~B
BATTLE SKILL/TALENT FAQ
Version 2.6
Written By: Aya Brea
i_love_aya@hotmail.com
This is very similar to my SaGa Frontier Skill FAQ. Yes there are
awfully many FAQs written for this game but I felt that none of them
explain all the battle skills in detail (until recently) and
especially Talents so here it is. (This is still incomplete though.)
(Note: Again, no walkthroughs nor lists.)
This is my second attempt to write an FAQ. I was very proud of my
SaGa Frontier FAQ and I missed sitting here typing for hours on end
so I decide to write an exciting (hopefully) FAQ on one of my (ex-)
favourite games of the moment, Star Ocean: The Second Story.
CONTENTS (More sections might be included later)
- Revision
- Credits
- About me
- Introduction
- Star Ocean: The Second Story
- Starting the game
- Status
- Combat
- Battle strategy
- Formations
- Elemental effects
- Affection
- Killer Moves
- Link Combo
- Magic/Heraldry arts
- Spell absorb
- Spell cancel
- Characters
- Claude Kenni
- Rena Lanford
- Celine Jules
- Ashton Anchors
- Precis Neumann
- Opera Vectra
- Ernest Raviede
- Bowman Jean
- Leon Geeste
- Dias Flac
- Noel Chandler
- Chisato Madison
- Tips
- Talents
- Acquiring new talents
- Preparation
- Putting it in action
- Those impossible talents
- Talent traits
- The ugly side of the game!
- #1 The bugs
- #2 Item Creation
- #3 The AI
REVISION
========
V1.0 – 02/Aug/99
- Started writing this FAQ.
V1.2 – 25/Aug/99
- Quit the damn Galaxy mode since it's no fun. Done all of the
basic parts and written part of Claude, Rena, Ashton, Celine and
Precis' section.
V2.0 – 06/Sep/99
- Done all character's overviews except for Noel's. Some spell and
KM descriptions are in.
- Added the "Talent" section
- Added "The Ugly Side of the Game" section
- Added the "Cancel Ability" and "Link Combo Ideas" for most
characters
V2.5 – 18/Feb/00
- Do an update just to show you that I'm not dead and neither have
I abandoned this project. It's just coming along slowly. There should
be one more update before my copy of Vandal Hearts 2 and SaGa
Frontier 2 arrives.
- Filled in more KMs for Claude, Ashton, Opera and Precis, some
spells from Rena and Celine too.
- Fixed a LOT of typos
- Derived the equation for the healing spells
- Listed many MANY more bugs!
- New tips section
- Noel's overview
- Some character's initial stats
V2.6 – 12/Jan/01
- Hey guys, didja miss me? Been almost a year since my last update
so here's another one. Filled in more KMs for Precis, Opera and
Bowman, more spells for Leon and Rena as well. They're not completed
yet as I have yet to raise their Proficiency, but they'll be in
shortly.
- Fixed a LOT of typos and changed some format to make it more
readable
- Updated Sixth Sense talent acquisition
- 2 bug fixers are in
- Bits here and there, and there, and oh, and ah missed a spot.
Basically a bit of everything.
- An extra tip. More comin' up, when I remember them.
CREDITS
=======
* Enix and Tri-Ace for making this extraordinary game!
* Links for the wonderful FMVs.
* SCEA for porting it over.
* Ian Kelley for his fantastic FAQ on the Japanese version of the
game. BTW, his translations are, more often than not, better than the
official translation. I'll take his script over the official one any
day!
* Ex-Death for helping me to get Precis' Mechinery Killer Moves, as
well as his fabulous guides.
* Shewin Tam for his most excellent guides, especially the "In-Depth
Tips & Tricks" FAQ.
* GameFaqs for being the best gaming site on the web. It's the only
other site I check everyday.
* Happy Matt for telling me about this game aeons before most people
even knows about this game. Also thanks for helping me in various
places in the game, giving me helpful tips and being a great friend!
:-) (Have fun with your new games, hehe..)
* FeralNoa
who has shared MANY strategies, tips,
bugs and other weird stuff with me, not just for this game but for
many other games as well. Thanks!
* for info on learning Sixth Sense
* for info on Sixth Sense
ABOUT ME
========
Like I said in my SF FAQ, I am a guy so don't call me "girlfriend" or
something like that OK? Aya is awesome!
Anyway, I live in New Zealand. I'm 17 now and am currently doing a
Commerce degree in university, and yes I am 2 years ahead of my time
but don't take me for a geek though. I'm only doin' this so I can
graduate sooner and get it over with. (I HATE school/university!)
I love RPGs but I have a very high standard in them, and Star Ocean 2
was one of the few RPGs that really impressed me and got me hooked on
for god knows how long! (Geez, even Lunar failed my expectations.)
The RPG I'm looking forward to the most? Suikoden 2 of course! (I
loved the original, it was the first PS game I bought!)
My ICQ # is 15185682 and you're welcome to have a chat with me
sometime, I'm usually free when I'm online.
INTRODUCTION
============
Welcome to my in-depth Star Ocean: The Second Story Battle Skills
FAQ. In this guide I will evaluate every single Killer Move and spell
in the game in detail, how they change and where it's best used for.
Also in the guide are the Skills you can learn in this game and hear
my advice on them. Of course, no guides will be complete without
discussing the abilities of the playable characters. And finally my
tips, tricks, tactics and notes on various aspects of this game such
as Item Creation, talents, glitches and lotsa miscellaneous stuff.
Enjoy! (Well, that was then. I don't know if I'd include sections on
skills and Item Creations but we'll have to wait and see.)
Yes it's rather incomplete at the moment since I'm not too fond of
that game right now, but I really want to complete this guide just
for the sake of it.
Note, it is assumed that you know the basic controls of this game,
and I won't explain the menus like I did in my SaGa Frontier FAQ
since they're self-explainable.
STAR OCEAN: THE SECOND STORY
============================
It seems that a lot of people didn't even know that this game is
actually the second Star Ocean game, hence "The Second Story". (I'd
refer to it as SO2 in my FAQ.) Released sometime late last year in
Japan and was ported over to the US shore by the brilliant SCEA.
Although the translation could use a little more work, it isn't
nearly as bad as Final Fantasy Tactics, at least they got everyone's
names right and no more of those stupid "bracelets".
The game features a mixed setting, clichèd but somewhat interesting
characters, a poor story and an awfully addicting battle system.
Unlike most other RPGs, SO2 has its own fairly unique features, such
as Private Actions, the "affection" system, the skill system, gaining
Proficiency, Link Combos, the extremely innovative but poorly
implemented Item Creation system and the 80+ bits of endings to keep
you strolling back for more. Of course, nothing is perfect and this
game is miles away, see what I mean under "The Ugly Side of the Game"
section. ;)
STARTING THE GAME
=================
Upon starting a new game, you'll be prompt with a number of options,
such as sound output, battle mode, vibration and then you get too
choose from one of two possible characters to play through the game
with: either Claude Kenni or Rena Lanford.
If you're starting your third game and you have heard enough voice
samples (ie, getting the empty spaces in your voice collection
filled) then you may choose your difficulty setting. There are 3
settings: Earth, Galaxy and Universe. Earth is standard, Galaxy is
hard where the enemies have more HP, attack power and are slightly
smarter, Universe is for the extreme experts where the enemies gets a
boost on ALL their stats and are REALLY smart. I'm currently playing
the Galaxy mode and I must admit that it's VERY hard already, since
your ally AI is so crappy, you basically have to take control of 3
out of 4 characters in able to win! Universe is possibly impossible!
My comments: If this is your first game, I highly recommend that you
choose Claude over Rena, even though parts of his game are slightly
more difficult. When I played through Rena's quest on my second game,
I thought her story was terrible, it was basically a watered down
version of Claude's. She had less cut scenes to view, less story
advancement and some cut scenes were irrelevant to her story. If you
play her quest first, chances are you'll have no clue of what's going
on. Yes this is a double scenario game (meaning the story remains
mostly unchanged but are viewed through the eyes of 2 different
characters, like that of RE2), but the attempt is only average.
My comments #2: Remember that I do NOT recommend the harder Galaxy
and Universe modes. They're THAT hard!!! Unless you're EXTREMELY
patient or you can reprogram the game, I don't even suggest that you
should give it a try. Just think why you bought this game for. To
have fun right, not frustration! If somehow you played these modes
and lived through it, good on you!
---Sound system---
Star Ocean 2 is the first RPG I've played that implements 3 different
sound output systems (ordered form worst to best):
- Monoaural
- Stereo
- Surround
If you have 5 or more speakers, I highly suggest that you choose
Surround sound. I'm not into this kinda stuff but you might. Stereo
is ok for 2 speakers and Mono if you only have 1 speaker.
---Combat mode---
The back of the SO2 box says the game "features 3 battle modes",
which might sound good at first, but there's actually only 2 since
Semi-Active is just a mixture of the 2 with no new features, and they
don't differ all that much. (Now if the game lets you fight turn-
based battles, then that's REALLY something, although not very
realistic in this game.) What's even more misleading about that
statement is that you can actually mix-and-match the different
features of each mode to create what really suits you! The 3
"different" modes are:
| Manual | Semi-Active | Active
-----------+---------------+-------------------+---------------------
Target | Manual | Semi-Auto | Full-Auto
Camera | Normal | Leader centered | Leader Centered
Movement | [] + D-pad | [] + D-pad | D-pad only
Of course, Active battle is the most fun, although the AI gives you
little target control, it'll usually target the closest enemy. (In
battle, a green arrow will point at your current target.) If you want
target control then change the Targeting mode to "Manual" or "Semi-
Auto", but beware, time won't stop when you're choosing your targets!
The camera options don't seem to be very different from one another,
as both controls the camera terribly! However, DON'T use "Leader
centered", because every time after someone casts a spell, the camera
will drift away and you'll be unable to control your character
effectively. This happens 99% of the time in "Leader centered",
although "Normal" will sometimes do so as well.
I think we can all agree on the fact that controlling your character
with the D-pad (or left stick) only is much more convenient.
STATUS
======
There are many statistics in SO2, but unlike most other games,
they're quite confusing, so here's a summary of what each statistics
does. Note, most stats will increase at level ups, and certain
equipment can increase certain stats:
HP: Hit Points, the most well known feature of any RPG. Your HP level
decrease as you get hit by the enemies and when it drops to zero,
your character faints and is unable to participate in combat. Parts
of your current HP can be recovered naturally depending on your
Stamina level.
MP: Magic Points, but are not always used to cast magic spells,
usable for fighter's Killer Moves as well. Every time you use a
Killer Move or cast a spell, your current MP will decrease by the MP
cost of that skill. Once your MP reached zero or below the required
level to use that skill, you'll no longer be able to use that Killer
Move or spell. Like HP, MP can also be recovered automatically after
a battle according to your Stamina level.
STR: Strength, affects the ATT (attack power). The higher this stat
is, the more damage you'll do in your attack. Also affects the power
of most fighters' Killer Moves.
CON: Constitution, affects the AC (defence). You'll take less damage
if you have high CON.
DEX: Dexterity, affects the HIT (accuracy or hit rate). Measures how
often you can successfully hit an enemy, very useful later in the
game.
AGI: Agility, affects the AVD (evade). Characters with higher AGI can
dodge attacks more often than characters with lower AGI.
INT: Intelligence, affects the MAG (magic power). A magic user will
be able to deal more damage with their spells with high INT.
Interestingly, all characters (even magic users) joins you with their
INT at zero!
LUC: Luck, affects a little bit of everything, or nothing at all.
Luck can raise your hit rates or evade rates, how often Guts appears
and the success of Item Creations minimally. Don't worry too much
about it.
STM: Stamina. IMO, the most useful statistic for any character. This
determines how much HP and MP a character can recover after a fight.
With high STM, a character can recover more HP/MP than they've used
in battle! However, recovery is also affected by your actions in
combat. Attacking, moving, casting spells will all waste energy,
meaning your character will recover less as they take more actions in
battle.
GUTS: Guts and will-power of a character, this has a few effects.
1) The first is the DEATHBLOW EFFECT. When a character attacks an
enemy, "GUTS" will sometimes appear above the character and
they'll do MUCH more damage (usually twice as much!), and I think
this can work with certain Combat Skills to a greater effect! (I
think this apply to the Killer Moves as well.)
2) The opposite, ADVANCED GUARD EFFECT. When a character is hit,
"GUTS" appear over their heads and they'll take slightly less
damage. Enemies can achieve this effect too.
3) When a character's health is low and receives an attack that would
usually knock them unconscious, "GUTS" appears and the character
will stay at 1HP, sorta like that of BOF3 but this effect is quite
rare until later.
The below stats are not the natural stats of a character but are
related to it:
ATT: Attack Power, this is the combined value of a character's STR
and the equipped weapon's power. Most important stat for fighters, as
both their normal attacks and most Killer Moves are proportional to
this value. Less useful for magic users.
AC: Armor Class/Defense Power, this is the combined value of a
character's CON and every single piece of equipped armor's defense
power. Useful for all characters but becomes sort of irrelevant in
the later levels of the Trial Cave.
HIT: Accuracy/Hit Rate, basically the character's DEX value, but most
weapons will give a bonus to this stat. Useful for fighters mainly,
especially later in the game where the enemies blocks your hits like
crazy.
AVD: Evade/Avoid, the AGI value plus any AVD bonus from armors. More
important than AC in the Trail Cave since most attacks can kill you
in one hit regardless of your AC. You can avoid 90% of the hits if
you have a high AVD and mastered the Parry Combat Skill.
MAG: The magic power of your character, just the INT value of any
character plus any MAG bonus associated with your armor or weapon.
Quite useful for any magic user but are useless for all fighters.
However, some of my fighters have a MAG level (well, INT actually,
but they're the same thing) that rivals a good mage like Rena!!! I
don't think this affects magic resistance, since all spells are
elemental, equipping elemental defence items will reduce the damage
taken from spells.
CRT: Critical. Not a real stat (ie, cannot be found in your status
option) but many equipment have a CRT bonus. The chance of a critical
blow (different to that caused by GUTS) increases with this, where
your's attack makes a loud noise, makes the screen flash (slightly),
does more damage (not as much as GUTS though) and instantly Peeps the
enemy.
COMBAT
======
Like most RPGs, combat takes place randomly when you're walking
around in a dungeon or on the world map. When a fight occurs, the
screen will flash and you will be zapped to a new screen.
Combat takes place in a semi-3D environment, where you're given an
angled side-view. Your fighting party (ie, first 4 party members)
will usually be on the right side of the battle field in their
current formation, while the enemies will usually be on the left. The
battle is fought in real time and you can move in every direction but
can only attack enemies when you're facing left or right, kinda like
the classic side-scrolling games like Final Fight. You can control
one character at a time (default is the first character) while your
other characters will be controlled by the AI.
Although this seems to play like an action game like Secrets of Mana,
it's actually very different. For example, you can press the X button
to do a regular slash, which in action games will make your character
swing his weapon right where he is. However, in SO2, your character
will move close to the targeted enemy so they're in your character's
attacking range before making their strike. So if you press the X
button at full screen length, you'll character will actually run
across the screen to attack them, which is quite troublesome as the
enemy can launch their attack before you can get close to them and
nail you just when you're about to hit them. And if the enemy moves
or runs away, your character will actually chase after them
*UNCONTROLLABLY*, since once you press the button to attack there's
no way of cancelling the action but you'll regain control if you get
hit or you hit the enemy (or if you miss). In a way, the attacking
system is very similar to Tales of Destiny/Phantasia.
If the target enemy is airborne, your character will use their air
attack. Most characters' air attack is a jump and attack in the peak
of their jump, which gives you even less control!
The targeting system is very similar when using Killer Moves for your
fighters. On the bottom-left corner of the screen is the "range
indicator", which marks the distance between the character you're
controlling and the target enemy (I use Auto, so I don't know what
happens in Manual). Pressing the L1 or R1 button will allow you to
execute the Killer Move assigned to that button, and depending on
your range (Long or Short), you'll execute the Long or Short range
version of the Killer Move. (Some Killer Moves has only one version
though.) Most Killer Moves have an execution point, which means that
you must be exactly that far away from the target to execute the
Killer Move. Again, if you're too far away from the execution point
(regardless of whether you're right next to the opponent or at full
screen length), you'll have to spend some time running to the desired
distance. If the target moves or run away, you'll again loose control
of your character as he/she chases after the enemy. Few Killer Moves
can be executed at any place on the screen, take advantage of these.
Note however, standing away from the enemy is not the only way to
register a long range. You maybe also knock them high into the air,
it's possible through the Float Combat skill combined with Strong
Blow, some Killer Move can launch an enemy into the air and enemies
will fall from the air at the beginning of the battle during a
"surround attack".
Of course, it's not very a good idea to control just one character,
so you might want to swap characters when the AI slacks or someone is
standing around idled. By pressing the O button, the time will freeze
and you'll see a cursor above the character you're currently
controlling, press left or right on the D-pad (or the analogue stick)
will allow you to swap characters, press the O button again on the
desired character to resume combat. This is also a good feature to
use when you want to pause the fight or just get a better view of the
surroundings without wasting combat time. Once you've changed your
character, the L2 button will be available to switch between that
character and the default character quickly. If you change characters
again with the O button, the L2 button will exchange control between
the default character and the character that you've switched to last.
After the battle is over, the controlled character will revert back
to default.
Pressing the R2 button will put the character into Manual mode. In
Manual mode, the AI will not control the character if you switched
characters, so in other words, they'll just stand there waiting to
get killed if you switched characters. I don't see what good this is
for, unless you're resting or something (but then again, I wish you
had more control over the camera angles.)
There's an hourglass to the upper left corner, it indicates whether
you'll be able to enter commands for the character currently under
your control at a particular time interval. When it's blue it means
you can control the character freely but if it's red then it means
that your character is in the middle of another action, is moving,
recovering from an attack or other frames of animation that makes
them "occupied". This is not too important.
Regular attacks and Killer Moves are not the only actions you can do
in combat. By pressing the triangle, you'll be able to access the
ring menu of your current character (which is similar to the spell
menus in Secrets of Mana). There are 4 options: Magic/Heraldry (magic
users only), Item, Tactics and Run. BTW, time is paused when you're
selecting form the menu so don't be afraid to take your time.
---Magic/Heraldry---
Equivalent to the fighter's Killer Moves, mage can cast spells.
Select Magic/Heraldry will give you the list of magic available for
your magic user to cast, press the X button will allow you to cast
the desired spell. Any spell name in grey cannot be used due to
insufficient MP. Unlike the Killer Moves, you can cast a spell
anywhere on the battle field, but a spell has a casting time
associated with it. All spells will take sometime before it is
executed Usually the more powerful a spell is, the longer it takes to
cast. Beware, your magician is very vulnerable during this time since
they cannot move, and if they take any damage, their concentration is
ruined and the spell dissolves. Try to protect the magic user when
they're casting spells or move them out of the way.
You can also "absorb" spells by having 2 characters casting a spell
at the exact time. The effects varies depending on the elemental of
the spells combined, explained below.
After the spell takes effect, an orange bar appears near the magician
and starts to deplete. During this time, the magician must recover
their mental strength and is unable to cast another spell. However,
they can still move, and once the orange bar disappears, they'll once
again be able to use magic.
Fighter will have a red cross over their Magic menu because they
can't cast spells.
---Item---
This is simple enough, to use a usable item during battle. Selecting
this will give you the list of items in your inventory. IMO, this is
rather badly done, as items both usable and unusable in battle will
appear in the list. Items that cannot be used in battle are in grey.
Sort your items by "combat" (double swords) will help out a lot.
After using an item however, it gets more complicated. Similar to
spell recovery, you'll be unable to use an item for a short period of
time. (Reason?) If you look to the top of the screen to the right of
your character's stats, you'll see a vertical green bar with the word
"Item" down the bottom. If the bar says "OK" then items are usable
during that time. When an item is used, the bar will turn purple and
will begin to deplete, while the green will begin to recover. Until
the bar turns back into green and the word "OK" appears again, your
Item menu will be sealed (by a red cross over it).
---Tactics---
Changes your character's strategy during battle, similar to the menu.
Explained below.
---Run---
Try to escape from the battle. This will put all characters who are
not currently attacking/casting spells into their running animation
(the characters who are occupied will finished what they're doing
before trying to run.) While in the running animation, they'll be
uncontrollable and will stay that way until they ran away or gets
killed. IMO, SO2 has the worst "escape system" (yes even worse than
Parasite Eve or Wild Arms) so my advice is to never use this option
unless you're in the beginning of the game. You'll most likely to get
a "GAME OVER" if you try to run later in the game or (especially) in
the Trial Caves. You'd be better off using a Skanda to warp you out
(duplicate lots and lots of those!!) or use a Dummy Doll to distract
the enemies as you run.
---Negative Status Ailments---
As of any RPG, bad status ailments are unavoidable. There ain't that
many of them in this game but the ones it does have are deadly.
* POISON
Like most RPGs, Poison is the mildest status. Your HP drops every few
seconds. This will not disappear after battle, not even if you stay
at an inn! You must cure it through the use of spells or items. On
the field, you'll loose a bit of HP for every few steps you take.
Sample cures: Cure Poison, Aquaberry, Spring Water; Antidote and
Dispel spells.
* PARALYZE
The character is unable to do anything, so they're frozen in one
place. He/she cannot take damage while Paralyzed. A Paralyzed
character will not gain any experience points after battle. Like
Poison, this status cannot be recovered even by staying at an inn.
Sample cures: Cure Paralyze, Spring Water; Dispel spell.
* STONE
Also known as Petrify. Someone's too lazy to think up a new status
effect so this is basically exactly the same as Paralyze. You cannot
act but you won't continue to take damage so it's slightly better. A
Stoned character will gain no experience after a battle and cannot be
cured by staying at an inn.
Sample cures: Cure Stone, Spring Water; Dispel spell.
* FAINT
Not a real status, but it's in the manual. The character is basically
dead, unable to act or move. This happens when a character's HP drops
to zero, as well as the effect of a few rare instant-death attacks.
This CAN be recovered by staying at an inn.
Sample cures: Resurrection Bottle, Resurrection Mist, Smelling Salt,
Revival Card; Raise Dead spell.
The following status ain't real ones, they're not in the manual, but
I thought they're worth mentioning.
* PEEP
The game calls this status "Peeping" but it's commonly known as Dizzy
or something like that. A Dizzied character will not be able to act
nor move for a short period of time, making them very vulnerable. A
character will become Dizzy when they got strut by a critical blow or
is constantly taking hits. You can knock an enemy Dizzy as well, the
higher your CRT the easier it is. Characters with multiple-hit Killer
Moves can take advantage of this as well. You can also cast some
spells to Peep an enemy, or use an item. The last way is through a
successful hit with any weapons that produce stars when swung, such
as Claude's Eternal Sphere or by wearing the Angel's Armband.
Sample cures: None, but this will be recovered after a certain period
of time, however, the enemy can Peep you again (since you're
defenceless during Peeping time) to extend the Peeping time.
Note: The accessories Peep Non and Peep Half will resist Peeping.
* BERSERK
When one of your party members gets knocked out in battle, there's a
chance that another character will get angry. An berserk character
will gain a huge status boost to all his/her stats and starts doing
double damage to the enemies. The chance of triggering this is random
but if the character who falls has a good friendship or passion with
another character, chances of getting angered will be increased.
It's kinda hard to spot a character who turned angry. However, if
they calls out the name of the fallen member or shouts something like
"You'll pay for this!" then it's a sign that someone has achieved
Berserk. The bersek character will turn red for a second then
immediately returns back to normal. The angered character will remain
Berserk for the rest of the battle, even if the fallen member is
revived, but the effect *may* wear off if they fall unconscious
themselves. (I don't know.)
I've tested this with magic users like Celine and found that the
character's magic strength won't increase very much at all. Celine's
Energy Arrow was doing around 500 damage and it increased to ~530
when she's in Berserk, where as her normal attack does around 50
points gets increased to ~100 when angered! Also, other stats like
DEX and AGL will be increased too. So it's much more useful if the
Berserk character is a fighter.
* FROZEN
This is the effect of the Deep Freeze spell. A Frozen character is
basically immobile and cannot take any actions for a small period of
time. I have encountered this once when I was fighting against Zand.
Sample cures: Not too sure. Either no way, a fire spell or Neutral.
* SILENCE
A Silenced character cannot cast spells. If they try to they'll
charge up for it but a message pops up saying you cannot cast spell
when you execute it. This is most often the effect of enemy magic,
but your magician characters can use this to their advantage. Note
non-magic users can get Silenced but it won't do anything since they
can't cast spells anyway.
Sample cures: I think the Neutral spell can cures this, but chances
are, it'll be the character with the Neutral spell who gets Silenced.
I don't know of any other way to cure this.
* OTHER
Like Silence, there are a variety of spells that causes negative
effects (like Delay, Deep Mist etc.) which I assume, can also be
cured by Neutral, but the fact is that the enemy NEVER uses those
spells so no worries. I personally have never seen the enemy cast any
status spells but Silence (and Delay).
BATTLE STRETAGY
===============
The AI will control a character a certain way according to the tactic
if give them. There are 3 sets of different strategies:
---Fighters---
Fighters are your main offense, they should dispatch the enemies
quickly before the enemies gets to the mages. Always have at least 2
fighters in your team!
- Attack with all MP!
- Protect friends!
- Conserve Killer Moves!
- Spread out and attack!
- Stay away from enemy!
- Do nothing!
Comments:
- Unless I was in the very early part of the game, I always set
every one of my fighter's strategies to "Attack with all MP!"
Why? Because their MP would regenerate with their Stamina (and
equip the Fairy Ring so they use less MP) also you'll gain quite
a bit of Proficiency by doing so. Also, Blackberries are cheap so
you really won't loose anything if you choose this option.
- "Protect friends!" is a good one to set one of your fighter to
later in the game (especially in the Trial Caves) to protect Rena
or any other magic user. Basically, use this for some of your
characters in tougher areas.
- "Conserve Killer Moves!" is good for earlier in the game where
your Stamina is too low to be any good, but beware, the fighters
tends to be very aggressive and forgets about defense with this
at times.
- "Spread out and attack!" will make your fighter attack the
enemies who are not currently being attacked by another
character, while generally a bad idea to get separated, it's
quite good if you want the AI characters to target those annoying
mages in the back row.
- "Stay away from the enemy!" should only be used during "Time
attack" battles when you're trying to last a full minute,
otherwise, fairly useless.
- Choosing this strategy is the same as pressing the R2 button
which sets the character to "Manual".
---Rena---
Being the primary healer of the party, Rena has her own strategy!
- Recover friends only!
- Aid friends!
- Aid self only!
- Cast no spells!
- Put self into attack!
- Do nothing!
Comments:
- "Recover friends only!" is great for extremely tough fights and
the lower levels of the Trial Caves, where you need her to cast
Fairy Light constantly! Use it when you cannot afford for her to
cast anything else but make sure that she's protected! In this
mode, Rena will only cast healing and curing spells. Don't know
about status-up spells since I seal them immediately.
- "Aid friends!" is the all round strategy for Rena IMO. She will
heal all allies as a first priority, and in her spare time she
will try to aid allies with either stats-ups/downs or attack
spells. Very important that you should seal her stats spells or
she'll cast them constantly and waste her MP. Don't worry about
her attack spells though, as they're actually quite useful. A
weird thing about this is that if Rena runs out of MP, she'll
start attacking physically!
- "Aid self only!" is an extremely selfish command, I never use it,
nor do I see any reason to.
- "Cast no spells!" is another rather stupid (and dangerous)
option, she will never cast a spell and stands around like a
fool. If you want her to conserve MP, put her in "Recover friends
only!" and seal away all the spells you don't want her to cast!
- "Put self into attack!" is actually fairly good earlier in the
game, as Rena is quite a decent attacker for a mage, and she
might even do more damage than Claude!! (She did in my game!) A
bit dangerous later in the game though. One thing of note, she
will never cast a spell in this mode! Again, she'll be very
aggressive and tends to forget about defense.
- "Do nothing!" is useless.
---Magic users---
The advantage of magic users is that most of their better spells can
hit multiple/all enemies. Make sure they're in the back row and
protected!
- Attack till all MP are gone!
- Conserve MP!
- Attack fleeing enemy!
- Use no Heraldic spells!
- Throw own body into attack!
- Do nothing!
Comments:
- "Attack till all MP are gone!" should be the one to use, for
similar reasons as fighters (MP refilled after battle,
Proficiency). But it can get annoying with the camera constantly
changing, maybe the best solution is to not have a mage at all.
Anyway, this is the way to go if you like mages.
- "Conserve MP!" is good for Celine earlier on, as some of her
better spells (Ray, Starlight etc) drains her MP like crazy.
Might also be good if you want a magic user in your party but
don't want their spells to confuse you constantly.
- "Attack fleeing enemy!" very good for attacking those hated mages
in the back row, but since most of your mages spells are all-
targeted, it doesn't make too much of a difference. Now the
question remains is not whether you'll pull off a spell, but it's
more like whether you'll be able to pull off a spell before the
enemies! It's not much use if Celine's casting Explode that takes
forever while the enemy casts Light Cross constantly! I found
that to control the mage manually to be more effective.
- "Throw own body into attack!" is a very dangerous option, avoid
avoid! Attack magicians have lousy attacks, bad range/speed and
running all the way into the midst of a battle could only mean
suicide since their defense is terrible. Even standing around
doing nothing is more favourable!
- "Do nothing" is again useless.
FORMATIONS
==========
Like each character's strategy, your party's formation is also very
important. There are 13 formations is this game and most of them has
some use. (I'm not very good at Ascii art, so excuse me if they look
terrible.)
Linear Motion
-------------------
| 4| Comments:
| | Functional and standard, but your
| 3| characters start too far away. Maybe
| | ok if you want to stay defensive but
| 2| there are better formations.
| |
| 1|
-------------------
Square Shift 1 Square Shift 2
------------------- -------------------
| | | 2 4| Comments:
| 2 4| | | Good if you have 2 mages
| | | | and 2 fighters. The mages
| | | | are safe at the back, but
| | | | it takes time for the
| 1 3| | | fighters to get back to
| | | 1 3| the mages if they are
------------------- ------------------- attacked.
Tri-Shift 1 Tri-Shift 2
------------------- -------------------
| | | | Comments:
| 3 | | 3 | Good for 3 fighter and a
| | | | mage party. #1 is you want
| 1 4| | 1 4 | to protect your mage and
| | | | #2 is you want to get to
| 2 | | 2 | the enemies quicker.
| | | |
------------------- -------------------
Free-for-all
-------------------
| |
| 2 4 | Comments:
| | Not very good as your party is spread apart.
| | Unless you have 4 fighters and they all have to
| | be fairly strong. Put the long range characters
| 1 3 | like Opera at the back.
| |
-------------------
Upper Guard Lower Guard
------------------- -------------------
| 3 4| | | Comments:
| 2 | | | Both are basically the
| 1 | | | same. It's defensive and
| | | | good for harder dungeons
| | | 1 | where you're constantly
| | | 2 | outnumbered and over-
| | | 3 4| powered.
------------------- -------------------
Astral Shift
-------------------
| |
| 3 |
| | Comments:
| 1 4 | I can't really see a use for this other than
| | being pretty. The Tri-Shifts are better, unless
| 2 | you have 3 mages or something.
| |
-------------------
Escape Shift Assault Shift
------------------- -------------------
| | | | Comments:
| | | | You're bunched together
| | | 3 | in both. The former if you
| | | 1 4 | have to escape a lot, the
| | | 2 | latter if you have 4
| 24| | | fighters and want to kill
| 13| | | off the enemies quickly.
------------------- -------------------
Upper Caution Lower Caution
------------------- -------------------
| 2 4| | |
| 3| | | Comments:
| 1 | | | A variation of the Upper
| | | | and Lower Guard with
| | | 1 | similar effects.
| | | 3|
| | | 2 4|
------------------- -------------------
Note: The numbers represents the position of the character in your
fighting party. Eg, if Claude is in your first slot, he'll occupy
position 1. You cannot change which number occupies which space in
the formation, but you can change the position of your characters via
Replacement.
ELEMENTAL EFFECTS
=================
The manual for this game seems to be quite detailed, however, they
didn't even mention a word about elemental effects! Like most RPGs,
SO2 also utilizes the different forces of nature, commonly known as
elemental effects. There are 10 (!!) different elements in SO2,
although some of them are very confusing. Understanding them would
help you greatly in this game. The first 2 letters inside the
parenthesis are used by the game in battles (when you check the
enemy's stats), the second note is the symbol for that element used
in the menus.
* Earth (Et, denoted by a brown cube)
– Utilizes the forces of the ground, causing earthquakes or cave-
ins to damage the target. Useless against flying/airborne
enemies.
* Water (Wt, denoted by a water droplet)
– Utilizes various forms of water, from icicles to tidal waves, to
freeze or drown the target. Useful against fire enemies.
* Fire (Fr, denoted by fire)
– Utilizes the power of heat and fiery explosions to scorch and
burn enemies. IMO, the most useful out of all the elements.
* Wind (Wd, denoted by a cloud)
– Utilizes the forceful power of wind, forming whirlwinds and
tonados around the enemies.
* Thunder (Th, denoted by a lightning bolt)
– Utilizes the power of thunder and lightning to shock the targets.
* Star (St, denoted by a 5-pointed star)
– Controls the mysterious extraterrestrial forces which falls from
above to crush the enemies.
* Vacuum (Vc, denoted by a star-studded vortex)
– Has the power to extract and consume life energy from living
beings, also known as "Negative energy."
* Light (Lg, denoted by a yellow sphere with a smiley face)
– Has the power over high intensity light that conquers evil.
* Dark (Dk, denoted by a black sphere with red "eyes")
– Manipulates the power of shadows and darkness that creeps up to
an unsuspecting victim.
* Void (Vd, denoted by a white cube)
– Has the power to control the extra-dimensional-density, which can
summon demons from another plane or crush its target with
gravitational energy.
Everyone in your party can be affected by one or more of the
attributes, your overall elemental attribute can be viewed by
pressing the Square button on their status menu. All symbols in grey
suggests that a particular element does not apply for your character.
The first row is used for your weapon, your normal attacks will do
whatever type of elemental damage shown here. If you have none, then
you'll do neutral or non-elemental damage.
The second row is your elemental defense, you're not protected
against any symbols that are in grey. Unlike weapon, you can have
negative attributes too, denoted by a "-" next to the element. A
character that has a negative defensive attribute is said to be weak
again that type of element and will take more damage against that
those types of attacks. Likewise, a "+" next to an element makes you
strong against it, which may reduce the damage you take against that
type of attack to half, nothing or even let you absorb it!
---Elemental defense---
Everyone will have neutral overall attributes naturally. Certain
equipment will give you an attribute when equipped. Equip carefully
though, if any equipment has a weakness, put something on that makes
you strong against that element to negate the effect. Interestingly,
if you put a positive elemental defense over a negative one, your
overall attribute against that element will stay positive!
Usually, 1 positive elemental defense makes you take half damage
against that element, two of them will negate any damage taken and 3
or more of them will let your character absorb it instead. However,
some equipment does not obey this rule, like the Angel's Armband,
which will always absorb Star attacks no matter what. Most equipment
has a "Element Resistance Ratio" which reduces a percentage of the
damage taken, eg, 30%. If the culmulative bonuses adds to 100%, you
will take no damage. Damage will be absorbed above 100%. The game
does NOT tell you each piece of equipment's ratio though, which is
really annoying!
Elemental defense becomes increasingly more important as you progress
through the game. Enemies later in the game will cast insanely
powerful elemental spells which can wreck havoc on any party without
protection.
---Elemental attacks---
Elemental attacks are less important, as a matter of fact, most of
them are a hindrance since enemies later in the game will have
multiple elemental defense attributes. This can be solved by
equipping only non-elemental weapons.
All damage-dealing spells in the game are elemental based, as well as
some other support spells. Also, every fighter has a few elemental
based Killer Moves as well. Try matching an elemental attack with the
weakness the enemy. You can view the elemental attribute of any enemy
by using a Spectacle on them. However, you can usually rely on the
AI. The computer will always use an elemental attack that the enemy
is weak against. Similarly, AI controlled character will seldom cast
a spell that will do only half damage and will never cast those types
of spells (or use Killer Moves) that won't do any damage or gets
absorbed.
AFFECTION
=========
Like a mini dating game, you can match two characters together
through affection. Each character has a pre-set affection level for
each and every character when they joins your team, which includes
"friendship" (measures the friendliness of one person for another.
The higher this is, the better friends they become) and "passion"
(measures the romantic attraction level of the two persons). One's
affection can be higher for one person than another. For example,
Opera and Ernest has high passion level for one another as they're
lovers, while Dias won't get along with everyone as well since he's
Mr Anti-Social by nature.
There are a few ways of altering affection scores:
1) Private Actions, you'll often meet up with another party member.
Depends on the situation, you'll usually be prompt with a choices
as an answer when they ask you a question or as actions that you
can take. If you help them or choose an option that would make
them happy, there will usually be an increase in affection between
the hero and that character. Likewise, if you piss 'em off, their
affection towards the hero (or vice versa) will decrease.
Sometimes a Private Action might not exactly be between the hero
and another party member, but between 2 different party members as
well, although those events are quite rare. That's going to be
your chance to pair them up!
2) Pickpocketing when travelling together with your team will have
all member's affection decrease toward the character who's picking
the pocket. The Super Specialty Reverse Side will make everyone in
your party's affection towards everyone else. Don't do it!
3) Books made by Publishing can alter the affection level to a fixed
level. Each character can write 2 books, the common one that
alters friendship and a rare one that alters passion. Having
another member read the book that one member of the party wrote
would alter their affection depending on which book it is. Careful
though, this will alter their affection to that fixed level (semi-
high of 8) regardless of their previous affection level, which
means you're actually decreasing it if their affection level was
high!!! Good for very early on in the game to give their affection
levels a boost.
4) Fighting together can increase everyone's affection towards
everyone else who was in the fight, but this is a very slow
procedure! I think 100 fights equal one point increase in
affection. Certain boss fights will also automatically increase
everyone who participated in the fight's affection towards
everyone else who was in the fight by 1!
5) Does anyone know how/where the Twin's Tonic can be gotten from? Or
more importantly, how it works? I've gotten one via a Treasure Box
but it didn't seem to work very well when I used it, it's supposed
to "Deepens the bond between friends".
So why going through all that trouble just to increase the affection
of some lousy virtual characters? Well, there are a few bonuses for
having high affection:
1) The chance of someone getting Berserk when one member falls will
be increased.
2) The characters will fight in a more harmonized manner. For
example, some characters will back up another character when
they're in danger more often, or the healer will heal a wounded
character quicker.
3) The endings are based on each character's affection towards
another to determine which 2 characters will pair up. That's why
there are 80+ endings in this game!!! Basically, a character with
the highest affection level towards another character (and the
other character's affection is of similar level), they'll be
paired up. However, characters who are of the same sex will be
paired depending on their friendship which characters of opposite
sex will be paired depending on their passion. (No LesBN action
here, sorry. Hehe...)
Read an another FAQ or Ian Kelley's FAQ for more information.
How do you know how high the affection level of each character is?
You don't, as there's no way of finding out. However, certain
"traits" can be noted by the way some character fights that will give
you some clue whether they have high or low affection.
1) Those characters that have high affection will tend to stick
together and cover each other's back or help each other out when
in danger.
2) Magic users tend to cast support or healing spells on the ones
they have higher affection for first, but this can be quite
annoying, as they'll basically ignore the ones they don't like (or
don't like as much). For example (this happened to me many times.)
In the Trial Caves, Opera and Ernest both falls from battle. Rena
would cast Raise Dead on Opera first, then she'll cast Fairy
Heal/Light to bring Opera to full health then (guess what?) she
casts a Star Flare!!! I was furious and started taking over for
the dumb AI!
3) In disc 2, you'll be able to meet the fortune-teller in Fun City.
If you do a Private Action there, you'll be able ask the fortune-
teller the passion between your main character and all your teams
members of the opposite sex. She'll give you some kinda indication
on how well your relationship is going.
4) Some Private Actions will only take place when your affection
towards another character (or vice versa) is above a certain
point. If you see a Private Action where a character shows a lot
of interest in you or if they started to get kinky, you'll know
that your affection is doing well.
KILLER MOVES
============
There are 2 types of characters in SO2, every playable character in
the game is either a fighter or a magic user, and each has their own
distinctive skills. Killer Moves are the fighters' specialty, which
are deathblows or various gadgets used for dispatching the enemies.
Each fighter characters has 8-11 unique Killer Moves of their own,
and up to 2 Killer Moves can be brought into battle at the same time,
assigned to either the L1 or R1 shift button. Each fighter has only a
small number of his or her total possible Killer Moves when they join
you, but by gaining levels you'll be able to obtain all of them.
(However, Ashton, Precis and Opera have a few Killer Moves that are
gained through some other means.)
Each Killer Moves has an execution cost, which uses up your MP during
battles. What's great about Killer Moves is that each KM also has a
Proficiency record. The Proficiency is increased by 1 each time you
use a particular KM, to a maximum of 999. As the Proficiency levels
go up, various things can happen to the Killer Move (usually getting
better), such as increased power, faster execution time, amount of
hits increased, different animation etc. Choose your KMs carefully as
different KMs works better than others in certain situations.
Every Killer Move has a range-dependence, which are mentioned under
"Combat". The execution point each Killer Move is very important as
miscalculating the range can mean an instant death in the Cave of
Trials, so learn to familiarize yourself with the different versions
of the Killer Move and their execution points.
Note that many Killer Move has a very short long-ranged version,
which I sometimes call "mid range". And a rule of thumb, the point
blank spot at which the character's attacks becomes long range is
about 5 character widths away from the target. In other words, walk
about 5 character widths away from the enemy and the "range
indicator" to the bottom left of the screen becomes "Long range".
How do you execute mid range attacks? Now this is more complicated
than you think, as if you stand at the execution point of the mid
ranged Killer Move, you'll do the short ranged version instead! Why?
Well, the game take that you're in short range at under 5 character
widths away from the enemy (look at your current range to the lower
left of the screen.) So to execute a mid ranged Killer Move when it
already has a short ranged version, you must move away from the enemy
until your range changes to "Long", which mean you'll have to run up
to the enemy before executing the mid ranged Killer Move because
you've moved away from the execution point.
I know it sounds VERY confusing, so here's an example. Claude's
Shooting Stars has a Short and Long ranger version. Claude punched
the enemy during the short version and throws an energy ball at the
enemy during his long range version. However, the Execution Point of
the Long Ranged version of Shooting Stars is about 2 character-widths
away from the enemy. Since anything under 5 would be considered
"Short Range" by the game's means, to be able to execute the Long
range version of Shooting Stars, you'll have to distance Claude until
he's at least 5 character-widths away from his target. Assuming that
the enemy does not move, Claude will run 3 character-widths towards
the enemy, pause then execute his energy ball. So to repeatedly
execute his Long range Shooting Stars, Claude must distance himself
from the enemy after EVERY move. I hope this is clear enough.
A few Killer Moves are "uni-ranged" type, which can be executed
anywhere on the screen.
Keep in mind though, the damage of most Killer Moves are directly
proportional to a character's Attack power, which are affected by
their STR and weapon, so these 2 stats are a must for powering up
Killer Moves. Some Killer Moves are not terribly powerful, as a
matter of fact, most of them do about the same damage as a normal
attack, so don't expect them to be *really* great until later.
So why use them? It's because that all Killer Moves can "evolve" with
their Proficiency levels, and becoming more and more powerful. Also,
all fighter characters have KMs that hit multiple times for lots of
damage, so it would be your interest to take advantage of them.
A few note on weapons, their power will affect all damage dealing
Killer Moves, although it might make no sense whatsoever (like
Claude's Burst Knuckle since he don't use his sword for it and
Chisato's Tear Gas.) Gaining better weapons will significantly
increase a KM's power. Likewise, weapons with an elemental alignment
or special effects WILL be carried to the Killer Move.
For example, Claude's Twin Slash is a non-elemental attack, but when
Claude is equipped with the Flame Blade, it (and all his KMs) becomes
Fire elemental! If Chisato is equipped with the Weird Slayer, all her
KMs can kill "Weird" in one hit and gain HP, like if she's using
normal attacks.
I have no idea of what will happen when you execute an elemental KM
while equipped with a weapon of a different element, the Killer Move
will probably be "dual elemental" but I dunno.
Likewise, most Killer Moves can successfully trigger certain Combat
Skills too, although it might make no sense whatsoever how some cheap
projectiles hitting Below the Belt or whatever. Characters with
MASSIVE multi-hit Killer Moves benefit most from this feature though,
as each hit in the KM is checked to see if it has triggered a Combat
Skill separately, rather than an "all or nothing" situation as with a
regular attack. So you'd find characters like Chisato, Opera and
Claude achieving more Combat Skills than say Dias, Bowman or Precis.
Since Killer Moves are specific to the character, it makes sense to
put them under the Character's section.
---Link Combo---
Upon acquiring the Link Combo accessory and equipping it on a fighter
character, pressing the triangle button in his/her Killer Moves
Setting will take you to the Link Combo menu. A pop up window will
ask you if you want to steal (the ability to use Killer Moves) from
another character, and another window will pop up asking who you want
to steal from. (You can only steal from characters that are in your
fighting party or the Link Stock.) If the character's name has "LC"
next to them, it means that they already have the access to Link
Combos, and if it's "Stolen" next to their name, it means they have
already been stolen from. You cannot steal from either character that
way. If you stole from a fighter, they will no longer have the
ability to use their own Killer Moves, but if you steal from a mage,
it will function as usual and the mage character won't loose anything
since they can't use Killer Moves anyway.
Upon activating the Link Combo, you'll immediately gain 2 more slots
to equip with Killer Moves, however, 2 Killer Moves will be assigned
to the same button. (And thus, pressing that button in battle will
let your character execute both killer moves one after the other, in
the order you place them in.) Use this to your advantage!
Try out different Link Combos as some Killer Moves links wonderfully
while others don't work quite as well. Beware though, as it can drain
your MP fairly quickly, so equip MP cost reduction items if you can.
Also, you must have enough MP for BOTH Killer Moves assigned to that
button to use it, although the MP is deducted separately as you
execute the Killer Moves.
For example, I assign Claude's Air Slash (4MP) and Shooting Stars
(7MP) to the L1 button. The L1 button will only respond if Claude has
at least 11MP remaining (if you don't have enough you'll hear a
"buzz".) MP will be deducted separately though, meaning if Claude
failed to execute Shooting Stars for some reason (like if he gets hit
out of it), the 7MP will not be deducted.
When linking Link Combos, take into account each Killer Move's speed,
range, recovery as well as their execution ranges, because the last
thing you want is to leave your character wide open to attacks in-
between Killer Moves. IMO, a combo with minimal character movement is
quite effective. Another idea is to execute a projectile attack
followed by a short ranged one, and during the time you run to catch
up with the enemy, you're pretty much safe because if the enemy tried
to hit you, they'll get knocked by the projectile. (Although if the
enemy moves, you're back to the "chase the enemy" routine again.
Also, it can be a disaster if the initial missile was blocked.)
Another idea is to knock the enemy away with a short ranged then
follow up with a longer ranged attack. The combinations are endless,
use your imagination!
More about Link Combos and sample LCs can be found with the Killer
Moves under the Characters section.
MAGIC/HERALDRY ARTS
===================
Matching the fighter's Killer Moves, magic users has the ability to
cast spells, which are mysterious energies and elemental forces
channelled through and released from the spell caster's bodies. Each
mage in the game has a total of 23 spells, most of which are gained
through gaining levels. (Celine and Leon has a spell that has to be
found.) Like Killer Moves, most spells can also increase in
Proficiency with similar effects when powered up, such as faster
casting time, increase in power or altered animations. The spells
that cannot be powered up (ie, most support spells) will have no
Proficiency.
However, spells are a bit more complicated to use than Killer Moves,
because other than having to be bothered with the MP cost, there's
also a casting time and recovery time (not to mention the insanely
lengthy animation time of some of the better spells!) The better and
more powerful spells will take longer to cast (although they can be
improved with Proficiency), but I think all spells have the same
recovery time. One other thing of note is that spells usually take up
a LOT more MP than KMs, usually more than it's worth, but that's
another story.
In the Speciality menu, you can press the square button on a spell
name to "seal" it, the spell name will then turn grey. (Press it
again to "unseal" it.) A sealed spell can still be used in combat,
however, if the computer controls your magician, they will never cast
that spell. Use this to your advantage when you don't want the
computer to waste your MP on the useless spells like Deep Mist.
You can sorta put the spells into 2 categories, static and non-
static. Non-static spells are the weaker ones that takes effect in
real time (ie, time won't stop as the spell's animation and effect
take place.) Non-static spells are not very effective as they
sometimes don't target properly and may take some time before the
effect takes place. For example, Claude is fracefully wounded and you
use Rena to cast Heal, a non-static spell. It takes a couple of
seconds for those healing to take place and in that couple of
seconds, Claude can be killed if you're not careful.
Most spells in this game are static, that is, time will be paused
while the spell effect and animation takes place, and the effect is
more "instant", and is always a "sure hit".
Note Rena uses Magic while the other magicians use Heraldry (Magic of
Expel.) They both work exactly the same way, Rena uses Magic only
because it fits the story.
Spells are evaluated in details under the Character's section.
---Spell absorb---
Like Link Combos for Killer Moves, mages can combine their spells to
a greater effect, but it's usually a difficult process. When 2
characters (friend or foe) executes their spells at the exact same
moment, their spell effects will be combined. Only static-type and
damage-dealing (offensive) spells can be combined. A combined spell
will have both spell animations taking place at the same time, which
is quite cool at times. The damage of a combined spell is maxed out
at 9999, except for the case of Gremlin's Lair. Also, a little note
appears to the lower right corner of the screen, which goes something
like:
[Party] -> Absorb -> [Party]
The [Party] can be either "Friend" or "Enemy", and the arrows can
point towards either way. What this indicates is (I think) which side
will takes the priority of the combined spell. For example:
Enemy -> Absorb -> Friend
Should work so that the ally magician takes the priority of the spell
absorption and the combined spell work in my team's favour and
affects the enemies at combined strength.
Combined spell lies mainly in the elemental alignment of both spells
and whether the spell casters are a friend or foe, as well as the
target system of the spells. Only static spells (those that stops the
flow of time while they animate) can be combined and some of the best
spells may not be combined. I think only certain elements will
combine though, it's explained in Sherwin Tam's most excellent "In-
Depth Tips and Tricks" FAQ, look there for more details.
If 2 of the same spells (same element) are mixed:
- It affects the opposite team at double strength if both spells
were cast by the same team
- It affects both teams at double strength if each team casts one
spell
- If the spells ain't of the "all-targeted" type, only the
appropriate targets are affected
If 2 distinct spells are mixed (regardless of element):
- The stronger spell (usually the one with higher MP cost) takes
the priority, affecting the opposite team at combined strength
- If the stronger spell is not of "all-targeted" type, then the
combined spell affects the appropriate targets (ie, the original
targets of the stronger spell)
- The same thing happens if the weaker spell is not of "all-
targeted" type, the damage is added to the original targets of
the stronger spell but not the targets that are not in the range
of the weaker spell
- If both spells were cast by the same team, the combined spell
affects the opposite party at combined strength. The target rule
above still applies though.
Also, with all Spell Absorption, there's a 5-10% chance that the
absorption will "fail". A failed combo spell effect is that the
stronger spell works normally while the weaker spell effect is
omitted.
---Spell Cancel---
Occasionally, when 2 spells are combined something will go terribly
wrong in that one spell cancels the other, causing zero damage to no
targets. This will only happen with spells that are of opposite
elements though, I know for sure that Light will definitely cancel
Dark but I think Water and Fire works in similar ways. Spell Cancel
happens rarely, probably a "spell backfire" (see above) effect when 2
of the combined spells are of opposed element. Otherwise, most of the
time mixing 2 spells of the oposite element works fine.
The one that I can swear that I have seen is Star Flare and Shadow
Flare. (I have seen this at LEAST 5 times during the short period
where I put Leon in the same party as Rena.) I think I've seen other
"cancel" as well but I cannot remember which spells. It is highly
possible that Eruption and Noah will cancel accordingly.
CHARACTERS
==========
Star Ocean: The Second Story has 12 possible playable characters,
however, you can only get a maximum of 8 characters in your party. It
is not possible to try all of them out in just one game. Each
character has distinctive abilities, strengths and weaknesses, as
well as their own personalities and backgrounds. Also new in this
update are their initial stats, skills and equipment, pointless as it
may seem.
Favourite Food: Every character has a favourite food, that when
consumed by the right character, will recover his/her HP/MP to full
health. There's a space for each character's favourite food in their
status screen, but until you let them try their favourite food, it
will be blank.
Favourite Instrument: Every character has an instrument that they
suppose to play very well, and the song will have greater effected
when played by a character's favourite instrument. However, you don't
have to believe this crap since Dias is just as good at playing the
Violin as Celine with identical levels, the same goes with Opera
playing the Trumpet etc.. I have never had ANY trouble playing a non-
favourite instrument, as long as I have both of the required talents.
Favourite Quotes: The voice samples of that character that I found
amusing, or just funny.
Favourite PA Moment: Minimal spoiler here, I'll try not to put any
major details here. Any cool Private Action events are listed here.
I'll use the below terms when describing Killer Moves and spells.
MP Cost: The MP needed to execute that command.
LV Gained: The level where the character gains that skill.
(If "NA", it means that the character will start with that skill.)
Range (KMs only): I'll put a number from 0-5, where the number
represents the number of character widths between the character and
the enemy when the KM is executed, 0 being right new to them and 5
being point blank long range. A "U" in here denotes a uni-ranged
attack, meaning the KM can be executed anywhere.
Target (spells only):
* Single enemy: One enemy
* All enemies: All enemies
* Single ally: One ally
* All allies: All allies
* Line of Sight: Hit enemies on a straight line
* Radius: Select the target, any enemies near the area will also be
affected
Elemental: The elemental alignment of that Killer Move/spell.
Quote: The phrase/s that character shouts as they execute the move.
Also, the texts inside the brackets are the descriptions of the
skill. However, Killer Moves uses:
- < > for short range
- << >> for long range
- [ ] for uni-range (KMs that can be executed everywhere)
I'll use P(x) to denote the Proficiency, where "x" is the Proficiency
level needed. A "~" means approximate.
The following special sections applies for fighters only:
===Cancel Ability===
Just an overview of how good the character is at using the Cancel
Combat Skill, as well as which KMs are compatible.
===Link Combo Ideas===
I'll put any decent Link Combos a character has in this section.
Also, a rating is attached, 1 being so-so and 5 being a perfect link
or a killer LC.
=> One note on healing spells!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| I think I've finally figured how out the healing spells work! |
| The equation goes something like this: |
| => Healing = Base + (MAG * K) + (Prof. * X) |
| |
| K and X are both constants and are different for each spell. K |
| indicates how much of the caster's MAG stats is going to affect |
| the healing (better spell = larger K) and X is the upgrade per |
| Proficiency. It's usually a fraction that's why you don't get a |
| linear/constant upgrade as Proficiency goes up. Base is damage |
| healed at zero Proficiency and zero MAG. (Note that this is only |
| an approximate. I'm not a great mathematician so don't sack me if |
| it's incorrect.) |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CLAUDE KENNI
------------
Note: His name really should be Crawd Kenny, as that's his OFFICIAL
Japanese name. (I've been to Enix' site and saw the name clearly
printed as "Crawd".) Although Crawd isn't the best name around here,
I prefer that over "Claude" (I've actually changed his name back to
"Crawd" in my first game) but I'll use "Claude" simply for the sake
of it's in the english version of the game.
Claude's father is Ronixis Kenni, the captain of the space ship
Calnus who is well respected throughout the Earth Space Federation.
Claude admires his father very much, but also hates him due to the
envy and sarcasm of his fellow cadets has towards him because he's
the son of the great captain. While out to explore an unknown planet,
Claude got sucked into some kinda portal which transported him to
Expel. While on Expel, he was mistaken by the locals as the legendary
"Hero of Light". Knowing that sitting around and doing nothing won't
fulfil his desire of returning home, Claude accepts the mission of
investigating the Sorcery Globe, a mysterious meteor. Claude is a
nice guy who always comforts others, but some of his actions and/or
speech ain't really believable.
Initial stats:
HP: 130 STR: 10 LUC: 132
MP: 20 CON: 5 STM: 15
LV: 1 DEX: 10 GUTS: 20
EXP: 0 AGL: 10
NEXT: 10 INT: 0
Initial equipment: None
Initial skills: Scientific Ability LV1
Functionality LV1
Favourite Food:
Steak (Cook with Meat, or bought from Giveaway for 600Fol)
Favourite Instrument: Silver Trumpet
Favourite Quotes:
- "Crawd has advanced forward, heh.." (Sounds playful.. :) )
Favourite PA Moment:
- Going for tea with Ashton. Choose the third one and they'll drink
out of a shake with 2 straws!
Claude is definitely the most powerful character in the game, having
the best stats, most powerful weapons/armor and some of the most
effective Killer Moves. One good thing about Claude is that more of
his KMs has both a long and short ranged version than any other
fighter in the game, making his attacks quite versatile.
He fights with a sword, and uses both sword skills as well as some
martial arts skills in his Killer Moves. His normal attack has good
range, fairly good speed/recovery time and is very strong. His air
attack is a jumping slash, but it's no better or worse than most
character's air attacks, however, note that Claude's attack takes
place on his way DOWN! Making his attack rather unreliable and easily
gets hit out of. If you must use the air attack, use it at long
range.
Claude has the highest STR, AGI and (especially) CON in the game, his
CON is unmatched and is usually twice as high as that of the
character with the second best CON! What's even more is that his best
weapons are also many times more powerful than other characters, and
with the ability to equip the best armor, you have got an awesome
powerhouse on your team!
Most of his really great Killer Moves are at short range and you
should definitely use him as a "short-ranged character". However,
Claude has a few fairly decent longer range Killer Moves, although it
can be a pain getting it to hit. One slight disadvantage is that
Claude's Killer Moves takes more Proficiency to build up. His best
Killer Moves are Ripper Blast (all round attack, especially against
lotsa enemies. Unmatched when powered up!) and Mirror Slice (no doubt
the most damaging attack in the game.)
######Killer Moves######
---Phase Gun---
<
away from Claude, they'll get hit and gets shocked by many beams of
light>>
MP Cost: 0MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 3 Elemental: Light (?)
Quote: "Burn!"
(You'll get to use this move if you're playing as Claude, but you'll
only get to see this move if you're Rena.)
This Killer Move is awesome simply because it's free and it does a
huge amount of damage (around 700) at the beginning of the game!
However, you'll only get to use it for the first fight and maybe just
a few random encounters before you reach Salva. Claude will use his
Phase Gun to blast through Alen's front door, then the gun runs out
of power and you're unable to use it throughout the rest of the game.
(Yes, that's how he lost it! For those of you who played Rena's quest
first.) Well, it was fun while it lasted.
---Air Slash---
ripple-like shockwave that sweeps in an arc and hits any enemy in
front of him
<
travels along the ground towards its target>>
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: 3
Range: 1, U Elemental: None (Not Wind)
Quote: "Air Slash"
An ok Killer Move since it's the first one you'll get. The long range
version will do the same damage as your normal attack but the short
range version does only half of it. At long range, this move is
actually "uni-ranged" meaning Claude don't have to move around to
target the enemy, he just aim it at whatever direction the target is,
at where he's currently standing. However, it's not a guaranteed hit
since the shockwave is quite slow and won't home in, so if you use it
when the target is far away, they can easily avoid it by moving away.
After careful examination, I discovered that the long range version
of Air Slash DON'T travel across the full battle field, the shockwave
will dissolve after travelling about 90% of the way.
The short ranged version can hit multiple enemies if you time it
right, and will sometimes hit the same target twice if you're lucky.
There's quite a bit of delay before the shockwave comes out and the
recovery is horrible, plus the damage don't shine, making this move
very dangerous to use at close range. You're better off using your
normal attack. The shockwave in both versions of Air Slash don't rise
high enough above the ground to hit airborne enemies.
Because you'll do more damage at long range and Claude don't have to
move around at all, Air Slash is MUCH more useful at long range. The
best time to use this is about half a screen distance away from the
enemy (at long range) so it won't miss that easily, especially if
they're advancing on you, for decent damage. Also, this move is
excellent if you wanna play "keep away" with the enemy, just stand on
the same spot doing this over and over again and the enemies won't be
able to get to you. This works even better if you have Celine or any
magic users casting spells behind you. Using this strategy can,
however, drain your MP very quickly at the beginning of the game.
At P(200), both versions of Air Slash will turn gold, raises higher
above ground (long range is barely enough to hit most flying enemies,
but the short one doesn't) and is executed slightly quicker (still
slower than Dias' Air Slash though.) Also, the damage is doubled,
making this move a good one (and cheap) to use, until later in the
game when he gets his best Killer Moves.
---Shooting Stars---
series of thrashing punches
<>
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: 7
Range: 0, 2 Element: None
Quote: "Shooting Stars"
This Killer Move is pretty good at short range. If you can somehow
trap the enemy against a wall/another character, or the enemy is
immobile, you'll be able to do up to 6 hits, each hit is about half
the strength of a normal attack. Works best on heavier/bigger
enemies. If you're using this on light enemies, it'll push them away
after about 1-3 hits. The range of this attack is only about half a
character width, meaning it's sometimes hard to even hit the enemy
with Shooting Stars at close range. If you're sneaking up to an
unoccupied enemy from the rear, you'll barely be able to hit them at
all because they can and will move out of the way. You'll miss again
fast enemies and do a max of 2 hits against the others. Also, once
Claude executes this move, he'll stay in his "punching" animation for
many seconds, whether he hits or not, meaning it's very easy for
enemies to attack him from the rear during that time. Avoid using
this when you're in between multiple enemies, because when you use
this to hit one of them, the other ones will get a free hit and they
might even trap Claude between them! Otherwise, a fairly decent
attack for trapping enemies.
At long range, the energy ball will do double the damage of one hit
from the short range version (ie, normall attack damage). Has little
range and does only one hit, meaning the short ranged version is more
useful in comparison as it can set up traps. Also, it'll dissipate
soon if a target is not hit. Good for "hit and run" tactics.
The best time to use Shooting Stars is to sneak behind an opponent
when someone's attacking them from the front to trap them. It's a bit
hard to trap them in corners unless you have some help. If you have
Chisato or someone with long range multiple hit Killer Moves (Opera,
Ashton) it's quite easy. Let them use their Killer Move to push the
enemy against the wall from long range, then sneak up right next to
them and use this. Otherwise, Claude'll have to push the enemy all by
himself. Try using normal attacks or one-hit Killer Moves, then
Cancel his normal attack into a Shooting Star when near the corner.
If another ally may attack the enemy from behind, it will either set
up your trap or ruin it for you by pushing the enemy away.
At P(100), the short ranged version will have a slightly extended
range (but still not too great), also hits a maximum of 8 hits. The
energy ball generated in the long ranged version will be slightly
bigger, not that it's of much good since there are no added bonus to
the damage, but it will travel a bit more before dissolving.
At P(200), the punches will turn gold and the range will be improved
to about 1 character width, which makes it easier to hit the enemies.
Also, Claude will punch a lot more times than usual, to a maximum of
about 12 hits. At long range, the energy turns into an ugly oval that
looks kinda like pizza, still only does one hit though, but will
travel for a longer distance if not hit. No damage improvements
though. :(
---Head Splitter---
[Claude jumps up into the air and lands up-side-down with his sword
pointing downwards at the target's head]
MP Cost: 9MP LV Gained: 12
Range: U Elemental: None
Quote: "Hya!"
Head Splitter is a good attack to use all through the game. This is
one of the CPU's favourite attacks. Put this on Claude and he'll use
it non-stop! (Drains your MP FAST!) Since Claude leaps so high into
the air, he'll be invulnerable to most physical damage. Depending on
the distance between Claude and the enemy, it might take some time
before Claude lands and the enemy might be able to move away. If
you're too close to the enemy when executing this move however, it's
likely that Claude'll get hit on his way up, so avoid this in close
quarters. Head Splitter only does one hit but the damage is about 1.5
time that of a normal attack. Since he's mostly invulnerable while in
the air, this Killer Move is very good to use when you're trying to
keep the distance from an enemy. Also, if you don't mind using up
your MP, this is a great way of covering distance quickly.
At P(130), Claude will be followed by a blue trail as he falls,
causing twice as much damage as his normal attack.
At P(260), instead of falling up-side-down on the enemy, Claude will
spin around many times with his sword in his hand as he descends,
which is similar to one of Garuda's/Hayate move from Street Fighter
EX/2. This also only hits once but the damage is now doubled! (At
~P(500) with the Eternal Sphere, this will do 9999 damage.) However,
I found this is harder to hit, since sometimes Claude'll land without
doing any damage at all! If Claude has his blade towards the enemy
when he gets near the ground then he'll hit, but if it's away from
the enemy then he won't.
The best time to use this is when Claude is about 3-5 character width
away from the enemy, which is almost guaranteed to hit and still
stays a fair distance away from the enemy. However, Head Splitter
might have a harder time connecting in the Trail Caves where the
enemies runs around at insane speed. Another way to use this move
safely is not to occupy the same "plane" as the enemy's attacks.
Meaning avoid standing in a straight horizontal line with the enemy.
The height of his jump is quite unpredictable at times. I think the
longer the distance between Claude and his target, the higher he
leaps, which makes it terrible at full screen distance as it'll take
forever for him to land. If you're too close to the enemy, Claude
will do a tiny mini-leap.
---Energy Sword---
[Claude holds his sword in front of him, with one hand on the blade
and one hand on the hilt. The yellow ring spears around him and he
gets healed]
MP Cost: 11MP LV Gained: 20
Range: U Elemental: None
Quote: "Energy"
I finally understand how this skill works now. This is basically a
healing Killer Move, although its uses are limited. There's a bit of
lag time before this move is executed, and since Claude mainly fights
close to the enemy, the lag time will make him a defenceless standing
target. An ok skill with some use, especially in the Cave of Trials
where Rena's healing is sometimes not enough, but make sure you get
away from the enemies before using it. Also, you only get 2 slots to
equip Killer Moves with, equipping this means you have to sacrifice a
perfectly good offensive skill. An idea is to equip this as a Link
Combo with another fair Killer Move and assign your important Killer
Moves to the other button. Keep using the other button throughout the
fight and use the Energy Sword Link Combo when needed.
The amount of HP this Killer Move (Healer Move would be a better
name) is exactly one fifth (ie, 20%) of Claude's MAXIMUM HP, meaning
it could take up to 5 uses to bring him back to full health. However,
this will improve. At P(100), the yellow ring that appears will look
thicker (it's quite obvious when it happens) and the amount healed
goes up to 40% of his maximum HP. At P(200), the yellow ring evolves
and flickers like fire, at this time Energy Sword will heal for 60%
of Claude's maximum HP. So this KM can heal for a lot of HP later in
the game.
To build up the Proficiency of this quickly, look in the tips
section.
---Burst Knuckles---
<>
MP Cost: 12MP LV Gained: 28
Range: 0, 2 Elemental: Fire
Quote: "Burst knuckles"
Another fairly decent move, although it can be hard to connect with
it. The short ranged version has less range than even Shooting Stars,
has a _slight_ execution time where Claude draws his fist but it's
VERY quick to recover from. It only does one hit, at about 1.5 times
the damage of his normal attack. Because of the delay, you'll miss if
you sneak up from behind the enemy and will probably get hit out of
if you're right next to the enemy. The *safest* (and extremely
effective) way of using this is to Cancel it off a normal attack, the
link is perfect and since it has zero recovery time, almost any KMs
can link fantastically after it.
At long (mid) range, this move works like Shooting Stars. I often
miss when I try this. This does one hit at the normal attack damage.
IMO, Burst Knuckles is only effective at short range.
At P(100), both versions will now do 2 times the normal attack
damage. In the last version of my FAQ, I said that the short ranged
does 3 times as much, well, I was wrong, excuse me...
---Ripper Blast---
of the ground in front of him to hit the enemies
<
of the ground in 7 directions to hit the enemies>>
MP Cost: 17MP LV Gained: 38
Range: 1, 2 Elemental: ?
Quote: "Teeeearrrr into pieces"
I SERIOUSLY under-estimated this Killer Move in my first game, as
it's very powerful and remains to be one of Claude's best attacks.
The rocks formed in the short version are about 2 character widths
wide. I think each spike can hit once, but only if the enemy is very
close to Claude, you'll usually get only one hit though. It can hit
multiple enemies if they're bunched up tight. The rocks are high
enough to hit most flying enemies though, making this a good move to
use against them. The start up time is average but since this move
pushes the enemies back, you're pretty safe afterwards, and you can
actually keep using Ripper Blast to push them back, stunning/damaging
them in the process. The damage of each hit is about that of a normal
physical attack. Although I must admit it's very annoying to hear
"Teeeearrrr into pieces" time after time. :P
The long range move looks awesome but is kinda hard to hit. It will
send rocks 7 ways in front of Claude in a hemisphere formation,
therefore, hitting multiple enemies surrounding him. What makes it
harder to hit? Well, first of all, you must execute this at long
range but the execution point of this move is about 2 character
widths away from the target but the rocks only reach 2 character
widths, so the rocks will miss if they move away even just a little.
Still will be able to hit most flying enemies, and a good move to use
when you're surrounded by LOTS of enemies to ensure the maximum
number of hits. Again this only hits once per spike (per each enemy
hit) and does normal attack damage.
At each P(90) interval, Ripper Blast gets upgraded and another rock
spike appears, to a maximum of 5 at P(270). This applies to both the
short and long version, making the long ranged version more and more
superior since it spreads in a fan shaped formation 180 degrees
outward. Each spike hits once, but the number of hits is reduced if
the enemy is standing too far away from Claude (ie, if they stand 3
character-width away, the first 2 spike will miss, doing at max 3
hits with the remaining spikes.) This makes the longer ranged version
harder to hit deep unless the enemy advances on Claude, but it has
the 7 way fan-shaped formation advantage than the short version.
The WHOLE purpose of this Killer Move is to level it up, if you don't
level it up then it's rather useless and costs too much for the lousy
damage it does. If you do however, it'll probably become THE best
multiple-target Killer Move in the game. ALWAYS try using this at
long range, because you'll hit the same amount of times and do the
same amount of damage and you can (most likely) hit ALL the enemies
on the screen at once. It's almost impossible to escape this Killer
Move if used at long range. Excellent if you want to play keep away
games or to finish all the enemies quickly without getting hit. This
move is even excellenter if you have mages casting spells at full
blast behind you or characters with uni-range KMs! Beware though, as
the rocks don't reach far enough to hit those enemy spell casters at
the back.
---Twin Slash---
MP Cost: 15MP LV Gained: 45
Range: 0 Elemental: None
Quote: "Twin slash"
One of the more useful moves, but its use is rather limited since it
something tends to go wrong at times. Yes Claude does jump into the
air to do his slashes but, it's not a very effective move to use
against flying enemies. Why? Because Claude tends to execute this
move at the wrong place and instead of meeting the enemy in mid air
with his sword, he often clashes into the enemy from under them and
the sword slices will miss. Sometimes it works fine though. I found
this to be more useful on ground enemies though, and it's a good all
round move until the point where he gets Mirror Slice. This hits
twice and each hit is about the same as a normal attack.
Twin Slash is basically a scrub version of Mirror Slash, except that
Claude will travel forward quite a bit so even if you push the enemy
back, you can still nail them with the next hit. Time it right and
you can use it on air enemies, but beware of what I mentioned above.
I usually use this to pressure ground and larger enemies. However,
there's a teeny weeny bit of delay between the hits so later bosses
can recover and block easily, making Mirror Slice a much better
choice later on.
At P(160), Claude will do 2 more slashes before he land, bringing it
to a total of 4 hits, no damage bonus though.
---Dragon Howl---
<
ghostly mists at the enemy>>
MP Cost: 28 LV Gained: 53
Range: 3 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Dragon howl"
---Sword Bomber---
<
enemy from his sword>>
MP Cost: 32 LV Gained: 62
Range: 6 Elemental: Fire?
Quote: "Sword bomber"
---Mirror Slice---
MP Cost: 38 LV Gained: 70
Range 0 Elemental: None
Quote: "Mirror slice"
===Cancel Ability===
The Cancel skill was made for Claude! Claude has a very good normal
attack to Cancel from, since it's pretty fast, nice range, good
recovery and can Peep the enemies easily with his Eternal Sphere,
setting the trap for his KMs that follows up very nicely. What's more
is that Claude's short ranged KMs are excellent attacks to Cancel
into, since they're fast and powerful. Basically, if you manage to
land a normal attack, you're basically gaining the upper hand.
These Killer Moves works well:
* Shooting Stars (cheap and many hits)
* Twin Slash (harder since Claude has to first jump into the air)
* Mirror Slash (fast and powerful)
* Burst Knuckle (my personal favourite!)
===Link Combo Ideas===
Claude has a few good Link Combos since he has a variety of Killer
Moves. However, since most of his KMs have 2 ranges, some of his Link
Combos will occasionally turn out differently than expected. One
slight disadvantage of giving Claude Link Combos is that his KMs are
the most expensive, his MP can be drained very quickly.
* Ripper Blast – Air Slash Rating: 4 MP Cost: 21MP
Geez, talk about playing "hard to get". Use this and the enemies
can't even touch you. Works even better if you have a pair of Bunny
Shoes.
* Air Slash - Head Splitter Rating: 3 MP Cost: 13MP
Ripper Blast – Head Splitter Rating: 3.5 MP Cost: 26MP
Hehe, you can deal lotsa damage to the enemy before they even get to
you with these. However, timing is crucial. Execute this only if
you're about half a screen away from the enemy so the first attack
hits, while they're stunned by the Air Slash, they'll get hit by the
Head Splitter, hopefully. (Air Slash may take a bit long to recover.)
The latter is a great anti-air move too!
* Burst Knuckles – Shooting Stars Rating: 4 MP Cost: 19MP
Burst Knuckles – Mirror Slice Rating: 5 MP Cost:
I've tried these once and it was brilliant. Throw in a normal attack
then Cancel it into Burst Knuckle and they'll be stuck and will take
a lot of damage. Mirror Slice is better since you don't have to be in
a corner.
* Energy Sword – Air Slash Rating: 1.5 MP Cost: 15MP
Energy Sword – Head Splitter Rating: 2 MP Cost: 20MP
The only decent Link Combos involving Energy Sword. Since you have
minimum control over where Claude would end up after his first Killer
Move, it's usually not a good idea to link Energy Sword after
anything, 'cuz Claude might end up right next to the opponent after
executing the first Killer Move. Both Air Slash and Head Splitter can
hit from anywhere on the screen.
* Sword Bomber – Ripper Blast Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Again, a great Link Combo for staying away from the enemy, hits many
times for lots of damage. Works best on those worms that can swallow
you since they're slow. Against faster enemies, the Sword Bomber
maybe harder to connect. It works the other way too, but you may have
to run a bit out of range for Sword Bomber.
* Twin Slash – Mirror Slice Rating: 4 MP Cost:
I used this before I tried Burst Knuckles. It's not bad really, but
there is a bit of lag time when Claude lands. Not sure if it's a good
move against flying enemies, because Twin Slash will hit but some
hits in Mirror Slice won't.
There are many more good combinations, especially ones starting with
Mirror Slice, but I like to use Mirror Slice only as a finisher.
RENA LANFORD
------------
Rena lives in the southern end of Expel, in a village called Arlia
with her mother. One day when she was strolling around the Shingo
Forest like she always does, she was attacked by a monster. A
mysterious stranger appeared to save her. In the muddled state that
she was in, Rena instantly recognized the stranger to be the
legendary "Hero of Light" and made a big commotion back in Arlia only
to find that the stranger, Claude Kenni was far from being the hero
that was prophesied to save their world. Quickly made up her mind,
Rena decided to go with Claude in his mission to investigate the
Sorcery Globe in hopes of finding her birth mother as well as the
origins of her healing powers. Rena is very bitchy and reminds me a
lot of Cecilia of Wild Arms, in that she has "morals" and tells
everyone off for nothing, even when it's none of her business.
Initial stats:
HP: 100 STR: 5 LUC: 130
MP: 40 CON: 2 STM: 10
LV: 1 DEX: 10 GUTS: 30
EXP: 0 AGL: 8
NEXT: 10 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Knuckles, Robe
Initial skills: Kitchen Knife LV1
Recipe LV4
Good Eye LV1
Favourite Food: Short Cake (Cook with Egg/Dairy Products)
Favourite Instrument: Lyre
Favourite Quotes:
- "My strength is starting to overflow" (Sounds like Lisa Simpson)
- "I won't loose" (The first quote I've ever heard from her)
Favourite PA Moment:
- After Celine caused a big commotion in Fun City with her potion,
find her and the potion starts to affect Rena too, as she turned red
and a heart pops up.
Rena is the most useful character in this game. She basically
provides heavy healing and support for the entire team, you'll want
her in most fights just in case you accidentally get your butt
kicked. Although a large portion of Rena's spells are used for
healing or support, she has a handful of offensive spells as well,
even though they're not as strong as Celine or Leon's. Her offensive
consist of Light, Void and Star type attacks, which are more used for
disrupting the enemy mage rather than heavy damage. Unlike the other
magic users, she can actually fight pretty well too! Her normal is a
punch, which is very fast (even faster than Claude's) and has decent
range and excellent recovery, so it can be done in a quick succession
to temporarily disable the enemy. Her air attack is very confusing,
it's either an awkward downward punch or a back flip in mid air, not
too good at all.
Like I said, she can fight pretty well, so her STR is (although lower
than any fighter) pretty decent for a magic user, around about 600 at
later stages, that's just a bit lower than Opera's! Rena, being a
magic user, has low STM (perhaps lower than that of Celine's) which
makes MP recovery quite difficult earlier in the game so keep some
spare Blackberries in stock just in case.
She is quite weak defensively though, so keep her in the back.
Remember that her primary job is to heal/support friends, not
offensive spells or physical fighting. However, if everyone's
healthy, feel free to cast an offensive spell with her. You should
ONLY use her in physical combat if you have full control over her,
but only in certain circumstances, such as self-defence (like if an
enemy moves too close) or if you see a definite opening and it's not
too far away, but everyone must be healthy first!
Being a magic user disallow Rena to wear very good armor, so
concentrate on a good MAG boost with Robes, but do give her the best
equipment available as she's the most valuable character of the team,
if she falls, you'll have quite a hard time at healing yourselves.
#####Magic#####
---Heal---
[Green sparks swirls around a character from head to toe]
MP Cost: 3MP LV Gained: NA
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Heal"
A very simple healing spell. It's very quick to cast, about 1 second
but since it's a non-static spell, it'll take another second to take
effect. The amount recovered is hopelessly low though, but it's
enough to keep you going until around the Mars event.
Healing = 100 + (MAG * 1/4) + (Prof. * 0.7)
The first casting restores 100HP, and another HP is added per every 1
or 2 castings, so y' see, even at P(999) this spell still restores
less than 1000HP. Good earlier on, on gets outdated quickly.
---Antidote---
[A small green ring encircles one ally]
MP Cost: 5MP LV Gained: 3
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Antidote"
An early spell but it's likely that you'll need to use it until the
end of the game. This will cure the Poison status. It's a non-static
spell, is very quick to cast but takes a while (2-3 seconds) to take
effect. This becomes extremely useful in the Trial Caves since the
enemies there tend to be very cheap and Poisons you all the time.
Never seal this, you'll never know when it'll be useful.
---Press---
[A 10-ton weight drops from above its target]
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: 5
Target: One enemy Elemental: Void
Quote: "Press"
"Be crushed!"
Rena's first offensive spell is a really weak one, I bet she can
attack the enemy for more damage. This does about 50 points of damage
when you first get it and at the end of the game, this can only do
about 150 points of damage. The casting time is about 2.5 seconds,
not too great but it's a static spell so it takes effect immediately
after that. It can be ok when used to disrupt an enemy mage's
concentration, but if you manage to get the Proficiency of her better
spells (like Star Flare) up to around 400, they'll be faster and does
more damage.
---Deep Mist---
[Clouds appear near the target to obscure their ision]
MP Cost: 11MP LV Gained: 8
Target: All enemies (?) Elemental: Dark
Quote: "Deep mist"
"Oh fog"
Ummm, I'm still deciding how useful this spell is. I ignored it
pretty much in my first 2 games, then tried it a bit near the end of
the game, but it wasn't really effective at all since it won't ever
work, I guess I was just lacking Proficiency. Now in my third game, I
actually find this quite useful during random encounters (it's a lot
harder on Galaxy mode y' know) as it reduces the enemy's hit rates by
quite a bit. I think this may also reduce their evade rates too. If
an enemy gets blinded, some blue words will appear above them (can't
read what it says 'cuz it's too small) and those who weren't affected
will have "MISS" above their heads. It won't really work on the
bosses though (especially most of them are strong against Dark) so
stick to harder random encounter fights. Forget it if you don't want
to waste your MP, as you can complete a game without ever touching
this. I'd seal it immediately, and use it manually.
The casting time is around 3 seconds. This may look like an area
affecting spell, but I once cast this on a target in the middle of
the screen and enemies that were miles away were affected too, so I
guess this affects all enemies.
---Cure Light---
[A sphere of light appears above the target's head and heals them]
MP Cost: 11MP LV Gained: 10
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Cure light"
This spell will replace Heal and works fairly well until you get to
the Lacour continent. It's still fast (about 2 seconds) but it's a
non-static spell so it'll take about another 2 seconds to take
effect, you could be killed by then!
Healing = 800 + (MAG * 1/2) + (Prof. * 1.3)
The first casting will restore 800HP, and each casting afterwards
will restore another 1HP, but it sometimes varies. It isn't good for
a very long time but you're sometimes forced to use it, as the next
single targeted healing spell (Fairy Heal) is quite a few levels
away.
---Silence---
[Rena summons a 4 armed spirit, and the spirit extends 2 of her arms
out]
MP Cost: 14MP LV Gained: 12
Target: All enemies Elemental: None
Quote: "Silence"
This spell attempts to silence all enemies, but are only good against
spell casters. When an enemy gets silences, an orange cross appears
above the enemy for a second, those didn't get silenced will have
"MISS". The success rate of this spell is quite bad, as it never
works when you are desperate. I found to cast quick spells like Ray
to disturb the enemy mages is more effective, however, if you do
manage to silence an enemy spell caster, they'll be rendered
powerless for the rest of the fight, which can be very helpful in the
Trial Caves. I believe that higher Proficiency means higher success
rates. I think Celine's Forget is more effective though. It's up to
you if you wanna seal it. I usually leave it on.
---Ray---
[Countless rays of white light gathers in the air, as many slender
beams of yellow lights are emitted and hits the enemies]
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: 14
Target: All enemies Elemental: Light
Quote: "Ray"
"Oh light!"
Ah, finally a dependable attack spell, but by the time Rena gets this
Celine would have had it for quite a while and will soon get the much
superior Star Light. Oh well. Still pretty good but won't do very
much damage by the time she gets this. You can combine this with
Celine's Ray or you can use this to disturb the enemies to buy some
time for Celine to cast a much powerful spell, which is a good
strategy later on. It's quite cheap but it takes about 4 seconds to
cast. The damage done is around 80-100+, not too great.
---Energy Net---
[A large shockwave drops from the sky and explodes into a dome as it
hits the ground, stunning all enemies caught in the explosion]
MP Cost: 12 LV Gained: 18
Target: All enemies Elemental: ?
Quote: "Energy net"
"Don't move!"
A fairly decent status spell. This will attempt to Peep all enemies
and works more often than not. It takes about 4 seconds to cast. It
can be good if you want your fighters to advance on an enemy or to
escape. I believe the higher the Proficiency the more accurate this
spell is. It probably won't work very much at the end of the game
(where it's more useful) if you don't cast this spell throughout your
game. Turn it off or Rena will use it a lot, cast it manually.
---Cure All---
[Rena conjures up a large cross and a light blue dome, all allies are
covered in blue sparks]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 20
Target: All allies Elemental: None
Quote: "Cure all"
"Oh healing light!"
This is what I call "faith healing". :) This is the first all-
affecting healing spell you'll have access to, and becomes quite
useful from the Sanctuary of Linga and onwards, but will be replaced
by Fairy Light later.
Healing = 1200 + (MAG * 1) + (Prof. * 1.7)
The first casting of Cure All will restore 1200HP and each casting
following will gain either 1 or 2 HP. The casting time is around 4
seconds but it's a static spell so once you pull it off, you're
pretty much safe. Since this restores more HP than Cure Light, it's a
good spell to use even only if one character is hurt (badly), since
you won't have access to Fairy Heal for a long while.
---Delay---
[Rena calls forth a large pocket watch, it hang over the target and
resets itself]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 22
Target: Single enemy Elemental: None
Quote: "Delay"
"Oh time"
This is basically SO2's version of the infamous Slow spell from FF.
It will take 4 seconds to cast, but once cast it'll have a decent
chance of success and it even works on some of the bosses. Delay will
slow the target's movement rate giving you the upper hand, but I'm
not sure if it does anything else (like evade, accuracy etc.) It's a
good spell but since it misses often, it might be a better option to
Haste (see below) all your allies. Turn this off or Rena will use it
constantly (if you set her to "Aid Friends") and cast it manually
whenever you feel like it.
---Dispel---
[A large runic green circle appears below the character and gets
showered by blue sparks]
MP Cost: 24MP LV Gained: 25
Target: Single ally Elemental: None (?)
Quote: "Dispel"
"Disappear you impure people!"
Another one of Rena's most useful spells, Dispel will negate Poison,
Paralyze and Stone status. Becomes increasingly important as you
progress though the game, as many enemies has really cheap attacks
that inflicts status ailments, often multiple ones at one time! Of
course, use this when someone's affected by all 3 statuses, but if
it's just one status, you might consider using an item and let Rena
do the healing in tougher fights. If the target is affected by Poison
only, use Antidote instead. NEVER seal this spell!
Note my "?" next to the "Elemental". This is probably a non-elemental
spell but the animation is very similar to Anti (a Void spell) and it
kinda makes sense for a status-dispelling spell to be Void elemental
(remember Vortex from SaGa Frontier?) Well, I have no idea why I'm
making such a fuss about something that ain't even gonna affect the
gameplay... *sign*
---Gravity Press---
[Dark clouds forms in the sky and countless 100-ton weights drops
from it and crushes anything beneath them]
MP Cost: 24MP LV Gained: 28
Target: Radius Elemental: Void
Quote: "Gravity Press"
"Hit it!"
Wow, great! Even Celine don't have a spell as powerful as this at
LV28! It deals a solid ~600 points of damage to most enemies on
screen. Although the enemies gets knocked Dizzy during the animation
of this spell, I don't think the Dizziness lasts after the spell
finishes. A fairly good spell for the time being but gets replaced by
Celine's spells quickly, especially that it uses so much MP! The
casting time is about 4 seconds.
---Light Cross---
[Multiple beams of light hits battlefield causing mild explosions]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 30
Target: All enemies Elemental: Light
Quote: "Light cross"
"Oh holy cross!"
A very disappointing spell after Gravity Press, as the damage is only
slightly better than Ray, and you gets it so late. When I first got
this I did around 290 points of damage, not very helpful at all.
Ignore this, as Celine'll soon get a very powerful Thunder Storm (if
she hasn't already.) Casting time is 4 seconds.
---Protection---
[A shield falls from heaven to protect an ally]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 33
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Protection"
"Oh shield of light!"
This spell will raise the target's defence by I don't know how much.
It's good against bosses especially flying ones since most of your
fighters will be very vulnerable when jump attacking. Costs a bit
much earlier on and doesn't gain Proficiency so seal it.
---Tractor Beam---
[A rainbow colored, cylindrical force field envelopes the target and
any surrounding enemies, lifts them up into the air and drops them
head down back to the ground]
MP Cost: 22MP LV Gained: 36
Target: Radius Elemental: Star
Quote: "Tuactor bea" (weird!!!)
A unique but average attack spell in Rena's possession. The casting
time of 4 seconds makes this spell a bad choice for disturbing enemy
spell casters. The area of impact of this spell is not bad, but not
as good as other spells of this type. It's useful for a while when
you first obtain this, which is around Sanctuary of Linga. Note,
airborne enemies or enemies gets propelled into the air will not be
affected by this, which makes casting this spell on those "Bunnies"
less effective. Although the AI is quite bad sometimes and casts this
on flying enemies. The damage is around 700+ when you first gets it
and at the end of the game it can do 1000+ damage, pretty weak huh.
---Haste---
[A pocket watch appears above the ally and fast-forwards itself]
MP Cost: 20MP LV Gained: 42
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Haste"
"Oh time!"
This spell will raise one ally's running speed and will never miss,
although it's not as good as it is in theory, as your character will
only be a teeny-weeny bit faster that you won't even notice it!! Use
it if you want but I'd rather save my MP. Seal this though or else
Rena will cast this during random encounters and uses up her MP
faster than expected.
---Growth---
[An orange sphere of energy clouds one ally and enlarges them
temporarily]
MP Cost: 22MP LV Gained: 47
Target: Single Ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Growth"
"Power up!"
A very good spell for most boss fights as it increases the damage
done by one ally by a LOT, possibly by an extra portion of their
regular attack power. I was doing about 800 damage and after this
spell was cast, my guys started hacking away for 1100!! I think the
effect will wear off when that ally dies in battle, and this has no
Proficiency, so seal it and use it manually during boss fights.
Fighters are probably the only ones who benefits from this spell
unless you want your mages to attack in front line. This combined
with Berserk can cause MAJOR damage and use it against tough bosses
for a big power boost.
---Fairy Heal---
[A beam of light shines upon a character from the heavens and angels
descends.]
MP Cost: 30MP LV Gained: 52
Target: Single Ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Fairy Heal"
"Please!"
GREAT spell. If you've been leveling Rena up a LOT then you can get
this as early as when you get to the Eluria Tower. It's really useful
as at ~P(300) you'll be curing over 8000 HP! Here's the equation for
the spell:
HP Restored = 2800 + (MAG * 2) + (Prof. * 4)
So every time you use it, an extra 4HP is restored so it really gets
powerful quite quickly.
---Anti---
[A large magical rune is summoned by the caster and all allies are
protected by orange sparks]
MP Cost: 40MP LV Gained: 54
Target: All Allies Elemental: Void
Quote: "Anti"
This is another great spell. Anti will protect every one of your
allies from enemy magic attacks, so it's absolutely essential for
later bosses and the ones in the Cave of Trials. Seal this one as
well and use it manually. It does not have a proficiency counter
either. Some of the lesser spells are even negated by this spell!!!
CELINE JULES
------------
Celine is a free willed young woman from the Mars village famed for
her abilities in Heraldry Arts and her beauty. Sick of the pre-
arranged marriages from her parents, Celine leaves home to find
excitements in treasure hunting, and maybe, just maybe, finding
someone in the world that really takes her for who she really is.
Celine is a very typical "sweetie darling" type of girl, who like
expensive and classy objects. She's very open minded though, and can
be quite romantic at the right times. Celine is also very generous,
always giving her friends gifts.
Initial stats:
HP: 400 STR: 15 LUC: 154
MP: 100 CON: 8 STM: 14
LV: 8 DEX: 12 GUTS: 45
EXP: 735 AGL: 5
NEXT: 325 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Rod, Robe, Pin Heels, Ruby Earring, Prism Ring
Initial skills: Mineralogy LV1
Craft LV1
Esthetic Sense LV5
Scientific Ability LV2
Fairyology LV2
Favourite Food: Baby Rabbit Risotto
Favourite Instrument: Violin
Favourite Quotes:
- "Oh, is it already finished?"
- "Behind me??"
- "I deserve this!"
- "I have no choice" (ALL of her quotes sounds really cool!)
Favourite PA Moment:
- Not a PA, but when you go to the clothes shop in Clik with Ketil,
choose to dress up Celine and you'll get to see her in a bikini!!!
- She got angry with me when I tried to steal from her and failed!
- Who can forget the romantic side of her when she got engaged to a
certain blond guy
Not only is Celine one of the classiest chicks ever to be in an RPG,
she's also quite a powerful character. I think Celine is the best
attack magician in this game. Celine joins your party pretty early in
the game, where her spells are unmatched, but like all magic users,
their spells gets out classed by fighters as they can do much more
damage in less time and don't have to bothered by the lengthy spell
animations. What makes her more useful than Leon is that her spells
controls more useful elements than Leon, that the enemies are often
weak against. Celine is the master of Fire, Thunder, Star and Light,
with a few spells of Wind, Void and Vacuum elemental, although a few
of her better spells takes forever to animate. :(
Physically, Celine is THE weakest character in the game, she has the
lowest STR and her normal attacks are pathetic. Her ground attack is
a swing with her rod. She obviously hasn't had any training as it has
basically no range! Don't try to attack the enemies or it'll leave
her VERY open to attacks. Her air attack is even worse, a swing that
has no range. I can NEVER get her air attack to connect. Don't try,
as she'll get hit instead.
Celine can only wear the crappiest armor, so concentrate on a good
MAG instead, and keep her at the back at all times. Celine also runs
extremely slow in battles (the slowest) so it's almost impossible to
escape (without Bunny Shoes) if an enemy gets on her tail. The AI
controls magicians very badly in this game (although Celine is better
than both Leon and Noel) as they'll just stand at the same place. The
enemy casts a Firebolt and they'll just stand there. The Firebolt
approaches and they just stand there... and gets hit by the worst
spell in the game, time after time!!! Also, if enemies get to them,
they'll only move at the LAST SECOND possible, therefore usually gets
killed very quickly (there isn't even a strategy to make them move!)
And lastly, magic users tend to stand there and be idled during the
fights, even on the most aggressive AI setting, casting a spell
occasionally whenever they feel like it. So if you're planning to use
magic users in a serious fight, make sure YOU'RE controlling them.
Celine has low STM earlier in the game, and since her spells are all
quite expensive, her MP gets drained very quickly. Also, equip the
weapon that gives her the best MAG, as you won't need her for
attacking. Another thing of interest is that Celine is very gutsy for
a magic user, with a GUTS level that rivals Claude's but I suppose
it's not as useful for her as for a figher.
######Heraldry#####
---Firebolt---
[Celine launches a ball of fire at the enemy]
MP Cost: 2MP LV Gained: NA
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Fire
Quote: "Firebolt"
The weakest attacking spell in the game has many flaws, obviously.
The first is that the Firebolt will pause in front of Celine for
about 2 seconds before it launches itself. It also travels quite
slowly. This spell is non-static so a hit is not guaranteed, but at
that speed, it would be a miracle if it did hit an enemy at full
screen. The casting time is 2 seconds. I only managed to do 15 points
of damage when Celine first joined, so give this spell a break.
Note around the 4th floor of the Cave of Trials, those Goat-head-like
enemies can cast Firebolt but their Firebolts do around 2000+ damage
to a character with neutral resistance!!!!!
---Wind Blade---
[Celine fires a slim tornado at the enemy]
MP Cost: 2MP LV Gained: NA
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Wind
Quote: "Wind blade"
The Wind elemental version of Firebolt, has identical drawbacks and
same casting time. Wind Blade is better though, as the tornado is
launched immediately upon casting, making this easier to hit with.
The damage is also greater, I managed to deal 25 points! Put this on
your ignore list, even if the enemy is weak against Wind, because
Celine has much better spells.
---Thunderbolt---
[A small bolt to lightning blasts the enemy]
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: NA
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Thunder
Quote: "Thunderbolt"
The weakest Thunder spell. Unlike Firebolt and Wind Blade, this can
actually hit the enemy most of the time, as the lightning appears
right above where the enemy is standing. A bit more stronger, at 35
points damage. Only worth casting for the cute voice sample or when
you're very early in the game. I sometimes cast this for fun (not
that it's that much fun watching a lousy spell.)
---Ray---
[Countless rays of white light gathers in the air, as many slender
beams of yellow lights are emitted and hits the enemies]
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: 9
Target: All enemies Elemental: Light
Quote: "Ray"
"Go!"
Unlike Rena, when Celine first receives Ray (the Cross Cave event)
it's godly powerful, although takes a lot of MP to cast. It will deal
about 80 points of damage at first, but won't rise very high. This is
exceptionally useful when fighting the Gargoyles in the Cave of
Cross.
---Energy Arrow---
[Numerous purple energy darts accumulates and explodes about the
enemy]
MP Cost: 17MP LV Gained: 12
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Vacuum
Quote: "Energy arrow"
"Gather together darkness!"
This will be Celine's most powerful spell for a while, but still
isn't too damaging, about 500 points of damage is what you normally
get. The casting time is around 4 seconds. Although it might be a
little expensive, this spell will get rid of most of the normal
encounter enemies during the early part of the game with one hit.
Tired of those archers in the Mountain Palace hitting you before you
can even get close? Use this and they'll be no more. It works on the
mages with very powerful spells too. However, I think this spell is
not too useful during boss fights. :(
---Forget---
[Black thunder bolts strikes the target mentally, causing amnesia]
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: 15
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Thunder
Quote: "Forget"
"Oh thunder run!"
This is Celine's way of disposing of enemy spell casters by (a rather
innovative way) hitting their heads with lightning. IMO, this is more
effective than Rena's Silence, but targets only one enemy. It's up to
you if you want to use this spell. Again higher the Proficiency, the
more accurate this is. Try it on an enemy weak vs thunder, but there
ain't that many of them around. The casting time is about 3 seconds
but this spell become very fast after about 30 castings.
---Starlight---
[Celine sends a chain of stars into the air, which in terms shines
beams of light down at the enemies, causing an explosion]
MP Cost: 10 LV Gained: 18
Target: All enemies Elemental: Star
Quote: "Starlight"
"Oh light!"
A fairly decent spell, but still, Energy Arrow is more effective
during boss fights. Starlight will do around 140 points of damage to
all enemies, so it's better used on encounters with hoards of
enemies. Note this has the same MP cost as Ray, but the damage is
much higher. I like this spell for disrupting the enemy magicians.
The casting time is about 4 seconds.
---Reflection---
[Thunderbolts form a barrier around an ally]
MP Cost: 8MP LV Gained: 19
Target: Single ally Elemental: Thunder
Quote: "Reef-Lection"
Hmm, more innovative ways of using lightning bolts. This will reduce
the damage taken from PHYSICAL attacks only, but it works differently
to Rena's Protection, as this reduces damage directly which Rena's
will only increase DEF. I'm not sure exactly how this spell works but
it seems to reduce damage by a certain set amount rather than in a
percentage. This is only a guess but maybe Reflection reduces damage
by Celine's MAG value PLUS the Proficiency of this spell. Nice spell
to cast during boss fights, but Celine's AI will sometimes cast this
on herself first, or cast this spell for no apparent reason during
normal encounters.
---Mind Absorber---
[A red/orange bubble of energy is sucked out of the enemy and gets
absorbed by the caster]
MP Cost: 1MP LV Gained: 22
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Vacuum
Quote: "Mind absorber"
"Excuse me!" :)
This might have been a good spell in the FF series, where almost
every enemy had MP. This is not the case in SO2 however, as usually
only the spell casters have MP, so casting this on other enemies
simply wastes the spell. This can be used on enemy spell casters to
drain off all their MP, and therefore, disabling them. Just prepare
yourself so that you won't be too surprised when it missed. I simply
let Celine cast this on enemy mages when her MP gets too low, since
this spell costs so little, it's a nice substitute for Blackberries,
and you'll gain Proficiency. The MP absorbed is quite low though. I
managed to drain 20MP when I first cast this. I think the amount of
MP drained is affected by your MAG power while the success rate is
affected by the Proficiency. It also depends on target's current MP.
It's fun, but not totally reliable so don't use it in a life-or-death
situation.
---Neutral---
[The character gets dazzled by brilliant blue showers]
MP Cost: 17MP LV Gained: 27
Target: Single ally Elemental: ??
Quote: "Neutral"
One of the least useful spells in the game, Neutral gets rid of those
nasty pseudo-statuses (like Silence, Delay etc.) that the enemies
hardly ever cast. I've never actually had to use this spells, but if
you happen to be affected by Deep Mist or something then give this
spell a try.
---Bless---
[]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 28
Target: Single ally Elemental: ??
Quote: "Bless"
"By the goddess of luck!"
Bless increases an ally's hit rate. It's more useful than it sounds
(as characters rarely miss in other RPGs) since the later enemies
have an annoying tendency to block most of your physical attacks
thrown at them. Doesn't gain proficiency so seal it or Celine would
use it during normal battles and wastes her MP.
---Thunder Storm---
[Many thunder bolts blasts the battle field from all directions]
MP Cost: 28MP LV Gained: 31
Target: All enemies Elemental: Thunder
Quote: "Thunder storm"
"Bolt down!"
Goodness me, finally a decent spell after all that time! You'll
probably get this around the Sanctuary of Linga part of the game and
it'll become really useful during that time, since the boss in that
dungeon is weak against Thunder. This spell will do an enormous 800+
points of damage to all enemies when you get this, but keep an eye on
Celine's MP as a few of these will leave her MP-less. Probably useful
until the point you get Thunder Cloud. Note the casting times of this
and all the up-and-coming spells are becoming quite long, so you
can't disturb the enemy mages as easily with these. Thunder Storm's
casting time is about 5 seconds.
---Eruption---
[A large pile of lava erupts out of the ground and burns surrounding
enemies, while more burning lava falls from the sky]
MP Cost: 30MP LV Gained: 34
Target: Radius Elemental: Fire
Quote: "E-Ruption"
"Oh flame!"
Hate those annoying mages in the Mountain Palace hurting your guys
badly with this spell? Well, now Celine has it and she's not afraid
to use it! *Gasp* Anyway, Celine will probably get this after
clearing the Sanctuary of Linga or the beginning of Hoffman Ruins.
Around that point, Eruption will do 1000+ points to most enemies. Its
area of blast if about the same as Rena's Tractor Beam. Since this
spell is kinda expensive, you might choose to cast this only on
tightly packed enemies and use Thunder Storm if the enemies are more
spread out. The usefulness of this will wear out sooner though, as
it's a long time 'til you get Explosion.
---Curse---
[The target is engulfed in a beam of blue light as skulls pounds the
target]
MP Cost: 20MP LV Gained: 39
Target: Single enemy Elemental: None
Quote: "Curse"
I don't know what to think of this spell. It's suppose to cancel any
positive spells an enemy casts on themselves (ie, Haste, Angel
Feather etc..) Very useless since enemies almost never use these
spells, except maybe later bosses and the ones in the Cave of Trials.
I've NEVER had to use this spell. So use this when you're fighting a
boss with Celine in our team and the boss cast a stats-upper on
himself, but it will almost never happen. What's kinda weird about
this spell is that it can gain Proficiency! Hmm, maybe it has a
stats-down effect too?
---Lunar Light---
[A large moon appears in the sky as yellow beams of light descends
and explodes into a large dome]
MP Cost: 25MP LV Gained: 43
Target: All enemies Elemental: Light
Quote: "Lunar light"
This is Celine's first REALLY good spell and can be used all the way
to the end of the game as this is the most powerful Light spell.
Celine gains this really early (some point in the Eluria Tower) and
it only costs 25MP, which is really cheap towards the end of the
game. For the best Light spell, it can reap up quite a nice sum of
damage, about 2300+ at the point where you get this. Later in the
game, you can do a lot more damage by boosting Celine's MAG, the
damage can go upwards of 6000!! Also, another good point about this
spell is that the animation time is pretty quick for an ultimate
spell, and Light elemental is rather useful since not many enemies
are strong against it. The casting time is really sluggish though (a
sign of what you should be expecting in Celine's later spells), about
5-6 seconds.
ASHTON ANCHORS
--------------
Somehow cursed to have the worst luck in the world, Ashton travels
the world performing heroic deeds to help common folks. Although he
has good intentions, his lucky always ruins it for him in lots of
unexpected ways. When trying to slay the evil twin-headed dragons in
the mines of Salva, he was distracted by the party and received a
possession from the dragons. Now he walks with 2 dragon heads, Gyoro
and Ururun, attached to his back. In hope of finding a way to
exorcise them, he joins the party. Although he rarely shows it, he
cares for the dragons a lot and he's very thankful to have friends
(the party members) who cares about him. He's also a VERY comical
character.
Favourite Food: Hamburger (Cook with Meat, or bought from Giveaway
for 200Fol)
Favourite Instrument: Piano
Favourite Quotes:
- "Oh god..."
- "I diid iit!" (Don't know why but these 2 quotes seem like what
Dan from Street Fighters would say.)
Favourite PA Moment:
- In Fun City with his biggest obsession for barrels yet!! ("BARREL
BARREL BARREL BARREL BARREL..." :) )
- Also in Fun City, the kids mistook Gyoro and Ururun for stuffed
animals!
Ashton is, IMO, the second most powerful character in SO2. To be
honest, I found it hard to adjust to his style when I first go him,
and the CPU can control him much better than I can.
Ashton is very nimble with his hands, because he fights with a pair
of short swords, one in each hand. He uses Heraldic Swords techniques
in his Killer Move, but not all of them are really great, and his
later Killer Moves will utilizes the power of Gyoro and Ururun. Even
though Ashton is equipped with 2 swords, he will only attack with one
with his normal attack, which is a quick slash. It is of slightly
less range than Claude's but is quick. His air attack is, again a
jumping slash, still not that effective but it's better than Claude's
since he attacks on his way up.
He has a lot in common with Claude for the fact that they both have
very high STR and CON, and can equip some of the best armor, although
the two-handed nature of Ashton's weapons forbids him to wear the
best shields so he has to stick to smaller bucklers. Ashton also has
some really powerful weapons, and can equip the best weapon in the
game, the Levantine Sword. Ashton is probably the unluckiest person
on Expel, since his LUC starts off at 18 and will never raise any
higher, poor Ashton. I won't worry too much about his LUC though.
Ashton's Killer Moves are really a mixed bag. The ones he get near
the start of the game are some of the WORST in the game, slow as hell
and takes forever to recover. However, his later Killer Moves are
some of the best. Like Claude, Ashton should really be used as a
short-ranged character. His missile attacks are TERRIBLE!!! Ashton's
best Killer Moves are probably Sword Dance (second only to Mirror
Slice!) and maybe Hurricane Slash (not THAT strong. But great in
juggles.) Dragon Breath is fairly good too.
#####Killer Moves#####
---Twin Stab---
takes it back and stabs the enemy with the other sword
<>
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 0, 1 Elemental: None
Quote: "Twin stab"
Twin Stab is below average for a Killer Move. There's a huge lag time
before he extends his sword out to hit the enemies and Ashton will
pause for about 2 seconds before he sends out the other sword. The
enemy would be brain dead if they didn't counter during those times!
The range is so-so. There's also a bit of recovery time (Ashton will
pause again after the second stab) so this move is quite dangerous.
Plus, the damage don't really shine either, each stab does the same
damage as a normal attack so you'll be better off with normal
attacks.
After careful examination, I discovered that Twin Stab has a long
ranged version! If you press the button at long range, Ashton will
run up to the enemy to stab them, just like the short ranged version,
however, the range has been seriously increased, to around 2
character widths. But still, the time takes for Ashton to run across
to the enemy could leave him in danger so this version is not too
useful either. The long lag time is still here and it does the same
damage.
At P(100), the damage of both short and long range version are
increased to 1.5 times the normal damage each, so it's still pretty
weak. I haven't found any good ways of using this Killer Move.
---Cross Slash---
sword, invoking a blinding purple light as it hits
<
with the other sword>>
MP Cost: 8MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 0, 2 Elemental: None
Quote: "Cross slash"
Another fairly average Killer Move that's slightly more useful than
Twin Stab and has similar drawbacks. The effects of both the short
and long version of this move are identical, each hit is as strong as
a normal attack. Pretty good range again, the first strike has the
range of 1 character width, the second hit seems to have virtually
infinite horizontal range, but Ashton cannot act as he slides forward
uncontrollably. The first hit in the long ranged version has more
range but is slightly slower, the second hit is exactly the same. The
problem with this move lies within the second hit, as sometimes the
first hit of the short-ranged version will propel the enemy into the
air and causing the second hit to miss. Even if the second hit hits,
Ashton will still continue to charge forward. If the enemy is in
front of him, he'll stay in his "charging" frame for many seconds,
and a counter from the enemy is almost unavoidable. If Ashton misses
completely however, he'll run for miles to the end of the screen!!!
Make SURE that you hit with this move if you're going to use it.
The first strike from the short-ranged version WILL hit a flying
enemy (and it's actually quite effective) but the second hit won't.
Don't use it too often for that purpose though, as the second hit
will leave you in the "defenceless" frame for a while and takes you
miles away from the enemy.
The best place to use this is, IMO, for juggling the opponents. An
effective Link Combo finisher, especially after Hurricane Slash.
Another fairly good use is to Cancel an attack into this after
achieving "Float", but it's quite tricky as the combat skills are
unpredictable. Again, you might only get the first hit to connect
during juggles. Also, it can work against those annoying "Bunny"
enemies that keep prancing around, do it as they are about to land
and they'll land on the blade hehe..
At P(100), the damage will increase to 1.5 time the normal attack for
each hit.
---Leaf Slash---
[Ashton aims with his sword in front of his face as rings of leaves
begins to appear around his target, then he runs a short distance and
disappears. Ashton's image appears before the enemy and slashes them
twice, and then Ashton reappears behind his target]
MP Cost: 19MP LV Gained: NA
Range: U (Special) Elemental: None
Quote: "Leaf slash"
A very useful attack especially since you get it so early, but it's a
VERY expensive Killer Move then. There's quite a bit of delay but
since you can execute this from almost anywhere, it doesn't matter
too much. This is a "uni-ranged" KM except that Ashton cannot execute
this while standing within 3 character widths away from the target
horizontally. Note that if the enemy moves, the rings of leaves will
move with them, so there's no way that they can escape this. However,
Ashton will miss flying opponents or ground opponents that gets
launched into the air as Ashton attacks them. Ashton has limited
invulnerability during the lengthy time where he disappears. I think
most physical attacks won't harm him but is vulnerable to breath
weapons or maybe projectiles too, but is definitely vulnerable
against magic. Ashton will execute 2 slices, each doing normal attack
damage.
Use Leaf Slash sparingly though, as this is Ashton's move expensive
Killer Move quite a long time, but it's his best attack during that
time. If you're feeling that this move is draining too much MP, swap
it for another. Or save your MP for the bosses, or use items to
replenish your MP prior to it.
This is a great move for bosses and other powerful enemies alike,
since this will warp Ashton to where the boss is standing quickly and
still protects Ashton from attacks (since he is invincible.) Use this
first thing in a boss fight, then trade it for a faster short-ranged
attack if you can. If the boss warps away, use this move again to
nail them.
At P(200), Ashton will do an extra slash, bringing it to a maximum of
3 hits, each at normal attack damage. So you see, even though Ashton
can teleport to where the enemy is and is invulnerable, this KM will
do too little damage to be really useful very later on. It's still
one of his better KMs though.
---Northern Cross---
chunk of ice forms form them, then he sends the icicle at the
direction he's facing
<>
MP Cost: 9MP LV Gained: 18
Range: 2,5 Elemental: Water (Special)
Quote: "Northern cross"
This is probably the second worst Killer Move in the whole game (can
you guess which is the worst?) The ice takes forever to form and even
longer to fire. You can actually hit the enemies with his sword
slashes that Ashton executes before he starts to form the ice. But
the problem is that the execution point requires some space between
Ashton and the enemy, which means if you execute this move in front
of the enemy (to try to get the sword slash to connect), Ashton will
jump back and so unless the enemy advances on him, the sword slashes
will miss. If somehow you got the sword slashes to connect, they will
do normal attack damage each, but there's no guarantee that the ice
will hit. You'll always get hit out of it even if you do get the
sword slashes to connect. What's worse is that the ice does not act
as a protective barrier, so the enemies can walk right up to him and
hit him. If you DO get the icicle to hit, it'll do normal attack
damage. Note ONLY the icicle is of Water elemental, the sword slashes
are non-elemental.
As pointless as it may seem, this KM has a long ranged version that's
even more useless since it's almost impossible for the sword slashes
to connect since the enemy is so damn far away.
No, I don't have any use for this move, it's terrible. Don't bother
with it. I've just seen the CPU use this move in a sorta worthwhile
way, you guessed it, those damn "Bunnies" again. Execute this when
they're about to land and they'll land on the swords, therefore gets
hit twice. Still guarantee that the ice will hit though (probably
won't.)
At P(100), the icicle in both versions will be enlarged and the
damage is increased to 1.5 times normal attack. No damage bonus for
the sword slices though. At P(200), the icicle is enlarged even more
and gains the damage potential of twice that of a normal attack, but
still no damage increment for the sword attacks. Note, when Northern
Cross evolves, the icicle generated by the short version will no
longer be a projectile, instead, it just materializes in front of
Ashton and damages any enemy who comes close. Even with the damage
increases, this attack is still one of Ashton's worst, rarely hits
and puts him in danger since it's so slow. I'd say not to even bother
with this.
---Piercing Swords---
<
throws them at the enemy, but 2 of them hit the ground>>
MP Cost: 8MP LV Gained: 22
Range: 3 Elemental: None
Quote: "Piercing swords"
Another pretty bad missile attack, although it's certainly better
than Northern Cross. It cannot be executed far away from the enemy to
keep Ashton safe from their missile attacks, since this move is quite
slow (there are too many frames at the start up). Although Ashton
throws 4 sets of swords at the enemy, 2 of them will miss and hits
the ground and the other 2 swords each do about 75% of his normal
attack damage each. Since it's quite slow, enemies can move out of
the plane and Ashton may get hit. The swords thrown will travel all
the way to the end of the battlefield if a target is not hit though.
At P(65), Ashton's aiming improves and all 4 swords will be thrown
and none of them will hit the ground, making it a quick 4 hit missile
attack. At P(130), Ashton will now throw 6 swords instead but one
will miss and hit the ground, bringing the number of hits to 5. At
P(185), all 6 swords will fly towards the enemy doing 6 hits worth of
good damage, making this move one of Ashton's better ones. I
personally quite like this move when it evolves as it can really do a
lot of damage, and the time it takes for Ashton to throw his swords
seem to be shortened. I usually let the computer control Ashton and
it uses this attack well. The speed at which the swords flies is
quite fast and can usually take the enemy by surprise.
===Cancel Ability===
Even though Ashton's normal attack is very good to Cancel from, since
it's fast, certain Killer Moves don't link very well since they take
so long to be executed.
These Killer Moves works well:
* Hurricane Slash
* Sword Dance
* Cross Slash (but you should only Cancel if the enemy is hit, even
better if Float is achieved)
===Link Combo Ideas===
* Hurricane Slash – Cross Slash Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Hurricane Slash – Sword Dance Rating: 5 MP Cost:
Hurricane Slash is a famous Killer Move for juggles, while Sword
Dance and Cross Slash are great for this purpose.
* Piercing Swords – Leaf Slash Rating: 3 MP Cost:
Dragon Breath – Leaf Slash Rating: 4 MP Cost:
I just don't like Leaf Slash being the starter since you have no
control over where Ashton will reappear, so this is a better option.
The long range attacks are slow though, so you have to figure how to
get them to connect.
Gotta play with his Link Combos a bit more.
PRECIS NEUMANN
--------------
Precis is the daughter of an inventor in the town of Linga, although
most people in town think of them as "freaky" and avoids them
whenever they can. Upon hearing that the party is investigating the
Sorcery Globe, she immediately requested to join, thinking it'll be
fun and hoping to find new inspirations for her inventions. Being the
lively one that she is, she always cheers up anyone when they're
feeling down, as she enjoys being the "mood-maker".
Favourite Food: Chocolate Crepe (I wonder how she keeps her figure.
Can be made from Eggs/Dairy Products or bough in Click.)
Favourite Instrument: Harmonica
Favourite Quotes:
- "There's Mr. Enemy"
- "I won't looose!"
- "I win!" (Like Celine, ALL of her quotes are cool,
- "Don't bother me!" probably 'cuz it's done by the same person)
Favourite PA Moment:
- The one where she said her dad is the only one who wants to be
"groovy"
- The Peppermint Jam event!
- The Green Tea Jam and Liver and Onion Jam event!
I know that nobody likes Precis but I do, I think she's brilliant
since she's got some unique Killer Moves, looks neat and has a
wonderful personality, not to mention that she has the most Private
Action events. I've heard a few complaints regarding her voice, well,
if you're a very hyper person or you know someone who is, you'd
understand. :)
While no where near as strong as Claude or Ashton, Precis has little
problem handling most enemies. She has a wide variety of Killer Moves
and I must say that NONE of the other fighters can do what she can,
since her KMs are VERY unique. Precis is the master of machinery and
build various devices and gadgets and uses them in battle. In fact,
all of her Killer Moves involves these machines. She has a robot pet
named Bobot (it's Mujinkun in the Japanese version) that she carries
around with her, and even uses it in battles. Precis always wears her
backpack which holds her secret weapons, one of such is a pair of
large robotic arms which is controlled by Precis via a controller
that looks suspiciously like my Dual Shock pad!!
Precis' normal attack is a smack with one of the robot arms, though
it's far from being the best since it's quite slow but with good
range. I almost NEVER use her normal attack since it's so slow. She
has 2 air attacks, the first is a jump'n slam with her robotic arm,
but like most air attacks of this type, it's very unreliable as it's
hard to hit the flying enemy and leaves you vulnerable. Her other air
attack is one of the best, where she launches a robotic arm from her
backpack like a missile and she does NOT leave the ground! I believe
you have to be in long range to execute this version though.
Unlike the other female members, Precis' best weapon is VERY strong,
it's the second most powerful weapon if you don't venture into the
Cave of Trials. You cannot buy her weapons from most stores though,
as they're strange and must be custom-made by her via either
Customize or Machinery, or found once in a while. Armor-wise, Precis
is pretty weak just like the other females in the game, she can equip
only the weaker fighter-type armor. Her MP is usually drained very
quickly since she can execute her Killer Moves in succession very
fast (or maybe it's just because I don't use her normal attack), so
keep lotsa Blackberries and Sour Syrups in stock!
Most of Precis' Killer Moves are some kinda missile/bombs that Precis
throws at the enemies, which are usually very fast but has to be a
bit of distance away from the enemy to execute, and are kinda weak.
She was a few that transforms Bobot into some type of vehicle, climbs
in and execute its special attack. These are the most unique since
she's usually invulnerable when inside Bobot, making her an excellent
choice against big bad bosses. Also, there's a few where she'll
reveal her secret weapons in her backpack! Her best KMs are Barrier
(powerful and hits a LARGE radius), Bloody Mary (hits many times for
strong damage, not to mention invincibility) and Bang-bang Attack.
#####Killer Moves#####
---Rocket Punch---
<
of them is launched at the enemy>>
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 5 Elemental: None
Quote: "Rocket punch"
Basically a beefed up version of her normal attack that has more
range, executed at point blank long range. It has a very little lag
time and once it's executed then it's sweet since you can keep
launching more rockets in a quick succession. It does one hit and the
damage is the same as a normal attack. It's cheap and it's fast and
it works well against most enemies, although Precis will run out of
control to get out of range when used against some of the faster
enemies, and she can get smacked when executing this as well. Works
on flying enemies too, which is certainly a bonus.
At P(120), the robot arm will be upgraded and some orange thingy is
attached to its knuckles to do more damage. Damage is increased to
150% of a normal attack, good for earlier on but becomes really weak
later on, since it does only one hit.
It's useful when an enemy is advancing on you from afar, also a
pretty good opening attack of the round if the enemy is standing
about 6 character widths away from Precis at the start, she'll
execute this immediately and the enemy'll get whacked. Once the first
punch hits, you'll have an option of whether or not you want to
continue, as they'll be in range and are open and since you can
execute this in succession fast. Don't use this if multiple enemies
are advancing on you though, as you'll only hit on of them and the
rest can get into range to hit you.
---Hop Step---
<
a 100-ton hammer as she gets bounced back>>
MP Cost: 5MP LV Gained: NA
Range: <=5 Elemental: None
Quote: "Step!"
"Hop!"
Well, it's definitely the CPU Precis' favourite attack, equip this
and they'll use it non-stop. It works kinda like Claude's Head
Splitter except that she'll be bounced back afterwards, so she'll
subject to less danger when she lands. The damage is 1.5 times that
of a normal attack. The execution point is quite strange though, as
the longest distance you can execute this is at point blank long
range, but anywhere closer than that will do as well! If the enemy
decides to use its breath weapon after you hit them then you're in
trouble, as you'll land without enough time to escape!! Otherwise,
it's a good attack if you wanna get closer to do damage quickly.
At P(140), Precis will be followed by a trail of shadows when she's
in the air, much like the Super Combos in Street Fighter Alpha 3. At
this time, the hammer will do double damage -> 3 times that of a
normal attack! Also, she can sometimes do wider and longer jumps too,
as well as higher, which is great at evading ground projectiles.
I found this attack fairly useful because it will temporarily put
Precis out of danger. Use this if long range projectiles won't work
very well (like against the last boss) or to dodge projectiles thrown
by the enemies. Use it if you want of get closer and attack them with
one of Precis' close range Killer Moves. Also can be used as some
sorta escape technique, if you're surrounded by lots of enemies, try
this and hopefully it'll launch Precis away from the villains.
---Mole---
[Precis puts Bobot onto the ground before her as it turns into a tank
with drills. Precis puts on a helmet, climbs in and dives underground
in the tank, then travel to the enemy, submerge and hurt them with
the drills]
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: 17
Range: U Elemental: None
Quote: "Mole"
This is a cool Killer Move. Of course, the execution time isn't too
healthy but once Precis gets underground, she's basically invincible.
I think breath weapons can hit her out of it, but I'm not too sure
about magic. Avoid using this close up, as she'll probably get hit.
The speed that she travels is about the same as her running speed
(without Bunny Shoes) so this is pretty slow. The drills will only
hit once at normal attack strength. The drills cannot hit airborne
enemies though, as it barely reaches above ground and misses ground
enemies occasionally, too.
At P(100), the tank will travel a LOT faster than usual, making our
lives a little easier. Other than this bonus, the drills can also hit
multiple times, to a maximum of 3 hits, each at normal attack damage.
This attack is very useful on enemies that are really far away, use
it like Ashton's Leaf Slash. Again try not to use this when standing
too close to the enemy or on a tightly pack group, since she'll end
up really close to them and can get hit afterwards.
---Ally-oop!---
<>
MP Cost: 8MP LV Gained: 25
Range: 5 Elemental: None
Quote: "Ei!"
"Yaa!"
This was called "Ei! Yaa!" in the Japanese version, why did they
change it to such a stupid name? Anyway, this is another pretty
decent missile attack with identical range to Rocket Punch. The
execution time is slightly faster though, and you can throw 'em in
succession fast. This attack will knock lighter enemies back though,
so bombarding them with Bobots isn't too great of an idea, since
Precis will have to move to regain her distance every time (unless
they're in a corner). The damage is identical to a normal attack.
Note this can hit flying enemies, Precis will throw Bobot upward at
an angle to hit them.
At P(200), Precis will kick Bobot 2.0 at the enemies, doing an extra
hit. The second hit is executed even faster then the first, and there
are nil lag time in between!!! Some guides says it gets upgraded at
P(220), but it's actually P(200)!!
Ally-oop! is great if you want to stay on the run all the time. You
can run, stop to throw a Bobot and run again since the speed of this
attack is pretty good. Also like Rocket Punch, if you start the round
standing about half a screen away from the enemies, use this to knock
them for "First attack", except this isn't a fighting game. :(
---Parabola Beam---
<
which emits a beam of loops>>
MP Cost: 12MP LV Gained: 38
Range: 5 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Parabola beam" (I think "Parabola" was pronounced wrong)
I've always liked this Killer Move. There's a bit of delay when
Precis slams her bag on the ground, so use carefully. The execution
point is again, at point blank long range. The beam only hits twice
though, each at half the strength of a normal attack. Also note that
the loop dissipates when a target is hit, so this move cannot hit
multiple enemies like Chisato's Tear Gas or Opera's Hyper Launcher.
If a target was not hit, the beam will travel to the end of the
screen, meaning it has infinite range.
At ~P(100), more chains of loops are emitted from Precis' satellite
dish doing an extra hit.
---Bang-bang Attack---
the enemy
MP Cost: 15MP LV Gained: 49
Range: 0 Elemental: None
Quote: "Bang bang attack"
Bang-Bang attack is a great move for Precis. A large hammer springs
out from Precis' backpack and impales an enemy in front of her. It is
fast to both come out and recover, but the range isn't that great.
You also have to be right next to the enemy to execute this move,
which may put Precis in danger. The damage is equivalent to a normal
attack.
Don't be discouraged by this move (like I did) because it is upclose
and does only 1 hit, it will get a LOT better. Each P(170) interval,
another swing of the hammer is added, to a total of 4 hits at P(510).
It does take a lot of time to evolve though, but each follow-up hits
are done very quickly, leaving the enemy with no time to recover. No
damage bonus when it evolves though.
The best way to use Bang-Bang Attack is to use Cancel. I dunno why
but Cancel rarely works with Precis. But if you managed to Cancel
into this move, you'll be able to do a lot of damage. The start-up is
non-existant if you managed to successfully trigger cancel. It's also
quite effective as a corner trap, like Shooting Stars.
Bang-Bang Attack is pretty good with Link Combos too. Great as a
starter, especially since it works with Cancel. Bloody Mary and Holo-
Holograph are both fairly good starters to continue Precis' multi-hit
rampage. Hop Step is also pretty good as it has no start up and can
be used at short range. As for an ender, anything that brings Precis
up close (Mole) will do the job nicely.
---Bloody Mary---
<>
MP Cost: 32MP LV Gained: 57
Range: 1 Elemental: None
Quote: "Bloody Mary"
---Barrier---
<
hemisphere, damaging all enemies who got caught in the blast>>
MP Cost: 28 LV Gained: Machinery Item Creation
Range: 5 Elemental: Light?
Quote: "Barrier"
---Mujin Super Beam---
<<>>
MP Cost: 24 LV Gained: Machinery Item Creation
Range: 5 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Mujin Su-per beam"
---Holo-holograph---
<<>>
MP Cost: ??MP LV Gained: Private Action
Elemental: None
Quote: "Holo-holograph"
===Cancel Ability===
Precis' normal attack is certainly a bit slow to Cancel effectively,
but she does have a couple Killer Moves that links well after it.
Bang-bang attack and Bloody Mary are the only good one, since her
other ones requires her to be at long range to execute.
===Link Combo Ideas===
Precis has some unique Link Combos as well as some rather generic
combos. She has a large collection of missile attacks and can be
combined in almost anyway and is fairly quick. However, her non-
missile attacks are very strong though, and most of them makes her
invincible. Definitely a worthy member to receive the Link Combo.
* Rocket Punch – Ally-oop! Rating: 3 MP Cost:
A quick blast of missiles, but hasn't got damage on its side. Works
the other way too. Hits air enemies too.
* Rocket Punch – Hop Step Rating: 3 MP Cost: 9MP
Ally-oop! – Hop Step Rating: 3 MP Cost:
If you wanna go by air. It's safer if Hop Step has evolved though.
Can also be used to hit airborne enemies.
* Rocket Punch – Parabola Beam Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Ally-oop! – Parabola Beam Rating: 4 MP Cost:
I like this a lot. The initial missile pushes the target back
followed by the beam. Still kinda weak though.
* Bloody Mary – Bang-bang Attack Rating: 5 MP Cost:
Hop Step – Bang-bang Attack Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
Mole – Bang-bang Attack Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
The first attack brings Precis safely up next to the enemy which sets
up for Bang-bang Attack. Lots of damage if you levelled up these
moves, especially Bloody Mary.
* Rocket Punch – Barrier Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Ally-oop! – Barrier Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
Parabola Beam – Barrier Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
Mujin Super Beam – Barrier Rating: 5 MP Cost:
Simple missile attacks. You can basically mix these 5 Killer Moves in
any way you like to get a similar effect, but I like Barrier since it
has a large blasting area.
OPERA VECTRA
------------
Opera is the heir of the noble Vectra family, who belongs to the race
of Tetragenes living on a far away planet. Trying to pursue her love
of life, Ernest, she leaves her home planet and crashed onto Expel.
(Tut tut, just wait 'til her parents hears this.) Unable to leave,
she travels the world of Expel trying to track down Ernest. Opera is
the more mature type of girl who'd rather sit down in a cafè rather
than venture out in the sun. She sometimes acts like if she's dumb
blonde/bimbo though.
Initial stats:
HP: 1200 STR: 60 LUC: 142
MP: 140 CON: 31 STM: 21
LV: 21 DEX: 52 GUTS: 60
EXP: 16945 AGL: 30
NEXT: 3094 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Booster Box, Ringed Mail, Banded Helm, High Heels,
Reverse Doll
Initial skills: Craft LV1
Metal Casting LV1
Functionality LV1
Favourite Food: Apple Cider (Cook with Fruit)
Favourite Instrument: Piano
Favourite Quotes:
- "You'll die, wanna bet?" (This one's okay, her other ones make
her sound like a slut)
Favourite PA Moment:
- The "Guess the next-person-who-comes-out-of-that-door's gender"
game in Salva.
Opera is my favourite character in the game. She is THE weakest
fighter in terms of pure strength (not Chisato!) but what makes her
such a great team member is that she has some of the most effective
long range projectile Killer Moves in the game. Although you do have
to trade Ashton for her but I think she's just as good as Ashton, but
in a different way.
Opera carries around a giant bazooka attached to an energy pack that
she calls "Kaleidoscope", which shoots out dangerous wave particles
such as positron or X-ray, as well as mimicking material or elemental
forces such as fire or lightning. In order to power up the
Kaleidoscope, Opera use special "Boxes" which resembles floppy discs
with special programs on them to command her Kaleidoscope. Likewise,
all of Opera's Killer Moves involves shooting special beams or lasers
from her Kaleidoscope.
Opera's normal attacks has to be the best in the game. Versus ground
enemies, Opera will smack them with her bazooka, which is probably
the fastest both to come out and recover from, and has decent range.
Her air attack is even better. Unlike most characters Opera need not
jump into the air, as she'll just shoot a pocket of energy up into
the air at the enemy. She can shoot them UNBELIEVABLY fast BTW, and
since the enemy will be stunned from her prior attack, she can keep
shooting until they're killed. Opera can easily finish a flying enemy
(even bosses) all by herself with only normal attacks!!!
Opera starts with a VERY weak weapon but she'll soon get an extremely
powerful weapon, making all her Killer Moves do tremendous amounts of
damage. However, towards the end of the game, her weapon power wains
and at the end, even magicians gets more powerful weapons than she
does! Like Precis, Opera's weapons are strange and must be found, or
made through Customize or Machinery. She has the lowest STR among all
fighters, it barely rises to around 1000 at level 255! Opera cannot
wear the best armor either, but since all of her Killer Moves are
long range missile attacks, she can fight safely at back without much
trouble. Opera has fairly low STM too, for a fighter.
My only other complaint about her is that her running speed is
pathetic, barely faster than a magic user.
Opera has the most elemental Killer Moves of all fighters, and she
has a wide variety of them as well. However, if you choose the wrong
one at the wrong time, you can be in trouble! Always try to keep a
non-elemental Killer Move equipped. Most of Opera's KM attacks has a
very long range, making her the official long range fighter but most
of them require her to be some distance away from the enemy to
execute. Some of them also hit many times and can hit multiple
targets. Opera's best Killer Moves are Alpha on One (definitely one
of the most useful KMs in the game as it HOMES IN), Lightning Blade
(very nice and dependable at short range), Hyper Launcher (strong and
hits many times) and the most unique Healing Star (good substitute
when you want to ditch the bitch, Rena.)
#####Killer Moves#####
---Photon Prison---
<>
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 2, 3 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Photon prison"
This Killer Move is not of a damage based nature, but instead, it'll
freeze the enemy for a short period of time. However, its accuracy is
questionable as it only seems to work half of the time. If it hits,
the enemy will be enveloped by a white barrier, unable to move for a
few seconds, otherwise, a "Miss" message will come up. It is pretty
fast both to shoot and to recover.
Upon further examination, this KM does have a long and a short range,
but there's very little difference between the two. Opera will stand
slightly further away for the long ranged version.
At first, this KM won't last long enough to be very useful, two
seconds is what you get. At each P(90) interval, a bit under one
second is added to the enemy's state of stasis. Also, it seems that
the chance of scoring a successful hit is raised as Proficiency
raises.
An enemy bound by Photon Prison cannot move or act in any way, and
cannot retaliate in anyway during the full duration. You can hit the
enemy as many times you like and it will still stay frozen, very
cool. Also, an enemy cannot block during the period it is frozen
which may provide assistance in defeating later enemies. Photon
Prison does not work on bosses though, but it might be worth while to
build up and use against certain enemies in the Cave of Trials. Since
it can be shot in quick succession, building Proficiency is a piece
of cake, especially later in the game where Opera has tons of MP. So
just ignore this move until later in the game and build it up then.
---Flame Launcher---
enemies standing in front of her
<
the enemy at long range>>
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 1, 5+ Elemental: Fire
Quote: "Flame launcher" (Sounds a bit like Dharma.)
Flame Launcher is Opera's first damage dealing KM, it's not all that
great at the beginning but it's actually a lot more useful than it
seems, you'll find out soon.
The short version of Flame Launcher requires Opera to stand very
close to an enemy, about 1 width away. (It's also THE shortest ranged
KM Opera has, not counting uni-range ones.) She fires a very slim
puff of flame from her bazooka, enough to hit one or maybe 2 enemies
if they're bunched together. Opera stays in that position for about 2
seconds and the flame will be active and can damage any enemies comes
close enough during that time. It has only passable speed and
recovery though. Faster than a speeding bullet, Flame Launcher can
actually hit up to 8 times (!!!!!) that goes way too fast for our
eyes to detect, pretty cool for a thin beam huh? Each hit is of
normal attack damage, but it tends to push most enemies away after
about 3 or 4 hits, except maybe slimes. Make sure you don't overlook
this, because it's rather powerful, especially when evolved. It does
Fire elemental damage.
The long version of this attack can truly be called "long"! Because
Opera can almost shoot from one side of the screen to the other! A
fireball is fired in an arc into the air which rains onto a distant
enemy. I'm not too sure if this has an area affect though. The speed
the flair travels isn't all that great so it can miss quite. Often
the enemy will move towards Opera, causing the ball to fall behind
them and miss, quite frustrating. It only does about 2 hits at normal
attack damage, so the short ranged is better. (Although its range
kinda makes up for it.)
At P(100), the a much bigger puff of flame will be fired from short
range, which reaches almost an extra character width over the
original. This means even MORE hits can be scored (although I don't
know how many, best guess is about an extra 2-4 hits) and can hit
more enemies. The long ranged version is mostly the same, except it
seems to hit 3 or 4 times!
---Alpha on One---
<
homes in on the enemy>>
MP Cost: 23MP LV Gained: 24
Range: 5 Elemental: None
Quote: "Fol"
Since Opera and Ashton cannot be in the same game, Alpha on One is
probably Opera's equivalent of Ashton's Leaf Slash. She gets this at
a relatively low level, it costs a lot (at first) and is possibly one
of her best (if not THE best) KM.
Alpha on One is a great, although sorta weak, Killer Move. Three
pockets of energy released will attempt to home in one the enemy with
good speed and each does equivalent damage to Opera's normal attack.
The speed of this move isn't all that much relevant since Opera can
keep a good distance away from the enemy. The best feature about it
is that Alpha on One automatically homes in on the enemy, very
useful. Against those mages that phase out, the bolts will follow
them around and whack them the instant they rematerialize. I am not
sure if the energy bolts can be blocked though, but it's most likely
so. (Make sure she has good HIT!) Alpha on One is the most useful
later in the game against great bosses that moves around the battle
field with insane speed, and since Opera can stay in the back with
this move, she can hit with little fear of being hit/countered.
At P(220) and P(440), another bolt of energy will be released, doing
a maximum of 5 hits for a good MP consumption. Do not over look Alpha
on One, as it'll become Opera's best friend in the long run.
---Spread Ray---
<
down at the enemy, which explodes upon making contact with the
ground>>
MP Cost: 16MP LV Gained: 34
Range: 6 Elemental: None
Quote: "Spread ray"
Another fairly useful KM I use near the end of the game. At first,
Spread Ray doesn't appeal too well in neither damage, appearance nor
usefulness, but it can all change with Proficiency.
As with all KMs of this types (ie, "aerial missiles"), it's kinda
hard to hit properly. The "area blast" of Spread Ray don't seem to be
overwhelming, and seems to miss often. Each ray deals about as much
damage as a regular attack from Opera. However, since Opera leaps so
high into the air (hey, she should be in an all-girl basketball team
with Chun Li and Morrigan!) and stays so far away from the enemy,
this move is a great away of staying out of trouble! It's almost a
necessity when you get below the 9th level of the CoT, as the enemies
can run around the screen at insane speed, shooting hard-to-dodge
missiles and does tons of damage with each.
At P(180), P(360) and finally P(540!), another ray will be fired, for
a maximum of 5 hits and a VERY long air time. An excellent way of
trying to avoid hits inside the Cave of Trials. The only real
disadvantage is the HUGE number of Proficiency required to power
Spread Ray up to the max level.
---Cold Wind---
<
shards of ice from her Kaleidoscope>>
MP Cost: 25MP LV Gained: 41
Range: 3 Elemental: Water
Quote: "Cold wind"
Another good KM from Opera, will it never end? The length of the cone
produced by Cold Wind is about 5 character-widths long. Translation?
GREAT range! The end of the cone is also fairly wide, so you can hit
multiple enemies when they're bunched together. Cold Wind does about
3-6 hits per enemy that gets caught in the blast, the closer they are
the more number of hits. It will also hit aerial enemies with no
problems. Each hit is about half as strong as Opera's normal attack.
Cold Wind is Water elemental.
---Gravity Shell---
<
sphere of compressed gravitational energy to crush the enemy>>
MP Cost: 20MP LV Gained: 54
Range: 4 Elemental: Void
Quote: "Gravity shell"
Gravity Shell is not bad IMO. Opera's bullet stays in mid air but the
sphere of darkness does no appear for a second or 2. Opera also stays
in her "launching" animation for that time, so it's kinda slow. The
orb in mind-air is of significanr size though, but that's not what
really hits the enemy. The sphere releases golden lightning bolts and
strike the ground, so anything that gets caught within the lightning
will be damaged. The damage is great, about twice as strong as
Opera's normal attack. It does only one hit but it seems to
momentarily stun the opponent. Of course, since it's quite slow,
Gravity Shell is not as useful as Opera's other KMs. Gravity Shell is
of Void elemental, I think.
---Lightning Blade---
energy, then she releases the energy in the form of electrical
pillars that spreads out by moving in a circular pattern around her
<
energy, then she points her bazooka at the enemy and releases a beam
of light green colored lightning>>
MP Cost: 20MP LV Gained: 69
Range: 2, 5 Elemental: Thunder
Quote: "Lightning blade"
---Healing Star---
[Opera aims her Kaleidoscope up to the sky and fires a rocket, which
explodes to form streams of stars that travels back down to the
ground to heal all party members]
MP Cost: 9MP LV Gained: Machinery Item Creation
Range: U Elemental: Star??
Quote: "Healing star"
Perhaps the most unique KM Opera has. Opera must use Machinery to
make a White System, which upgrades her Kaleidoscope to include this
move. White System is easy as hell to make, it shouldn't have any
problem of popping up at level 30 or so. (Make sure she has a good
Machinery level.)
The speed of Healing Stars is average if you count it as a KM, but if
you take it as a spell, it's about as fast as Rena's Fairy Light with
Motormouth PLUS a high Proficiency!! Thus, it makes a fine healing
KM. The amount healed works like this:
Healing = 200 + (Prof. * 5)
It heals by 200 the first time you use it and 5 points will be added
per each point of Proficiency. However it's strange 'cuz the amount
healing it does will not upgrade DURING battle. So if you started
battle with this doing 1000 points of healing, it'll still heal for
1000 every time you use it during that fight! You will only notice
the upgrade if you enter another battle.
At max Proficiency, Healing Stars will heal for 5150, thus 2 pops
will get everyone up to maximum for a VERY cheap MP cost! Great huh?
To build up the Proficiency quickly, look under the tips section.
I think Healing Stars is especially useful later (like the Cave of
Trials) where Rena's magic isn't enough (ie, too slow.) It's also
really cool if you want to have a 4 fighter party, Healing Stars will
provide a semi-reliable source of healing for a very cheap price.
(Claude, Opera, Ernest AND Chisato, OOH YEAH!)
However the disadvantage of this is, like any healing KMs, you do
have to give up one slot out of two for it. In Opera's case it
_might_ be worth it since all her other KMs are pretty similar. But
you can also equip the Link Combo accessory to gain 2 more slots.
Link something like Alpha on One after this would be ideal.
---Laser Bit---
<
explodes into 3 balls and impales its surroundings>>
MP Cost: 8MP LV Gained: Machinery Item Creation
Range: 3 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Laser bit"
---Hyper Launcher---
<
a huge purple beam of laser>>
MP Cost: 34MP LV Gained: Machinery Item Creation
Range: 6 Elemental: None
Quote: "Hyper launcher"
===Cancel Ability===
Yes Opera has a good normal attack, but since all her best Killer
Moves are projectile based that requires her to be at long range,
Cancelling would be both pointless and useless. The only Cancel I
sometimes use is the upgraded Flame Launcher, although Opera does
need to take one step back, but since Flame Launcher is quite
reliable, this is not half bad. The only other short range Killer
Moves Opera has are Lightning Blade and perhaps Photon Prison, they
can work but not all that well.
Perhaps if you add Strong Blow it can work better.
===Link Combo Ideas===
Opera is too, a long range attacker like Precis, but instead of
missile attacks, Opera has mainly projectile and beam type of attacks
that are quite hard to link. Also, unlike Precis, Opera has no
specific close ranged attacks. It's not that great giving Opera Link
Combos since she's gonna stay at the back firing her gun and all of
her Killer Moves works in similar ways.
* Flame Launcher – Alpha on One Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Gravity Shell – Alpha on One Rating: 3.5 MP Cost:
Spread Ray – Alpha on One Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Hyper Launcher – Alpha on One Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
Why have I only chosen these 4 starters? It's because all the other
ones put Opera too close to the enemy and hence, she has to run away
afterward to execute Alpha on One. #1 is excellent since Flame
Launcher has a very long range, #2 is a bit slow, #3 is great since
it puts Opera out of danger and #4 is her best and strongest attacks
chained together.
* Flame Launcher – Lightning Blade Rating: 3.5 MP Cost:
This is Opera's only short ranged combo. Works ok.
* Photon Prison – [anything] Rating and MP varies
This is one pointless combo, I don't know who possessed me to put
this in. Anyway, Photon Prison paralyzes them so you can follow up
with anything. This combo is great for Flame Launcher as you can get
the maximum number of hits out of it. It even gives you time to run
away to execute long range KMs, but if Photon Prison does not work...
(you'll probably be safe if you're following up with a long ranged
attack, like Hyper Launcher.)
* Gravity Shell – [anything] Rating and MP varies
This is pretty good as Gravity Shell stuns the enemies temporarily,
allowing you some time to follow up with another attack. I like Alpha
on One, Spread Ray and Hyper Launcher. It's slow though.
* Alpha on One – Healing Star Rating: 4 MP Cost:
I use this when I need healing. Put it the other way around if you
prefer to heal first, which is a better idea.
* Lightning Blade – Healing Star Rating: 4 MP Cost:
What? Another one? This is good mainly for healing yourself. Use
Lightning Blade at close range will generate the force field and
pushes away all the enemies, which gives you time for Healing Star.
ERNEST RAVIEDE
--------------
Ernest is a Tetragenes archaeologist who travels to different planets
searching for ancient and interesting stuff. He travels to Expel to
explore some ruins. He is also the man in Opera's heart, but he seems
to be more interested in exploring ancient ruins though. Ernest is
very individual.
Initial stats:
HP: 1600 STR: 100 LUC: 121
MP: 160 CON: 37 STM: 23
LV: 25 DEX: 60 GUTS: 45
EXP: 31183 AGL: 50
NEXT: 4782 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Leather Whip, Brigandine, Boots
Initial skills: Herbal Medicine LV5
Patience LV5
Whistling LV4
Favourite Food: Hassaku Tea (Cook Grains with someone over 20)
Favourite Instrument: Cembalo
Favourite Quotes:
- "I don't feel like loosing to somebody like this." (Again, not
many good quotes.)
Favourite PA Moment:
- The ones where you can steal Battle Suits from him! *Evil grin*
Again, I don't see why not many people like Ernest. Sure he's quite a
boring person in the story, but he's completely different in battles.
Also note you can steal the second best armor, Battle Suits, from him
in 2 different locations (Linga and I _think_ the other one is in
Mars) which could be a reason to get him in itself.
Being an explorer, a whip would be Ernest's natural choice. Ernest's
Killer Moves all involves the use of the whip and he has the power
over ultra-dimension matters too. When you first get Ernest you might
be really turned off because of his existing KMs (I know I was) but
wait a while and you'll see a few good ones.
Ernest uses the natural length of his whip to his advantage, making
his normal attacks reaching the furthest in the game, about 1.5
character widths! Although he swings his whip a little slow. Ernest's
air attack is pathetic. He jumps to whip the enemy but it takes ages
to come out, so don't use his jump attack. See below for a better
substitute.
Like Opera, Ernest also gets very powerful weapons earlier on, but
unlike Opera, his weapons stay strong throughout the game. Also,
whips are common so you can just buy them in stores, very convenient.
Ernest can equip some of the best armor too, like Claude and Ashton,
which is a huge advantage over the sissy fighters like Bowman and the
girls. Ernest's STR is only average though. However, his STM is soooo
low that even Celine's might be higher!!
Ernest is basically a mid ranged attacker, with few good mid ranged
attacks. His first few Killer Moves are not very useful at all, but
some of his latter ones are okay. He tends to have lengthy lag times
in many of his Killer Moves like Ashton. A good advantage that Ernest
has his that his KMs takes the least amount of MP to use, even his
most expensive KM costs only 25MP. His best KMs are Thousand Whips (a
good mid ranged attack hitting many times) and Broken Heart (fast and
powerful, and lets him stay away from the enemy). I really like
Dimension Whip as well.
#####Killer Moves#####
---Dimension Whip---
<
the enemy and the whip extends to hit them>>
MP Cost: 5MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 3 Elemental: None
Quote: "Dimension whip"
---Spiral Whip---
forth a whirlwind
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: NA
Range: 0 Elemental: Wind (Special)
Quote: "Engulf... everything.."
---Arc Attack---
enemy. Tarzan or Indiana Jones?
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: 32
Range: 2 Elemental: None
Quote: "Arc attack"
---Thousand Whip---
<
with them>>
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: 41
Range: 3 Elemental: None
Quote: "Thousand whip"
---Could Dust---
[Ernest swings his whip around his body and coats himself in a light
fog]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 49
Range: U Elemental: ??
Quote: "Cloud dust"
---Broken Heart---
<
out beneath the enemy. Thorns form on the end of his whip and a rose
blossoms>>
MP Cost: 17MP LV Gained: 58
Range: 3 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Broken heart"
---Thunder Whip---
<
then he whips the enemy with it>>
---Sonic Whip---
===Cancel Ability===
Ernest's normal attack reaches the furthest but he does move in quite
close to attack and it tends to push the enemies away so they're too
close for attacks like Thousand Whip and too far for Spiral Whip. So
I guess if you want to Cancel, throw in Strong Blow and the following
options becomes available:
* Thousand Whip
* Broken Heart
* Dimension Whip
I think Sonic Whip and Thunder Whip are too slow to be much good.
===Link Combos===
Since Ernest's Killer Moves takes up the least MP to use, giving him
Link Combos would be a good choice, although his MP don't recover
very quickly due to his low STM.
* Thousand Whip – Dimension Whip Rating: 4.5 MP Cost:
Thousand Whip – Broken Heart Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Thousand Whip – Thunder Whip Rating: 3 MP Cost:
Thousand Whip – Sonic Whip Rating: 3 MP Cost:
I REALLY like the first, as Dimension Whip has perfect timing, does 4
hits and is cheap. Also works exceptionally well on flying enemies.
Broken Heart is not bad either but the last 2 are just a bit too slow
for my liking, works on slower enemies.
* Broken Heart – Dimension Whip Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Broken Heart – Thousand Whip Rating: 3.5 MP Cost:
Broken Heart – Thunder Whip Rating: 2 MP Cost:
Broken Heart – Sonic Whip Rating: 3 MP Cost:
Similar to the above but not as good. Although Broken Heart is fast,
it offers no protection against advancing enemies (and can miss.) It
may also push the enemy too far back to get many hits off Thunder and
Thousand Whip. Sonic Whip is ok though, as it has infinite range but
is slow, Dimension Whip is still good.
You can basically combine the above 5 Killer Moves in any order you
like, but I think the slower ones are quite dangerous.
* Spiral Whip – any of the above Rating and MP varies
Only works well if you're not pushing against an enemy in a corner,
and works better if you have achieved Strong Blow.
* Spiral Whip – Arc Attack Rating: 2 MP Cost:
That's if you even bother with Arc Attack.
BOWMAN JEAN
-----------
Bowman owns a pharmacy in the town of Linga. He knows a lot about
medicine and is respected in his town. He was offered to become a
professor at the university but he declined, saying he'd rather be
with his wife. Bowman knows many important people so he's definitely
the person you want to talk to if you want someone to pull some
strings for you. He's kinda sarcastic and tries to be funny but I
don't find him funny.
Initial stats:
HP: 1500 STR: 90 LUC: 118
MP: 170 CON: 50 STM: 35
LV: 25 DEX: 62 GUTS: 36
EXP: 31183 AGL: 5
NEXT: 4382 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Cestus, Brigandine, Suede Boots
Initial skills: Herbal Medicine LV5
Mental Science LV2
Biology LV4
Favourite Food: Daikon Miso Soup (Cook from.. forgot)
Favourite Instrument: Harmonica
Favourite Quotes:
- "Looks like I'll be popular with the ladies again" (It's GOTTA be
the funniest quote in the game. I wonder what Nineh's gonna think.)
- "Hey.. HEY!"
Favourite PA Moment:
- Bowman's excuse when Rena caught him and Claude rating the girls.
Bowman's certainly not my favourite character when it comes to
combat. None of his Killer Moves really stands out and most of them
are about the same, so you'll get bored with him quickly. He fights
with his fists since he passed martial arts in the university, and
he'll throw some ready mixed bombs at the enemy in some of his KMs.
Bowman's normal attack has the least range among the fighters (and he
makes these weird noise when he attacks) and has average speed, but
Rena's normal attack is more effective. His air attack suffers from
the same problem, and can easily get hit out of.
Bowman's weapons are gloves but they're quite average, nothing too
spectacular. What's quite disappointing about him is that his best
weapon is Fire elemental, making him completely useless in fights
where the enemy is resistant to Fire. Bowman can't wear the best
armor like the other guys, which is quite dangerous since his normal
attack must be executed right next to the enemy. Try not to use his
normal attack if you use him.
Any advantages that Bowman has? Well yes, his Killer Moves do take up
very little MP to use, and he can throw most of his KMs in succession
very fast like Precis, but like I said, they're quite weak. Bowman
has probably the boringest set of KMs, most of them are just some
kinda projectile: either a herbal bomb or some ki attack. His non-
projectile KMs are EXTREMELY hard to connect with, making Bowman a
not a very effective character overall. For this reason, it is better
to use him as a mid ranged character, since his missile attacks are
quite okay. His best Killer Moves are Sakura Attack (half decent, but
hard to hit) and Explosion Pills (a good missile attack with a fair
radius.)
#####Killer Moves#####
---Spirit Attack---
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: Start
Range: 2 Elemental: None
Quote: "Spirit Attack"
Spirit Attack is not very original and it's fairly average in terms
of usefulness. This missile attack has to be done quite close to the
enemy though (compared to similar ones like Rocket Punch) and it's
quite dangerous. It's not exactly quick to come out but it has fair
recovery. The damage is normal attack, which is not that great,
considering that you have to be so close to the enemy to use this KM.
At P(100), Bowman will throw a bigger, red colored ball after his
initial energy bolt for an extra hit. The damage for the second ball
is, again, normal attack damage. There's a little lag between the 2
balls but it's not significant.
---Poison Pill---
enemy's feet
MP Cost: 5MP LV Gained: Start
Range: 3 Elemental: ??
Quote: "Poison Pills"
Poison Pill is quite good, even for Bowman. :P It's a lot quicker
than Spirit Attack and has no recovery time. The pills will hit about
2 times and a small puddle of poisonous gas will be present on the
ground near the target, so it has a small area effect as well. Each
hit is of normal attack damage, so the damage is pretty good also.
You can repeatedly throw pills at the enemy if they're slow. The
pills also has a small chance of inducing the Poison status on the
enemy, but it's quite rare.
At P(125), Poison Pills gets better as Bowman hurls more pills. The
area effect will be bigger and after the capsual lands, a cloud of
poisonous gas will actually rise and swirl about the area, damaging
any enemies that it comes into contact with. The cloud needs a second
to form though, so the enemies can run away from it. Bowman can now
do about 3-4 hits with the pills alone. I'm not too sure how
effective the cloud is though, since the enemies run away from it
quickly. Use it against slow enemies to get the cloud to work.
---Pillery---
and break their neck
<
down above the enemy and break their neck>>
MP Cost: 6MP LV Gained: Start
Range: 3, U Elemental: None
Quote: "Pillery"
More pills? Nah, Pillery is something completely different. The short
ranged version is similar to both Head Splitter and Hop Step, except
that Bowman is as slow as hell. Also, the Execution Point for the
short ranged Pillery is fixed, so it's not as flexible as neither of
the other KMs. The damage is good, doing twice as much as a normal
attack. Because it is so slow, it's a pain trying to get it to hit so
use it on slower enemies.
The long ranged version is worse. The sinking animation takes forever
to complete and so, it'll almost never hit unless the enemy is
immobile or occupied. The damage is still the same. The long ranged
version maybe ok to cover grounds without having to run. Both
versions has limited invincibility properties that makes it sorta
worthwhile.
---Firebird Attack---
[Bowman concentrates and releases a swirling ball of fire at the
enemy]
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: Start
Range: 4 Elemental: Fire
Quote: "Firebird attack"
One word, Firebolt! Firebird Attack is basically Bowman's sorry rip
off of the Firebolt spell. Bowman's fire even has that pause effect
where it pauses for a second before launching at the enemy. The
traveling speed of the fire is also quite slow. If you look closely,
Bowman actually hurls 2 fireballs, closely tucked together, but this
move will only hit once for normal attack damage. One good thing is
has is that Bowman can actually stay a decent distance away from the
enemy. Firebird Attack does Fire elemental damage.
At P(200), the fireball will explode upon impact. While it does not
cause any extra bonus (boo!), it does create an explosion area affect
that covers a fair radius so it can hit multiple enemies.
---Death Siege---
[Bowman leaps back, disappears and splits into 2 mirror images that
runs through an opponent from opposite ends of a diagonal]
MP Cost: 13MP LV Gained: 35
Range: 1 Elemental: None
Quote: "Die!"
Death Siege sure is a weird, very weird KM. First of all, the range
is 1. Bowman has to run all the way up to the enemy before leaping
back about 2 character-width, THEN disappears to form his shadows.
Well, it can be dangerous but it can also be pretty cool as the leap-
back effect can cause the enemy to miss their attack. Even though
Bowman splits into 2, it only does 1 hit at normal attack damage. The
speed Bowman's images travels ain't great, so it can miss the enemy
quite often. The hit detection for Bowman's images are also quite
bad, because a hit will not register unless the enemy is right
between the 2 images. Anyhow, Bowman is invincible towards regular
attacks while in his split-body animation and it lasts quite a while,
so it will be quite useful later in the game to avoid attacks.
===Cancel Ability===
No thanks. Bowman has terrible range in his normal attack, moving so
close to the enemy is dangerous. Cancelling to Sakura Attack is
probably the only decent option has all his other close range attacks
are really slow.
===Link Combo Ideas===
Bowman is a lot like Precis in that he has lots of missile attacks
that can be combined in various ways. He also has some weird close
ranged attacks that I really cannot get used to and therefore can
generate some weird combos.
* Poison Pill – Explosion Pill Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Pills, pills and more pills. This is actually my favourite attack as
both pills are quite fast and hits an area. The other way works too
and it's probably better since I can't get used to Poison Pill.
LEON GEESTE
-----------
At just 12 years of age, Leon became the head Heraldry researcher and
scientist of Lacour. Bless with his super-human intelligence, Leon
was praised by everyone around him, except for his parents. His IQ
bought him maturity quickly, but the lack of experience leaves his
emotional state fragile, like that of a child. Arrogant as he is, his
ego often leads him to more trouble than he can handle. Treating
everyone like if they're less superior creatures, Leon believes he
can handle everything, but he soon realizes that he needs friends and
cannot hope to survive on his own. Note Leon is the ONLY Fellpool in
this game, weird huh? (He probably came from another planet and got
adopted like Rena.)
Initial stats:
HP: 1600 STR: 40 LUC: 120
MP: 300 CON: 30 STM: 23
LV: 30 DEX: 35 GUTS: 10
EXP: 56883 AGL: 5
NEXT: 6307 INT: 0
Initial equipment: Thick Book, Amber Robe, Suede Boots
Initial skills: Mineralogy LV3
Scientific Ability LV4
Fairyology LV1
Favourite Food: Carrot Juice (Yuck!!! Cook with Vegetables)
Favourite Instrument: Violin
Favourite Quotes:
- "Thanks to me"
Favourite PA Moment:
- The one in Fun City where he has a crush on every girl in the
team.
Even though Leon is a little spoiled brat, he is a good contender for
the best magic user in the game but I think he's just slightly behind
Celine, just _slightly_!! When Leon first joins you, his collection
of spells ain't really great, since he doesn't have any all-targeted
spells. However, Leon gets exceptionally powerful spells later on in
the game that are in general, more useful than all of Celine's
spells, but it takes a while to get there. Leon has a very narrow
choice of spells, which don't make him as versatile as Celine and the
enemy are rarely weak against the elements he possesses. The majority
of Leon's offensive spells are of Water, Dark and Void elemental,
with a few Star and Vacuum spells. Leon is fantastic at spell
absorption though, with 2 very unique spells with some unique
effects.
Leon has a surprisingly effective normal attack for a magic user,
where a ghostly purple armored knight pops out of his book and slices
the enemy. It takes place in under a second and Leon can stand one
character width away from the enemy, making his normal attack tied
with Opera's as being the best in the game. The only drawback is that
his attack power is very weak, and if you haven't got him a good
weapon, he'll sometimes do no damage with his attack! Also, his
recovery isn't all that good, so the enemy can counter. As for his
air attack, a ghostly Valkyrie materializes from his book and extends
her spear into the air, piecing any enemy that makes contact with it.
It's equally as fast and Leon is subject to less danger afterwards
compared to his ground attack, fairly cool as well.
Despite his age, Leon has the highest MP maximum than anyone else and
his spells tends to cost a lot less than the other characters. The
BIGGEST advantage Leon has over Celine, IMO, is that some of his best
spells takes FAR less animation time than equivalent ones from
Celine, Noah in particular.
In terms of equipment, Leon is like that of Celine, being able to
equip only the worst armor so concentrating on a good MAG boost with
Robes is essential. His books ain't bad but don't seem to give him as
much of a MAG boost as Celine's Rods. Try make better weapons for him
through either Authoring or Customize. The same drawback stated under
Celine's section also apply here (slow, never move etc..)
Although Leon is pretty good at stand alone magic, it's quite a waste
if you do not try to combine his spells with another magician team
member given the special effects of his spells. I HATE putting him in
the same team with Rena though, as they don't like each other very
much for some reason and keep cancelling each other with Star Flare
and Shadow Flare. Leon + Celine is not too bad of a choice, but it
leaves your team without a healer, and 3 mages is more than I can
handle. So Leon's natural partner would be Noel, since he can heal
and has a _few_ good spells. Leon + Rena is no problem though, as
long as Leon has gotten his best spells so he doesn't have to use
Shadow Flare all the time.
#####Heraldry#####
---Ice Needle—
[Leon forms a shard of ice and launches it at the enemy]
MP Cost: 2MP LV Gained: Start
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Water
Quote: "Ice needle"
Basically the Water version of Firebolt. It does not seem to have the
pause effect though, but it's traveling speed is equally as slow.
Damage done is also low (22 at first). Cast this but don't expect to
hit anything.
---Wounds---
[A TINY-reaper materializes from the shadows and slashes the enemy
with its scythe]
MP Cost: 4MP LV Gained: Start
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Wounds"
Wounds is a non-static spell. The damage is does is pathetic (about
60 at first, but it's still better than the other weak spells) so
just cast it once to get the voice sample.
---Word of Death---
[A skull appears above an enemy]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: Start
Target: Single enemy Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Word of death"
Word of Death attempts to instantly kill an enemy but I have NEVER
gotten it to work at all. This spell is non-static and needs about 2
seconds of casting time. Perhaps your chance of success rises with
Profeciency? I dunno. If anyone can make the success rate of this
spell rather significant, I'll be dying to know, 'cuz it'll be useful
in the Cave of Trials.
Appearantly, the Iseria Queen has this spell and casts it a LOT! She
also has about 50% chance of success, which is just plain unfair!
---Shadow Bolt---
[A ring of mist encases the enemy and shadows bubbles around the
enemy]
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: Start
Target: One enemy Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Shadow Bolt"
Quite weak (120-200) but it's worth casting. Why? Because time is
paused and the camera rotates while this spell animates, so you can
have a good look at some of the character's KM effects in 3D!!! Yes,
most of them has 3D enhancement that looks REALLY cool. (Try Opera's
Cold Wind for example, you'll see the entire cone in 3D and its
hollow center. How cool is that?!)
---Deep Freeze---
[Snow flakes fall from the sky and 3 large icicles comes down
crushing the enemy]
MP Cost: 15MP LV Gained: Start
Target: One enemy Elemental: Water
Quote: "Deep freeze"
Deep Freeze is not too bad, it does about 330 damage at the start,
which is useful for a little while and it's good against those
Salamanders in the Hoffman Ruins.
On a side note, my characters got Frozen when the enemy cast this
spell but I've never froze any enemies with Leon before.
---Black Saber---
[Leon sends a black disc which cuts the enemy]
MP Cost: 14MP LV Gained: Start
Target: Line of Sight Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Black Saber"
This is Leon's only dependable spell when you first get him. It's ok
does decent damage (550) and may hit multiple enemies. The AI is
quite dumb at targeting though. If you cast this spell manually, aim
it at the furtherest enemy so anything in between Leon and the target
will get hit. The casting time is about 3 seconds.
---Acid Rain---
[Red colored rain falls from a stormy heaven]
MP Cost: 7MP LV Gained: Start
Target: All enemies Elemental: Water
Quote: "Acid rain"
"Oh burning rain!"
Acid Rain is one of the most useful spells in the game. Leon gets
this already when he joins and it has a cheap MP cost. Acid Rain will
attempt to lower all enemy's Defense and the rate of success is
actually quite fair. It doesn't work well on bosses though. You don't
really have to seal it because the AI hardly ever casts this spell
anyway.
Of course, Acid Rain has other uses. It is fantastic at Spell
Asorption, even though it does no damage by itself. Acid Rain will
always get absorbed by another spell though, but its Water elemental
will only work with Fire, Earth and Lightning spells. The result is
an instant 9999 damage to all the enemies that are hit using the
dominant spell target. Careful though, because if the enemies are
strong against that element, they can actually gain 9999 HP! Also, be
very weary of enemy mages, because if you accidentally cast this at
the same time as them, it can actually wipe your whole team out by
doing 9999 to everyone of you! Also, the defense lowering effect of
Acid Rain will also accompany the damage delt.
The best spell to combine Acid Rain with is Noel's Earth Grave.
They're both cheap, fast, easy to time and gives you the most bang
for your bucks! The second best spell (if you don't have Noel) would
be Celine's Thunder Storm, giving you good value as well.
Unfortunately, none of Rena's spells goes well with it.
---Deep Mist---
[Clouds appear near the target to obscure their vision]
MP Cost: 11MP LV Gained: Start
Target: All enemies Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Deep Mist"
Exactly the same as Rena's version and I prefer to cast it with Rena,
if I ever need it that is. Usually by the point I get Leon, I'd
already have 100 Proficiency built up for Rena. The choice is yours
though, but seal this if you want.
---Protection---
[A shield falls from heaven to protect an ally]
MP Cost: 28MP LV Gained: 32
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Protection"
Exactly the same as Rena's spell. Have them both cast this spell
during a boss to cover everyone quickly.
---Starlight---
[Leon sends a chain of stars into the air, which in terms shines
beams of light down at the enemies, causing an explosion]
MP Cost: 10MP LV Gained: 34
Target: All enemies Elemental: Star
Quote: "Starlight"
Exactly the same as Celine's version, but by the time you get this,
Celine would've gotten some really powerful spells like Thunder
Storm. It's sad as this is Leon's first all-target spell! Use
Starlight to disrupt enemy mages' concentration because it's fast.
---Delay---
[Leon calls forth a large pocket watch, it hang over the target and
resets itself]
MP Cost: 18MP LV Gained: 36
Target: Single enemy Elemental: None
Quote: "Delay"
Just like Rena's Delay, use it if you want.
---Shadow Flare---
[Pockets of burning dark shadow rains onto the enemies]
MP Cost: 32MP LV Gained: 39
Target: All enemies Elemental: Darkness
Quote: "Shadow Flare"
Leon's first really good spell and remains so even near the end of
the game, since the animation is so fast. Shadow Flare will do
around 1900 when you first get it and later its damage can go beyond
4000. Combine this with Rena's Gravity Press for around 2800 when you
first get this spell to take down enemies. Leon learn this at about
the time where you explore the Eluria Tower, and around the time
where Celine gets her Thunder Cloud. He casting time is about 5
seconds, but it's worth it.
---Haste---
[A pocket watch appears above the ally and fast-forwards itself]
MP Cost: 20MP LV Gained: 42
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Haste"
Exacty the same as Rena's, you might want to seal it.
---Growth---
[An orange sphere of energy clouds one ally and enlarges them
temporarily]
MP Cost: 22MP LV Gained: 50
Target: Single ally Elemental: None
Quote: "Growth"
"Power up!"
Exactly the same as Rena's version, seal it.
DIAS FLAC
---------
Two years ago, Dias was like a common towns folk, living happily with
his family in the village of Arlia. Then one unfortunate day, his
parents and his little sister were slaughtered by a group of bandits.
Dias was seriously wounded but still alive. He then left Arlia to
wonder around the world, training his sword skills and became as cold
as steel. Dias was Rena's big "brother", he cared about her a lot.
Like Ling from Ally McBeal, nothing nice ever comes out of Dias'
mouth. (No offence to Ling fans, as I think she's cool.)
Favourite Food: Chicken Skewers (VERY economical! Cook with Meat)
Favourite Instrument: Cembalo
Favourite Quotes:
- "Hmm, they're good."
Favourite PA Moment:
- None, since all he ever does is sleep...
Although the game makes you think that Dias is really powerful, he's
actually not too useful. I mean, yes he has very good stats and
equipment, but most of his Killer Moves will only hit once and are
quite boring IMO. He's very powerful at the start of the game though,
especially if you give him a good STR boost, even if he only hit
once, he can dispatch enemies quickly. However, since the maximum
damage of a single hit is 9999, his use wains later in the game where
a character can do 9999 damage with each hit in their multi-hit
Killer Moves like Claude.
His fighting style is very similar to Japanese ninjas and samurais,
favouring speed, stealth and pure strength. His weapon is a typical
katana, used to strike and resheathed very quickly. Yes, the swinging
action of the blade in his normal attack is very fast, but it takes a
very long time for him to dram his sword, actually making his attack
the slowest in the game! (Surprised?) Any advantages? Yes, there are
2. Dias' attack has a very good range. Although it's sometimes hard
to notice, but he can also hit multiple enemies and even ones who are
standing behind him! (That's if you manage to pull off his attack.)
Dias' weapons remains strong all through the game, especially when
you reach the bottom of the Cave of Trials where the game gives you
the ultimate weapon – the Levantine Sword! His Crimson Diablos also
doubles his STR as well. Another good point, since Dias is one of the
"heavy duty" characters, he can equip the best armor as well. Dias'
has very high STR, like Claude and very high STM.
One final note though, if Dias gets Peeped, he'll stay Dizzied longer
than any other character for some reason, making the Peep Non a good
contender for one of his accessory slots.
Dias has the weirdest set of Killer Moves, as most of them hits the
enemy in awkward angles or with unusual timing. Speed is his priority
but some of his Killer Moves are quite slow and so are hard to use.
He seems to have 2 styles in his Killer Moves, one is to utilize the
power of the Japanese legendary bird, the Suzaku (or Phoenix) and the
other one is the moon. I think Dias is more of a short ranged
character, since his missile attacks can only hit once, but like I've
said before, many of his KMs hits in awkward directions so you might
have to adjust to his style if you want to use him. His best KMs are
Illusion (VERY fast and powerful), Hawk Scream Blast (powerful and
can be used as a missile attack) and Firebird Shock Wave if used
correctly. I found his earlier KMs to be extremely effective though,
especially Crescent Wave and Chaos Sword.
#####Killer Moves#####
NOEL CHANDLER
-------------
Noel is a zoologist of some type in Energy Nede, who's job is to
monitor and protect the endangered species. He's calm and quiet,
who'd rather take the easy way out like running away rather than
fighting. In other words, Noel is a big sissy. He loves animals
though, who won't forgive anyone who threatens them. Noel also hides
a dark and mysterious past, as he's of a different breed compared to
all other Nedians. Sounds like Noel is a bit of an "endangered
specie" himself. :)
Favourite Food: Big Tuna (I'd expected him to be a vegetarian.)
Favourite Instrument: Illusive Shamisen
Favourite Quote: "What shall we do?" (He has a nice voice.)
"Whooooo..." :)
Favourite PA Moment: Can't think of one
CHISATO MADISON
---------------
Chisato is a carefree newspaper reporter from Central City in Energy
Nede. She is very smart, charismatic and talkative. Chisato is always
on the run for the biggest scoop she can get her hands on, and she'll
do anything to get it. Although she's somewhat clumsy, she can defend
herself in a tough situation. Better be careful, because her next
scoop could be you. *Gasp*
Favourite Food: I have no idea what her favourite food is. It's
supposed to be a Fruit Sandwich but I heard that the programmers were
on drugs and forgot to program it in. Hmm, a badly polished game just
got worse.
Favourite Instrument: Organ
Favourite Quotes:
- "We'll manage"
Favourite PA Moment:
- The one with Leon, ends with Claude saying "(Once a reporter,
always a reporter.)"
- In the church of Cross where she's praying... for another big
scoop!!!
Tied with Opera being my favourite character in the game. Chisato is
one of the weaker fighters in terms of strength, but like Opera,
she's has excellent Killer Moves that makes up for it. It is kinda
sad since Chisato joins last, so you have to power her up a bit to
make her truly useful.
Chisato carries around with her her trusty stun gun, although she
never really uses it (doesn't it sound a bit like Sharon from SFEX2?
Chisato looks a LOT like Sharon!!) except for 2 special occasions.
Don't let her feminine image fool you, she's actually a Blackbelt in
Shingu style Jijutsu! She has a variety of different Killer Moves,
from utilizing her own body as a weapon to a "special delivery" from
the Defence Force.
Chisato's normal attack is a back kick but it's very slow to come out
and recover. I don't use it, as her martial arts Killer Moves are
MUCH faster and more effective. Her air attack is also fairly
average. She pulls out her stun gun (looks like some kinda baton
charged with electricity on both ends) and jumps into the air,
shocking her enemy in the process. She doesn't have very good ways of
dealing with flying enemies though, so you'll have to use this to hit
airborne enemies most of the time.
Since Chisato joins very late in the game, her weapons are already
outdated, even the new weapons you can buy for her are extremely weak
compared to the other character's. Unfortunately, her weapons will
never go pass 1000 points of attack power. Her normal weapons will
either have an elemental effect attached to it or drains her MP like
hell, it's not until the Cave of Trials where she can pick up the
Weird Slayer, a fairly good weapon. Defense wise, she's just like the
other girls, can wear the weaker fighter type armors. She does have
one advantage though and that is she's the only other person who can
wear the useful Algol shield.
Chisato has below average strength, but it's higher than Opera's. She
does however, have the highest DEX out of all characters (I think.)
One other thing to note, I think Chisato has the highest HP out of
all characters and highest MP out of all fighters at equal levels!
It's true. When she was like 2 levels below Claude, she had about 100
more HP!!! (Not like that it matters very much.)
Chisato has a truly awesome set of Killer Moves to say the least. She
has some unbelievably effective long range KMs as well as solid short
range attacks. No matter what range she's in, her Killer Moves will
hold the award for hitting the most number of times, as well as
Peeping the enemies easily. She also uses some very sophisticated
tools in her Killer Moves like business cards and the cell phone.
However, the problem with her is that she's quite a weak character to
put in the front line and she's not a very good stand-alone long
range fighter, since her projectile KMs are extremely slow. She's an
excellent member for aiding/when aided though. Chisato's best Killer
Moves are Rising Dragon (strong, very fast and hits very many times)
and Tear Gas (long range and hits *MANY* times.)
#####Killer Moves#####
---Twister---
ground, tackling the enemies in the process
===Cancel===
Cancel works well for Chisato too, but her normal attack can be hard
to pull of successfully since it's quite slow. She has very fast
close ranged Killer Moves though, so it Cancels nicely. Rising Dragon
and Whirlwind are both good choices, Twister can work too, but the
enemy can recover and block since she has to step back a little.
===Link Combos===
Chisato is the queen of Link Combos?? She certainly seems to be,
since Chisato has many Killer Moves that works in similar ways, and
can be chained into greater effects. The down side of her Link Combos
is the fact that since many of her Link Combos has delays at the
start, it can be quite hard to target faster enemies properly. Stick
to her short ranged Link Combos if you're fighting fast enemies.
* Whirlwind – Rising Dragon Rating: 5 MP Cost:
This is probably Chisato's best Link Combo. Both Killer Moves are
insanely fast, hits many times and are quite damaging. The link in
between is perfect. Like the normal Killer Moves used by themselves,
both of these Killer Moves have certain hits that pushed away lighter
enemies, preventing scoring the maximum number of hits. Turning off
Strong Blow is mandatory! The combo works the other way around too.
* Twister – Whirlwind Rating: 3.5 MP Cost:
Twister – Rising Dragon Rating: 4 MP Cost:
I don't like Twister very much since it's hard to hit the enemy and
has a start up delay, but once you do manage to get it to connect,
the rest is sweet.
* Ten Thousand Volts – Burning Cards Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Two similar Killer Moves with similar effects. I simply love this
combo, it's almost impossible for the enemies NOT to get hit by it!
Use it to clear up large groups of enemies. It works the other way
too, but either way, it has some start up delay so be careful.
* Tear Gas – Flame Thrower Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Oh my, now here's a goodie. The Tear Gas has a big start up delay but
once you pull it off, you can basically land at least 30 hits! Both
version of Flame Thrower will work, although you do need to move to
get closer after Tear Gas. The reverse also holds, but I don't like
it as much since the break between Flame Thrower and Tear Gas is too
long, the enemy can move out of the way unless they get Dizzied by
Flame Thrower. For a challenge, count the number of hits you've
scored!
* Burning Cards – Preparation Rating: 2 MP Cost:
Ten Thousand Volts – Preparation Rating: 2 MP Cost:
Flame Thrower – Preparation Rating: 3 MP Cost:
Tear Gas – Preparation Rating: 3 MP Cost:
I must admit, this is not a very good combo, since Preparation takes
forever to come out! But this is the only way I know how to link
Preparation, since it cannot be used as an LC starter (be nice if it
could though.) Not good at all during random fights but can come in
handy during some boss fights, if you keep the boss busy by having
another member attack them. Use the #2 or #3 (evolved) on flying
enemies.
* Ten Thousand Volts – Flame Thrower Rating: 4 MP Cost:
Nice, it's also the only decent combo for Flame Thrower after it
evolves. Excellent on flying enemies but is fairly good on group
enemies too.
TIPS
====
Just bits of useful stuff here and there. There isn't all that many
here but just you wait.
=> Quick Proficiency for healing Killer Moves
This is easy, even better near the end of the game when your MP is
high. Take the character you want to build up healing Proficiency
(Bowman, Claude or Opera) and equip them with the best equipment. As
for accessories, 1 Fairy Ring and one that regenerates MP would be
ideal, plus a pair of Bunny Shoes. Equip the healing KM (Healing
Stars, Secret Medicine or Energy Sword) and another reliable KM. I
recommend Lightning Blade for Opera, Ripper Blast for Claude and
Explosion Pills for Bowman.
Now go to the arena and select Bully Battle! I think that's the one
that you have to beat a hang of enemies with a single ally, so select
the ally you wanna build up. Now kill off all enemies except for one
and keep running away from it and use your healing KM non-stop. Your
MP will last for an EXTREMELY long time because of the Fairy Ring and
MP regen. When you run out of MP, use a Blackberry until it runs out.
Then just die or try to finish the fight. I once gained 200+ points
of Proficiency for Opera!
=> I hear voices arrrggghhhh!!!
Thanks to FeralNoa
You can listen to the voice sample that you didn't register in the
voice collections with this, but only if you've registered an
adjacent voice sample. All you gotta do is move the cursor to the
adjacent panel and press the X button, then almost immediately
(before it loads that voice sample) press left or right on the D-pad,
it'll load the panel you moves the cursor to and not the adjacent
panel. You've gotta get the timing just right though, else you'll
hear the wrong voice sample.
This is also the only way to listen to those voice samples that are
impossible to get, such as Leon saying "Firebolt" or Noel's
"Thunderbolt". Also note that Rena's "Tractor Beam" is not in the
voice collections! I've heard that it was the original voice sample
from Japanese version of the game! Weird!
=> Musical thieves
Having problem with Pickpocketing? Something you really want but the
victim keeps discovering you? Well, if you have your "thief" play the
Violin, Hail the Goddess, your chances for stealing are increased as
well, just like Item Creations. However, remember that the music will
immediately change if you enter a new screen, so do this only in
rooms with many people or people with really good items that you
want.
Wearing a Beret may also increase PickPocketing chances.
TALENTS
=======
I really want to start on this section because I feel that most
people are getting the wrong idea about talents.
Talents are supposed to be certain thing that a character is good at,
which will help in certain Item Creation skills. In theory, a
character with the necessary talent(s) but with lower speciality
level will be more successful at Item Creation than someone trying to
do the same thing with a higher speciality level but hasn't got the
necessary talents. However, in practice, it becomes more like: a
character will basically never succeed without all the necessary
talents, since the Item Creation system is cursed.
There are 10 unique talents and each character will start with some
as they join your party. Fortunately, the missing talents can be
gained by doing related activities. For example, the Pitch talent can
be learnt by practicing the Musical Talents speciality command. Upon
acquiring a new talent, that character will be rewarded with 100SP to
spend.
These are the 10 talents in this game and when they're used:
* Originality: To be creative and use one's imagination.
- Used in Customize and Metalwork
* Sense of Taste: Sampling food and judge their taste.
- Used in Cooking
* Dexterity: Nimble fingers and can be moved freely in any way.
- Used in Metalwork, Pickpocketing, Compounding and Machinery
* Sense of Design: The urge to create new things.
- Used in Art and Machinery
* Writing Ability: Can express your thoughts in words.
- Used in Authoring
* Sense of Rhythm: Can handle beats and rhythms well.
- Used in Musical Talents, I think the composing playing part
* Pitch: To be able to grasp musical tones well.
- Used in Musical Talents, does not seem to affect composing
* Love of Animals: Getting on well with animals.
- Used in Familiar
* Sixth Sense: Your natural instinct
- Used in Scout
* The Blessing of Mana: Can channel magical energies through body
- Used in Alchemy
Anyway, reading the various FAQs about this game tells me that many
players takes talents as restrictions, being bound from doing certain
activities. However that is not the case. I take talents to be
"tools" that helps me in this game, as well as giving me various
bonuses. To an extent, you should be able to use them to your
advantage rather than being constrained by it.
---Acquiring new talents---
This is what I mean. To me, a lack of talents is a blessing. Why?
Because I can learn the undiscovered talents manually and gain the
special SP bonuses, that are extremely useful and helps me to get all
the skills I want earlier. For each hidden talent that you uncover
for a character, he or she will immediately gain 100SP to use.
Acquiring new talents are actually quite simple, if you know how, but
it can be boring and time consuming. (It took me about 4 hours to
learn most of the talents for 6 characters.) Some of the talents are
SOOOOOOO easy to learn that I feel kinda cheated by the characters in
that they probably had that talent but didn't tell me so!!!
To learn a new talent that your character does not already know,
simply repeat the necessary activity until they learns it. Save
before you do it though, but you don't necessarily have to reload
after a few tries. I usually use up all the ingredients in my
inventory, and if they still haven't learnt it, reset (or in certain
situations, give up.)
---Preparation---
You don't have to prepare too much but hey, you HAVE to know the
right skills right? It's for this reason, you cannot usually learn
all the talents until you get to the Lacour continent so you can
purchase the level 3 skills. I ALWAYS start learning new talents when
I arrive at the new continent, since the game can get a bit hard
during that time and there are usually too many skills that I want to
learn.
Anyway, Sense of Taste and Sense of Design can be learned earlier, as
the necessary skills and ingredients can be bought in Herlie. Celine
can also learn Dexterity or Originality when she first joins.
Now the ingredients. How am I going to afford the ingredients you
ask. Well, there are certain ways to make it easier.
1) Steal the Mischief from Filia. That way, you can just walk around
to obtain countless numbers of raw gems or metal ores necessary
for Metalwork.
2) The Mischief will also give you Pet Food, which are used for
Familiar.
3) The Survival command can net you some free cooking ingredients,
but it's much easier to buy them from the shops because hey, the
eggs only costs 10Fol each!
4) The other ingredients can only be bought in Hilton or Lacour.
They're not that expensive. If you don't have enough money, invest
in the Playfulness skill (cheap!) and you can earn TONS of cash!!!
Now what? Learn the skills of course! Having one level of speciality
is enough to learn all the talents. You should (as always) master
Perseverance first, so most other skills need only 1SP!
* Learn Craft, Esthetic Sense and Mineralogy if you want Originality
and/or Dexterity (total 3SP)
* Learn Kitchen Knife, Recipe and Good Eye if you want Sense of Taste
(total 3SP)
* Learn Writing if you want Writing Ability (total 1SP)
* Learn Esthetic Sense and Sketching if you want Sense of Design
(total 2SP)
* Learn Musical Instrument and Musical Notation if you want Pitch
and/or Sense of Rhythm (total 2SP)
* Learn Whistling and Animal Training if you want the Love of Animals
(total 2SP)
Sixth Sense is learnable but it's very unreliable. Learn Danger Sense
if you want to attempt it, but since it's a useful (and cheap) skill
you may wish to give it a try. The Blessing of Mana cannot be learned
though.
---Putting it action---
Below are the easiest ways of learning each talent:
* Originality: Easy! Simply use Metalwork and start working on the
gems. You might want to start from the cheapest ores though (Iron or
Silver) but since you can get unlimited number of them through the
Mischief, it doesn't really matter. You will fail and make either a
Gaudy Earring, Weighty Ring or Useless Decoration but don't worry
about it. You should be able to do it in under 10 tries.
* Sense of Taste: Not my favourite definitely. Try your hands at
Cooking and any ingredient, but don't waste your rare ingredients
though, as it's not worth it. Some characters do this well while
others are terrible at it. If you feel they're taking too long (over
30 tries) then stop! Don't waste your time!
* Dexterity: Do the same thing as for Originality and it's equally as
easy. Alternately, you can try Machinery but it's MUCH more
expensive!
* Sense of Design: Fairly easy but quite expensive. Buy Magical Clays
as they're cheaper than the Canvas and use Art. Shouldn't have too
much of a problem. Alternately, you can try your hands at Machinery
but they're more expensive so I recommend Art.
* Writing Ability: I think I like this the least. You must have one
skill over level 5 to attempt to write a book in Authoring. I usually
attempt this last after I've earned enough SP through the other
talents to learn all the important abilities like Kitchen Knife and
Scientific Ability. If you really want to get on with this then I
suggest you invest 5 SP on a cheap ability like Mineralogy or Recipe.
Now keep trying and you'll eventually acquire this talent, however,
most characters are not very good at that so if you've tried about 40
times and still doesn't work, reset and give up.
* Sense of Rhythm: One of the top 3 easiest talents to learn, there
are 3 stages.
1) Buy 20 Feather Pens and 20 Conductor's Batons.
2) You have to first write a song. Try using a character with both
music talents, if not, use someone with the Sense of Rhythm as it
seems to affect the composing part. If you still don't have such a
character, try using Rena to write a song for the Lyre. It will take
many tried but since you don't have to go through that annoying
"morphing" animation, you can actually do it very fast. If you've
used up all 20 Feather Pens then reset and try again. It shouldn't
take too long, usually a couple of minutes at worst.
3) Now try to play the song with the character who wishes to learn
this talent, it should sound out of tune. Keep playing it until you
learn the talent. If you use up all 20 Conductor's Batons, reset. You
don't have to wait until the song is over or anything, just keep
playing "over it" and a window will eventually pop up saying that
your "Sense of Rhythm worked." Like I said, this is extremely easy,
it should take you a minute at worst!
* Pitch: The other REALLY easy talent to acquire, learnt by the same
way as the Sense of Rhythm above. The best thing about these 2
musical talents is that nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY will have any
trouble learning them!
Note: I do not know if you can learn either of the music talents
through the composing part, as I've never done so. If you can confirm
this please e-mail me.
* Love of Animals: The final REALLY easy talent to learn. It can be
either a piece of cake of impossible for 2 of the characters. Simply
use the Familiar command over and over again, keep trying to call the
bird and press the button like crazy. If you've used up all 20 Pet
Foods, reset and repeat.
* Sixth Sense: HARD!!! You have a slim chance of learning it when you
change your Scout setting. If you select a Scout setting (don't even
have to change it, I think), you'll have a chance of learning it.
However, it seems that the chance for learning is the highest the
first time you select a setting, and anything after that, the chance
of success drops significantly. You'll have to exit the menu in order
to get the relatively high chance back. So, it is possible to learn
Sixth Sense if you just keep tapping the X button, although it takes
a LOT of time. (I've heard that it takes about 15 minutes for Ashton,
who's actually good at the talent.) If you have a turbo controller,
fire away. But there are more effective and easier ways to acquire
Sixth Sense.
Also few other things to note. It's been confirmed that Sixth Sense
can be learned by any character in any slots, not just the first as I
previously suspected. However, you may have a higher chance of
acquiring Sixth Sense for the character in the first slot, since I've
only ever been able to acquire this talent for my first character.
Now the last note. I have only learnt this talent while on the world
map. I do not know if it's possible to learn this in dungeons or
towns.
Anyway, a good way of learning Sixth Sense is wait until disc 2 and
use Orchestra. Go into the menu and select to play Orchestra, then go
to a character's Specialty menu and select a Scout option. If you
learn it, great, if not, you have few options.
a) Scroll down to the next character you want to learn and alter his
or her setting.
b) Keep selecting the options until you do learn it. (Low chance.)
c) Exit Specialty and use the remaining music to create a couple of
items. I found this useful because the chance for the top 2
options to happen are both quite low. Using Orchestra and option
c, I've been able to learn Sixth Sense for everybody in 1-4 plays,
pretty good huh?
The Blessing of Mana: No this talent CANNOT be learnt no matter what.
Only magic users start with this talent.
---Those impossible skills---
Some talent may seem to be impossible to learn, but some character
does actually have talents that they can never learn, fighters and
The Blessing of Mana talent is a good example. Look below for those
talents that are impossible to learn, as well as the really really
hard to learn ones.
For the really really hard to learn talents, I recommend you forget
about it until the beginning of disc 2, since they're REALLY THAT
hard (I remember spending about an hour going through all 80+ of my
cooking ingredients multiple times to try to get Claude to learn the
Sense of Taste) and are not worth the time you put into them. What
you need to do is to have at least 6 different musical instruments in
your inventory (you can buy new ones in North City in disc 2) and
learn the Orchestra super specialty. Now use the Orchestra command
and try the Item Creation skill. Not only will Orchestra highly
increase your Item Creation chances, you'll also have a much bigger
chance of discovering a talent. Use this method for those hard to
learn talents. Yes, the Orchestra will even raise the chance of
learning Sixth Sense!
---Talent traits---
Now before you start, let me tell you about the talent traits of each
character. All character will have traits in their talent acquiring
pattern. For example, a character may always join with a certain
talent already learnt, or they learn certain talents much easier than
others. There are good traits as well as bad one, such as the fact
that some character cannot learn certain talents. These traits are
the only thing keeping you from utilizing the talent system to the
max.
In my experience, the boys are in general, MUCH better than the girls
at acquiring new talents, especially Bowman, Ernest and Dias!
Claude: Claude either starts with many talents or very few. He comes
with the Writing Ability a lot, and if he doesn't, he can learn it
easily. He learns most talents very easily, except for Sense of
Taste, which is next to impossible without Orchestra. Claude can
learn Sixth Sense but he will never start with it, although the
chance of him discovering it is quite low.
Rena: Rena almost always comes with Dexterity and she always has The
Blessing of Mana. She learns the Sense of Taste VERY easily, often
with just one try! Sense of Design is pretty hard though, I've
actually used up all my Magic Clays and she learnt it after the 20th
one! She learns Writing Ability easier than most but learns
Originality slightly harder than most.
Celine: Celine almost always start with the Dexterity talent and she
always has The Blessing of Mana. She's good with most talents, but
not too hot with Writing Ability and Sense of Taste. It's impossible
to learn Love of Animals! Don't even try! I remember trying for
thousands of times without success.
Ashton: Ashton often starts with Sixth Sense and/or Sense of Taste.
And if he doesn't, he can learn them easily. Good to average at most
talents but cannot learn the Sense of Design at all!
Precis: Has very good chance of starting with Sixth Sense (and quite
often, the ONLY talent she has when she joins!) Learns Originality,
Dexterity and Sense of Design extremely easily, but is not good at
Sense of Taste and Writing Ability.
Opera: Always starts with the Dexterity talent. She's pretty bad
since she cannot learn neither Sixth Sense nor Love of Animals (like
Celine, I've tried it even more times with her!!) Not too hot with
Writing Ability nor Sense of Taste either, making her a fairly bad
character talent-wise!
Ernest: Ernest was the best! He mastered ALL his skills without much
trouble (not counting The Blessing of Mana, since no fighter can
learn it.) He has a good chance of starting with Sixth Sense and will
learn it easily if he doesn't. I don't think he's too great with
Sense of Taste, but most characters ain't. (He usually don't start
off with many talents either, which is a good thing. :)
Bowman: Another great character who masters every talent easily!
Great at acquiring Sixth Sense! Actually, he suffers from Sense of
Taste as well, and acquiring the music talents for him seems to be
more difficult than other characters. (And Dexterity is really hard
is he doesn't start with it. *sign*)
Leon: Always has Writing Ability and The Blessing of Mana. Actually
Leon's very good at acquiring new talents, nothing he can't do well.
Dias: Always has Originality for some reason, and start with Sixth
Sense quite often. Good at Sense of Taste but sucks at Writing
Ability, as usual.
Noel: Always have The Blessing of Mana but does NOT always have the
Love of Animals!!! Yes, it's strange but it's true!!! His other
talents would be a piece of cake to learn by now, since you'd have
access to Orchestra already.
Chisato: Chisato always start with the dreaded Writing Ability talent
and like Noel, you can get her other talents really easily since
you'd have access to Orchestra when you get her. She learns Sense of
Taste easily though, as predicted since she's supposed to be a good
cook.
THE UGLY SIDE OF THE GAME!
==========================
So you've seen the good parts but have you seen the bad? There are 3
horribly annoying features in this game that keeps it from being a
perfect classic. If I was to write a review, SO2 will only score 8
points out of 10, simply because of these 3 things!
---#1 The Bugs---
There are WAYYYYY too many bugs in this game, they happen to me
almost on a daily basis. Here's some of the bugs I've encountered:
1) Hanging up
This is the most common bug in the game, I'm sure you've all met with
this. For some reason, the game fails to load up after a battle and
freezes, with no sound and no visuals. Even the analogue is dead!
The reset button is probably the only way out. This happens
throughout the game but seems to be the most common at the Sanctuary
of Linga, I've had 5 crashes there already! Be careful and try not to
gain experience at that cursed cave and save every few minute if you
can.
Happens a lot in the Hoffmann Ruins, Fienal, and the Cave of Trials
as well, or so I've been told. The Fields too.
2) Variation of hanging up
Like above, only this time with music. I've encountered this twice
and there's still no way out. (That I know of.)
3) Screwed up combats
There are also 2 variations of this I've encountered. The first is
when it froze and an error message popped up saying "Cannot read data
from disc" and almost immediately it went away and combat continued
as usual. And no my PlayStation is not too old, I bought it at the
beginning of the year.
The second variation is at the end of the combat (ie, experience
screen), where the game pauses for about 5 seconds to load every
frame of animation, or something like that. Then when the combat
ended, it hung up like #1!
4) Where's my ring?!?!
Thanks to FeralNoa for this one. She told me that if you de-equip the
Mischief that I'm sure that you've worked very hard to earn in the
Battle Arena, it will disappear from your inventory forever!!! So
don't do it, you don't want to loose your 3 hours of hard work!!!
5) Freezing portals...
Gosh it's cold!!! I HATE this one!!! This happens when you use a
teleport portal like the ones in Fienal. During the sequence where
your character vanishes in the beam of light, the game freezes and
cannot be defrosted. The sounds/analogue, everything goes dead like
Absolute Zero. I've encountered this once on the 7th floor of the
Cave of Trials when I made through seven floors in one go WITHOUT
exiting to save! You can probably tell without having me to tell you
that I was furious! Be careful of this in places with teleport
portals, and either use the stairs or Go Home Frog!'s in the Cave of
Trials if you can.
6) Bugs or Sprites?
So basically, the sprites seen in the save screen are screwed up and
turns into another character every other frame. I've seen Leon
turning into Ernest and back again and Ernest and back again and..
you get the idea. FeralNoa said she's also seen Ashton turn into an
Opera look-alike, Precis turn into a Bowman look-alike, and Bowman
turn into a Dias look-alike, all strangely colored. There's also
rumored that there's a Marianna look-alike too.
7) No foxy ladies
Thanks for Happy Matt for this one. I've never encountered this one
but Matt said that the game will freeze occasionally when you use any
of the portraits for the female characters, that's Celine, Precis,
Rena, Chisato and Opera's portraits. So save before hand.
8) Analogue lock
I don't know if this is a problem with the game or a problem with my
Dual Shock controller but the Analogue would just turn itself off
during battle occasionally, really annoying! (I've had the same
problem with FFVIII as well.)
9) Speed problems and polygon clippings
Not a big deal really, just that sometimes the loading times are a
bit slow and unstable. Nothing comes up for like 10 seconds then when
you're about to reset, everything comes back! Also the polygon
morphing animations in most Item Creation procedures will slow down
and annoy you. It's most frustrating when you're playing the Violin
or Orchestra in the background since the music continues at normal
pace while the IC are slowed down, meaning you've wasted half of the
song!
10) Sticks and stones can break my bones, but rocks can get me stuck!
Well, remember those boulders in certain battle fields? If you stand
too close to it and another character (enemy or ally) comes to close,
they may get pushed INSIDE the rock and get suck! This is like one of
the stupidest type of bugs in all of video game history. (TR4 has
that problem too.)
11) Good bug, bad translation team!
Remember the save-swap trick/glitch that was featured in Ian Kelley's
comprehensive guides? Well, it ain't no more! Whenever you select the
"Data" option in the menu while artificial music is playing in the
background (by "artificial" I mean ones generated by either the
"Music Talent" or "Orchestra" commands), the music will immediately
stop! Pretty nasty huh? As that bug is essentially one of the most
useful ones and can be "abused" in lotsa wonderful ways.
=> Solution?
This is Happy Matt's bug fixer and it actually has some effect. Just
tilt your PlayStation at a 45 degree angle or just flip the whole
thing up side down. Things will start clogging up when your
Playstation heats up and this helps your PS by emitting more heat out
of the system. If you have a fan, feel free to use it as well. It
won't completely fix the problem but it does help!
=> Solution #2?
Another one I've heard is that loading the voice samples will also
clog the system. If you tap the buttons too quickly, the game may not
have enough time to load the samples and may lock up. Don't be so
aggressive and give both your joypad and yourself a break.
---#2 Item Creation---
Yes yes, the Item Creation system is very innovative and so, but the
success rates are INSANELY LOW!!! You basically have no chance of
success with most Item Creations if you have no talents. Even with
maximum specialty skill, the right talents, aiding items and the
Beret (without Orchestra), your chance of success would only be about
60% or so at best!!! At this rate, the people in the game will NEVER
have anything decent to eat! (Bitter Juice for breakfast, Smelly
Ricecakes for lunch and Rotten Sashimi for dinner.)
This makes music skills extremely important in the game, but hey,
who's bothered to play those boring tunes EVERYTIME you want to make
something? It just gets extremely tedious over time.
Fortunately, your Item Creation chances will increase as your level
increases and some IC commands have a higher likelihood of succeeding
than others. For example, all my characters (with talents, level
150+) will succeed 95% of the time at Cooking, Identify, Compounding
and Art. However, other IC specialties like Reproduction, and Super
Specialties like Reverse Side will still fail about half the time
without Orchestra. This is nice but it's level 150+ I'm talking
about. That's enough to complete the game and go halfway into the
Cave of Trials, where you don't need to create many items except
maybe duplicating stuff.
There are 2 commands that rarely fails though (thank god!) and they
are Pickpocketing, which works most of the time and playing the music
with Musical Talents which never fails as long as you have the 2
necessary talents.
---#3 The AI---
The ally AI, while better than most other games that implements AI
controlled allies (eg, FFT), is still quite incompetent! For example,
the magic users will NEVER move unless they're approached too close
by the enemy, which makes enemy missile attacks extremely dangerous.
The fighters are better though, but often won't properly both Killer
Moves you've assigned for them and will ALWAYS use regular attacks on
flying foes even if they have something better. Also, certain
characters have their "favourite" attacks, meaning they'll use
nothing but that attack throughout the whole fight!!! (Like Claude's
Head Splitter, Ashton's Leaf Slash and Precis' Hop Step.)
This is bearable in Earth difficulty setting, but once you get to
harder ones you'll realize how useless those characters are. The
combat is running in real time, but, if the enemies can become more
intelligent in the harder difficulties, why can't the allies?
The terrible AI and the awkward combats system makes a deadly
combination.
I've spent hours typing this up and having to deal with migraines and
OOS all the time so please do not rip off my FAQ. The best things in
life are free and free stuff ain't very common nowadays y' know, so
feel "free" to use this "free" FAQ for all "free" purposes.
Copyright 1999 by me. E-mail me at i_love_aya@hotmail.com
Star Ocean: The Second Story (c) 1998, 1999 Enix, Tric-Ace, Links
Excuse me for an insanely incomplete FAQ but I'm really busy. I'll
try to complete it as fast as I can. Thanks again for reading and
have fun with this, as well as up and coming games! I know I will!
