bothering you.

...Maybe. But I've got a purpose to my life now. To get revenge for you and all the other villagers!

By the way, did ALL the villagers die or just you? It's really unclear...
<shrug>

But where is your happiness, Yuri?

It must be in there somewhere. You can't see it with the naked eye...

If you can see my heart...can you see the future too?

Nope. All I can see are your true feelings. I don't know what's going to happen in the future. So even if you try to hide your feelings or pretend to be brave, I understand your true heart. So you don't have to act tough for me!

You're not gonna like show up as a ghost and tell anyone else, right? I don't wanna have the old man or Karin clowning on me cuz you told someone about our weird talks here.
No. I'll only be here.

Besides, you decide your own future, right?

Jeez... I feel like you're sifting through my dirty laundry!

Don't feel that way!

It's not ALL dirty.
...Gee, that makes me feel better.

Anyway, whatever you really feel about things, that's what the truth is. There's a door here I can't get open. I haven't looked everywhere yet. I'll still be looking around for a while.

That seems ominous and not to be resolved until very near the end of my journey.
That seems pessimistic.
This ain't my first rodeo... At least there are no voices yelling in my head this time around.

<sigh> Man, I never thought somebody'd ever be poking around in my heart, looking for my happiness for me.

I'll be seeing you, Yuri! Even if you get sad, don't ever forget to live!

And with that, Jeanne vanishes until the next time Yuri needs a metaphysical mind palace mental health evaluation from a dead child. Tune in next time as we explore Southampton proper, initiate a few more sidequests and perhaps enter a pro-wrestling circuit as Shadow Hearts Covenant continues!

Video: Episode 21 Highlight Reel

Masaji Kato Concept Art - Not sure about this M. Bison alternate costume look you've got going, guy.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Aug 13, 2019

# ¿ Aug 12, 2019 22:00

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXII: The Great Teacher

It's a bright new day in the Port of Southampton. The inclement weather has passed by leaving Yuri and the gang to explore the town. At least the one block and change allotted to it in an early-aughts JRPG. Let's start with seeing the collection of local drunks who see it fit to return to their preferred watering hall first thing in the morning to get ahead on the daily saucing.

That really isn't something you want to hear when describing what in inevitably an upcoming dungeon. Let's be frank, mine dungeons are just dry sewer levels.

Same.

I dunno. It's like 10:00 AM. I think you might like drinking a LITTLE bit if you're starting that early.

...That luxury liner, the Titanic, left from here on its way to New York, you know.

Must have missed that one. How'd that work out for tourism?
...The Titanic?
Yeah.
...It sank en route. How do you not know this? It was one of the biggest news stories of 1912.
1912...? Was probably busy fighting monsters across Asia cuz a voice in my head that turned out to be a magic Romani lady in an insane asylum was telling me to and ehh... I liked punching monsters.
...
...OK, no more drinks for you, friend.
But I haven't drunk anything here.
And clearly you don't need anymore, pal.
......

Look at that lovely sickly yellow-grey sky. What a lovely day... by English standards.

Unfortunately, we cannot just head straight for the mines. Despite everything, we're still in the Joachim introduction arc and he has something in town he needs to do before he's done hijacking the plot. So we may as well chat up everyone in hopes of seeing what exactly that entails.

They say it ripped the sky apart and its light reached up to the heavens.

It was actually some magic glyph created by a warlock to summon an alien god from deep space to destroy the world.
Well, that'd be a spot of bother.

Wish I could've seen it...!

...It was like twice the size of the planet. How did you miss it?
I must have slept in late that day.
It was in the sky for nearly a month.
Oh, the weather is just dreadful in England this time of year. Well, most times of year, to be frank. Must have been overcast.

Yeah? Two drunks in the bar said there were no jobs at all here.
Those two? Maybe if they stopped being listless and crabby all the time they'd find some employment.
Maybe if they stopped drinking as soon as the sun came up, too?
Ehh... that part is optional. <hic>

Neat? Can I fire one of 'em?
Heavens no! They're antique pieces of history!
Pfft ...Then what do I care?

I'm on vacation, but I can't find anything to do! I've already read this book... Here, you have it!

Yeah, sure. OK! A bit peculiar to only be reading one scene in the middle of an opera in your spare time. But what do I know?

This teaches Karin her second Sword Arts -- Bullenfogel. We don't really have any chance to use this right now. We'll just remember she has it when we venture into the mines.

I thought it was called football...?
It is. But I'm trying to get soccer popularized around here.
How's that working out?
...I'm the only person in Southampton that calls it soccer.

<Becomes Lottery Member 15> As it happens, I'm one of them! Come on, have a go! You're young. You can afford a few risks!

Yeah, I should enjoy my youth!

Fantastic! Well done!

This is a very easy Lottery wheel. I didn't even have to same scum. Got it on the first shot no problem. Another Slow augment for the Judgment Wheel couldn't hurt. Plus, you know, we do have to win SOMETHING from each Lottery Member anyhow.

In any event, it seems the Magimel Brothers have migrated from France to England and have set up shop in town. I suppose we can take a minute to browse their wears.

I wouldn't go that far, but...

Yes, I hope our relationship be long and mutually beneficial. Now please favor me with your kind patronage!

Patronage? Okay, I guess.

La Cage Aux Songes has updated its inventory with upgraded weapons for everyone but Joachim. But Joachim has a... different method of acquiring new weapons that we'll get into later.

The only one we're actually going to splurge on here is the weapon upgrade for Yuri -- the Bearclaws. These offer +33 Physical and +28 Special Attack Power. Which is an eleven and ten-point upgrade respectively from his Stinger weapon. We'll skip everyone else's stuff for now. If we just wait until the mines, they'll all get a free one from looting treasure chests.

Tee hee! If you have a card, then I'll sew a dress for you...

Yeah, please make me a dress.

And by mean I mean Gepetto's doll. Ergh... Why am I doing this transaction?

Fabulous! Did you bring me what I want, then? My hot little heart's desire?

Other than the Water element dress being desirable back when Gepetto was mandatory in battle, it doesn't really matter what order we obtain the dresses. So we'll just go down the line as we collect more Stud Cards. We'll eventually have to get them all anyway.

You know, for completion sake. Not because I particularly want to play dress-up with an old man's extremely underaged looking living doll.

Drumroll.

Presenting the latest creation from my 1915 Pierre Magimel Collection! I call it...

Cornelia thankfully never speaks. But I assume if she did she'd sound exactly like the Super Mario Brothers Super Show version of Toad.

We may as well turn in all the Stud Cards while we're here. So continuing down the line, we get...

Drumroll.

Presenting the latest creation from my 1915 Pierre Magimel Collection! I call it...

Sure. Fine. Well, that all happened. We'll be back with more lewd beefcake trading cards in the future.

For now, there's one more area of importance in this front street of town. Now that the rain has concluded, we're allowed to explore the upper wall of the town.

Doing so automatically initiates a scene in which Yuri notices something on the ground behind an idling man and starts a dialogue.

What are you carrying dried up straw around for anyway?

Dried up straw...?! Yes, I guess it looks pretty useless to most people. But there are people in the world who'd do anything to get their hands on this.

Are you sure? For this?!

It's true. I guess you find it hard to believe. Ten years ago, I was a poor farmer, with only one strand of straw.

I ain't no expert but that's some PRETTY poor farming.

But I found someone who wanted it, and traded with them. Then I traded what I got for something else, and...

What did they trade it for some lint?
The details do not matter.
...They kinda do or your story sounds like a crock of crap.

<looks out to sea> Over time, I gained status and property. Almost without realizing it!

That's... amazing! I guess you really wouldn't wanna lose it then, huh? Here you are! <attempts to hand over the straw>

<turns back> ...No, you picked it up. You should keep it. It's probably fate. I'll let you have that bit of straw. With a little luck, that bit of straw will turn you into a millionaire! With a little luck, eh!

...Wait, didn't this story start with you trading the straw? How do you have it again?
Details, my boy. Unimportant details...

Why do I get the feeling this is gonna turn out to be a pain in the butt...?!

Himovic walks away.

And so we initiate a game spanning quest of becoming the barter king by trading seemingly innocuous items to random folks who desire them which will one day lead us to great fortune. Probably. But that is far, far off in the future.

Even though it has its own camera angle and everything, there is absolutely nothing at the end of the wall.

There is, however, some treasure hidden just to the right of the stairs we accessed to get up here. Dick move.

This gains us a rather important returning accessory from the original Shadow Hearts. Leonardo's Bear only offers a paltry +1 to Special Defense. But its real purpose is that it prevents Instant Death attacks from working. We may need this in the immediate future.

For now, let's head back downstairs and past the Magimel Brothers' cart and see what's around back of Southampton.

I see why something was calling out to Joachim now.

Speaking of Joachim, before taking another step forward we're going to shuffle some Judgment Wheel stats to up his number of attacks to the maximum level.

We're also going to slap that Leonardo's Bear we just acquired on him. Just in case...

Music: Grand Papillon!! ~ Pro Wrestler

<looks around confused> Teacher!?

"Welp. This is happening now..." - Shadow Hearts: Covenant back of box tagline.

How have you been?! When a man stops moving forward and forgets the struggle, that's when he grows old, my boy.

I already feel a headache coming on...

<turns to Yuri and shakes head> No, no! This is my teacher and mentor, the Great Gama!!

Your teacher?!

That's right.

Teacher! You're alive and well!

My rippling muscles have yearned for your lessons again.
...OK. I'm starting to see the connection here.

<clenches fist> No need to worry, Joachim! "Train hard day and night, sharpen your mind and work hard for the good of others..." That's the motto of the Great Gama School of Combative Techniques. Don't tell me you've forgotten, my boy! You walked along a man's arduous path of fight and sweat. Now let me see how much your skill has improved!

Teacher! You mean you'll give me the chance to show you all I've learned? All my spirit and passion?!

<enters combat stance> Wraaahhh! Teacher!!

Tune in next time for a heated, manly battle between student and teacher in the squared circle as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues to just do whatever the hell it feels like.

Port of Southampton Concept Art - Looks like a lovely town. We've seen 100% of it as presented in the game.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2019 23:55

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Yeah the Trading Quest is the like the only thing that has several gently caress you endings if you do it wrong and zero indication when you're loving up. It's peak PS2 "gently caress you buy a guide!"

# ¿ Aug 20, 2019 09:04

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXIII: Grand Slam

Time for yet another solo boss fight with Joachim. Yuri and the others are completely unwilling to rush the ring with a steel chair just now. The Great Gama is a Light class enemy with 250 HP rippling through his muscles.

This fight is not too dissimilar from the bout between Joachim and Veronica. Our first order of business is to immediately cast Rage to buff our buff boy's physical attack abilities as we enter another damage race. With this, Joachim can deal around 60-70 HP of damage per turn. So that gives us roughly four-five turns of attacking to take down his mentor.

Great Gama only has two attacks in his moveset but unlike Veronica, they're PRETTY potent. The first is just the same exact physical attack combo as Joachim. The only difference being that instead of a giant hunk of lumber, Great Gama is wielding err... a wooden statue of a pirate...? Like the type you'd see outside of a restaurant in a coastal tourist area. Sure, why not? I mean, it's doing 35 HP of damage per combo and that isn't too shabby.

Joachim's teacher also possesses a special attack in the form of Grand Slam. This does 40-45 HP of damage which is over a third of Joachim's current HP. That's going to make things a bit tighter than the numbers Veronica was outputting.

More notably, remember how we equipped Joachim with that Leonardo's Bear accessory that prevented instant death? Well, if we hadn't done that Great Gama's Grand Slam has about a 50% chance of just knocking Joachim into space and one-shotting him. Resulting in...

Hahahaaah!

You think this some scripted event? Go wrestle in America if that's what you want.

I-I'm sorry, Teacher!

Ha ha ha ha! That's all right. I'll take you on again anytime you like! Whenever you think you're ready, my boy!

<stands up> A-all right, then, Teacher! I'll go out into the world and polish my skills, and I'll be back! I promise!

But we came prepared! So Grand Slam just does a load of damage instead of outright giving Joachim the Team Rocket treatment.

That said, unlike Veronica where we just had to take her down before she took down Joachim, it is actually necessary to take every third turn to heal up with a Thera Leaf since there's just no way with our current stats to outpace Gama's higher HP even with Rage.

In any event, Joachim and Gama beat each other with large pieces of wood in a wrestling ring until Joachim lands a knock out on his teacher. I think you're supposed to pin him at this point, Joachim. But I'm not a wrestler.

You still think you can beat me?!

For our efforts, we receive 1 Cash, a tiny bit of EXP exclusively for Joachim and...

A packet of tissues. Oh... okay...? I'm not even going to ask about that. Or where he was storing them. Moving right along!

Music: Grand Papillon!! ~ Pro Wrestler

Whenever you want to test your skills, come back to me, my boy. The open-air ring will always be waiting for you!

<clenches fist> Oh, thank you, Teacher!

And so now too can Joachim potentially launch and baseball swing enemies into low earth orbit. It worked for Auron, it can work for Joachim.

All this hot-blooded manly action and rippling muscles in the squared-circle is too much for Yuri to handle. He's gotten soft.

We're now free to actually explore Great Gama's wrestling arena. Though, before we continue it's worth noting Great Gama here? Totally a real dude -- Ghulam Mohammad Baksh.

Wikipedia on The Great Gama posted:

Click Here for More Info!

Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt (22 May 1878 � 23 May 1960), better known by the ring name The Great Gama, was a pehlwani wrestler from the Indian subcontinent, who was an undefeated champion of the world. Born in the Amritsari village of Jabbowal, then in the Punjab Province of British India (under the British Raj), in 1878, he was awarded the Indian version of the World Heavyweight Championship on 15 October 1910, and went on to defeat grappling champions across the world. Undefeated in a career spanning more than 52 years, he is considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Following the 1947 partition of India, he moved to Pakistan, where he lived the rest of his days in Lahore.

Gama's daily training consisted of grappling with forty of his fellow wrestlers in the akhada (court). He did a minimum of five thousand baithaks (Hindustani word for squats) (avg. speed 100-200 squats per minute) and three thousand dands (Hindustani word for pushups) (avg. speed 50-100 pushups per minute) in a day and even sometimes more within 30 to 45 minutes each by wearing a doughnut-shaped wrestling apparatus called a Hasli of 1 Quintal (apprx. 100 kilos). Gama's diet included:

10 litres of milk per day mixed with
1.5 pounds of crushed almond paste
Half litre of ghee
Six pounds of butter
Three buckets of seasonal fruits
Two desi muttons
Six desi chickens
along with fruit juices

and other ingredients to promote his digestive system and muscular health.

Bruce Lee was an avid follower of Gama's training routine. Lee read articles about Gama and how he employed his exercises to build his legendary strength for wrestling, and Lee quickly incorporated them into his own routine. The training routines Lee used included "the cat stretch", and "the squat" (known as "baithak", and also known as the "deep-knee bend.")

Covenant's depiction of him is a bit less flattering than the brick shithouse he actually was built like. Also... I don't think he ever set up shop wrestling training in Southampton, England at any point. But, minor details.

Joachim can challenge Great Gama to another bout but... apparently, Ghulam was just holding back and he will absolutely demolish Joachim in a rematch. We'll be back another day to rise to the challenge in order for Joachim to gain more abilities. Among other things... Meanwhile, if we step just to the left of Gama's ring we are thrust into another scene.

Music: Gathering God ~ Thrill

Look at this old, dented, filthy locker. It's a thing of beauty!

Huh?

Joachim hoists the locker over his shoulder.

You know they make portable things to put your junk in while traveling like backpacks and suitcase, right? ...Right?

Use it for? As a weapon, of course!

A weapon...? What? But don't we usually get weapons from chests or shops or something or after some big event?

What are you talking about? Those are the old-fashioned ways of getting weapons! Use whatever you can get your hands on! That's the first rule of a hero!

Yeah, maybe for heroes on a budget...

Tsk tsk! I'd rather you called me an "environmentally-friendly" hero!

I think they just call that theft.

Well, nothing's coming out of my wallet, so I guess I'm fine with it...

And so Joachim obtains a new weapon -- just a goddamn gym Locker. As Joachim said, he doesn't get new weapons the traditional way. He'll just find increasingly absurd solid objects and repurpose them into bludgeoning items. The Locker provides +35 Physical and +26 Special Attack Power.

The only other loot of note in the arena is just to the north of the Locker where we find another Seal the boring old fashion way. Other than that, there are a few folks we can talk to.

And my favorite dirty trick of his is when he rushes the other guy with a key in his hand. Shows his wild side!

I feel like stabbing a guy with a key would be less effective than bludgeoning them with a wooden statue the size of a small child. But what do I know? Though, this is actually a hint for a rematch with Gama. He utilizes The Third Key item, a buff returning from Shadow Hearts 1 that allows three actions in a row. Hence why weren't not attempting that rematch. He'll just destroy Joachim in a single turn if he uses that.

Lots of students want to train under him, but end up quitting when they find out how harsh the training is. I wonder if anybody will ever be good enough to be his successor...?

Gonna put money on the big buff vampire guy he just fought. Though not until some world-ending threat is on the horizon and we should really be doing something else.
That seems unlikely.
You'd be surprised.

...and he told me he wanders from town to town teaching wrestling.

So has he not been here long?
Oh no, he's always been here as long as I can remember.
Yeah... thought so...

I thought rings were round things?
Wrestling is very mysterious. And very dumb.

With that, we have covered just about everything there is to cover in the Port of Southampton for the moment. Buuut...

We are clearly heading to a new dungeon that is said to have some length to it. There's never a short mine level. So, before concluding the chapter and venturing forth to parts unknown, it might be prudent to upgrade a few of Yuri's Fusions. And wouldn't you know it? We have exactly enough Soul Energy to level up to three of 'em!

To level up Fusions we simply need to return to their respective elemental altar in the Graveyard and dump the appropriate amount of Soul Energy into them. Again, the leveled Fusion battles have thankfully been nixed since they were all utterly filler fights outside the bonus ones.

When I finally feel motivated to do a bunch of poo poo only to have local Canadian internet infrastructure poo poo the bed for days on end.

That's a bit of a step-up from the tall, ripped armored Oompa-Loompa of Karyl. Barbaria provides a buff of:

Strength +7
Vitality +8
Agility +2
Intelligence +5
Power +5
Luck +5

Which is an across the board improvement over the Karyl incarnation.

Barbaria retains Rage and Blaze from its predecessor. But also gains:

Energy Charge: 10 MP. Increases the next Physical Attack by 125% (150% on a perfect spin.) For when you really want the next attack to have some oomph.
Magma: 32 MP. Medium-sized AOE attack. Good for deleting clusters of trash mobs when we cannot be bothered to fight the same group of giant roaches or low-level mafia goons for the eighth time. Decent damage in its own right.

Upgrading our Fire class Fusion was more for offensive purposes. For a more support role, let's shift focus to upgrading our Wind elemental Fusion next.

Yeah, it's late-August. I'd take a cool breeze at any time.

Now that's a glam up from armored lizard dude that focused too hard on leg day. Grano here buffs Yuri:

Strength +3
Vitality +4
Agility +7
Intelligence +6
Power +6
Luck +6

Which is again an across the board improvement over Malakia. Heck, that previous jerk didn't even give a strength boost.

As before, this new incarnation of the Wind element retains the previous abilities -- Gale and Howling. But now it has added:

Arc Heal: 18MP Cures all status effects and ring abnormalities for all allies. Not quite Alice's Arc from the first game, which did all that AND healed everyone to full. But hey, I'm sure it'll have its uses.
Slash: 32MP. Single target damaging Wind spell. Hits multiple times to make up for the lack of AOE. Will give an Earth elemental enemy a real bad time.

Speaking of Earth, lastly, we're going to upgrade the Earth elemental class. We're just getting this one because it hits like a truck and Earth elemental enemies are less common than Fire elemental.

Maybe, in small doses.

We go from looking like someone The Guyver fights to a mid-boss from a mid-aughts action platformer than looks like it undoubtedly has a ground-pound and/or charging attack. Sorom here is sporting:

Strength +8
Vitality +7
Agility +6
Intelligence +2
Power +5
Luck +4

It's quite a stout rock boy.

Naturally, it too retains Vastitas' abilities of Shield and Crag. But it also gains:

Stand: 26 MP. Temporarily grants no SP loss when in Resist Defense for all allies. Yuri can just chill out tanking damage and buffing everyone's defense for a time without burning through Sanity. Maybe it'll have a use, but not much to my style of play.
Thorn: 32 MP. Medium-area AOE Earth Attack. Basically the same deal as Magma but Earth-based. Strong boy Fusions don't vary it up a whole lot.

I believe that is all the housekeeping we need to do. So ends our time in the Port of Southampton. The mysterious Rhondda Mines lie ahead and the blasted plains of Wales beyond that... Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues... with another not too great dungeon! Stay tuned!

There wasn't a whole lot of new faces our brief stay in Southampton. But nevertheless...

Monsters:

The mustache really pumps up the crowds.

Characters:

Nothing says cold and grim like a vampire cape.

<staring into the middle distance> He sure does curry. He sure does...

Video: Episode 23 Highlight Reel (You should watch Joachim get knocked into space.)

Great Gama Concept Art - Nice elf shoes, champ.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Aug 29, 2019

# ¿ Aug 28, 2019 22:15

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXIV: Down and Brown

This isn't the most accurate or to scale map of the UK one could ask for honestly. But, Rhondda Valley (actually two valleys) is a real former hotspot of mining activity in the early 1900s in South Wales. Given the number of deaths and relative timeframe, Rhondda Mine is based on the Wattstown mine of the Ynyshir district of Wales. In 1905 the mine suffered an explosion that killed 121 men (three were pulled out and only one lived from their injuries.) The region had a LOT of double-digit fatality mining disasters but that's the closest in timeframe and number. So that's likely the ticket.

Which means Yuri and the gang walked roughly 148 miles from Southampton assuming they stayed on main roads to get there. Look, if you're going to set your game in the real world, I'm going to do the math on distance traveled and how hosed it is!

Anyway, welcome to one of the shittier dungeons in the game. Hey, you remember the metro tunnels in Paris? What if they had even less going on and lasted a solid 90+ minutes knowing exactly where to go and what to do?

Well...

...guess what...

...motherfucker!

This dungeon is a miserable brown slog that lasts a feature-length movie in run time. Here's a lottery ticket in one random corner three screens from the entrance. It took me like five minutes to get to this. And you know why? Of course, you do...

Music: Vicious 1915 ~ Battle in Europe

Random battles! I think I fought more battles in this dungeon than the last three combined. I'd say at least I dig most of the enemy designs since it's getting back to the core Shadow Hearts 1/Koudelka weird poo poo. On the other hand, there's just like four different monsters and I fought every combination of them at least eight times. This was a dang 98-minute dungeon. I can look back on the footage recorded and despair!

There are a few new enemies to contend with here. The weakest of 'em is this hell dog -- Barghest. A 55 HP Dark elemental enemy. All it does is bite people for around 40 HP of damage or do Gale Spin as an AOE attack for roughly the same damage output but it can hit multiple people.

A Barghest is a mythological creature from Northern English folklore. Boiling it down... it's just a ghost dog that is really mean. It's usually depicted as jet black or ethereally glowing. Usually not quite so... reptilian. Fantasy bullshit loves this as a generic monster type. Personally, I always think of The Witcher 1 and having to fight 800 glowing green ghost dog jerks any time Geralt went out at night in the first act of the game.

RPGs have to have some sort of slime or sludge-like monstrosity. It's just the way of the world. This particular example is a Propolis. It is a 63 HP Water elemental enemy that only exists to spam Hail Break endlessly. They usually come in pairs.

As far as the entomology goes, apparently propolis is "a red or brown resinous substance collected by honeybees from tree buds, used by them to fill crevices and to seal and varnish honeycombs." So basically bee glue made from tree sap. I guess I can see that working for a weird sludge slug thing. Not sure where summoning ice spikes fit into that. But, there you have it.

Undoubtedly, the most "nope not a fan of anything that is happening here" creature thus far is this... whole thing... If you're having trouble parsing what you're looking at, it's a pair of human torsos connected in the middle with the inverted ones having a giant scorpion stinger coming out of its anus. It's hard to see in a screenshot but its top legs are also splitting open to reveal a toothy mouth like some poo poo out of The Thing. This nightmare creature is known as a Tammuz and comes with 60 HP and a Light elemental affinity. This one spends its days either stinging folks with its anal appendage (which has a Poison causing variant) or casting Bright Light (the Light magic AOE variant the other enemies have been using.)

Tammuz is another name for Dumuzid -- a Mesopotamian god of shepherds and fertility.

Wikipedia on Tammuz/Dumuzid posted:

Click here for more info!

Dumuzid, later known by the alternate form Tammuz, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with shepherds, who was also the primary consort of the goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar). In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid's sister was Geshtinanna, the goddess of agriculture, fertility, and dream interpretation. In the Sumerian King List, Dumuzid is listed as an antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira and also an early king of the city of Uruk. In the Sumerian poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer, Dumuzid competes against the farmer Enkimdu for Inanna's hand in marriage. In Inanna's Descent into the Underworld, Dumuzid fails to mourn Inanna's death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement. Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons.

Gilgamesh references Tammuz in Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh as one of Ishtar's past lovers, who was turned into an allalu bird with a broken wing. Dumuzid was associated with fertility and vegetation and the hot, dry summers of Mesopotamia were believed to be caused by Dumuzid's yearly death. During the month in midsummer bearing his name, people all across Mesopotamia would engage in public, ritual mourning for him. During the late twentieth century, scholars widely thought that, during the Sumerian Akitu festival, kings may have established their legitimacy by taking on the role of Dumuzid and engaging in ritualized sexual intercourse with the high priestess of Inanna as part of a sacred marriage ceremony. This notion is now generally rejected by scholars as a misinterpretation of Sumerian literary texts. The cult of Dumuzid was later spread to the Levant and to Greece, where he became known under the West Semitic name Adonis.

The cult of Ishtar and Tammuz continued to thrive until the eleventh century AD and survived in parts of Mesopotamia as late as the eighteenth century. Tammuz is mentioned by name in the Book of Ezekiel and possibly alluded to in other passages from the Hebrew Bible. In late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholarship of religion, Tammuz was widely seen as a prime example of the archetypal dying-and-rising god, but the discovery of the full Sumerian text of Inanna's Descent in the mid-twentieth century disproved the previous scholarly assumption that the narrative ended with Dumuzid's resurrection and instead revealed that it ended with Dumuzid's death. The existence of the "dying-and-rising god" archetype has been largely rejected by modern scholars.

Sure, yeah. I see how that can translate into a torso with a scorpion stinger coming out of its rear end.

Finally, we have this big'un umm... nightmare centipede... dragon... thing? I'm not sure how you'd classify it. It goes by the name Lambton Worm which doesn't help at all identifying a descriptor. It's got a lot of spikes, teeth and likes to hang out with guys who end up in the Emergency Room because they shoved a scorpion up their rear end on a dare. Lambton Worm is the beefiest enemy in this dungeon with an impressive for a trash mob enemy 208 HP and an Earth elemental affinity. Having four appendages that just have spikes for fingers, our friend Lamb here just sticks solely to physical attacks that deals out a healthy 60-70 HP of damage with a potential to cause Paralysis. These jerks are usually the priority in any battle.

The Lambton Worm comes from a Northern English myth.

Wikipedia on Lambton Worm posted:

Click here to read more!

The Lambton Worm is a legend from County Durham in North East England in the UK. The story takes place around the River Wear, and is one of the area's most famous pieces of folklore, having been adapted from written and oral tradition into pantomime and song formats. The story revolves around John Lambton, an heir of the Lambton Estate, County Durham, and his battle with a giant worm (dragon) that had been terrorizing the local villages. As with most myths, details of the story change with each telling.

-----

Abridged Version: There was a kid named John. He ditched church to go fishing. He caught a weird hell worm and was like that's hosed. So he tossed it down a well. Since he decided that was a messed up thing to encounter while ditching church, he decides then joins the Crusades and penance.

Years later it turns into a giant hell worm which has now just coiled over a hill and starts eating livestock and children and poo poo. Villagers and knights come and try to fight it but they all get wrecked. John, now an adult, comes back home and sees everything is hosed and goes "Aww frick! It's that hell worm I tossed down the well." So he gears up to fight it. But not before first he consults a local witch, as you do. The witch tells him to craft some sick spiked armor since it's favored method of killing is wrapping around things. Also, a tip to fight it in a river so it'll get washed away and does not regenerate. Apparently, it could do that. Plus that'd be metal as hell. He's also informed he and his family will get hella cursed unless John kills the first living thing he sees after killing the worm. Trees and grass don't count. Curses don't play with rule lawyering. Go ask Alice Elliot.

John crafts his sick spiked armor and tells his dad he'll sound a horn if he wins so that he can release one of their hounds so John can gank that and their family doesn't get hella cursed. John fights the worm and it is dope as gently caress. Thing tries to crush him and gets sliced up by his Kirk, Knight of Thorns armor and it dies. John throws up the horns and then sounds his horn to avoid that whole curse thing. But his dad is a complete dumbass and runs out to give him a high-five because his son is a big drat hero. John is all "Aww poo poo, I don't wanna kill my dad."

And thus the Lambton family gets cursed for nine generations to never die in their beds. THANKS, Dad!

Worm/wyrm seems like it's the catch-all term for a storyteller that is just kind of lazy with descriptors and is just "Ehh it was some vague snakey... lizard thing. Did it have legs? Maybe. I dunno. Look it was a big scaly monster." In which case, I suppose the Lambton Worm's Covenant appearance checks out.

In addition to the trash mobs infesting the Rhondda Mines, we did gain quite a few new abilities over the course of the previous chapter. Yuri has several Level 2 Fusions now. They're much more impressive than his previous cosplayer incarnations. The only thing of real note with the Level 2 Fusions is that once transformed, Yuri will automatically initiate a Combo with any members of his team getting a turn before the next enemy attack phase. So if Yuri happens to gain early intuitive, trash mobs of enemies can be wiped out before they even get a chance to attack. Which is nice since, again, this dungeon had an overabundance of random battles, to say the least.

Karin now has her Bullenfogel Sword Art. It's just a big stream of fire sent outward in one direction. But it works quite nicely in Combos and deals a decent chunk of damage in the 60-70 HP range at this point.

And of course, Joachim can now also Grand Slam enemies into space. Quite impressive, considering we're deep underground. If it doesn't instant kill an enemy (it's not a guaranteed thing) then it at least does 100+ HP of damage.

Finally, as you'll recall Blanca's Soul Comet leveled up from that last Wolf Bout with canine Terry Bogard (congrats on getting into Smash!) This now makes Soul Comet have TWO wolf spirits lash out at a target for bonus damage.

That's ALMOST there is as far as battles go. I suppose, Gepetto also has those new elemental variants of his Cast skill. But it's literally the exact same animation with a different color swap and I'm switching to Gepetto for something as trifling as that. Now... speaking of trifling, back to traversing a very brown tileset. This first level of the mine (sadly there are multiple floors to the dungeon) took 20 minutes alone (this is with the aide of a map someone made on GameFAQs to know exactly where to go for all the loot) only has exactly one piece of noteworthy treasure to the eastern part of the region.

I like the implication that Yuri stopped in the middle of this mine to sharpen up his wolf buddy's teeth with a whetstone. I suppose it's worth it for the +30 Physical and +32 Special Attack Power.

Oh yeah, when I said that was about it for battles in this mine until the boss? Yeah... I actually forgot a new mechanic we're about to encounter for Joachim.

So you may notice a change has occurred here. Joachim is looking a little different...

Joachim has now assumed his original Golden Bat form. What does this mean? Well, he now has double the physical strength at the cost of halved HP and all Special Attacks (read: both Muscle Arts and Crest Magic) being disabled for the duration.

Mmm! I want to drink some tomato juice.

So how did we end up with Joachim as the Golden Bat again? Well, Joachim has a weird subsystem mechanic called Joachythms. I don't believe this ever got a tutorial and if it did, it was LONG before it became relevant. I believe the mechanic was technically unlocked as soon as Joachim formally joined the party (I guess technically as soon as he gained back his Grand Papillon mask from Yuma.) This mechanic causes Joachim to transform into one of three Joachythms after a set number of battles. The Joachythm will remain in effect for the following five battles before Joachim transforms back to his standard form.

See the box there that looks like waveforms? That's the really vague indicator of when Joachim's next Joachythm will kick in. When one of the lines intersects with the center of the thick vertical line (which progresses with each fight Joachim participates in) to the leftmost, a Joachythm will automatically trigger. The golden one is of course for The Golden Bat which we currently have. The rainbow line is for Joachim's Invisible Form, which we'll see later (there's a LOT of fights in this goddamn dungeon.) If BOTH lines intersect at the same time, then we'll get Grand Papillon. But that won't occur for quite some time.

There is no way to prevent Joachythms if they're going to pop up at an inopprutune time (like going back to an earlier dungeon against enemies we could one-shot to do a sidequest for example.) There are items that can influence the fluctuation of the Joachythms wavelength speed. But there's nothing that can avoid it outside of well... just not using Joachim.

There is a calculation for when Joachythms will occur if you want some stuffy mathematical mechanics. Not that it's very complicated. By default:

The Golden Bat occurs multiples of 12 battles (read: 12, 24, 36, etc fights.)
Invisible occurs multiples of 20 battles (read: 10, 20, 30, etc fights.)
Grand Papillon occurs common multiples of the two (read: 60, 120, 180 fights.)

Again, there are items that can reduce this number later on in the game. But that's a story for another day. Just know that The Golden Bat spent its rare time in battle dealing with nothing but random battle fodder.

A final note, Golden Bat gets its own profile blurb to replace Joachim's while he's transformed. Honestly, if I wanted to just chill out for a while, flying around as a bat wouldn't be half bad.

Back to the task at hand of getting out of this drat mine, the far western side of the dungeon contains an elevator. Not sure who is keeping the lights on or maintaining a fully operational elevator in a mine abandoned for over a decade. But don't sweat the details. There's a notice next to the elevator. Yuri cannot read it or anything. It just contains another hidden Lottery Ticket. Sneaky.

Down we go to the second level of the mines. Sub-level? Wait, should we really be going down further into the mines. They don't generally leave exits at the bottom.

Oh well, minor details. Just a short walk from the elevator is the only important encounter of this whole 90+ minute affair.

<puts hand on hip> You sure are!

I can see it... I can see your...

Bring it on, baby!

...........

<turns to Yuri> Yuri! Stop being mean to the poor Ring Spirit!

<turns to Karin> I'm not being mean! He just seemed a little down, so I was trying to cheer him up!

I'm not the "Ring Spirit"!

I'd be bummed out too if I had to hang out in the corner of some boring mine dungeon waiting to give out power-ups.

Stop it, Yuri!

<turns back to Ring Soul> I'm sorry, he didn't mean it, Ring Spirit! Sometimes the things Yuri says come out wrong, but he's a good kid.

I'm a kid, now, am I?!

*sigh*

<turns back to Ring Spirit> Did you hear that?! Now he's sighing!

I told you he seemed down. How many random battles did you have to do getting here? Cuz woof...

I entrust this to you...

...I am starting to doubt why.

Sure, we'll take that. Congrats Yuri, you can now do four physical attack strings.

The power to command the Judgment Ring. Such power will help you carve your way through destiny...

Thanks!

I will appear again to give you more power, and I'm watching to see if you are truly the one to command destiny.

Neat. Hope you get to hang out in a more interesting dungeon next time.

The Ring Soul disappears.

Oh. ...He's gone!

He's hurt because you were mean to him! What were you thinking?!

You really think so?

And so continues our complicated relationship with the Ring ~~Spirit~~ Soul. Tune in next time as we get the hell out of this dungeon as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

Video: Episode 24 Highlight Reel (If you really want to see rear end scorpion in motion.)

Rhondda Mines Concept Art - Yep... that sure is a mine.

Lambton Worm Concept Art - I like the little doodle he gets.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2019 19:27

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXV: Grimlock

We probably should have asked Ring Soul directions out of this endless mine. But frankly, he probably gets turned around down here too.

All there is to do is trudge forward. Though our path is somewhat impeded this time around. Northwest of where we met up with Ring Soul we encounter a darkened passage. Entering which results in...

We're not gonna get anywhere like this. We need some kind of light...

You know, it's actually impressive engineer that all the decades abandoned and monster-filled the mines have had full operational electrical lighting systems up until this point.

Continuing down the still lit path, we eventually come to a crossroads. To the west is...

Hmm... We're gonna have to find another way to go.

Well there only is one other way to go to the south and down another elevator. I'm going to hazard a guess and say we may find a light source in this direction.

And wouldn't you know it? The only thing down this tunnel is a storeroom with a...

I'm not sure why they just didn't give us a lantern right past where we spoke with Ring Soul. It's not like going down an elevator to a storeroom added anything. Heck, this bottom floor doesn't even have any random battles enabled. So it's not even good padding. But, nothing about this dungeon is particularly well designed or good. Why buck the trend now?

In any event, now that we have a lantern we can return to the dark sections of the tunnel upstairs and continue onward.

Now we can make some progress.

That first darkened area just leads to another storeroom dead end with a Speed Seal nestled by the boiler or whatever the heck that big iron contraption is supposed to be.

The westward path actually leads to progress. Spoilers: It's pretty much the same exact area as the first level of the mine only now there's mood lighting from the lantern. I wonder how many people put this game down at this joint because it is utterly a momentum killer slog that takes far too long to complete.

There are a couple of points of interest in-between all the identical rock walls. This whole dark section of the mine is basically a big loop. Only the counter-clockwise part leads to a dead-end in a cavern with a chest and a man standing in darkness spying on us. Nothing creepy about that at all.

The chest itself contains an upgraded rapier for Karin. One might even say it is a fine rapier, indeed. This gives Karin a +32 Physical and +30 Special Attack power bump. Glad we saved our money back in Southampton. Although, I was mistaken. Gepetto gets jack poo poo for free here. It's like they knew nobody was going to use the old man with a creepy doll over the male and female leads, a cool wolf and a luchador vampire.

Now about that creepy man standing in that last room. If we follow the mine's loop clockwise to its endpoint (skipping past a northern path that is actual progress) we can find that weirdo.

<becomes Lottery Member 14> Oh, hold on a minute! Have you come to do the lottery?

Of course!

There's no other reason I'd come to a brain numbingly boring mine dungeon than to play the lottery.

We simply cannot skip a new Lottery member, now can we? This one is a little tricky. The Lottery wheel ticker doesn't spin very fast. The catch?

All the Hit Areas turn invisible as soon as the Judgment Wheel starts spinning. Hope you paid attention to the markings and didn't just mash through dialogue.

Not really, I'm still not done with this dungeon. Plus I'm going to Wales.

Can you leave me alone now, please...?

Yeah, OK. Have fun umm... standing in the darkness, I guess?

The top prize in that Lottery is a very powerful item returning from the original Shadow Hearts. The Third Key allows us to repeat an action three times in a row (assuming we don't bungle the Judgment Ring spins.) In other words, Yuri has a four-string physical attack. If the Third Key was activated, he'd potentially be able to dish out 12 physical attacks in a row. Likewise, someone could use one of their special technique three times in a row (assuming they have enough MP.) Since this is a consumable that lasts only one turn, we'll just keep that in our pocket for a rainy day or particularly bullshit encounter.

We're now cleaned this dungeon of everything but the inevitable boss fight. However, all the many random battles I've omitted from covering on this level of the mine (it's the same exact enemy pool as the first level) has resulted in...

Joachim's Invisible form has activated from the Joachythms. The Invisible form isn't super interesting. Unlike the Golden Bat form, all of Joachim's stats stay exactly the same and he is still able to use special abilities. While invisible, enemies will almost never target him in battle and if they do (if for some reason he was the only non-KO'd character) he has an extremely high evasion rate. That said, he's not completely immune to damage. AOE attacks will still affect him if he's in range. And some enemies can see through his thermoptic camouflage trickery. Great Gama, for instance, will just ignore that poo poo and knock his pupil into space no problem visible or no.

Invisible also gets its own unique Profile blurb while active. Much like the form itself, not super interesting.

Backtracking a bit and going down the only viable path from the big darkness corridor loop takes us to yet another crossroads and decent lighting. We came from the east and the southern path might lead to progress.

West takes us to a treasure chest containing an accessory that grants +4 Physical Attack. We'll pop that on Yuri. Hmm... Hmm... I could have sworn the rock music genre didn't start until the late 1940s or so. But, I suppose we are in thorough alternate history territory at this point. Maybe someone seeing Shanghai get nuked was inspired to start jamming on an electric guitar. They were also inspired to invent the electric guitar. Stranger things have happened in this universe.

Returning to the crossroads and heading north leads us to... wait, what?

Jeez?! What do you mean, jeez?! That's pretty rude, you know!

I'm just surprised is all. I've been wandering through this place for like an hour and somehow you already have a shop set up here? It's just weird is all.
Oh, now I am weird?!
...Well.
Your rudeness knows no end, sir!
Fine, sorry. Geez!
There again with the jeez!
Actually, I said "geez" with a 'G' this time.

There's a penalty for being rude. You have to buy something! Otherwise, I won't forgive you!

I'm so sorry! May I buy something?

Gerard's shop is selling the same junk it was back in the Port of Southampton. It's just here in case we want to stock up before venturing forth to fight the obligatory boss. That's unusually nice of the game.

I just topped off some consumables (mostly Tents) here since we're quite flush on Cash after all those random battles. That was enough to rank up our Point Card to D Rank aka we can now get up to a 20% Discount and 10% Mark Up on selling items. Spiffy.

In any event, head back out of Gerard's shop and to the south leads us to an elevator at the bottom level of this miserable dungeon. We're almost home free.

Music: ENDS

Looks like someone did a number on this room. I'd be quite unfortunate if this was the sight of the mining disaster and now the malice of all those slain had convalesced into an angry spirit or cursed abomination of some sorts.

My god... This was one of the fabled Ecto Cooler mines. What, you didn't know they mined that poo poo? Why do you think it went away? It was a limited resource and the overindulgence of the early '90s depleted it completely. Tragic, really.

Oh. Hi! I cannot help but think this creature dropped down from the ceiling and is now looking straight up Karin's skirt. Look, it gets lonely in Rhondda Mine. Do you know how crappy company Lambton Worm is? And don't even get me started on Tammuz always going on about his cheating ex-wife.

You know what? That's a pretty choice demonic design. Assuming this is a creature born of malice from a bunch of dead miners, having its "wings" be two blackened lung looking appendages is pretty morbidly choice a design. At least his subpar dungeon had one decent thing going for it. Meet Grimlock the boss of Rhondda Mines. It is a hardy 780 HP touting Dark elemental enemy.

The name Grimlock comes from a creature in Dungeons & Dragons which is in itself just a serial number filled off, original character DO NOT STEAL version of the Morlocks from H.G. Wells' novel The Time Machine. Either way, it's a race of underground dwelling devolved blind cannibalistic humanoid monster folk. That's a little bit different from what we're encountering. But as always, names are only a suggestion in relation to Shadow Hearts' creatures.

Back to the subject at hand, Grimlock here is one of those obnoxious bosses that like to fiddle about with speed-related status effects/buffs. The first action it takes is speeding itself up by 133% using Gale.

To make matters worse, Grimlock also has a physical attack string that only does sub 40 HP of damage but does inflict the Slow status effect. We've got a remedy for that at least, but we'll get to it in a moment.

Finally, we've got Grimlock's unique attack -- Hell's Eyes which will wreck a single target for 50-60 HP of damage. There's a reason we didn't unlock Yuri's Level 2 Light Fusion earlier despite the next boss being Dark elemental. This attack would do nearly 100 HP of damage to him in that form and would be A Problem.

That's why instead we're going to have him shift to our Level 2 Wind Fusion -- Grano, instead.

Grano does pretty decent damage to the tune of around 60-65 hits per physical combo. But more importantly, Grimlock's favorite tactic is just slowing everyone down while enjoying his speed boost.

Grano comes factory stock equipped with Gale. Blanca also has Gale equipped from Crest Magic. We don't have any items that directly negate the Slow status at this point. But copying Grimlock and casting Gale on anyone inflicted will completely negate the spell's 50% speed reduction while still giving us a decent boost of speed.

Additionally, Joachim, who is still in his Invisible form for this fight, is a character I forgot I added the Slow add-on to his Judgment Ring ages ago. And his first round of attacking landed the Slow status on Grimlock, negating over a third of his speed boost and one advantage in this battle.

Speaking of Joachim, since he's basically completely safe in this fight, I thought it'd be fun if he spammed Rage on both himself and Yuri and see what happens when they go to town while Karin provided support with her Sword Arts.

The result was a comically short boss fight. Status buffs are still pretty good in Shadow Hearts 2, as it turns out! And frankly, I just want OUT of this tedious dungeon already. So I'm perfectly content with having a stomp match against the area boss.

You can run but you can't hide!

Poor bastard only got three turns and it wasted one of them on a speed boost that immediately got neutered by an invisible wrestler. We gained a fairly substantial Soul Energy reward slaying Grimlock. That's more than enough for one additional Level 2 Fusion next time we hit the Graveyard.

Additional, the Murmur Crest grants a resurrection spell. Yet to have to use any revivals thus far and I'd prefer to keep it that way.

I mean, I was expecting a big dumb monster. But that thing was kinda freaky.

I bet this was the spot where the explosion was.

Let's go, you two.

Hey... wait! No, you clowns! There's a treasure chest RIGHT THERE! Don't just walk away and leave the dungeon. I mean I can relate to wanting to get the hell out but c'mon! (We actually have to manually walk two steps to exit and it's just another Seal of Strength.)

With that said, that concludes our time in the Rhondda Mines and as far as I know, unlike many dungeons, there is no reason to ever come back here again. Hallelujah! And with the dungeon's end, so too ends Chapter 8. Tune in next time as we return once again to the vile hills and sinister plains of that infernal land of Wales as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues!

Bad dungeon but a decent monster mash that I never want to see again because I fought all of them about 20 times a pop.

Monster:

Touching it, sure? But what about punching it? I feel like those are different actions.

I've seen how many of those things were plodding around those barren mines and find this description suspect.

Spaniards have some loving issues...

Warmer weather? Well, that won't be a problem in England.

What exactly were all 100 miners doing in that one chamber when the accident happened? Were they having rave that just got out of hand?

Video: Episode 25 Highlight Reel (Grimlock gets Grimrocked.)

Rhonnda Mines Concept Art - Color shift all that yellow to brown or dull grey/blue and it's fairly spot on.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2019 22:07

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 10:05

The Dark Id: Aug 13, 2005; Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]

Episode XXVI: Aberystwyth Again

It always comes back to Wales with this series. The Rhondda Mine was nice enough to deposit us in Aberystwyth the home of Roger Bacon. Before we venture forth, let's see how Score is doing after that slog of a dungeon.

I believe we were at 62 battles last time we checked in prior to entering the Port of Southampton. So it was seventeen random battles during the course of that dungeon. And all that yet we're still outranked by a Fat Thug. I don't know about these ranking calculations.

Going to be real, I thought about bailing on some random battles toward the end there.

I remain good at hitting buttons at the correct time.

I'm not sure how Gepetto is still ahead of Joachim in the number of battles participated when he's sat out the last two dungeons. I bet that shifty old man is padding his stats.

It'll probably be a few chapters before we peek at those stats again. We may be hitting a relatively combat light stretch of the game, outside the odd boss battle. Nevertheless, Wales awaits. Let's mosey.

Music: ENDS. Sounds of the sea begin.

Wales.
Yes, I know that. I mean what is this place specifically?
Oh... right...

Well, technically we fought it ABOVE this place. Like in space.
......
...In space?
Yeah. It's a long story. Let me back up for a minute...

NEW Music: ICARO Piano Arrangement ~ Main Theme (You should probably listen to an arrangement of the main theme music.)

This is where it all began and where it all ended.

Well, technically it began on the Trans-Siberian railroad in rural Manchuria like a year before that. But we're just gonna skip to the relevant parts.

Six months ago there was a man who tried to destroy the world.

He raised a temple into the sky and summoned a god from beyond the stars. To remake the world in his own image.

Or just blow it up. He was kind of vague and rambling by the end.

We defeated him, and battled the god. In the end, we were saved by a legendary magician who has lived for a 1000 years.

Roger Bacon.

Wasn't Roger Bacon born in the early 1200s?
OK. Want me to amend the story to 690ish years? Sheesh.

NEW Music: Spiritualization ~ Holy Land of God (Nice chill theme you should listen to.)

I like to think Yuri drew all those illustrations himself as visual aids for his story recap. Anyway, welcome to Wales -- home of Roger Bacon and the ruins of an ancient monastery three idiots accidentally burnt down back in 1898.

It seems Roger constructed a completely new house in the last six months since the Shadow Hearts ended. This one is located a decent clip away from Nemeton's ruins while the old house was located a short jog up a hill away from the place. I wonder if the wreckage of an ancient aliens' floating castle presumably raining all over the Welsh countryside might have taken out Roger's old haunt. Whoops!

We could head on in and see if anyone is home. However, if we approach the side of the house we'll trigger...

I am the Ring Soul... The will of the Judgment Ring, the administrator of all fate. .....Right?

Tsk!

Now you're clucking your tongue?!

I'm just trying to help you remember your lines.

Here!

I suppose we can have Karin join in the four-hit combo club now. Neat.

Where's the poetry? The romance?!

Put some feeling into!

I'll appear again to give you more power, and I'm watching to see if...

Hey, hey! Come on!

Get serious!

...you're truly the one to command destiny. Okay, bye!

Ring Soul vanishes.

Look, Ring Soul was out with the boys late last night and he's dragging this morning. Give the poor guy a break. You can't be on the ball every day of the week.

Anyway, let's head inside and see if Roger Bacon is around. Or rather, confirm he's been kidnapped since that was literally one of the first events on starting the game.

Since when were you a magician?
Of course I am. How do you think Cornelia gets animated?
I try not to think about that creepy doll if I can help it.
She is NOT creepy!
...You can keep saying that. It ain't gonna make it true.

I was always worried his old house would turn into a big robot or something.
What is a robot...?
I dunno. Which made me all the more worried about it.

What on earth is a "comic book"?
It's cute you think this guy reads anything.
I was talking to you.

Yuri runs upstairs.

It was a pain in the rear end getting here. You better not have teleported yourself to the moon again or something, you old geezer!
...Again?

There's no sign of Roger or anything of interest upstairs. We can do a smidgen of choice looting back downstairs though.

There's a Lottery Ticket hidden on a table at the southern end of the house. Which sense considering last we saw Roger Bacon was president of the lottery committee. Come to think of it, I wonder if Joachim knows his brother was vice president of a secret continent-spanning lottery cabal.

In the back of the house, we can find another Crest. This one comes packed with all kinds of Special ability-based buffs.

It looks like Roger's vending machine survived the move to his new digs. Unfortunately, it is a bit busted at the moment. Or maybe it's containing the spirit of some malevolent entity? I'm not quite certain while it's bound in mid-air like something you'd find in a hidden burial chamber in the back of a forbidden tomb.

There's also a save point back here and you know what? You're flush enough with Soul Energy to go unlock another upgraded Fusion for Yuri.

I reckon we should get Yuri a proper Dark Fusion. After having Death Emperor, Czernobog and Amon in the past, the current incarnation of a goth clown with a skin condition is kind of sad.

It was really embarrassing having despair left exposed like that. I'm glad it's been sorted out.

That's more like it for a Dark elemental Fusion. Orexis gains a stat boost of:

Strength +6
Vitality +6
Agility +6
Intelligence +1
Power +8
Luck +5

Not too shabby at all.

Orexis also retains its predecessor's Surge and Hell's Eye attacks. But it can now potentially learn:

Mind Assault: 1 MP. Steals a small amount of MP. Gotta spend manna to make mana. Or just have whoever is on support use a consumable.
Dark Claw: 35 MP. Single target Dark elemental attack. Par for the course for these Level 2 Fusions.

Music: Spiritualization ~ Holy Land of God

Welp. Looks like Roger Bacon isn't home. Since he got kidnapped by Lenny about nine in-game hours ago and all. All we can do now is head on out.

Maybe he went for a walk...?

Yeah, maybe.

Not like there's a lot to do in Wales if you're not interested in punching ghosts.

The party exits Roger's home.

Tough luck for you!