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Welcome! Trouble's brewing again in Dream Land, and it's up to Kirby to… no, wait, wrong franchise and wrong dream world, THAT Dream Land isn't even an isekai! Instead, let's talk about That Time I Woke Up In Dream World: Let's Play Atelier Sophie 2! The girl in the front looks awfully familiar. Don't tell me… That is, in fact, Sophie Neuenmuller, starring once more in Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream (PS4/Switch/PC)! This, the 23rd entry in the long-running Atelier series, got a worldwide release in February 2022—the first ever for an Atelier game! This series has made it!  In fall 2021, multiple years after the Mysterious trilogy concluded with Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings, I certainly wasn't expecting Gust to revisit the Mysterious setting, much less that Sophie would star in another game like Ryza did. Where Atelier Ryza 2 was released right after Ryza's first game as a direct sequel set four years after the events therein, Atelier Sophie 2 is set shortly before the events of Atelier Firis and longer yet before the events of Atelier Lydie & Suelle.  Where most Atelier games have multiple endings, Sophie's first game has just the one wherein she leaves her hometown with her good friend and mentor Plachta, setting out to follow her late grandmother's footsteps by taking the Alchemist Certification Exam in a distant burg. Sophie 2 happens when the duo get isekai'd somewhere along the way and arrive in Erde Wiege, a dream world where no one ages and everyone has indefinite time to pursue their dreams and ambitions before they return to the real world, whatever locale and era they hail from. What twists does Sophie 2 take with the Atelier formula? How are you going to cover the game? Like with most Atelier titles from Shallie onward, Sophie 2 has no time limit to speak of. Having come out after the first two Ryza games, the game's exploring and gathering will look very familiar to anyone who played either. At the same time, it makes a (welcome, imo) return to the series' traditional turn-based combat, with a frontline and a rear guard like several of the other pre-Ryza titles. For crafting and combat, the game starts off with a returning Atelier protagonist with all the combat prowess and alchemic skill she had at the end of her home game, and that has implications for the combat and alchemy in a second game starring her. Still, when it comes to how the game does alchemy, there's a curveball waiting in the wings and we'll cross that bridge when we get there. The game's story is short and sweet, but it has a very deep and addictive crafting system that gets the player to spend an inordinate amount of time optimizing bombs and weapons and you are going to love it and want to do it. I'll be sure to cover the ins and outs of what makes this game's crafting special, as well as the obligatory character arcs start to finish. Luckily for me, Sophie 2 has a very small and focused cast of named characters, especially compared to your baseline Atelier game. Hell, Ryza 3 in early 2023 has more party members alone than Sophie 2 has named characters! I suppose that comes with the territory of having a much more star-studded VO cast than your baseline Atelier game too. So this game is set between Sophie 1 and Firis/L&S? How will you handle spoilers? The Mysterious trilogy concluded in 2018, so we're talking about three games that have been out for 4+ years and an eternity in COVID time by now. Talking about what happens in the OG Mysterious trilogy without spoiler tags is fair game in this thread. There's absolutely nothing, not a single thing in Firis or Lydie & Suelle that so much as hints at the existence of a dream world isekai in the Mysterious trilogy's setting, let alone anything that would seriously spoil plot beats or character arcs for this game. That having been said, Sophie 2 touches on the cast of Sophie 1 and some major plot beats in Sophie 1 within the first 30 minutes or so of playtime, so if you haven't played Sophie 1 but are interested in it and really don't want to be spoiled on anything pertaining to that game, I'd advise you against following this LP. As for this game, its place in the Mysterious timeline means there's only one possible way it can end: after some time and somehow, Sophie and Plachta leave the isekai and return to their travels in the real world. They then go to an isolated mining town where Sophie meets Firis and takes her in as her apprentice, Sophie passes the certification exam like her grandmother before her, and some years after that, they arrive in the city where Lydie and Suelle live, and it's there that Sophie and Plachta's storyline finally comes to a conclusion. (I'd know a thing or two about that.) Now, as for that somehow and what elapses during that some time? I think it's produced the best Atelier game in a generation, and that's what I'd like for you to keep mum about or talk about in spoiler tags if you really need to talk about it. Well, with one exception: that lady behind Sophie who looks a hell of a lot like her? Anyone with a pulse can put two and two together and figure out that they're related, and I won't begrudge anyone talking about who she is or what her relation to Sophie is before her actual introduction. Other Atelier Mysterious trilogy SSLPs A19: Atelier Lydie & Suelle Other Atelier/Gust game SSLPs you may enjoy A6: Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana by Overrated Sage A7: Atelier Iris 2 by Feinne A9: Mana Khemia by Feinne A11, A12 and A13: Atelier Arland Trilogy by Sylphid A14: Atelier Ayesha by Sylphid A15: Atelier Escha & Logy by Sylphid A16: Atelier Shallie by Sylphid and Atelier Shallie DX by yours truly A20: Atelier Lulua by Sylphid Ar Tonelico by Feinne Ar Tonelico 2 by Feinne Ar Tonelico Qoga by Feinne Table of Contents Part 1: The World of Dreams Part 2: Dreams of Another "Her" Part 3: Dreams of the Sun and Rain Part 4: Dreams of the Sea and Sky Part 5: The Goddess of Dreams Bonus Update 1 Part 6: Dreams and Aspirations Part 7: Dreams of a Snowbound Land Part 8: Dreams and Purpose (I) Part 9: Dreams and Purpose (II) Part 10: Nightmares and Resentment Bonus Update 2 Part 11: Nightmares and Regrets Part 12: Dreams of Scorching Lava Part 13: Dreams of Raging Thunder Part 14: Dreams in Crisis Part 15: Dreams of a Golden Land Bonus Update 3 Part 16: A Dream Distorted Part 17: Dreams United (I) Part 18: Dreams United (II) Part 19: The Goddess's Dream Part 20: A Dream Everlasting Bonus Update 4 Epilogue: To A Mysterious Journey Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jan 23, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2022 18:31
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In the spirit of an Atelier SSLP with bombs galore... Forums poster megane made this:  Forums poster Odd Wilson made this:  Can you spot them during the course of the LP? Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Oct 1, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 18:31
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Part 1: The World of Dreams Taboo Music: A Familiar Scent              Well that certainly doesn’t sound like it has any implications for the events of the game. Stepping away from this girl’s monologue on whatever taboo she broke to meet her special someone, let us cut away to the title character…  The Dream Tree and the Dream World Music: Snow Melting in Your Palm  Wow! Look at that! Plachta, look how big it is! Indeed, Sophie. It’s certainly impressive, isn’t it?  But it doesn’t look alive…Is it the same tree as the one you saw in your dream? Not quite. The tree I saw was more … Well … Vibrant. Hmm … If only Oskar was here. Just where on earth did he get to? Heh. He must have left to follow the voices of the plants he heard somewhere.Oskar being Sophie’s tubby childhood friend and one of the initial party members in her home game. Sophie and Plachta will eventually reunite with a very skinny Oskar during the events of Atelier Firis. That does sound like him. Hey, let’s take a look a little closer. Yes, we might be able to learn something.   Music: So Much Fun          Music: The Truth’s Key Whoa … It looks even bigger up close! We’ve travelled around a lot, but this has to be the biggest tree I’ve ever seen! So it is. I wonder why did this tree appear in my dream … It’s pretty strange. Did you learn the way here from the dream as well? I must have. Otherwise, I don’t think we would ever have found this place, buried so deep in the forest… It’s like my dream was leading me here … I wonder if I’ve been here before? Plachta? It’s nothing. Shall we look around some more?Before they can look around more…   What–?! Plachta!   Music: Headwind Nnngh! At this rate– No way! … It’ll be okay! … I’m going to save you!  Just like that, it’s like Sophie and Plachta were never here!   Hey, that voice sounds familiar. From the beginning of this update…  Avant Opening Music: Syndetos - Suzuyu And with that, the opening sequence rolls!  That looks like the very same tree where Sophie and Plachta got isekai’d…  …Even if it very clearly isn’t the same location. And with no Plachta in sight.   Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Ngh… Plach … ta … *fade to black*When Sophie comes to, she finds herself in…  Huh? Where am I? Music: Jumping With Joy Oh, good! You’re finally awake? Pirka! She’s awake! Pirka is dressed very similarly to Corneria from Sophie 1 and L&S. That’s a neon-flashing hint as to her in-game function. I’m okay … I … Where am I? I found you passed out on the ground. Pirka and I carried you back here. Passed out? I think … I was in a forest … That’s right! Plachta! Was there anyone else with me when you found me?! Was there? No, just her. Oh no … I’ve got to look for her! Um, thank you for helping me! But I have to get going now! Just where do you plan on going? You don’t know anything about this world yet, do you? This world?It’s obvious to us that Sophie got isekai’d, but from her perspective, she found herself here in a totally normal shop with two totally normal people. She can’t be expected to know what’s befallen her yet. Aha, just like I thought … I haven’t seen you around here before. How about you, Alette? No, never. Err, what do you mean by “this world”?I think I’d react the same way if I learned I got ethered into Not Earth, too. This should all have been explained to you before you came … Wasn’t it? Not only did she get isekai’d, but she’s apparently the only one in this world who isn’t in on it. No wonder she’s even more confused. Well, it’s not so easy to understand out of the blue. Let’s start at the beginning. I know it’s a little belated, but let me introduce myself. I’m Pirka, the owner of this store. And I’m Alette Claretie, a merchant and procurer of fine goods. If there’s anything you ever need, all you’ve got to do is ask! I-I’m Sophie Neuenmuller. I’m on a journey with Plachta … Is this Plachta the person you’re looking for? Yes … I’ve got to find her right away! Now, now. Calm down. You’re right. Sophie, if you’re feeling up for it, how about we head outside? Music: When The Sun Comes Out Let it not be said that Sophie doesn’t like what she’s seeing here.   What is this place? I knew it. Sophie, you haven’t met Elvira, have you? Elvira? Who’s that?To be fair to Sophie, it’s not like that girl who told her “Welcome to my land of dreams!” gave a name before dumping her off. How strange. Elvira should have explained everything to you before you arrived here … Err … Umm … Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to confuse you. This may seem a little sudden, but do you believe in other worlds?I always figured that getting isekai’d would be an insanity-inducing experience; psychosis feels like a natural outcome of getting whisked away from everyone and everything you know and ending up in a fantasy world.  This is Erde Wiege, the Land of Dreams. Right now, we’re in Roytale, the town where everyone who comes to this world lives. Um … This is a joke, right? This place just looks like an ordinary town.Though in Sophie’s case, she's from medieval fantasy Germany and got isekai'd to another world that looks exactly like medieval fantasy Germany, so the contrast is probably less jarring for her than it would be for someone who came from modern Japan or whatever. Ahaha. Well, I guess it doesn’t look very extraordinary around here. (It doesn't really seem like Pirka and Alette are lying to me … Not to mention that vortex … That was definitely not normal. … Could this really be another world? But then where is Plachta?) Speaking of which. How did you get here, Sophie? How … I don’t really know myself. There was a giant tree deep in the forest, but when we got near it … this huge vortex appeared and sucked us up. A giant tree and a vortex … I don’t know anything about a vortex, but do you think she means the Dream Tree? Very likely. And considering where we found Sophie, that must be it. Where you found me … Please, take me there! Plachta might still be somewhere nearby! All right. I didn’t see anyone else, but perhaps with the three of us … Ah, but first, I should give you this. A map? Take it. You’ll feel a lot better with something to help you get your bearings. Thank you, Miss Alette!Music: Searching You don’t need to “Miss” me. Alette is fine. Really? Well, thank you, Alette. Now, set course for the Dream Tree, double time! Yay! Y-yay … Lead the way! Music: Somewhere In Between Sophie came to in Pirka’s shop, so makes sense that once we’re finally in control, it’s in the Commercial District. Anyway, that blue door in the southwest corner is where we should be headed.   Music: Kerria Yamabuki Still thinking about how it doesn’t look much different from your normal world? Yeah … I mean, everyone just looks like normal people. That’s because we are. Everyone here came from the same world you did. Huh? Really? Really-really. The dreams we see when we’re asleep are called “dream visions” in this world. Elvira uses our dream visions to see the dreams we deeply wish would come true. If she takes a particular interest in a dream, she will lead its owner to Erde Wiege. She has countless dream visions to search through, so we’re all lucky to be chosen. Besides, this world is kind of unique. No matter how much time passes, none of us grow old. For those with personal goals, this place really is a dream world. How’s that? Feeling more informed? Haha. Just try to understand what you can. In any case, let’s head to the Dream Tree first. It’s the Residential District, but there’s still plenty of street stalls about. I guess Roytale doesn’t have particularly anal zoning ordinances.  One steep climb later…  That tree! Have you seen it before? Yes! It was this exact one! I was looking at it with Plachta!  No answer … Let’s search for her! Between the three of us, we’re bound to find something! You’re right. She might have lost consciousness somewhere, just like Sophie. Thank you … both of you. Music: Casting Shadows You can probably tell from the sound of this track how well the search went. No luck … Maybe someone has already taken her in? I’d like to think so, but … We call it the Dream Tree. It is said that the Dream Goddess Elvira resides near this tree. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t have a clue. Nobody has ever seen Elvira on this side. This side? Everyone speaks with her once, just before coming to this world. Although it’s a little hard to see her clearly. She’s like a vague figure shrouded in light. Aside from that, Elvira never appears in front of humans, so none of us have seen her properly. But there’s no questioning her goddess powers! A goddess of dreams, huh? But I never met this goddess … And neither of you fell into a vortex? That part is strange. I’ve never heard of that before. I guess you probably can’t just take our word for all this other world stuff, huh … But I don’t really think either of you are lying to me … Besides, there wasn’t any town or altar nearby the giant tree we saw … But this tree is definitely the same one. … So, I guess I kind of do believe you … Haha, I’m glad you’re willing to trust us, even a little. If this really is a different world, it’s even more important to find Plachta right away. How about we try asking some of the people in town? Someone might have found her and taken her to Roytale, like we did for you. Sorry, I need to get back to my store. But I’ll be sure to ask my customers as well. I’ll let you know right away if I hear anything. Got it. All right, Sophie, let’s go! Going back to town…  Music: Brandished Blade Oh no. Here comes a headache. Huh? What do you mean? Hey, if it isn’t Alette! Don’t usually see you around here. I needed to visit the Dream Tree. Why? Planning to climb it? Of course not! Stop talking like I’m a little kid! Hahaha, my bad. With how you act, I forget sometimes. Is that supposed to make it any better?! Sheesh. Um … Huh? Ain’t seen you around here before. A newbie? Yeah, this is Sophie. She just arrived, but it seems like she never met Elvira on the way. Seriously? That happens? Huh. Sophie, was it? I’m Olias Enders. I’m the world’s strongest super bodyguard! If you ever need saving, just call my name. You won’t regret it. I know he looks like a palette swapped Mathias from L&S, but he’s actually a very different character! You’ll see as the game goes on. The world’s strongest … super bodyguard? Just ignore his spiel. More importantly … Olias, have you heard of someone called Plachta? Plachta? She’s family to me. We were sucked in by a vortex together, so she’s probably come this way! Well, dunno if she’s your family, but if it’s Plachta the alchemist, I’ve heard of her. Wait, really?! Sure. Showed up recently, and she’s been cooped up researching in her atelier ever since. I’ve seen her drop by Kati’s place for dinner a couple times, though. Ain’t that right, Alette? You know, the one with white hair and a tail? Some kinda accessories that look like ears?White hair and a tail? That fits the profile alright Aha … hahaha… SHE’S Plachta? Guess I never caught her name … Really, you … It’s not my fault! People come and go all the time, I’m not gonna remember everyone! People leave? So there’s a way to get back to the world we came from? Sure. The moment you achieve your heart’s desire, you’ll be sent right back home. I guess this all is pretty crazy if you don’t get a proper explanation in the beginning … That was not nice of our lady goddess.So everyone in Erde Wiege is here by choice, Sophie aside. They all agreed to come, have all the time in the world to pursue their goal, and can leave at will. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal as far as isekai settings go. Sophie and Plachta’s deal aside. So how do I get home if I’ve never even met Elvira? Huh … Don’t ask me. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. Whatever’s going on, you must be something pretty special. I never asked to be special … Anyhow, first we gotta find Plachta. You two just follow me, and I’ll take you to her. Really? Thank you, Olias! How lucky! You’ll get to see your friend again soon. Yeah, I never thought we’d find her so quickly. It’s a huge relief. (Plus, I thought Plachta couldn’t do alchemy anymore. I wonder what’s changed?)Well, that key piece of information aside, Olias is going to take the gang to Plachta. Half an hour in and Sophie’s already gonna be reunited with her and all’s well that ends well, right? Right? Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 24, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 18:32
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Part 2: Dreams of Another "Her" Reminiscing of Kirchen Bell Music: One More Time! (From Let’s Try It!) This place is always so quiet. Hardly anyone ever comes here. Hardly anyone’s got a reason to. Nothin’ but old ruins around these parts. I like the peace and quiet. It’s just like being back in Kirchen Bell … Kirchen Bell? Where’s that? It’s my hometown!    Hate to wake you, but we’re almost there. Look, you can see the atelier now. Oh! Right, of course. Let’s go see Plachta!After this, the game dumps a bunch of info cards on Sophie 1’s cast on us. First…  Sophie starts the game off at Adventurer Lv 20 and Alchemy Lv 50, the maximum Adventurer and Alchemy level in Sophie 1 respectively. 200 Cole is a pittance; poor girl lost all her money in that vortex.  …But he’s very clearly not appearing in this game.  L&S takes place in Merveille, the capital of Adalet (spelled in that game with one T). By then, Julio is the captain of the royal knights and gets to beat the prince’s rear end in training every day.  This is to the end of reaching the ear of her missing father. Eventually, she hears that he’s living somewhere near Adalet; you can read the last chapter updates of the L&S LP if you want to know how this plotline ends. Speaking of, Corneria says there that Sophie has not returned to Kirchen Bell once in the intervening years between Sophie 1 and L&S, much to Monika’s consternation.  Atelier Plachta Music: Take It Easy Wow! It’s a proper alchemist’s workshop! Huh? Wait a minute, isn’t this place …?Olias knocks, and…  Eh? That voice …That voice indeed. It’s unmistakably Plachta’s voice, and yet, it doesn’t quite sound like the Plachta Sophie knows. C’mon, don’t keep her waiting. … This is … Plachta’s atelier … wait, hold up  This definitely isn’t the Plachta we know! Uhm … Isn’t this supposed to be Plachta’s atelier? Um … You are…? Music: Thread of Dreams  She seems none too happy at the moment, but hey, I’d also be at least a little bit annoyed if I were in her shoes. Fun fact: the other Plachta has a tail to help her doll body balance itself. This one just…has one, despite still being human. Is it a wrong Plachta? W-well, yes … She definitely isn’t the Plachta I’m looking for, but … But for some reason, I also don’t feel like we’ve got entirely the wrong person … How many times do I have to tell you that I AM Plachta? If you don’t actually need anything, could you please leave? I need to get back to my research … Ah! Sorry! I’m Sophie Neuenmuller. I’m an alchemist, just like you! I’m looking for someone called Plachta. We only just came here, but we got separated … Plachta? … And you are an alchemist? Can you tell me more?This other Plachta needs a nice, lengthy explanation. Once Sophie obliges… … I see. So you somehow came to Erde Wiege without meeting Elvira. That’s right … I don’t want to think about what could have happened if Alette hadn’t found me. And you do not seem to be lying about this Plachta person …Naturally. Atelier protagonists are, to a woman, very earnest and terrible at lying.  Huh? Why do you doubt me being an alchemist? That should be obvious. Alchemy isn’t a trade that just anyone can master. It demands skill, natural talent, and the curiosity to constantly pursue new creations! … That true? How should I know?!This Plachta’s right. In the Mysterious series’ world, alchemy is an ability you either have at birth or don’t. Fast forwarding to L&S, it’s one that a good chunk of the cast can do while others, like Mathias, can’t learn it no matter how much time others spend trying to teach them. And the setting does have scammers pretending to be alchemists, like one in L&S who tries putting grass in water and calling it medicine. It’s also something you have to be human to do, hence why Doll Plachta can’t synthesize. She was still eminently capable of getting Sophie up to speed, though. You call yourself an alchemist, but you have shown me nothing to prove your claim. W-well, that’s because almost all my things got lost in the vortex … But I’m not lying! I really am an alchemist!Well hey, can’t just start Sophie off with all the broken endgame bombs and equipment she had from her home game, right? Then how about this? You can use the tools in my atelier to synthesize something. If you succeed, I will accept your alchemy credentials. You want me to do it now? I really need to be looking for Plachta … Really? You mean it? You need somewhere to stay, don’t you? I think it’s a rather generous deal. What do you want to do, Sophie? … All right. It’s a deal. It’ll be much easier to look for Plachta if I have an atelier to work in. I’ll be right back once I’ve gotten everything I need! I recommend the grasslands just outside of town. They’re ideal for gathering. Mind if I help out? It’ll be way quicker with the two of us. Wouldn’t exactly be heroic of me to let the new kid wander off unsupervised now, would it? Count yourself lucky! The world’s best bodyguard has your back–and he’ll do it for free! Really? Thank you both! I’m counting on you!  Music: Nice to Meet You! As you can tell, Alette is a martial artist of the kick and flip variety.   Meanwhile Olias has a rifle equipped with a sword, which he’s swinging around here. Yes, I know he didn’t shoot; think of it this way, he has the good sense to not blast a hole in Plachta’s roof.  And before we go gathering, it would be prudent to hit the save button–after 40 minutes of gameplay, I can finally do that!  We take this shortcut back to the Commercial District and from there, we venture into the grasslands Plachta recommended.  Wondrous field Wow, look at all these herbs! I’ve never even read about some of them, let alone seen them! Starting to believe this isn’t the world you know? Hehe, a little. Right, time to get gathering! Hm? Hold on a minute, Sophie. See that? That’s it? This’ll be a cakewalk. A m-m-monster? Elvira brings monsters here too?! She doesn’t have anything to do with it. These monsters are born here. See, Erde Wiege is built from people’s dream visions. And, obviously, people dream about monsters. So they’ve been part of this world since the start.Checks out. I mean in real life, we dream about all sorts of hosed up poo poo, don't we? Still, Puni and rabbits are pretty pedestrian for Atelier monsters. I see. I guess we’ll have to fight for some of our materials, then. Doesn’t seem to scare you much. Guess some alchemists must do their share of fightin’. So it seems … Not that I’m complaining or anything. Those monsters won’t know what hit them! So what do you actually want us to look for? I was thinking of making cloth, so … silver web, rabbit fur, and any plants you can find … Alright! Let’s get gathering!And we can get the rabbit fur by killing that rabbit, so…  Music: Warbler Well, well, well! Think you’re a match for us, do you? Don’t just jump in and start swingin’! You gotta use your brain! When there’s this many of them, we gotta try and take them out one by one. Got it! Let’s do this! Yay, we got one! Great! Keep it up, and we’ll wipe the floor with them in no ti– Alette! Look out! I think you made ‘em angry! Here’s a nice QoL improvement, we can see who the enemies are going to aggro now by pressing the R button! And in this case, just as Olias said… Eek! You’re right! Wh-wh-what do I do?! It’s all right! Just focus on defending yourself!  The game wants us to use Sophie’s AoE defensive buff…  (In practice, you’re probably not going to be using the solo block option much, if at all. But for extended tutorial’s sake…)  Whew … My life just flashed before my eyes …girl that did like 5% of your max HP in damage drat it, they just keep on comin’! There’s gotta be a way to knock ‘em down quick … That sounds like a job for me!   You know, we probably could have finished this battle immediately if the game had just let us chuck the Craft off the bat.  Music: Winning Streak You know, you’re pretty good in a scrap. You really sure you’re an alchemist? Hehe. Gathering materials can get dangerous, you know. We have to protect ourselves somehow! There’s no way you got this good just from picking herbs. Maybe alchemists are all like this … If you mean who I think you mean, I always figured she was a special case … but who knows?Looking at the rest of the series? Not really. Don’t gently caress with alchemists, especially ones that have a game’s worth of experience under their belt. Ehehe, I’m not sure. My grandmother and Plachta are the only other alchemists I really know …  Music: Radiant Dew Needless to say, the rabbit dropped some fur for us. For Cloth, we’ll get our grass here.  …and our last ingredient for Cloth is Spider Web. Got everything you needed? Yep! And in record time, thanks to you two. Let’s head back to Plachta! Two Plachtas  Welcome back. You’ll find the cauldron over there. Thanks! Time to start synthesizing! Music: Sunny Piacere Like with the rest of the Mysterious games, each ingredient has an array of 3x3 components of five elements. Like with L&S in particular, you get better effects by hitting higher thresholds with each element.  We start off with a 5x5 grid to play with. If these components all just go on the blank tiles, we’ll hit the thresholds for DEF+3 and SPD+3.  Like with L&S, you get an extra effect level when you place a component on a tile whose color matches it.   And like with Sophie 1 and Firis, if you place one component on top of another, the bottom one gets nullified. Space allowing, you can rotate components so that… doesn’t happen. Anyway, after doing that with this component…  You might have noticed some of the components have one or more stars. In addition to hitting higher effect levels by linking stars of the same element together…  …This also increases the element’s max effect level for the synthesis. In this case, it lets us max out the Light effect level.  You do this by fully filling out rows and columns on the synthesis panel.  Voila! And we can transfer three traits of our choosing right out the gate. Trait transfer isn’t gatekept behind alchemy level like in L&S, nor is it an effect you have to try and hit like in the Ryza games. Nor do I have to worry about Transfer Points like in the Arland games and latter two Dusk games.    Um, yep. Yep, I think so.You figure alchemy requires intense concentration and attention to detail, and Sophie is pretty good at committing both despite Alette breathing down her neck. Plachta, we’re done! Come and take a look!  Uh-oh. She looks like she just swallowed a bug. Oh … Is the quality maybe too low? … No. No, there’s nothing wrong with it. The materials around town aren’t of particularly high quality, so I wasn’t expecting perfection. Honestly, I’m impressed you managed to work with them at all. In someone else’s cauldron, no less. Come to think of it, you did say you’d never even seen some of the herbs before. Yeah, I guess I got lucky. I tried using it, and it worked out just like I’d hoped! You have proven yourself an alchemist–and a far more skilled one than I expected, at that. I apologize for not believing you sooner. There’s nothing to apologize for. I couldn’t expect you to believe me without any proof. Thank you for understanding. As I promised, my atelier is yours to use as you wish. Looks like you’ve gotten on her good side. Yahoo! You did it, Sophie! Thanks, you guys! I couldn’t have done it without you! Oh, that’s right. About this Plachta you’re searching for … You said that the two of us are alike somehow? Yeah. I’m not sure if I can explain it very well, but you feel very similar. I have a theory about that. If I’m right … Huh?! What?! But how is that possible? You see, Erde Wiege summons its inhabitants from across space AND time. Wait, what?! Alette … Don’t tell me you ain’t told her … What, you expect me to explain every little thing? Here, you can encounter people not only people from what you would consider the past, but also people from what you would call the future. So, you see, it might be possible for there to be two of us, but only if … Exactly. My theory is that the Plachta you’re searching for is my future self.Well, that would explain why Plachta seemed to be drawn to the Dream Tree back in the real world. If this Plachta is any indication, she was, in fact, in Erde Wiege as a youth. Still, why didn’t she say so? It happened half a millennium ago for her, but you’d figure this experience would be unforgettable, right? You sure that’s possible? Even I ain’t heard of anyone doubling up like that. That’s why it’s only a theory. For now, we’re lacking in proof. Although by the same token, we can’t say it’s false either. And the only way to prove it one way or another is … To find Sophie’s Plachta! Indeed. What a curious state of affairs … If nothing else, I would like to see if I’m correct, so we definitely should look for the Plachta Sophie is searching for. Yeah … But there isn’t much we can do but go around asking if anyone has seen her … If you’re looking for new leads, might I suggest visiting the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion? Oh, good call. Kati might have heard something while we’ve been out. What’s the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion? And who’s Kati? One of Roytale’s old guards. She knows everything about everyone. If you can catch her while she’s awake, anyway … We should get going. We can find the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion in the Commercial District. From the direction of Plachta’s atelier, the tavern is right around the corner.  The Proprietress and the Other Ramizel Music: A Serving of Rest  It’s definitely a bustling establishment, but then again it’s the only tavern we know of in town.  Behind the counter is our proprietress, Kati.  Welcome! Oh? It’s unusual to see the three of you together. Hey there, Gnome. Yeah, it’s been a weird day. Be that as it may … Kati, there’s something we hoped you could help us with. Is there now? And who’s that girl behind you? Oh, right! I’m Sophie! Nice to meet you! This is actually about her. I’m afraid it’s a little complicated, but here’s the general gist …tl;dr Sophie didn’t come here the usual way and her friend is missing  Music: Painted Emotions I see … And now you’re stranded here. That must have been hard … I’m all right, Miss … Um … Oh, how silly of me. I forgot to introduce myself. Ahem! I’m Katrina Balbastre, the proprietress of the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion. But you can call me Kati. Everyone does. And I’m Gnome Dumortier. I just help Miss Kati out around the tavern. Though we all know he’s the one who really runs the place … You should also know that Kati is effectively Roytale’s unofficial deputy mayor. I thought that if anyone would be able to help us, it would be her. However … This time, I’m afraid I’m clueless. I’ve never heard of this other Plachta person. If you’re out of options, it might be easiest just to ask Elvira herself. You mean the Goddess of Dreams? But I thought she didn’t show herself to people … Not usually, no. However, there is one person who knows how to find her. The first person to meet Elvira and the leader of Roytale– Oh, the leader of this town is named Ramizel? … No. There is no way …I mean, we already know there’s a young Plachta from, relative to Sophie’s time, the very distant past here. The Ramizel here being a younger version of Sophie’s grandmother wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility. How many Ramizels have there ever been in the Mysterious world, anyway? Hm? Is something wrong? Eh? Oh, no, nothing! So where can we find her? That’s the tricky part. She’s out of town right now, taking care of some business. Do you have any idea when she will be back? Unfortunately not, but I can find out where she’s gone. I guess we can show you around Roytale while we wait … Are you sure you’ll have time, Alette? … Huh?  Music: Bam! So you really had forgotten … And here I thought I told you it was urgent … Well, I suppose I can’t really blame you, given that you were off helping Sophie … I’m sorry, all right! I’ll do it! Just don’t get mad! Um … What kind of request is this? This tavern has a noticeboard set up where the townspeople can post requests. They write down the details and the reward on offer, and anyone who sees one can take it on. For example, I needed materials from a particular monster, so I asked Alette to fetch them for me. Gust-chan cameo sighted You mean it? Of course! You’ve done nothing but help me out since I got here. I have to return the favor. Let me join you as well. I would like to contribute however I can. Thank you both so much! Alchemists have gotta be the kindest people in the world! Sorry, but I’ve got my own jobs to see to. Later!  drat, Olias ditched us the moment were about to do Alette a solid Well, who needed you anyway?! Blockhead! Cheapskate! Shall we start over from the beginning? It might be helpful for Sophie to see how everything works. That way she’ll be able to take on her own requests whenever she wants. Good idea. Are you listening, Sophie? First, you look for requests on the noticeboard …  She has a giant robot arm that punches and shoots things for her? Alchemy 500 years ago must have been some real good poo poo!  So yeah, Kati’s ingame function is as the questmaster, like Lisa, Keina and Lionela in Lulua or Zephine in Ryza 2 or Horst from Sophie 1. And it is kind of our fault that Alette’s found herself in this time crunch, so it’s the least we can do to take her job on for her. Now it’s officially yours to turn in. See, that wasn’t so hard! The request details are all written down on the application form in case you ever need a reminder. Since it’s your first time, I’ve also noted down where those monsters can be found. Got it. We’ll be back before you know it!And now that we’re back in the field and I can actually gather…  Like in the Ryza games, gathering ranks have been implemented! Higher gathering ranks lets you find new materials. For whacking things with staves or picking things from the ground, you raise your gathering rank by investing Sophie’s Ability Points, which you get by leveling up in combat or fulfilling various other goals.  For every other means of gathering, you craft a tool for which you hit a particular effect threshold for Rank 2 or 3 gathering. Like with a sickle, which I don’t have yet, so no harvesting wheat for Sophie.  These floating stones enable fast travel to particular parts of field zones. I have not yet unlocked fast travel, so I can’t use these yet. Anyway, our target is in the next area, so moving on…  Combat 101 Hey, isn’t that what we’re looking for? All right, buster, say your praye– Hold on a moment, Alette. Let’s come up with a plan before we go charging in. I think we should make use of our numerical advantage and fight as a team. A team, huh? I like the sound of that! She keeps cool under pressure, just like Plachta … All right, let’s do this together! Music: Whisp Now it is time to show off our teamwork. And one of these special commands is having someone in the rear switch places with whoever’s getting aggro’d and take the hit. Where in the OG Mysterious games you could only have someone else in the front line take the hit for the protagonist(s), Sophie 2 lets you do this for anyone. Well, so long as you have enough TP and someone in the rear guard.  Thanks, Plachta! I was nearly toast! That sure looked like it hurt, though … I’m perfectly fine .. Although I would prefer not to take many more hits like that. Next, let’s try out a combo attack! I agree. Listen carefully, you two. Here’s what we do …Pressing L lets us pick a rear guard partner for a Twin Action, and…     And Sophie and Alette swap places, though the battle’s already over. Twin Actions are some good poo poo–they do more damage than normal AND they have reduced MP usage! Anyway, most combat in this game revolves around Twin Actions and another soon-to-be-introduced mechanic.  That was awesome! We were totally in sync! You can always trust Plachta to come up with a plan! Hehe … Anyway, it seems we have what we need. We ought to report back to Kati.   I’ll take the time to note that stats are ridiculously high across the board in Sophie 2. At level 20, Sophie in this game has much higher stats than she does in L&S, where she joins at level 25 and storywise is described as quite possibly the most powerful alchemist alive. And this is without any gear to really juice up her stats! By endgame, it won’t be outlandish for some party members to break 1000 in certain stats. Anyway, Equipment Cost: we don’t have any items yet and had no time to synthesize any before coming out here, but as with Sophie 1, each party member has their own inventory. Each item has an Equipment Cost value attached to it. You can tell from the numbers here that Alette can only carry a very limited inventory while our alchemists can carry and use four items of my choosing. Certain items also are only usable by alchemists and can’t be equipped by the others even if their Equipment Cost allows for it. Now, back to town…  Whereabouts This looks like everything I asked for. Good work, you three. With Sophie and Plachta helping, it was no trouble at all! Perhaps we finished a little TOO quickly … Should we give you some more time to look into things? Ha! Don’t forget, I’m the best in the business. Go on, Gnome, tell them what we’ve learned. We have found out where Ramizel must be. She went into Near-Forest. For Sophie’s benefit, that’s the forest beyond the grasslands just outside town. I’m afraid we couldn’t find out what she’s doing out there. I hope a map of the area will make up for it. Thank you, but I think Alette has already given me a map … An old one, I’ll bet. This one’s hot off the presses. That means we have to regularly update all our maps. This version just came out yesterday. Anyway, Near-Forest isn’t far, but it still has its fair share of monsters, so take care.  Crucially, this means I can now fast-travel!   But before we do any further exploring, it would help to craft some items.    Oh, right, for Atelier’s 25th anniversary, Gust and Bandai Namco did a collab between Sophie 2 and Tales of Arise. We have three party members and three accessories, so who do folks want to get what? Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Nov 27, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 18:39
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:
Looks like you've got a portrait mixed up here, I imagine that's supposed to be Alette and not Olias 
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Sep 10, 2022 19:40
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Odd Wilson posted:Looks like you've got a portrait mixed up here, I imagine that's supposed to be Alette and not Olias dammit, you're right  thanks for spotting, made the correction!
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Sep 10, 2022 20:02
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:dammit, you're right I always appreciate it when folks point it out for me, so I'm just doing the same  I don't know a lot about the Mysterious Ateliers (outside watching like a half of a L&S playthrough offsite too long ago to remember much), so I don't really think I can add much to the discussion myself, but I'll be here!
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Sep 10, 2022 20:46
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As someone who does, definitely listen to Whisp and Warbler, they are both really, really good. Warbler in particular sounds like something out of the first zone of a modern Sonic game. Anyway, I think it says a lot about this game in particular that this was one of the few Atelier games I had to force myself to put down, and only because it was further screwing up my already screwed up sleep schedule. It's that addictive.
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Sep 10, 2022 21:06
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Assume I've not play an Atelier game before (except for one on the Vita that I put down in frustration because of just how tightly time limited it was) - where would you recommend I start.
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Sep 11, 2022 00:45
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tithin posted:Assume I've not play an Atelier game before (except for one on the Vita that I put down in frustration because of just how tightly time limited it was) - where would you recommend I start. The OP of the Atelier megathread has a pretty solid primer. If you'd rather not play with a time limit, I agree with its recommended starting points of L&S, Sophie 2, and Ryza 1 (caveat being that the Ryza games' combat is, uh, its own beast), and would also recommend Escha & Logy as a beginner-friendly title. e: eschatology has a time limit, but it's so generous you'd have to actively try to flunk it and are likely to have many days left on the clock with nothing left to do Sophie 1 is currently the best-selling title (also helps that it's gone on sale on Steam quite often), and a lot of people have started with it even if I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Sep 11, 2022 |
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Sep 11, 2022 00:58
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I'm maybe a bit past halfway through this game, so I'm looking forward to following along and hopefully picking up some tips!
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Sep 13, 2022 16:46
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Part 3: Dreams of the Sun and Rain Returning to the field in earnest… Oh, that’s right. Sophie, why don’t we use this opportunity to pick up anything that might become useful for synthesis on the way? This world is full of unique materials. It certainly wouldn’t hurt. Good idea. Maybe I’ll even come up with some ideas for new recipes! Huh, if you’re going to do that, I can help out too. Give me a shout if you see anything useful.  And with that, we can begin unlocking recipes! This early on, the conditions are pretty simple–pick flowers to unlock their respective colored neutralizers, smack enemies a few times to unlock the sickle, and whatnot. It gets more complicated later on.  Music: Dreamy Dew The game will also helpfully notify you when you’ve made progress towards unlocking a recipe. For Golden Thread, in addition to Silver Web, I also need Cotton Wool…  …And after getting some, Sophie starts jotting in her notebook, meaning I can synthesize Golden Thread once I go back to the atelier. But for now, we need to follow Ramizel into the forest.  Ramizel’s Granddaughter Music: Sewing Sunbeams  Whoa, it’s raining? But the sun was shining just a minute ago! It’s always like this around here. The rain never lets up. Always? Remember, everything in Erde Wiege is built from people’s dream visions. If it was raining in the dream visions this area was made from, it’ll be raining here forever.That sounds like a pretty depressing dream. And… That’s so strange … This might be the most other-worldly thing I’ve heard up til now … Haha. You can say that again. Music: Sewing Starlight Anyway, en route to that blue icon, now’s a good time to gather stuff.  Sophie can jump over a bunch of barrels to an island where there’s a chest with Ingot Bugs and some other things we can’t gather yet. Jumping over barrels or other steps is a common path when it's raining in this game.  The evil-ish red icon denotes the optional mini-boss, a wood golem, that I’m in no state to fight right now. Anyway, moving on to the destination…  Looks like we’re stuck. Unless anyone’s brought a bridge … We can’t even be sure Ramizel came this way. We could easily have overlooked something. Maybe you’re right. If we can’t cross, she probably couldn’t either. Huh? Alette? Have you found something? Yeah! That’s it! It was ages ago now, but one time I saw Ramizel using it. She did something to this rock, and then the whole world kinda went shwoom! Then the rain stopped, and the river disappeared! Shwoom …? That seems hard to believe. The rain stopping is one thing, but an entire river drying up?I mean hey, anything goes in this dream world! It’s true, I’m telling you! I saw it with my own eyes! If you’re right, we might still be on the right path … But we still can’t cross the river … How about we head back to town and speak with Kati? She might know something we don’t. That’s a good idea. If anyone can tell us more, it’s her.  Hey, Gnome! … Huh? Where is Kati? I’m afraid she’s, uh, a little busy at the moment … You’re all such workaholics … Can’t a girl take a break once in a while … Working is such a pain … Really … Zzz … Ahaha … Um. Well, this is how Miss Kati is, so you probably should get used to it. Anyway, did you have any luck finding Miss Ramizel? That’s why we’re here! See, there’s this river … The rain in the forest … I see. Perhaps this is my fault. I should have told you about changing the weather since you were going out that way. Does that mean Alette is right, then? There’s a way to stop the rain? Seeee! I was right all along! Who would have thought? I’m sorry for doubting you, Alette. So how do we get our hands on one of these special tools? They aren’t easy to come by, sadly. Only a few people are permitted to own them. You’d need someone who is widely trusted, someone who often has business outside of town … Well, this is a stroke of luck. Olias, didn’t you have a pair of those weather tools on hand? Huh? drat right I do. Got one for the rain and one for the sun. That’s just what we need! Could we borrow them for a little while? We’ll bring them right back! Whoa, hold on there. These things are probably worth more than I am. I know they’re valuable, but we need them to get through the Near-Forest. We’re looking for Ramizel … Near-Forest? Oh, I get you. Trouble with the rain, eh? Fine, I’ll let you use ‘em. There’s just one small problem. Ehh?! You mean we can’t actually use them?! Nah, I just need Ramizel to recharge them. Then they’ll be right as … Well, rain. Only I can’t seem to track her down, so for the moment they’re dead as doornails. No way … Um … When Olias says Ramizel can recharge them, does he mean with alchemy? That’s right. I’m hardly an expert, but it requires some kind of special synthesis process. Ehh? You mean … Ramizel’s an alchemist?! Sure she is. Didn’t I say? Music: Like When We Were Kids Um, Gnome? How old is Ramizel?: Erm … I think she mentioned that she was in her early twenties. Then she wouldn’t be married yet, so … Her full name isn’t Ramizel Erlenmeyer, is it? So it is. How did you know? About that … You see, my late grandmother was an alchemist …   Wha …! You’re saying you’re Ramizel’s granddaughter?! You’re kidding, right? Ramizel’s no old lady! She doesn’t even have kids, let alone grandkids! It might not be impossible … if she has come to Erde Wiege from the time of her youth. People gather here from many different ages. You cannot say it couldn’t happen. The OG Mysterious trilogy made a point about how much Sophie’s grandmother meant to her and how lonely she was after her death. You could visit her grave in Sophie 1, there’s an old alchemist acquaintance of hers in Firis who Sophie wants to talk to to hear about the old days, and at the end of Sophie’s events in L&S, she takes the time to tell her grandmother she’s surrounded by friends and has found happiness at last. Sophie DX added more postgame material to really drive home Sophie's bond with her late grandmother; in hindsight, I suppose this was to prime players for Sophie 2. Anyone who’s taken a chem course (and I sure did as a premed washout) would recognize that Ramizel’s maiden name, Erlenmeyer, comes from the flask. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Sophie. Don’t forget this is only speculation. … You’re right. I mean, she wouldn’t even know I exist yet. Oh, I almost forgot! Olias, back to the weather tools … Do you mind if I try charging them myself with alchemy? You sure about that? You know how much they’re worth, right? Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll need a little time, but I think I can figure out how it’s done. Fine, see what you can do. I’ll be as happy as you to have ‘em working again. Soon, we, too, will be able to change the weather at a whim! But first… Oh, that reminds me. Have you paid a visit to Pirka’s shop yet? Pirka’s shop? I know she runs one, but I have not had a chance to visit yet. I see. I’d certainly recommend it, especially to an alchemist. Yeah, Pirka’s place is something else! You’d never believe what you can find! See, most shops only stock materials from town … Oh, but I don’t wanna spoil the surprise! Eeeh! But now you’ve got me curious! Is there something special about her stock …? Perhaps we should pay her a visit before we return to the atelier and find our for ourselves. Well, if I’m headed to a shop, I need money, right? Luckily for me, just by picking up materials in the field, I can get a good deal of cash from Kati.  obligatory  Gnome said we should visit your store! He said you sell some special items here. Hmm … I see what Gnome was saying. The stock here certainly seems more varied than elsewhere. That’s my selling point! I source what I can from town, but I also go out and gather things myself. What, in person? Well, with Alette. We go gathering together and pick up whatever looks like it’ll sell. But if you think you’ve already seen the last of this store’s wonders, think again! Make … more? I’m not quite sure what you mean.   My! You sound like you’ve seen this somewhere before, Sophie. I sure have! Cory can do the same thing! She’s a friend of mine back in Kirchen Bell. You know, Pirka kind of reminds me of her, if I squint a bit. Maybe it’s her clothes … Really? Then there’s a good chance your friend has some connection to my homeland. Not just anyone can use duplication, after all. It’s a special power passed down among my people. Really? Wow … I bet Cory would love to hear about this! In any case, it sounds like we’ll never want for useful items with you to help us out. Still, I’m curious about this duplication power. Mightily curious indeed … Just so we’re clear, it’s a paid service. I AM running a business here! Turn this on, and we’ll foot the bill for item usage whenever we go back to the atelier.  Pretty much. This place is stuck in sunny mode. Well, I guess it’s better than endless rain. True … Still, I’d appreciate a few showers from time to time, y’know. Hm? Why’s that? I’m growin’ veggies in my garden, but they need a decent amount of water. And waterin’ them myself every day’s a real pain in the neck. A bit of rain now and again would go a long way. Man, what I wouldn’t give for my own personal rain cloud … Are you really planning to try to fix those tools? If something were to go wrong … I’ll be careful. And besides … If this is something that will help me find Plachta … She really means a lot to you, doesn’t she? Of course! We’re family, after all. … Fine, then. Do as you like. I won't get in your way. Just take care that it doesn’t blow up in your face. Hahaha. Don’t worry. I won’t even touch them until I’m sure I know what I’m doing. In sum, that means we’ve got a recipe to unlock! Anyway, you’ve probably seen that further down the recipe tree you go, there’s a lot of locks next to silhouetted items. You have to unlock adjacent recipes before you can unlock these ones. Take that node just below the Sunlight Heliodor, for instance; it's for a pickaxe. The condition to get the pickaxe's recipe is getting some Silvalia, the tier 2 ingot. But since I haven’t made the Heliodor yet, I can’t unlock the pickaxe's recipe and start synthesizing one, even if some Silvalia fell into Sophie’s lap right this instant. So first, we need to make the Heliodor. And speaking of beating up Blue Puni…     Blue Puni are weak to electricity, so it would serve me well to stack all the yellow components I can onto a Lightning Bomb. Even though this is just okay for now, many upcoming enemies are weak to electricity, so it'll be very useful in the short term.  While I’m at it, might as well make a Grass Sickle too. Maxing out yellow on this one lets me gather at Rank 2 with it. Unlike with the Ryza games, this is only usable on tall plants. I can’t walk up to a log or a bush, switch gathering material from Staff to Sickle, and use the Sickle on those gathering spots for different items than I would get from smacking with the Staff.  I can turn up the difficulty to Legendary…     And kill both Puni with both of these very well-crafted bombs.  Doing this gets me a nice fat drop of materials with better components and traits than I should be able to get starting out. Anyway, with that done, dialing the difficulty back down and headed back to the Dream Tree…   We can now synthesize this item! But as always in an Atelier game, gotta make the rounds once they’re available…  The Town of Roytale  C’mon, isn’t it obvious? I’m on the clock! Wait, you run this store? Yep! It’s nothing all that grand, but … It’s all mine! It is called “Alette’s Sundries” after all. Huh. Actually, I thought you were working with Pirka over at her place. Ahaha … Well, she did offer me my own corner at her shop. But since we live together, she already helps me out a lot. Borrowing space would be kinda, you know … Besides, if I wanna make a name for myself as a merchant, then I’ve gotta run my own business! Hehe … That’s really impressive, Alette! Ehehe … Well, since this place is called sundries, I stock all kinds of stuff you won’t find anywhere else. So, I’ll be expecting lots of business from you!You’d figure gaining hands-on experience would be what counts the most in this setting, since unlike a following in Erde Wiege, Alette can actually take that home with her.  Music: On Sale Today Anyway, Alette sells things you can find in the field. Sometimes, she’ll have something with good components and/or good traits.  Huh? Are you taking a nap, Pirka? Should you really be asleep while your shop is open? Won’t you lose customers? Worry not! I’ve taught myself to jump awake when I hear the jingle jangle of Cole! Basically, the customers are my own personal alarm clocks! You can’t treat your customers like that! No one’s gonna buy from you if you keep that up! It’s fine, it’s fine! My services are in too high a demand for that!  Don’t jinx it, what if Elvira invites Corneria over tomorrow to eat your lunch? But Sophie has other concerns… Shouldn’t you be more careful with it? Won’t it make you shrink? Eh? Shrink? Don’t be ridiculous, Sophie! That’s just silly! Really? I thought for sure that duplication power came with side effects …It does for Corneria, who faints (and shrinks) from overuse of her powers. L&S shows that this was what happened to her father; he used it so much that he shrank to the size of a bug. Putting that aside, I oughta tell you that I’ve been eyeing up the art of alchemy! If I learn this alchemy thingy, think of all the goodies I could make, duplicate, and sell! It’s the perfect business strategy! What do you think? Ahaha! If you’re really interested, then come by my atelier! I think it’s worth a try. For real?! Alright, it’s a date! Just don’t get mad if I turn out to be a prodigy, okay?yeah we’ll see about that  That’s right. Mine was a far more civilized process. I heard Elvira’s voice near the tree. She told me about this world, and I accepted her invitation. After that, I fell asleep. And when I came to, I found myself here, in Erde Wiege. In my case, I was taking a stroll through a local park. The rest was just as Plachta described it. So, you don’t even have to be near the Dream Tree to be summoned to Erde Wiege? Right. There are a number of places where the ties between the worlds are especially strong. When someone with a dream Elvira particularly likes passes by, she calls out to them. Then, those who agree are brought here. Huh, so that’s how it works … This is the first time I’ve actually heard someone explain it. Hm, so there are special areas … They’re not something you can see, though. I doubt you’d be able to find them even if you went looking.Now, back to business!  Shared Atelier  The number of uses the Heliodor has whenever you synthesize it depends on the effect thresholds you hit. Unfortunately, I have a dearth of good red components and yellow components with links, so this is the best I can do for now. Having +Use traits also helps, as those are applied to, well, the use count.  Honestly … I wasn’t sure you could do it. I’m impressed. I’m lucky I just had to recharge it. Making one from scratch would have been way too hard … Really? Why? I don’t think it’s made with just alchemy. There’s something in there I don’t really understand … Sophie, can I ask you something? Huh? You think you can fix it? Maybe … No, definitely. In fact, I’m certain of it. I promise I can do it! Hehe… All right. It’s all yours. Really …? I mean, thank you! Um … Would you mind watching? Just in case I do something wrong? Sure thing! I won’t take my eyes off you for a second! I-I wasn’t asking you to stare! Just make sure I don’t mess up, okay? (Although I guess that hasn’t changed much … ) And with that, we can now synthesize with Plachta and have unlocked her recipes!  A trip to the waterfall later …  Maybe. I feel like I’m close to an epiphany, but my brain is running out of fuel … I think we still have some soil potatoes left. Maybe I should cook one up … You sure love soil potatoes, huh?  Really? You’re sure? As sure as sure can be! Just show me that cauldron! And here is the curveball Sophie 2 throws us! Unlike with Lydie and Sue, who could synthesize the same things and shared their alchemy level the whole game, Plachta has her own recipes that only she can synthesize and she starts off at Alchemy Lv 25. There are gathering items and story items that only Plachta can make (and the game will expect her alchemy level to be much higher than 50 by endgame), as well as weapons–in addition to her own robot arms, Plachta makes Alette’s boots and Olias’ rifles too. Not leveling up Plachta means you can’t progress the story and will be locked out of higher-end weapons for half your party, so it’s important to remember to have her synthesize. Luckily, she has yet to synthesize the (shared) recipes that Sophie already did, so she’ll get EXP fast by doing all those building block ones for the first time. But first, with the Hydrite, we can’t actually make it yet because we don’t have a Seafood item! We can get some by buying some flour, making some bait, and then synthesizing a Fishing Rod.  Maxing out yellow lets me fish at Rank 2 out the gate.  While I’m out here, might as well demo Major Gathering.  I pick an item (in this case, it’ll be Wing Plant)...  And play a mini-game! The mini-game is different for each different gathering tool. I also suck at all of them so you won’t see much of them out of me.   And with a great big THWACK, I get Wing Plants. Now, time to synthesize!  Party! I was SO CLOSE with the green threshold, but fell short. Still, 17 uses is plenty.    Nice work! I knew you could do it! This shouldn’t have taken me so long. I still have a lot to learn. C’mon, don’t be so hard on yourself. You gotta take your wins where you can. ‘Sides, they both look perfect to me. You two did a hell of a job. Hear that? We did great! I suppose … that does make me feel a little better. I’m no alchemist, though. Just ‘cause they look fine to me doesn’t mean they’ll work. Then let’s try them out. The quicker we can get them working, the quicker we can find Ramizel! I agree. The three of us should set off as soon as– Ehh?! You mean you’re coming with us? I do owe you one after you got my tools workin’ again. Sides, you said this Plachta girl you’re lookin’ for’s family to you. I’m not gonna stand by and watch a family get separated. Lemme lend a hand. With pleasure! Thank you, Olias!And just like that, he's back!  There, all done! Alchemy’s so weird. What you get out is totally different from what you put in … Ahaha, it’s not all like that. When I first started, I could only make really basic items, like bags full of Uni … Erm … Wouldn’t that’ve been faster to do by hand? Ahaha … ha … Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that alchemy has some simple recipes, too. Uh-huh … Then do you think there’s anything I can do to help? Hm? You’d want to, Alette? You bet! You’re always making stuff for me, which feels kinda unfair. I figure I should pitch in somehow, you know? I think that’s a wonderful idea. An amateur’s perspective might give you the inspiration you need to spark new discoveries. Good point! Would you mind, Alette? Consider it done! And if nothing else, we’ll have an extra pair of hands to help with tidying up. Plachtaaaa, that’s so meeeean … Ahaha … Can show off later, but this tutorial screen gets the gist well enough. If you get enough links of a particular element, a party member will cut in and give you goodies. Here, Alette is giving a quality boost for Wind links. Other goodies can include changing a component or a square’s color. Elements are tied to particular party members. Alette aside, Olias helps in for Ice links, while Plachta (or Sophie, depending on who’s synthesizing) helps for Light. The members associated with fire and lightning haven’t joined yet, so no Assist Skills for those elements until then.  Returning to Near-Forest, I’ll forage a bit…  Weathering With Sophie Got it! Heh heh heh! Prepare to be amazed! Is clearing away a few clouds really so impressive?   Whoa! Look how quickly the sun came out! This stone seems to affect more than the weather. It’s like it has altered the entire environment. Curious … Mightily curious indeed! See, what did I tell you? It makes the whole world go shwoom! The hell kinda explanation was that? Yeah, it went all shwoom and bwaam! It was amazing! Well, it makes sense to one of us, apparently. Anyway, the road is clear now. We should hurry and find Ramizel. In addition to radically altering the maps, changing the weather also changes the gathering spots, as well as what items you get from gathering spots; case in point with the sickle. Still, it hasn’t actually brought Ramizel in view…  So too do the enemies change; the mushrooms have been replaced with flowers.  The next tier of weapons is also becoming available! Right now, the conditions are fairly simple (Plachta does a Twin Action, Sophie does a Dual Guard, Alette uses her skills), but you’ll need to know the battle system well to unlock the endgame tier weapons.  What is this thing? It’s like a tear in the air itself. It might lead somewhere … but I wouldn’t recommend using it. You mean we can go in? We could, but no one can say where we might come out. Jumping in blindly would be very dangerous. Huh. What are the chances that that’s where Ramizel went? Hmm … Considering the fact that we couldn’t find her anywhere else, chances could be pretty high … Sounds to me like you really wanna go exploring, Alette. Well, maybe … but who wouldn’t? Think about it! It could take us anywhere! What if it’s a secret vault full of Elvira’s hidden treasure? Just think of all that Cole! H-hey, don’t get me wrong! Ramizel totally COULD be in there! I mean … Oh, forget it! I’m going in! Geronimoooo! Alette, come back! It’s too dangerous by yourself! I swear, those two just don’t have any self-preservation instincts. They got a point, though. Combin’ through this forest ain’t gettin’ us any closer to finding Ramizel. Plus I ain’t gonna let them run off alone. We can duck right back out if things look dicey. I suppose you’re right. Besides, I can’t deny that I’m a little curious myself …So they enter the hole in the world and find…   It’s incredible. Who would have thought there was a place like this in the middle of the forest? Not me, that’s for drat sure. Maybe that hidden vault idea ain’t far off the mark. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. I see light up ahead. This place must act like a passageway leading from the forest. I wonder where it goes … Let’s keep going! Music: Chained Dreams Well, let’s! It’s not like there’s anything else to do here.  Music: Water Reflected in the Sky  Wow! Look at it all! This is amazing! Are those … ruins? I’ve never seen anything like this. What do you reckon this place is? I’m not sure, but I bet there’s more to it than meets the eye. I’d bet on it. You wouldn’t exactly cram it in some pocket dimension for no reason. Sophie, I think we should keep going. Didn’t you say it was dangerous to go in blindly? I did, but that was before I knew what we’d find. Just the sight of this place would make any true alchemist mightily curious indeed! If Ramizel got here before us, I’m positive she’d have headed deeper in to investigate! Now it sounds like YOU just want to go exploring … Actually, I think she’s onto something. Ramizel’s the only one brave enough to be poking around somewhere like this. Really? My grandmother never seemed like the adventurous type …Probably because Sophie only ever knew her as a, well, grandma, you know? Even so, we have a duty to investigate every possibility. Come along now, you three! Heehee. Plachta sure was headstrong when she was young! What’s that I spy in the background?  So it seems. We may have to change the weather again if we want to proceed. The last one made the river rise and fall, right? Maybe you can do the same with the water in here. Good idea. Let’s give it a try!
Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jan 23, 2023 |
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Sep 18, 2022 00:47
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Having different alchemists with different crafting lists is a neat mix up on the formula. It's a more direct approach than how Shallie went about it, at least from what I remember. I'm wondering if Ramizel's going to be included in this somehow too. Aside from that, I see we're already not taking long to go from one fantasy vista to the next. I like how this water ruins looks already!
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Sep 18, 2022 17:40
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Odd Wilson posted:Having different alchemists with different crafting lists is a neat mix up on the formula. It's a more direct approach than how Shallie went about it, at least from what I remember. I'm wondering if Ramizel's going to be included in this somehow too. It is definitely different from Shallie. While Lotte could synthesize certain items that only Stera could use and vice versa, there was at least one item that only Lotte could synthesize for plot reasons and that you can't access at all if you picked Stera as your protagonist, and vice versa. And yeah, not only is each new fantasy vista (or dimension) more fantastical than the last, but they really started off strong with the Flower Bank Ruins, both with the music and the scenery.
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Sep 18, 2022 18:19
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Part 4: Dreams of the Sea and Sky Every dungeon in the game will demand you change the weather and radically alter the zones in doing so to progress. And making it rain or sunny is just the least of it.  Anyway, the seabed (?) is pretty large. So large I’m probably going to have trouble finding my destination…   Still, even with the water level reduced by a hundred feet or whatever, it’s very pretty. And it makes a hell of a combination with the violin and Haruka Shimotsuki’s chorus in the background.    Anyway, we’re close to the end of the first zone…   And beating up some birds for their feathers unlocks the second tier of cloths. Turning the weather sunny also let me find Kupfer Ore, which lets me make Silvalia, the second tier of ingots.  If I fast travel back to this stone, it’ll be sunny; if I enter the ruins via Near-Forest, it’ll be rainy. From now on, different fast travel points in zones will have different default weather. As an aside, these stones often denote that you’re close to the exit…  As such! I just have to change the weather and not even go that far before…  I’m already most of the way through!  Aura You look like you’re having fun. Who wouldn’t be? If only I’d thought to pack all my research tools … A scholar to the bone, huh? Looking for treasure! I smell a fortune nearby, just waiting to be claimed! Not a chance! Go find your own loot! Now, now. Just calm down, you tw– What was that? It’s a monster! Plachta, get back! Uh-oh. This one looks pretty tough … Looks like playtime’s over. Get ready to fight!  Oh boy, auras!  Every boss and a good deal of generic monsters will put up an aura that will utterly throttle your damage output so long as it’s up. This gives them more time to charge up super-attacks and lay the hurt on you, so you really want to do your damndest to break through ASAP. For this one, it’s relatively light; a Wind Aura with 5 durability and which I can smash through immediately with a Lightning Bomb. And reaction skills are pretty nasty, so in this case, it rules out using any other bomb as well as some of Sophie, Plachta, and Olias’ skills. (Yes, despite his gun’s appearance, it mostly does magic damage.)  Debuffs and negative status effects deplete enemy aura faster. In addition to the -3 from the Wind Aura’s electric weakness, the Lightning Bomb shaved off another 2 via paralysis.  You get bonus TP when you break aura…  …And the attacker who broke the enemy aura gets another action. Breaking aura also stuns the enemy, which means they miss their turns and take way more extra damage from attacks, so that’s your cue to let loose!       I know I made that mini-boss seem like a cakewalk, but it can actually be really nasty if it’s your first time dealing with enemies who can put up auras.  Of … Of course … I’m … perfectly … You look like you’re on your last legs, How about we sit down and take a break? Sure. You three rest up. I’ll keep watch.The game even expects that you had a hard time here!   Music: Even if the stars disappear after dawn Excuse me, but … Do you mind if I ask you something? What about? Would you tell me who taught you alchemy? My mentor! She’s super strict, but she really knows her stuff. I see. And who is this mentor? Ehehe … Well, you see … It’s Plachta. The same Plachta you’re searching for? Yep. She’s like family to me, but she’s also my alchemy mentor. Thanks to her, I’ve gotten way better than I ever could have dreamed. She says I still have a long way to go, though. So I have to study even harder. Am I really going to be such a powerful alchemist someday? No, I mustn’t get ahead of myself. There’s no proof we’re even the same person. Only, if it really is true … I suppose it gives me something to look forward to.   Time to get going. You three feeling better? Yes, we had a pleasant rest.Olias said “you three”, but there’s just the two… Huh? Where did Alette go?   Eek! What’s happened now? I knew I was right! My nose for treasure never lies! What are you blabbering about? And where did you get to? Heh heh heh! Never you mind! Just feast your eyes … on this! Not just ancient–super valuable! Do you have any idea how much these sell for? A collector would pay a fortune for one in this condition! A small fortune, maybe. I reckon you’d be lucky to get a thousand for it. That’s where you’re wrong, buster! This single coin is worth over a million Cole! A million?! For one coin?! You serious? For a grubby old piece of metal? That can’t be right. I can hardly even tell it’s a coin at all. I’m not lying! Do you know how rare it is to find a coin from ancient times? See, there are only three known to exist in the whole world, and … Yeah, yeah, I believe you. Just take care you don’t drop it. Anyway, time to move on, Keep your eyes peeled for any more monsters.    At this point, I’ve unlocked the second-tier weapons for everyone, so I might as well go back to the atelier and craft a bit.  Music: Premonitions Back in the forest…  It was a dragon that did it, I tell ya. Did you say … dragon? Oh, aye. Came swoopin’ down from outta nowhere. Caused this whole mess in the blink of an eye. drat, he’s comin’ this close to town now …? Was anyone hurt? It’s gonna take a while to get all this sorted. Sorry, but y’all can’t go this way until we’re done.Well, that’s how the game blocks that part of Near-Forest for now. Going back to town…    Business I see … So there is no need to go out of my way to break down the ingredients in the cauldron. Yeah. You risk compromising the quality of the ingredients if you do that. This method takes more time, but it gets the job done without damaging any of the ingredients. You’re welcome … But I do kinda feel like your alchemy’s a bit unique. Perhaps the book that first introduced me to alchemy was not all that well written. A book? I learned all the foundations of alchemy from a very old tome.Huh, what are the odds that this was the very book she would become 500 years before Sophie 1. Whaaat?! S-so you mean you’re self-taught? There were no alchemists in my village, after all. All I could do was experiment over and over again with that tome as my guide. Wow. And you still managed to work out how to do all this. Yes … Well, I had no choice. (Unlike Plachta, I had alchemy books AND my grandma’s recipes … )  This … is a regular piece of ore, right? Or am I missing something? I’ll say! Go on, take a closer look! I bet you’ve never seen ore shaped like this before! It’s all natural, too! Doesn’t that make it like, super rare?! Wait, you mean someone didn’t carve this?! Wow, that really is something … I know, right?! And, guess what? 1,000 Cole?! It’s still just a rock, you know? Sure, but one whose fabulousness you’ve just acknowledged. I mean, check out that form! Besides, it’s unusual, which makes it extraordinary, which means it’s priced accordingly. Seriously, 1,000 Cole’s a steal for a super rare item like this! So, how about it? Hmm … It’s neat, but I think I’ll pass. When it comes to alchemy, the shape doesn’t matter much. Really?! Aw, man … I only bothered picking it up because I was so sure you’d buy it … Oh well, I’ll just sell it to some other person. I’ve already got a few people in mind. I wonder who on earth would pay that much for a chunk of mineral … Oh, it’s Olias … Is he working? Yo, if it ain’t Sophie. What’s up? Not much. I was just passing by. Are you working now? Yup! I’m the star bodyguard of this world. I’ve got so many requests I’m drownin’ in ‘em! Are there really that many requests? Reckon there’s a finer bodyguard than me in all the land? Not a chance! And there’s your answer! Hah … Now if only you could fix that personality of yours … Hm. Sure, sure … Anyway, I’m counting on you today, Olias. Relax. So long as you’ve got me with you, you’re as safe as safe can be. A’ight, Sophie, I gotta go. See ya ‘round! … Just where does Olias get all his confidence from? But, his client seemed like a regular. I guess Olias really is as popular as he says …  Haha, nope! We aren’t related at all! We wound up living together ‘cause we get along like only two merchants can! Oh, you two weren’t together from the beginning? Mhm. When Alette first came to this world, she had nothing but her pigtailed self. Ergo, she didn’t have a single thing she could sell to anyone, and an empty purse to boot. Oh gosh … That sounds like her worst nightmare. You can say that again! She was at her wits’ end trying to scrape together some Cole. She even skipped sleeping and cut down on eating to earn more. All work and no play, I tell you! I saw that she was heading down a dark path, so I invited her to become my roommate. That way I could at least make sure she was eating three square meals a day. Hm … That does sound like something Alette would do … Ahaha! But that’s what makes her so fun to watch! And you just can’t help but want to help her out! Hehe … You’re a nice person, aren’t you, Pirka? I’m just a mama merchant watching over a baby merchant! It’s also great since she brings me rare items as souvenirs from her delivery jobs. So she’s helping me too! I scratch her back, and she scratches mine. A Trip to the Tavern … Kati, you’re not slacking off again, are you? Hmm? Oh, Sophie! Nope, I’m just a little worn out from all the hustling I did today … Kati seemed so much more capable when I first met her … She takes requests from Miss Elvira rather seriously. Anything else, however … It pains me to say it, but the people of the town often speak of her in less than stellar terms. Heeey, that’s not faaaair. I wasn’t always like this. I only ended up this way because I kept my nose to the grindstone so long I burned out. If anything, I’m what happens when you work TOO hard. … In short, this is her default mode. So if you’d like to place an order, please do so through me. Come to think of it, there are people in Erde Wiege who’ve come from the future, right? So why doesn’t Roytale seem all that different from the time I came from? Huh, good point. I’d never thought about that. You ought to pay more attention … There is indeed a reason for it. However, she cannot bring people here from just any time in the past or future. If we use Sophie’s time as a base, there were people here from up to a thousand years earlier. However, there were no people here from more than about one hundred years later. I see … That reminds me, back home, when I asked Plachta what the town was like 500 years ago, she said it didn’t change much. No changes in five hundred years, huh? You’d think somethin’ would’ve improved in all that time. Well, there’s been no need. No one is particularly troubled by anything. That in and of itself is quite a feat, wouldn’t you say? Hmph … I guess. But I’d rather see some things change. I bet it’d probably take a few thousand years to get to that point.  No Hagels or other smithy middlemen here in Erde Wiege–Sophie and Plachta make all the weapons and armor themselves. As you can see, Gear Synth effects stack, and two of the Silvalia I crafted earlier will add another 12 ATK and 20 SPD to the weapon’s base specs.     Same with the Gnade Ring, which needs an Ingot…  …And with flat stat boosts (Power Rune gives +15 ATK, Speed Rune gives +15 SPD), it’s the best all-purpose accessory available for a very long time. Still, with just a 5x5 grid, I have to make some pretty hard compromises on what effect thresholds I want to hit and leave a lot of components on the table. And doing all this synthesis means Plachta’s alchemy level is going up quite quickly!     Peep those stat boosts! And I’ve even given Olias and Alette Lightning Bombs too…? Let’s go back and wrap up the dungeon.  Plachta’s Voice  That doesn’t make sense. We didn’t meet her on the forest road, so she must have come this way … Could we have passed each other without realizing? Guess it’s possible. In that case, maybe it’s time we headed back to Royta– Sophie … Sophie … Huh? Plachta …? Plachta, is that you?! What are you on about? Of course it’s me. No, I mean the other Plachta! I just heard her voice! I feel … warmth … Is someone there? … Sophie, is that you? Plachta! Plachta, come back! Hey, wait up! I dunno what you think you heard, but you’ll get yourself killed! Sophie? What’s going on?! I have no idea, but we can’t let her run off on her own. After her! Plachta! Where are you? Can you hear me?! Just calm down for a moment. Are you absolutely certain it was her? Yes! It’s got to be Plachta, I’d recognize her voice anywhere! Easy there. No one’s callin’ you a liar. What was she saying? She was calling my name, over and over … But it seemed like she couldn’t tell I was here … Whoa! G-guys? There’s something in the water! Eek!  Is that … a monster? It’s enormous! drat! That’s one big fish! … … I can’t stop … Not until I find Plachta.  Music: Destructive Disruption  drat it! This ain’t lookin’ good! We should run, Sophie! Live to fight another day! We can’t! We still haven’t found Plachta! This rain is tipping the scales in the water dragon’s favor! If only we could dispel it …! The Sunlight Heliodor! It’s … glowing?! … Maybe we can do this after all. Are you quite certain?! I don’t know … but I feel like something is telling me not to give up. Something? What sort of “something”? I’ll take anythin’ right now! Just do it!   Well, changing the weather did what it said it would …  …But now it’s put up a Wind Aura with 20 durability.   That’s four Lightning Bomb uses…  …and another AoE to tank…   Before its aura goes down and I just have everyone chuck Lightning Bombs at it until it goes away. Especially Olias and Alette, whose regular ice and wind skills are useless here.   Phew … Did we … Did we beat it? Doesn’t look like it’s gettin’ back up anytime soon. Anyone hurt? I’m fine. How about you, Sophie? Yes … I’m … right as rain … More importantly … I can’t hear Plachta’s voice anymore. It was so clear before, but now …  For real? We beat you fair and square! Sophie! Run!   Music: Anywhere, Anytime Hey, it’s–   Take this! Time to finish this!  And with Ramizel and her friend’s intervention, the water dragon goes away for a good long while. That was close. You almost ended up in that thing’s belly. Music: Whichever Way Ramizel! And Diebold! Eh? … Ramizel? What’re you two doin’ here? Kati told us about you, so we hurried after you before you got into trouble. You certainly took the scenic route. We must have missed you on your way here. You’re kidding … That may be my fault. I insisted we take a detour on our way back to Roytale. Well, all’s well that ends well. Though it was a close call … Let’s just be thankful we made it in time. Which reminds me … That’s right. Um … I’m not quite sure where to start. This isn’t exactly a comfortable place to talk. Why don’t we continue again once we get back to town? Um … Do you mind if we stay a minute? I want to look around just a little bit more … Not a chance. Unless you want to wind up as another monster’s supper. But …! She’s right, Sophie. None of us are ready for another battle like that. Alette … I know you want to keep looking, but this place ain’t goin’ anywhere. No reason we can’t come back later. You too, Olias? I guess you’re right … I know it’s disappointing, but thanks for understanding. Now, we should head back home. … Thank you, Ramizel … … Or perhaps I should call you grandma?  … Nothing … I’m sure it was her voice I heard … Plachta, where did you go? Sophie! Hurry up! It looks like we made it back safe and sound … Things seemed pretty dicey for a minute, but we’re all still in one piece … Excuse me … um, miss? Your name is Ramizel, right? That’s right. Alchemist Ramizel Erlenmeyer, at your service.  Let’s continue this at Kati’s place. I know I could do with a sit down. So, are you any more confident about Ramizel’s identity? Hmm … Honestly, I’m not sure. Yeah, fair point. We can’t even ask her, can we? It’s not like she would know any better than you …Even this early on, Sophie probably already knows in her heart of hearts, but being fair to her, how is she even supposed to break this conversation? Flash back to your early twenties–how would you react if this other person barely younger than you asked you if you were their grandparent? It would be awkward as all get out and you’d think they were joshing you or not quite all right up there, right?  Right! Coming!First I need to save! So back to the atelier to…  Nice going, Plachta! I have you to thank. Hey, all I did was give you a quick intro to the method.   (I wonder if this friend is who I’m thinking of … ) Yes … We clashed at times, but we shared the fruits of our research and strove to hone our abilities. He is … very talented. I’m grateful to know someone like him. He sounds like a good friend. tl;dr poo poo happened when they were adults and it’s why Plachta turned herself into the book Sophie found at the start of Sophie 1  Now, time to hit the save but-  Is something the matter? Don’t tell me … Nah, it’s nothin’ bad. I was just thinking it’s high time I shared my secret fighting wisdom. Wow, really? With you teaching me, I’d be unstoppable! You bet! You’ll be Roytale’s second-best bodyguard in no time! … And that’s how it goes! Um … Doesn’t that mostly amount to saying “figure it out yourself”? What? No way! Knowin’ the trick is half the battle! You get it, right, Sophie? Ahaha … ha … I guess you’re not wrong … Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try it out.    And this is how you upgrade your party members’ skills in battle (and Sophie’s gathering ranks for bare-handed gathering and gathering by staff), by spending AP on gameplay benefits like reducing the amount of money you owe Pirka, increasing the quality of materials gathered, or just giving members flat bonuses to their stats. You get AP by leveling up or by completing sidequests for characters (e.g., spending money at Alette's shop to get her SP). Anyway, save button hit at long last. We’ll circle back with Ramizel and then some next update. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Oct 24, 2022 |
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Sep 18, 2022 23:04
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Did we just make an illegal gun mod can't believe Plachta is a criminal only 4 updates in
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Sep 19, 2022 00:01
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i used the gathering minigames If you synthesize stuff right and are patient enough to deal with the lag and RNG, you can get away with ridiculous stuff like a sickle that can gather Rank 2 materials before the first boss. The gathering minigames are useful for putting components you would otherwise never see on ingredients, or for creating ingredients that have components with multiple link squares, which can help a lot with squeezing components together and getting higher effect thresholds. And abilities-wise I beelined for the stuff related to alchemy, because I knew enough from reading Atelier LPs to know that better items would help way more than inflating my stats a bit.
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Sep 19, 2022 04:26
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MayOrMayNotBeACat posted:i used the gathering minigames oh yeah for sure, Major Gathering gets you some good poo poo! I just don't want to show off several dozen of my failures at it; just the first of each mini-game will do. And most certainly with AP; being able to craft better equipment with better traits gives much larger stat boosts than grinding levels or paying for a flat +5 or even +25 would. And the further you get and the better your bombs and ingots/cloths, the more Pirka charges to restock or duplicate them, so driving those costs down (and being able to bring in more money from requests) is also a priority of mine.
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Sep 19, 2022 16:19
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Odd Wilson posted:Did we just make an illegal gun mod I can entirely believe it. I'm not sure if it's on my side but there seems to be an audio timing drift that results in significant mismatch in the back half of long videos.
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Sep 20, 2022 01:40
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SIGSEGV posted:I can entirely believe it. It’s not just you I can’t do anything about the videos already up, but for the long videos in my Elgato library there’s no mismatch at all, and heck that’s why I didn’t catch it up until now. Listening to the next video, gradual desync issues show up when converting them to mp4 files for upload to YouTube. I’ll address that from now on.
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Sep 20, 2022 02:03
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I've yet to see any cops in Erde Wiege, so it's probably fine.
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Sep 20, 2022 11:26
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It truly is a dream then
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Sep 20, 2022 14:09
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look when Olias is the most in-demand bodyguard in town who's gonna narc on him or Plachta for a not quite legal gun  anyway I've finally developed a workflow that resolves the audio desync issues for the footage that, hopefully, will make it into Part 5. However, given how almost all the earlier videos are compromised, I want to go back and rerecord the footage and reupload them since it just looks bad otherwise.
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Sep 20, 2022 23:45
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Part 5: The Goddess of Dreams Ramizel’s Requests “But first I’ll get some jobs” I thought, but the game had other ideas… Oh, Sophie. You here for something to eat? Hang on, I’ll go get Gnome.Music: Hidden Pride     to the point where he was down to one of his two swords there, but hey, that’s what Sophie’s here for!     Now for the actual request! Ingots are trivially easy to synthesize, and for the Diamond Rabbit…   Music: Sailing on Sunlight yeah, Julio had a pretty big two-hander    Most certainly, and the game doesn’t care how well this one comes out, so neither do I!          The Habitants of Roytale          dude moves pretty fast if he could get that installed without Sophie or Plachta noticing   The greenhouse is my ticket to get gamebreaking traits way earlier than I should, but I need to tee that up for a later update. If we’re going to the swamp…    I want a Rank 2 pickaxe and a new pair of shoes!  Second Request   To get there, we have to get through the Near-Forest, where there was some wreckage last update blocking the path forward.     Making it rain lets us proceed to…  Music: Sinking into Hyphae A swamp! We’re getting close!  Good thing Sophie can’t slip and fall off the cliff!  A Skittish Monster We’re here!      Plachta is outpacing the game’s expectations for her alchemy level. After making fishing bait, I go back to the swamp…  …and can get the Devil’s Kiss with my Rank 2 sickle.  Monster Bait   Wandering Pariah   drat should have brought more Bombs  Still, Curse gives it a magic weakness, meaning it’s weak to all my bombs. Once its aura is down…   …my damage output is pretty high, meaning it goes down fairly easily.     “Ellie”, huh? Maybe Ramizel is more to Elvira than a mediator between her and everyone else.  Chucking bombs gives me the AP to buy hand-gathering rank 2!  Silence      And with that, the party's all here, all six of them!   Music: Warmth  Those last two ingredients are why it was critical I get hand/staff gathering rank 2…    …because otherwise I can't find said ingredients, unlock this recipe and progress the story.  Dimensional Solvent       Their Silvalia-tier weapons are very easy to unlock. I just had to find rank 2 staff/hand-gathering materials, and craft a Silvalia with >30 quality (trivial) for Diebold’s new swords and use Ramizel’s main skill three times (also easy with Twin Actions). Now that the newcomers are outfitted, it’s time to go!  The Goddess of Dreams     UHHH   indeed, this interaction has all the energy of NO YOU SHUT THE gently caress UP   Even aside from her aura that makes using bombs on her a liability…   Elvira summons scrubs that take the hit for her if you aggro her. Still, THEY will die in one or two hits from the appropriate bomb, and that lets me build up TP faster.   AoE bombs CAN still hit her while they’re on the field, but beware the reaction skill!   Ramizel’s high-powered physical skills are especially valuable here…    …and her main skill, Burning Rod, slams stunned enemies even harder, which follows up nicely on aura breaks.  Still, I couldn’t finish her in time, so I had to go through this cycle once more to wrap it up.              Music: Chick's Lullaby  The waaaaaah-ing must have resumed before long, because something prompted Sophie to look back: Music: Good Night Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Feb 1, 2023 |
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Sep 21, 2022 22:16
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Having never used the greenhouse due to early Mirage Vale, I am very curious to see how the greenhouse can give you gamebreaking traits.
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Sep 22, 2022 00:01
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MayOrMayNotBeACat posted:Having never used the greenhouse due to early Mirage Vale, I am very curious to see how the greenhouse can give you gamebreaking traits. Some of the traits that start showing up there are needed for what I have in mind, and I'll need to use their combinations to get the stuff I'm looking for. It's a pay to play deal that demands having high-quality traits to begin with (and will involve a fair bit of RNG to get the exact traits I want), but it's definitely something I wish I'd been aware of earlier the first time I'd played. Will take some time to show off though, since I've got a fair bit of stuff to rerecord from the first four updates before going further. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Sep 22, 2022 |
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Sep 22, 2022 00:33
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Bonus Update 1 Official Artwork Sophie OA (NOCO) Young Plachta OA (Yuugen) Doll Plachta OA (Yuugen) (from Sophie 1) Ramizel OA (NOCO) Alette OA (Yuugen) Olias OA (NOCO) Diebold OA (Yuugen) Pirka OA (NOCO) Katrina OA (Yuugen) Gnome OA (Yuugen) Elvira OA (NOCO) The OG Mysterious trilogy’s two artists, NOCO and Yuugen, came back for Sophie 2! Well, I guess Gust really likes working with NOCO, since she stayed on an extra year after L&S to do Nelke, the 20th anniversary game featuring protagonists from Marie all the way through Lydie and Sue. You can tell who drew who from the characters' eyes; NOCO characters have solid-colored eyes while Yuugen characters have glimmery eyes. Like with the OG Mysterious trilogy, this even shows up in the 3D character models. Also, we’re only five updates in, and literally the entire named cast has been introduced. Like I said in the OP, the game has a very small cast and is relatively short. Key visuals Atelier Sophie 2 boxart/key visual Atelier Sophie 2 key visual: Sophie, Ramizel and Elvira Atelier Sophie 2 key visual: Sophie and Ramizel in town Atelier Sophie 2 key visual: Sophie, Ramizel and Elvira (again) Atelier Sophie 2 key visual: Plachta the Young Sophie 2 Concept Art Sophie Plachta Ramizel Alette Olias Diebold Pirka Katrina Gnome Elvira Sophie and Plachta's Atelier Sophie and Plachta's Atelier (2) Roytale Roytale (Residential District) Roytale (Commercial District) Grasslands Nearby Forest Flower Bank Ruins Azura's Pier 25th Anniversary Arise collab: For the Atelier series' 25th anniversary, Gust and Bandai Namco did a collab between Sophie 2 and Tales of Arise! Here's the promo art that came out of it, also featuring Ao, the protagonist of Blue Reflection Second Light! More concept art posted on Gust's twitter: A23 Sophie Concept Art A23 Plachta Concept Art From KT Europe's Twitter: Commemorative release art from NOCO, featuring Sophie, Ramizel, Elvira and Olias CGs Synthesis Complete: Sophie 1 Synthesis Complete: Sophie 2 Synthesis Complete: Sophie 3 Synthesis Complete: Sophie 4 Rest: Sophie Synthesis Complete: Plachta 1 Synthesis Complete: Plachta 2 Synthesis Complete: Plachta 3 Synthesis Complete: Plachta 4 Rest: Plachta Concert Hall Avant Opening: Syndetos (Tatsuya Yano, with Suzuyu on vocal) Character Themes Sophie: One More Time! (From Let’s Try It!) (Daisuke Achiwa) Plachta (young): Thread of Dreams (Achiwa) Ramizel: Warmth (Achiwa) Alette: Jumping With Joy (Achiwa) Olias: Brandished Blade (Achiwa) Diebold: Hidden Pride (Achiwa) Pirka: Kerria Yamabuki (Achiwa) Kati: A Serving of Rest (Achiwa) Gnome: Painted Emotions (Achiwa) Elvira: Chick's Lullaby (Achiwa) Map themes Roytale (day): Somewhere In Between (Kazuki Yanagawa, with Yuka Yuka on chorus) Roytale (night): Sometime In Between (Yanagawa, with Yuka Yuka on chorus) Grasslands (day): Radiant Dew (Yanagawa) Grasslands (night): Dreamy Dew (Yanagawa) Forests (day): Sewing Sunbeams (Yanagawa) Forests (night): Sewing Starlight (Yanagawa) Flower Bank Ruins: Water Reflected in the Sky (Yanagawa, with Haruka Shimotsuki on chorus) Swamp (day): Sinking into Hyphae (Yanagawa) Swamp (night): Sleeping on Mycelium (Yanagawa) Dream Cradle: Chained Dreams (Yanagawa) (See Part 7): Snow Melting in Your Palm (Yanagawa, with Haruka Shimotsuki on chorus) Battle themes (Mini-)Bosses: Warbler (Yanagawa) Earlygame battles: Whisp (Yanagawa) Early-midgame battles: Sail on Sunlight (Achiwa) Elvira and her guardians: Destructive Disruption (Achiwa) Victory: Winning Streak! (Achiwa) Gameplay tracks In the atelier: Sunny Piacere (Achiwa, with Yuka Yuka on chorus) Shopping: On Sale Today (Achiwa) New party member: Nice to Meet You! (Yanagawa) Event tracks A Familiar Scent (Yanagawa) So Much Fun (Yanagawa) The Truth’s Key (Yanagawa) Headwind (Yanagawa) When The Sun Comes Out (Yanagawa) Searching (Yanagawa) Casting Shadows (Yanagawa) Premonitions (Yanagawa) Take It Easy (Yanagawa) Bam! (Yanagawa) Like When We Were Kids (Yanagawa) Even if the stars disappear after dawn (Yanagawa) Anywhere, Anytime (Yanagawa) Whichever Way (Yanagawa) Okay, that was a lot of songs, but not a word of creative commentary. If you’ve followed any previous Atelier SSLP by myself or Sylphid, you probably remember our bonus updates logging composer notes for each track. Gust stopped having its composers do that starting with the Ryza games. It’s a shame, but it also means I have much less to transcribe. For Sophie 2’s soundtrack, Gust’s regular composers Kazuki Yanagawa and Daisuke Achiwa split it down the middle. Tatsuya Yano, who was on the sound team during the OG Mysterious trilogy, only did the opening, Syndetos. ACRYLICSTAB's Ryudai Abe did one track that hasn't appeared yet. And I’ll note when there’s a singer doing the vocals or chorus for a track. I don’t know much about Suzuyu or Yuka Yuka, but it’s good to see longtime friend of Gust Haruka Shimotsuki back after she was on maternity leave during Ryza 2. Story recaps  All this time, the game’s had chapters right under my nose. It doesn’t make any fanfare about this and there’s no chapter transitions reading CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO ERDE WIEGE like there was in Shallie, Lydie & Suelle and Lulua, so it’s easy to miss. I’ll post the recaps for each five updates. Chapter 1 Erde Wiege, the Land of Dreams Is That … Plachta? Helping Out Alette Chapter 2 After Ramizel Changing the Weather The Mysterious Dimension A Reunion? Or First Encounter? Chapter 3 Ramizel the Alchemist Special Request 1 Special Request 2 Dwelling of the Dream Goddess Elvira, the Goddess of Dreams Bestiary notes     When it comes to witty comments on monsters and items, anyone will pipe up in Sophie 2! Well, mostly Sophie and Plachta pipe up, anyway. Voice Actor comments These have always been a thing in Atelier games’ bonus menus, but they’ve only been translated starting from Lulua onward. I’ll hold off on posting those until the end of the LP, since a good deal of them will touch on events and character beats yet to come. Still though, there are some VAs who worked on this game whom I wouldn’t have pegged as being longtime fans of the Atelier series. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Dec 15, 2022 |
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Sep 24, 2022 23:28
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Part 6: Dreams and Aspirations To Catch A Soul   She can’t say anything for now, but that, there, is how the game’s dialogue handles having two Plachtas.  It’d be nice and simple, sure, but Plachta’s got some funny ideas about what unwinding means…  Well, it’s on! Still, I’m not sure where the threshold is for Plachta to declare victory here…  …Because even a Pure Water with just 93 quality yielded this result:     This is actually a pretty important thing for Plachta to realize, because her friend kept on doing alchemy for its own sake, never stopped to think about the why, and went on to develop an extremely dangerous type of alchemy that *waves hands at the last act of Sophie 1* And in case it wasn’t already obvious…    Even by the standards of “dreamworld isekai” or “different dimension isekai within an isekai”, the Dream Cradle really is otherworldly. Speaking of isekai within an isekai…   But first, the game wants me to continue Pirka’s character arc before getting on with the main story:     Corneria’s hair is shaped like a cat’s ears, so her loving milk always checked out to me. Pirka looks decidedly un-feline by comparison. Anyway, main story progression time!      Well aren’t we glad Pirka got suckered, bought a nondescript perfectly round stone, and ate a huge loss for our sake! Still, Sophie is the one person in this world who has a use for this. So!   We’ll be waiting on that! I have a massive backlog of events to get through, having beelined for the Elvira fight last update. What brought everyone else to Erde Wiege in the first place? Let’s start right at home…  Aspirations    Let’s get Pirka’s milk and while we’re here, chat with her roommate…           I get the feeling this conversation was supposed to happen much earlier given its contents.                     Alright! In the forest, there’s an exit to the northwest I ignored in favor of the swamp last time. Going there…  Kids …dammit, kids   Whoopsy, we’ve been spotted!    We found those kids at the entrance to the Misty Garden and got warped back to town when Ramizel dragged them home; at least we can fast travel back there.  From now on, when we find landmarks, someone will get AP. In this case, Olias gets 2 for coming to the Beast’s Dwelling. Moving on to the exit…  We’ve arrived at the Illusion Vale!  The traits we get from materials in this zone are far more potent than those on anything we’ve gathered up until now. We also start seeing traits like this which do nothing on their own, but turn into the really good stuff when merged with similar traits. And pay attention to how many stars each trait has; that will have implications when playing the greenhouse game.  Monsters here are also far stronger than in the Misty Garden and even the next dungeon we'll be heading to. Still, they’re eminently beatable with bomb spam, and the loot is well worth it. Now let’s put some of the traits made available here to use.   I attach Sign of Growth to a White Neutralizer, which I then put in some Refresh Oil with a Taun that has King of the Hill…  And my Refresh Oil comes out with Trusty Leader, which has this very nice effect for weapons! (If you played at launch, you’d remember this description being ATK/DEF/SPD+25 and its evolutions being +50 and +100; they never actually gave boosts that high and their descriptions have been corrected accordingly.)  Refresh Oil being Fuel, it can be used in Pure Water, which can then go into any neutralizer and thus most anything I can synthesize. And when I obtain the trait to upgrade Trusty Leader, I can have neutralizers or Pure Water on hand to easily do so. Fuel items also can be used in Polish. Let’s make that right now.   Element switch in action! This Polish with Trusty Leader also counts as Sand, and thus can be used as an ingredient in the next tier of Ingot.  Aspirations 2   Are you really sure you don’t want a bonus? I feel bad making you fight all those monsters. Hm … As expected of a knight. I’ll come to you again the next time I need a bodyguard, Diebold.         This service becomes available after spending an indeterminate amount of Cole restocking your usables; I suppose I finally passed the threshold throwing bombs enough times in the Illusion Vale.  Anyway, let’s duplicate the Polish I made earlier. It’s got a much lower unit price than the upper-tier Ingot I’d use it in, so this decision is more cost effective. And when it comes to Pirka, we are going to appreciate pinching our pennies very, very soon.   Aspirations 3    that, there, was Gust’s justification to bring her back for L&S.   With all that out of the way, let’s make the Soul Cage! For these syntheses, the only thing that matters is having the ingredients. So Sophie chucks them all into the cauldron and…  Grandmother and Granddaughter         “dig UP, stupid”      Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 24, 2022 |
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Sep 28, 2022 21:25
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:
The screen goes black for a few moments, and then Sophie reappears in town with a confused expression on her face, muttering, "But, I mean, it isn't really cheating if ... or is it?"
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Sep 29, 2022 04:20
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Part 7: Dreams of a Snowbound Land Soul Searching       Yeah, let’s go soul searching! Anything to get their minds off that bombshell.           No need to bask in the sun or get splashed by a waterfall for inspiration this time. We can just recharge the Glacial Larimar! And I’m well-covered for the ice and light components needed.    Hey, what was a painfully awkward moment for Sophie and Ramizel was comedy gold for us! And only Elvira could have pulled it off    Well it sure doesn’t sound like it’ll be happily ever after after we rescue Plachta, huh?      I don’t HAVE to freeze the swamp over to proceed, but doing so lets me gather materials I couldn’t find my first time here.  Demolition   Plachta’s got the right idea! And this will be convenient for recycling my outdated bombs. All that matters is that we CAN make this one. (and this is the first I’ve heard of using explosives to save her hometown from drought; she and her friend first made fertilizer to try and solve it.)       Music: Rime Flower  Gotta slide on in to actually arrive. Somewhere here is the alternate dimension.  I’ve been slow to show off the game’s photo mode, but hey, this is a good place to do so!    Freezing the lagoon also brought in all these bats!   I suck at getting what I want with Major Gathering, but this is a good haul for Saphir Gemstone. Now, then!  Frozen World  A frozen fortress! If you listen to the music, it’s the same track that played back when Sophie and Plachta chanced upon the Dream Tree in the real world.    idgi   Olias and Ramizel are onto something here:     Opening the floodgates and freezing the water that comes is how we progress through the Snowy Corridor. And while it’s snowing, the faucets are frozen and can’t be turned; I have to make it sunny to do so.  Puni Statue    That means making another Demolition Bomb! Back to town…      Now, let’s try and make BETTER bombs. Critical+ and Critical++ merged into Half Critical on the Pure Water that went into this Red Neutralizer.   Critical and Critical+ combined for Critical Finish, which merged with Half Critical to become Certain Critical on this Flame Emperor Dust–a necessary ingredient for…   …this Draco Bomb! Having this has the added bonus of freeing up another regular Bomb to stick in a Demolition Bomb. (And note that only our alchemists and Alette can use it, hence why Olias and Diebold are greyed out.) Now let’s go duplicate it…  Bombs  Well, let’s duplicate that Draco Bomb! One each for Plachta and Alette; at this point, I figured that Ramizel's Burning Rod covered her bases more than adequately for fire damage.    It went blasting off like Team Rocket, it can’t show up again soon, right?  Plachta: … … Everyone else:      Usual drill: open floodgates and freeze the water, thaw to uncover a path blocked off by ice, then freeze again to advance on the frozen water. At the end of the zone…  Crystal Puni   You know, I think we’re… kind of in the wrong here? Still, this thing won’t move unless we make it, so. Miniboss time!  It has an Ice Aura AND it’s weak to fire? Aren’t we glad we made that Draco Bomb!  Even Olias and Diebold have Bombs with these great damage/critical traits to lay on the hurt. Diebold especially appreciates this since he’s otherwise locked to physical damage, which the Crystal Puni resists. Unfortunately, that physical resistance means Ramizel’s Burning Rod doesn’t hit as hard as I’d like.  Imagine a Draco Bomb crashing into this mini-boss until it’s finally nuked from orbit; fitting way to end this fight. …yeah, maybe I should have made it sunny to remove its defense buff.   Upon entering the next zone, a loud oink roars through the corridor…       By making it sunny or rainy, the enemies I need to fight for Olias and Alette’s weapons spawn. Speaking of, let’s go back and-  owwwwwwww. Using those Draco Bombs with all those good traits attached cost me 2/3 of my Cole!  We don’t need to make the bigger, better ice bomb for the ice dungeon, but rather…   Making it twice AND making a Gold Eisen–one with the Trusty Leader!Polish–unlocks Ramizel’s next rod.  Anyway, the greenhouse–I only have Plant Seeds available, and they’re a pretty poor vector to show off greenhouse abuse because their ingredients are all primary. No neutralizers or anything else I can attach a 5* trait to can go in them.   It’s all I can do to max out yellow on this one and attach a singular 3* trait–and only the singular trait, as weird poo poo happens if you attach multiple traits of varying grades to a seed. After five days, it’ll be ready to harvest…   And here’s the yield! Develop the Body is something I’d want on my endgame armors. Dragonscale Protection and ATK-SPD Supercharge are also great, but not top-end, traits. The former can go on armor and the latter on accessories for now.       These traits (plus Trusty Leader) yield massive stat boosts across the board, but for Enhance the Body and Develop the Body, which scale off a party member’s base stats, they really show their worth when actually equipped. Anyway, I need cash like, right now.  Respite    Lucky for me, just actively gathering means I can get plenty of free money from Kati.   this is very much appreciated after that earlier tab!    Such is the power of the weather tools that they can freeze a mill in its place and free it up to move again. Anyway, for once you want the water off when progressing to…  Soul Searching 2        gently caress that noise! First things first, let’s make it sunny to remove its buffs.  It’s got a sturdier aura than even its mistress, so that’ll mean more (Draco) Bomb uses are needed to chew through it.  Like Elvira, it can summon scrubs that will take the hit for it. This time, I don’t have to worry about a reaction skill if I use my fire bombs, although the Apostle is immune to magic damage. And once it’s stunned…  Ramizel’s Burning Rod can do a whopping 2000 damage when it’s stunned, but OOPS I forgot that her Avalanche Naginata also does, well, ice damage, to which this boss is immune.  Also really appreciating the armor I forged for Diebold; he already has the highest defense on the team, but now this boss is just tickling him.  And this is how it all ends: the Wild Hail being at low enough HP that a Draco Bomb crashes through its aura and puts it down for the count.    Dunno, you see the way it breathed that smoke? it seemed like it had been exorcised of something really nasty?                Awwwww.     Say what you want about isekai, this one is providing opportunities for all sorts of otherwise impossible interactions. Sophie and her grandmother as a young woman, Sophie and her mentor as a teenager, having two Plachtas in the house…      Next time, on-  …ouch. Next time, we’ll see why it’s such a big day for Elvira and the other Plachta! Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Oct 24, 2022 |
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Oct 1, 2022 03:00
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If there's one thing I've learned about Atelier worlds, there are few problems a good bomb can't solve. 
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Oct 1, 2022 13:38
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veritably I would have appreciated a smilie that's except with a bomb when writing this last update
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Oct 1, 2022 17:00
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:veritably I would have appreciated a smilie that's
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Oct 1, 2022 21:42
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alternatively, a Mysterious series colored bomb
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Oct 1, 2022 22:24
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 I believe I am obligated to retcon both of those smilies into the update now
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Oct 1, 2022 22:50
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 this is why i had to stop because instead of progressing the story i was making monstrosities like this at 5am in the morning i've had something like this since the middle of the swamp e: i found something more directly comparable to what OP crafted in this very update  i think this one was crafted after the missile, but it's been a while since i forced myself to stop so I have no idea and we're not too far off from where i forced myself to stop what were you thinking past me? MayOrMayNotBeACat fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 04:17
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I mean hey that Draco Bomb is pretty good and has really high quality, and I haven't even really tried to go for the 999 quality loop yet! ...even the stuff I had crafted over the past two updates was like, a good six hours of recording in tandem with all the character subplots, story progression, gathering in the field, progressing down Sophie and Plachta and their combined recipe trees, etc. After having found Plachta's soul, the story slows down a bit and I can't reasonably expect to reach the next alternate dimension dungeon in the next recording session. I think the next two or three will be mostly character subplots plus crafting, with a little main plot on the side. (something else is going to come online that'll get me to spend even more time trying with crafting too.) e: this past session was like almost six hours of footage for a singular update and the vast, VAST majority of it was me getting those endgame traits I've been harping on about from greenhouse abuse and spreading it around my trait pool Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Oct 3, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 15:36
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Part 8: Dreams and Purpose (I) Music: Spooling Dreams I didn’t want to show it until after Doll Plachta reenters the scene, but the title screen shows a different scene with two characters each time you boot up the game. Since I’ve already beaten the game, it would have shown off some characters and dynamics far before their debuts. Here's another: Now, on to the game itself!  The Mayor and the Challenge  Remember, Ramizel has been the de facto mayor for the entirety of Roytale’s existence. Who, exactly, can be fit step in her shoes?       Music: Nemo - Haruka Shimotsuki When Ramizel tells the crowd to be quiet, they listen. An accident … That’s terrible … We’re happy to have her! This is fantastic news! If she’s got Miss Elvira and Ramizel’s approvals, that’s more than enough for me. We’re looking forward to having you as our mayor, Plachta!   Is that really who I think it is …?!     You’re the goddess who gave us all hope! We’re so happy you’re here! Wow … That’s the real Elvira … We love you, Miss Elvira!       They say we’ll know time travel is a thing when there’s a rash of teenagers getting the living snot beaten out of them by their future selves. The two Plachtas will be testing that thesis in live time           Alright FINALLY, catalysts! If I synthesize a catalyst right, I can have a 6x6 or 7x7 grid AND just like in L&S, components won’t be entirely deleted by overlapping ones! But that’s not all…  All this time, the game’s been gatekeeping the best effects on all our items behind catalysts. When synthesizing with catalysts, I have an option to do so with some of the panels inaccessible; doing so lets me access the highest effect thresholds. If I choose to synthesize without restricted panels like I’ve been doing up to this point, I’ll be shut out from the highest effect thresholds. Operationally, dropping in a reusable catalyst sounds much more convenient than swapping cauldrons, which was how you got bigger grids in Sophie 1, and IS much more convenient than having to have a dozen Rubies (6x6 grid) or Philosopher’s Stones (7x7) on hand like in L&S.  I’ll start by upgrading my Growlia Catalyst. For now, I just want to max out the Lightning effects. While I hit 7x7, I fell short of Components Divided–the effect that allows component overlap.  That’s okay, because it gave a 7x7 grid to upgrade the Limitia Catalyst to have both a 7x7 grid AND Components Divided! (Not shown is me downgrading the Growlia back to a 5x5–I want one 5x5 grid on hand as it’s easier to fill out rows and columns and maximize my Super Success odds on a smaller grid. And don’t worry–restricted panels also count as free spaces toward that end.) The other effect is Components Inverted, which allows you to flip components horizontally. Such a feature wasn't present in L&S, but also wouldn't have mattered anyway–I didn't have to think about chaining starred components back then. As an aside, while this contest is running, I can only synthesize with Sophie; for some time, I’ll be shut out of all of Plachta’s recipes.  Sophie, Slob      Sophie’s slovenliness must have made him forget. Moving onto something I’D like to forget…  Why am I putting one of my Red Neutralizers with Certain Critical into a Pure Water? Because once it goes into Pure Water, it can be used in another neutralizer or in Zettel, a Fuel item that in turn goes back into Pure Water. (If I max Yellow on Red Neutralizer, it counts as Fuel too.)  This way, I can get my best quality-boosting traits and Certain Critical onto one item, which, Super Success RNG willing, I can then use to loop indefinitely to raise quality to 999. With a Pure Water that has 999 quality, it can be used in a Neutralizer for a super good bomb. Unfortunately, I failed to hit 999. All the other ingredients needed in the fuels/Pure Water kept dragging the quality of the end products down. Hell, I think that Zettel was the highest quality I got with Certain Critical on it–a shameful display  Shameful! So let’s bounce and see some character arcs. New Job    only in this franchise could you get an expletive like “what the barrels?!” Well, let’s hope Pirka finds some recourse before she works herself to death. Moving on…  I’ll need this book for the materials to upgrade my sickle and pickaxe. Unfortunately, I also need Alchemic Clay, which I can’t synthesize yet, so I have to put that on the burner for now.    Sophie 1’s full title is Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, after all!    That’s a location that shows up in Firis, which takes place after Sophie 2 chronologically.  Kati’s given age is 26 and Anne, the person in her position during Firis, is 29. I for one would not want to be in charge of “what if Wikipedia, but without the internet or any IT infrastructure to make it even remotely workable” ever, let alone at that age. Again, checks out with Anne.     Sophie being a slob is a punchline throughout the OG Mysterious trilogy. Sophie 2 introduces (much to Plachta’s consternation) the question: is Sophie messy by nature or by nurture?      Given how straitlaced Diebold is, one could be forgiven for thinking he’s ribbing his good pal Olias in his own way there. Moving on!    Sophie, Sensei     not like that’ll stop her from taking Firis on as her apprentice after this game’s over with  While we’re back in the atelier…    Let’s combine Red and Green Surge in a White Neutralizer; the traits merge into Yellow Rhythm. With my Limitia, I can not only hit the top effect thresholds, but have the real estate to max out ALL the effects to boot; it’s truly a liberating feeling    Now, let’s put my Yellow Rhythm!White Neutralizer into a Flame Emperor Dust with a Blue Surge!Yellow Neutralizer. These traits combine into…   Pure White Resonance, a 5* trait! Since Flame Emperor Dust counts as Gunpowder, I can loop it back to Red Neutralizer, and thus into Refresh Oil, and into Pure Water, and into another neutralizer and into Pure Water and Refresh Oil, which can ALSO be used in Polish, which counts as Sand and can go into a Yellow Neutralizer, which can go into–you get the picture. Pretty much all my intermediate syntheses will be something from this loop.                 Anyway, offscreen, I crafted Fire Seeds with Certain Critical and Trait Gatherer S and stuck it in the greenhouse.  Certain Critical is a 5* trait, so my haul was good, but didn’t have any of the endgame traits I wanted.  So let’s try that again! I’ll put a PWR!Pure Water into a Zettel and go for broke with Fire components…   …because doing so produced a Zettel with a 5-panel Light component that let me hit the threshold for Trait Harvester XL on this take. This wouldn’t have been possible without catalysts, as I couldn’t have hit the threshold for that light component or advanced to an effect threshold beyond Trait Harvester L on Fire Seeds without one.  Yields–what items I get, how many I get, and what traits are on them–are seeded the moment I plant, so if I’m going to save scum to get what I want, I’ll have to save right before this. After planting this PWR!Fire Seeds and waiting 5 days…    I got a good deal of the traits I was looking for, but not everything. Let’s plant the other seeds…    Awakening is a trait that upgrades other top-end equipment traits and it’s the one that I’d have otherwise had to wait until the final dungeon to gather conventionally. All for One and Inner Ambition were also top priority for me because they let me upgrade Trusty Leader to its final stage. Inner Ambition is on the Sand Bamboo, which counts as Gunpowder and can be used in Red Neutralizer. Let’s make that and add a Trusty Leader!Pure Water to the mix…  And the two traits merged into Benevolent Ruler! But we’re not done yet.  I want Awakening in my greater trait pool and to loop my All for One in to what I’ve been crafting. To this end, I start by making Polish, and in doing so, I have to be VERY careful that Awakening doesn’t prematurely merge with another trait.  Like this. Bad! Let’s hit B and make sure there’s no other traits in the pool that will merge with Awakening.  In hindsight I should have put Transcendent Mastery–the Awakening equivalent for top-end buff and debuff traits–on too for this one, but I have another ingredient with that trait in the wings; it won’t be lost to me forever despite this decision. Now that we have 4 Polish with Awakening, let’s see the trait in action.    Awakening merged with Supercharge All Stats into All-Stat Power, an endgame trait that can go onto all my equipment–weapons, armors, accessories, and talismans. And since I have many more Polish, Yellow Neutralizer, etc. with Awakening, I can use them later on to get my desired endgame armor trait loadout for when the next tier of cloth comes online.  Eventually, I merge Benevolent Ruler and All for One to make Tyrant King. These stat boosts are nuts, especially at this point in the game, even if Tyrant King can only go on weapons.  Now let’s combine Skillful Attack with Awakening.   Between Tyrant King, Persistent Attack and All-Stat Power, that’s all three traits I want on my endgame weapons–all by the midgame-ish point! And since the top-tier ingots require fuel, I can use this Refresh Oil in their syntheses and focus all my attention on getting the colored components I want from the rest of the ingredients. Now let’s revisit Pure White Resonance; it wasn’t a trait I wanted just for greenhouse abuse. Its description says it merges with a Decline or Prosperity trait. Let’s first make the latter by merging Sharp Mind and Familiar Presence.  Familiar Presence was on an Animal Material. Note that Golden Threads are your ticket to get traits from Animal Materials into Pure Water, and from there, the neutralizer/fuel loop.     With this, I have obtained the single best buff trait in the game. But that’s not all PWR is good for!   Invisible Illness and Empty Anxiety will merge into Dark Decline, which automatically gets combined with PWR into…  Pure White Corrosion, the best debuff trait in the game!   Might as well put my super Polish to use right now, right? And I can really hit a high effect level and get better components and +DEF effects on this Gold Eisen with my catalyst. Let’s make a talisman with it.  Talismans are the fourth slot on the equipment screen, below weapons, armor, and non-talisman accessories. Since the Scorching Talisman requires some metal, I can use this Gold Eisen in it.  Of all the talismans available right now, I want the Scorching Talisman because it really bolsters my offensive firepower between the skill power boost and the attack boost.  Of all the traits on that Gold Eisen, only All-Stat Power could go on the end product. But that’s fine; these are perfectly acceptable and rather  stat boosts for the time being. Eventually, I’ll make talismans and other accessories that have All-Stat Power and two other great traits on them. Case in point! But why not share the love?  Let’s do this rank up quest so we can get better quests and more Cole from Kati and finance our duplication and restocking needs. The Cavern Keeper is in Erk’s Ice Caves…  Cavern Keeper   Lucky for me, this talisman is fairly cheap to duplicate; I can give it and its stat boosts to the rest of the party! Anyway, there’s still the contest with Plachta outstanding, and I can’t fit that, the other character events, and the rest of the Pure White trait syntheses in this update because I’d run way over the character limit. (to be continued) Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2022 20:25
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Part 9: Dreams and Purpose (II) (cont.) Last update, Sophie was considering learning quick thinking from Alette. Let’s start this part with her.  Sophie, Fired       Well, fired means fired, so we’ll have to skedaddle!      A Former Life I already have plenty of those from killing Extinct Ancients to unlock Alette’s Spy’s Footfalls, so no need to go in the field.  True, Diebold WAS in the party when I fought the jellyfish that dropped all that.    Now, there’s a contest outstanding. I only need to make a Breezy Aroma with 80 quality, but it’ll be very trivial to clear that bar.   All three traits I want are in these two Refresh Oils. Pure White Glory provides across the board buffs to ATK, DEF and SPD, as well as three other random buffs; Awakening Heal revives anyone who’s been KO’d and restores an additional 20% of HP, and Terrific Healing boosts healing power by 25%.  My goal for this synthesis was to hit 25 Ice, the threshold for Activate Scatter, and then prioritize Wind for MP recovery. I did neither, instead just hitting Activate Split. What Split/Scatter does is generate a time card when I use Breezy Aroma to buff and heal everyone. Later during the battle, the time card triggers and everyone gets buffed and healed. Activate Split generates a time card that does this just once while Activate Scatter generates one that does this twice.  Outcome This Breezy Aroma is great for the time being, but I’ll definitely need to revisit it later. Not just because I missed my target effect thresholds, but also because there are still stronger revival and healing traits I want to replace Awakening Heal and Terrific Healing with.      She’s right; Sophie might be the nicest person in the world, but no matter what she says at this juncture, she’d only hurt Plachta’s feelings further.  We have no choice but to do so, as Sophie will not leave Roytale town limits while Plachta the Young has run off. So let’s go to the Crystal Sparkle Pavilion.  Music: Giving Dreams Shape (From “Dreams of a Book”)          And hey, I’m sure Mayor Plachta enjoys the break.        You can probably figure out what’s going on with Plachta the Young: after the events of the game up to this point, she knows that someday, somehow, she will become the mentor of the great alchemist Sophie, and it’s getting to her head. In her eye, she has to surpass Sophie NOW, even though that’s clearly not going to happen anytime soon. Not storywise and not in alchemy level. And that’s been eating away at her.   So in a way, Ramizel’s the perfect person to give Plachta this talk. She’s completely at peace with being worse at alchemy than Sophie and Plachta. Still, she knows the purpose to her power. That not only animates her as a person, but lets her spot out those who’ve lost sight of their purpose.   Well, that’s all resolved And Plachta’s ready to go back to the atelier now.     Despite the tone there, the game immediately segued into another cutscene at the atelier. One with the whole party…              So this is Sophie 2’s rendition of ultimate attacks. Duel Triggers run off a gauge that, mercifully and unlike in L&S, carries over between battles and thus are actually practical to trigger.   You could tell from the dialogue, but we start with three Dual Triggers. The game doesn’t make any effort to hide which pairs get the ones to come and they’ll trickle in as we continue with the party members’ character arcs. Anyway, before we heed Mayor Plachta’s call, there’s something else I want to make.   With Plachta back at the cauldron, I’ll start by putting my Pure White Corrosion!Red Neutralizer into a Klavier Band.  This is to the end of crafting an Ennui Mirror, which can now be made into a great debuffer with catalysts. I’ll want to hit 20 Wind for that, and I might have trouble getting enough Wind links and components to do so.   What will help me immensely to this end is using Major Gathering to get Silver Crystals with Wind components at Erk’s Ice Caves; normally, Silver Crystals can’t have green components. Now for the actual synthesis:  It seems I don’t have the links needed to increase the max effect level and max out Wind, or even enough remaining Wind components, right? Well, with the Limitia I synthesized…    I can do THAT to increase my Wind links without blanking any of my previously-placed Wind components, and using Link Morph on that Ice panel provided the extra push needed to increase my Wind max effect level, max out Wind and hit the threshold for Tri-Suffer. The other effects don’t particularly matter, but here’s the end product:    Even if Plachta may not be the better alchemist, she’s the only one who can make this Ennui Mirror. That counts for something! I got Final Grudge by merging Transcendent Mastery with Inflict Grudge; I wanted that one specifically to soften enemy resistances and even inflict weaknesses on them. The traits and Tri-Suffer speak for themselves: this will inflict a veritable litany of debuffs and status effects on the enemy. Each individual debuff and status effect will also deplete enemy aura. …each individual debuff and status effect will also deplete enemy aura… …Let’s test that proposition next update! Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Oct 24, 2022 |
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Oct 6, 2022 20:27
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Ohhh, that's how you get Dark Decline. I got its counterpart completely by accident and assumed they were both drop-only. Catalysts are good. Dual attacks are good. Good game.
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Oct 7, 2022 16:21
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