The GWJ JRPG Club - Q1 2022 - Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Switch version is just a port of the PS3 one.

The others (PS4, PC, others?) are remastered with improved graphics or something.

Don't remember the details but I know I never got the Switch one because I have the PS3 one too

I don't think the remaster has any new content, though I believe there are some DLC familiars you start with. It's just prettier.

Malkroth, I wholly agree with your (spoilered) point about the Trial of Wits. It feels like "ask for a hint" was a translation error or something, because the birds aren't giving you a hint -- they're telling you what the puzzle is. The game should have explained that better, or at all.

Finished Old Smokey today! Two things I learned:

  • If Esther's knocked down at the end of the battle, and a foe can be charmed - don't use a Phoenix down feather. I did this, and found the revival animation consumed the time to charm the foe. Total waste of 500 guilders!
  • If Esther's knocked down, after battle, top off her HP. Failed to do this once, which led to her being knocked down again, and me missing out on another recruit. Ugh.

Keep Esther healthy, and give her tanky familiars. Got it.

On the boss:

Spoiler:

Took a while to wear this guy down, and -- as with the last fight -- Esther went down about halfway through. The AI's not great, but in fairness, I haven't been paying much attention to her health. Maybe I should.

The seed sprite was very useful. Not only did he have a water attack that cost less MP than Oliver's, but his magic attack (at level 20, first form) was higher. I spent a lot of the battle using that sprite, playing keepaway and flinging blasts of water.

Still often failed to get the "defend" timing right, though.

I've been posting in the wrong thread lol. I have some...thoughts? I beat this game a while back when it first released and I saw some comments on the cinematics and over-tutorialization. I have to point out that this game was intended to be played with/by children as their first JRPG. So, much like Pokemon games, they do a lot of hand holding early on (you can't even capture for like 10 hours). With that being said, this game is still more difficult than Pokemon because of how everyone shares HP/MP and your need to constantly heal between battles. I died on the way to Al Mamoon because I thought I'd level up faster and get the free heals but nope, those 3 and 4 hp hits really get you over the course of a few fights and the lack of orbs dropping early on really makes you focus on items.

With that said, it opens right up a little after you learn how to capture your own and that's where the fun of building your teams come in. Should def keep at least 1 evade and one defend familiar on hand. Evades give you the highest gold orb drop percentage I think, either that or counter attacks.

A lot of my deaths have come from just not paying attention to my HP. I am so used to games giving you bold indications of low HP (flashing screen, changing bar/text colors, etc.) that I miss I am sitting under 20 hp and some random attack just kills me. Not to say that's a bad thing, just something I noticed happening to me and having to change my habits.

I have expanded my roster a bit now and have what seems to be a decently working team between my two party members. Be interesting to try and work in more familiars as the game goes along, since it takes awhile to level new ones to fighting status currently. I also unlocked the final menu item, which students of the Wizard's Companion should be able to guess is Alchemy! I was able to make a couple items right away from the stuff I had collected already, but some of the stuff is apparently rare drops.

I already have 13 hours or so on the clock, I probably need to do less random stuff like farming and familiar taming and just continue the story. But I hate leaving any errands/sidequests incomplete.

You'll hit a point soon where your errands are long term or require later game items or enemy drops. This becomes much easier when you unlock a faster way of travel which I will not say much more about. What I think will "mess you up" is when you see a stronger version of the familiars you currently have just roaming out in the world and realized that you wasted a ton of time grinding levels early on so...this is your warning lol. This includes Mitey Mite, there will come a time where you'll see it out in the world and it will be much stronger than the one you've trained and evolved.

I'd say grind as needed for the random encounters in your area (if they are running away from you, then you are strong enough to move on - although some always run and some never run). As long as you cover dps/tank/magic roles, you are good. I didn't even do much with magic users until later in the game because I think most of the good ones were late bloomers - something that isn't fully explained well in that game. Some familiars gain more stat boosts early, some feel like they aren't gaining anything because they are late bloomers. Eventually, you'll even get some that feel like they aren't gaining levels at all, that's because their max level is like 20 instead of 99. Toko's max level is 5 but, good luck taming one of them.

A lot of my deaths have come from just not paying attention to my HP. I am so used to games giving you bold indications of low HP (flashing screen, changing bar/text colors, etc.) that I miss I am sitting under 20 hp and some random attack just kills me. Not to say that's a bad thing, just something I noticed happening to me and having to change my habits

Not sure if this is only in the remaster, but your screen does flash(or at least your character box does) when you are low health but I think it's like 5 or 10%. The game also moves so fast that this warning is usually too late because even items have short cast/use times.

KozmoOchez wrote:

You'll hit a point soon where your errands are long term or require later game items or enemy drops. This becomes much easier when you unlock a faster way of travel which I will not say much more about.

I am so excited for this. The game definitely has a vibe, and pacing, that reminds me of a Dragon Quest game. And I loved how DQ XI, for instance, became more complex over time. If this game has that kind of vibe, I'm all for it.

Between yesterday and today, I got my 3rd party member, took to the seas, finished some errands, and had a few pretty challenging boss fights!

Spoiler:

The Genie fight, in particular, caught me by surprise and I wasn't well prepared for it. I actually had Oliver go down midway, without revival items, and had to finish the fight as Esther.

I also bit it after taking down the Collum and trying to explore the shipwreck shore. Those random encounters were no joke!

I've captured a whole bunch of additional familiars and I'm pretty excited to level some of them up and see what they can do. The fights are making me aware that it'll become important to pay attention to elemental damage and resistances, and I will still need to find a good team for that.

Made it to Hamelin this morning! And, it looks like there are a bevy of sidequests that have opened up, some of which would take me back through other parts of the world. I'm tempted to go binge all of those before I progress the story.

I also found that one of the Hamelin NPCs gave me a handful of new alchemy formulas, and that they were mostly to make high-end familiar snacks. That's great. I had tried brewing a couple early on, based on recipes in the Wizard's Companion and found that successfully making an item did not add it to my recipe list. That was disappointing, because I didn't want to look up recipes every time I brewed something, but if they get added through quests and NPCs it's no big deal.

Apparently the recipes for alchemy are handed out by random NPCs or through sidequests. You can get a bunch of recipes for provisions back in Cove from the woman in the boat with fruit on her head.

I sailed around in the boat a bit the other day and landed on a coast where some enemies attacked me and dropped my party almost instantly. It took me like 3 tries to run away but I managed to escape with Esther at like 20 hp. I immediately ran back to the boat, healed up, and sailed back to the Cove to rest. So there are places you can go currently that you definitely should not. I think I have two more bounties to clear up then I should make my way to Hamelin instead of exploring the world more.

For anyone who's been on the fence about joining in (e.g., me), the game is back on sale in the eShop for 80% off (which is as low as it has gotten according to Deku Deals).

What's holding me back are the consistent complaints in most reviews about the battle system. To be honest, what I love most about traditional JRPGs is the laid-back play style: this seems like an odd hybrid with some frustrating AI.

As a devotee of turn-based games, will I find this game to be too taxing? (For reference, I bounced pretty hard off of Xenoblade Chronicles' MMO-style approach.)

Malkroth wrote:

Apparently the recipes for alchemy are handed out by random NPCs or through sidequests. You can get a bunch of recipes for provisions back in Cove from the woman in the boat with fruit on her head.

I sailed around in the boat a bit the other day and landed on a coast where some enemies attacked me and dropped my party almost instantly. It took me like 3 tries to run away but I managed to escape with Esther at like 20 hp. I immediately ran back to the boat, healed up, and sailed back to the Cove to rest. So there are places you can go currently that you definitely should not. I think I have two more bounties to clear up then I should make my way to Hamelin instead of exploring the world more.

One of those bounties might be a golem guarding a path into a new area. On my first attempt, I took down the golem, then immediately got crushed by the first random encounter further inland. Definitely an area not to visit, yet.

And, I'll definitely be re-talking to all NPCs as I go about questing! Gotta get those formulas.

LastSurprise wrote:

Made it to Hamelin this morning! And, it looks like there are a bevy of sidequests that have opened up, some of which would take me back through other parts of the world. I'm tempted to go binge all of those before I progress the story.

There's another mode of travel that may make doing all that backtracking better. Specifically for errands

The fights are making me aware that it'll become important to pay attention to elemental damage and resistances, and I will still need to find a good team for that

It's more important to pay attention to their astral signs or whatever it's called (sun, moon, star, etc.) They matter a lot, especially when you run into the doubles. This is a monster collection game that actually rewards you for thinking as you build your party - its not just the elements and the astral signs, they all have roles that they have to stick to that have strengths and weaknesses. I hit a point in my first playthrough where I had to stop and raise a magic familiar because i ran into stuff that had heavy physical resistances and I had nothing with high magic. Even if you keep something like that on a companion, its something to keep an eye on. There are a lot of types of familiar styles: Fast attackers that can interrupt easily, slow attackers that knock back and do a ton of damage, weak attackers that excel at not taking damage, strong magic attackers, support magic users, tanks with low damage but insane def, tanks with healing, maybe more? You can outlevel most things, but its so hard to do that in NNK, and bosses/bounties will eat through your level anyway because their attacks are insane.

Malkroth wrote:

I sailed around in the boat a bit the other day and landed on a coast where some enemies attacked me and dropped my party almost instantly. It took me like 3 tries to run away but I managed to escape with Esther at like 20 hp. I immediately ran back to the boat, healed up, and sailed back to the Cove to rest. So there are places you can go currently that you definitely should not. I think I have two more bounties to clear up then I should make my way to Hamelin instead of exploring the world more.

That sounds like one of the areas i hinted at before when I stated that leveling up your starter familiars will feel like a waste because some of them are roaming about there (and other random locations) and already have better stats.

zyblorg wrote:

As a devotee of turn-based games, will I find this game to be too taxing? (For reference, I bounced pretty hard off of Xenoblade Chronicles' MMO-style approach.)

The battle system is similar to FF8/9 ATB. There is no pause, but you do have to wait until your turn is available. It's super fast though, so it has the appearance of a more active battle system. The AI will present a problem if you do not keep an eye out. The best way to mitigate this is to give your teammates familiars that fit their style and stats so they don't make dumb mistakes. Also, you want to make sure you keep a tank or at least a familiar who can defend. Honestly, this game is like a hardcore Pokemon because team composition matters, but its not THAT hard. The tricky part is that everything looks so childlike and simple that it will catch you way off guard when it does actually wipe your party.

LastSurprise wrote:
Malkroth wrote:

Apparently the recipes for alchemy are handed out by random NPCs or through sidequests. You can get a bunch of recipes for provisions back in Cove from the woman in the boat with fruit on her head.

I sailed around in the boat a bit the other day and landed on a coast where some enemies attacked me and dropped my party almost instantly. It took me like 3 tries to run away but I managed to escape with Esther at like 20 hp. I immediately ran back to the boat, healed up, and sailed back to the Cove to rest. So there are places you can go currently that you definitely should not. I think I have two more bounties to clear up then I should make my way to Hamelin instead of exploring the world more.

One of those bounties might be a golem guarding a path into a new area. On my first attempt, I took down the golem, then immediately got crushed by the first random encounter further inland. Definitely an area not to visit, yet.

And, I'll definitely be re-talking to all NPCs as I go about questing! Gotta get those formulas.

Yeah, I just took down Collum this morning and found that the area I nearly died yesterday is the same place, Shipwreck Beach. Collum was a tough but engaging fight, the random enemies are like an entire evolution tier higher. Ran into a Myth Turban or something, which I believe is the 3rd evolution of Turbandit. I already beat and charmed the 2nd evolution, but this one is way stronger.

I noticed people mentioning "max level" for familiars, is there a way to find that out in-game or is that all from out of game sources? I have a few familiars that are evolvable but kind of want to get more stats on them to transfer into their next form.

KozmoOchez wrote:
zyblorg wrote:

As a devotee of turn-based games, will I find this game to be too taxing? (For reference, I bounced pretty hard off of Xenoblade Chronicles' MMO-style approach.)

The battle system is similar to FF8/9 ATB. There is no pause, but you do have to wait until your turn is available. It's super fast though, so it has the appearance of a more active battle system. The AI will present a problem if you do not keep an eye out. The best way to mitigate this is to give your teammates familiars that fit their style and stats so they don't make dumb mistakes. Also, you want to make sure you keep a tank or at least a familiar who can defend. Honestly, this game is like a hardcore Pokemon because team composition matters, but its not THAT hard. The tricky part is that everything looks so childlike and simple that it will catch you way off guard when it does actually wipe your party.

I would say this is much more akin to FFXII with no way to fine-tune your companion's AI. Esther is constantly wasting her MP casting the buff spells in random encounters so when I need her to do something in a big encounter, she has 0 MP. But I don't want her not using abilities because her Strongo has good spells I would like her to use when appropriate, and I want her playing Chirpy Tune when people get low. I just want to remove the evasion and attack buffs except for bosses...

Yeah, agreed. I will say this game is pretty generous with money and items, so using consumables to restore her MP isn't too big a deal. But I wish she wouldn't drain them.

Have you had any luck tinkering with the party AI? I have done that only once or twice, but it didn't seem to last from one battle to the next.

I set Oliver to "Don't use abilities", Esther to "Support Us" and Swaine to "Support Us" and every time I check tactics those are still set, so that at least appears to be working. Is there more you can do than that?

I think you can also direct them to focus on the leader’s target or on other targets.

Oh yeah, the Leader, Other, or Weakest target. I had them on Leader's target until recently when I swapped them to weakest, hoping they would focus on sign matching.

I finally made it to Hamelin tonight, have not done anything in the town yet, just got the first cutscene there. I unlocked three new mechanics that are not apparently described in-game anywhere. First was All Out Attack and All Out Defend, which I assume means when I use them my entire party will use only the attack command or their defense command (Defense or Evade). Would be nice to have a little explanation on them somewhere though. The other one is Tear Fairy or somesuch that Mr. Drippy just unlocked. No idea what it is or how to use it...

One thing I have noticed and really like, when you cast "Take Heart" on someone, that person starts to feel better too. Too much of something was unbalancing their heart as well, and by skimming that little bit off the top, you are not changing their personality, but restoring a balance. It's kind of a nifty subtle story-telling piece.

Encouraged by the posts here and the reviews that were critical of the battle system but still positive about the game, I picked this up. I'm only a couple of hours in and have many systems to pick up yet, but this is definitely filling the gap left by DQXI so far. I put over 100 hours into that title and am so happy to be back in a colourful, charming world filled with spectacular creatures. (And as an added plus, I'm less likely to be embarrassed by the lapses into sexism of that other title, should my partner catch a glimpse of what I'm playing.)

I also agree that the combat is reminiscent of FFXII -- a title I grabbed after completing DQXI but dropped because I needed more whimsy in my pandemic-induced state of torpor.

Hope I can catch up and play along -- although I fully anticipate being terrible at combat once it gets trickier.

Malkroth wrote:

I finally made it to Hamelin tonight, have not done anything in the town yet, just got the first cutscene there. I unlocked three new mechanics that are not apparently described in-game anywhere. First was All Out Attack and All Out Defend, which I assume means when I use them my entire party will use only the attack command or their defense command (Defense or Evade). Would be nice to have a little explanation on them somewhere though. The other one is Tear Fairy or somesuch that Mr. Drippy just unlocked. No idea what it is or how to use it...

Yes, All Out makes everyone do what you want them to do. If I remember correctly, it isn't explained until a specific boss battle, which I think is the next big one. Essentially, the strategy is for large enemies who telegraph their attacks. Big damage? Use All-out defense. Knocked down or whatever triggers the "now's your chance!" prompt? Use All-out-attack.

Tidy Tears is drippy doing some clutch healing randomly when someone is low or after someone dies. I think the first time he does it it points it out.

Welcome! Glad to have you with us, and that you're enjoying it so far.

Hopefully you'll get the hang of combat as you go. I found it trickier at the beginning. You may have seen that I wrote this upthread, but it helped me a lot to think of the bounty hunts and boss fights as a fundamentally different type of combat than the random encounters.

I just got to the point of learning how to tame monsters and now I'm being reminded of how low the catch rate is on all these things. Trying to build a specific team and I'm going to end up much stronger due to the amount of battles necessary to capture the familiars I want. I'm only looking for 2 right now on my way to the volcano (and there's a couple more there I REALLY want to go along with these two) and the first one (green buncher) is taking quite a bit of time to capture - recruitment percentage is 6%.

Small annoyance that I have with this game that must even out or something because I don't remember it from my first playthrough - field magic uses MP and you have to pay to rest (which increases in each town to the point where I would travel back to Ding Dong Dell just to rest). Feels like a waste of MP when its not for battling and its not like it comes back over time when you are in a safe area.

Edit: Right after this post I tamed the Green Buncher, then when I made it back to Ding Dong Well, I got Naja on the first try! Maybe I'll come back and complain when I run into the tokos.

I think I'm already left behind in your collective dust, but at least I can benefit from your experience. I'm just about to battle the boss in the Ding Dong Well ... and battles so far have been relatively uninteresting affairs. I've just stuck with my first familiar and have been hitting attack. That's all. I know it's about to get nastier with a boss and that I'll have to toggle between my two familiars -- but is there something else I can do in more routine battles to ensure that I am better prepared when I have to take on more substantial foes?

If you haven't been keeping an eye out for a boss's tells for their big attack and using defend/evade for that, you should start practicing. Defend is easier to pull off because the defend skill is active a lot longer than evade, but a successful evade dodges the whole attack where a defend you negate a lot of the damage but not necessarily any status effects. The time evade is active is way shorter though so it is harder to get right.

zyblorg wrote:

I think I'm already left behind in your collective dust, but at least I can benefit from your experience. I'm just about to battle the boss in the Ding Dong Well ... and battles so far have been relatively uninteresting affairs. I've just stuck with my first familiar and have been hitting attack. That's all. I know it's about to get nastier with a boss and that I'll have to toggle between my two familiars -- but is there something else I can do in more routine battles to ensure that I am better prepared when I have to take on more substantial foes?

Swapping familiars and characters will be necessary later especially in boss battles where you need to defend/evade or when they get knocked down and are open for high damage. Like Wembley said, learn tells and you can practice countering (waiting for the attack button to turn blue and hit it right at that moment). There's not team to balance early on either since you aren't choosing your familiars. I guess learn how to quickly hit provisions and healing magic as oliver since everything is so slow to cast, even items. Can also pay attention to how the familiars fight. Check their attack speeds and damage. Also health. This will help you decide who you want to go after (not all of them are obvious in their role based on appearance). Colors of damage matters too. Blue means they are resistant to whatever you are using. Good to seek out physical resistant familiars vs magic resistant familiars. Some of this info is in the Wizards companion though - i dont think the speeds are in there though.

Wembley wrote:

If you haven't been keeping an eye out for a boss's tells for their big attack and using defend/evade for that, you should start practicing.

I'm now in the Golden Grove and have hatched a familiar that can evade, so I will heed your advice. (Prior to this, I thought I had rushed through a tutorial and missed some essential nugget of wisdom on how to evade!)

I'm enjoying the game but do wish that they had more elegantly found a way to direct players on the controls: it really throws me when Drippy tells Oliver to hit a button. What button? He's a kid in a cape holding a wand!

And an even nit-pickier detail: given how gorgeous this game is, why make the save screen so utilitarian? Every time I see that bland, monochromatic screen, I'm thrown.

Evade is similar to defend, it just has a much shorter window. So it's like an action game where you not only have to learn the tells (very easy to do in this game as attacks appear above their heads) but you have to figure out the timing. Some bosses pull off their attacks kinda slow after you see them charging. Some of them are very quick and it seems as though they try to do it during a cooldown where you can't react lol. The thing about evade is that not only do you dodge the attack, it also has the highest percentage of gold orb drops when done properly.

Also, the game is not done with tutorials. There are a couple more commands for battle that don't show up until 10-15hours into the game and the crazy thing is that you'll get stuff unlocked, but they don't actually explain it until you get into a scripted battle.

As for the save screen, I'm playing the remaster and it just uses the PS4/5's save system/menu, not their own so I'm not sure if that's what you are looking at or not - but the save screen isn't actually something built by the devs.

I am on PS4 and have the generic PS4 save screen. Since the game was originally a PS3 exclusive, I assume any other platforms that got the game got a very simple save screen implementation.

I played a bit further tonight and made it to Tombstone Trail.

Spoiler:

I first went through all the story stuff in Hamelin without resting, assuming they were going to have me spend a night at the inn like they did in every previous town. I sneaked through the castle and ran straight into the tank boss and prompt;y got smashed. Esther had 0 MP and was my only character with storm magic available, so I couldn't exploit his weakness. I reset my game (had saved before getting the armor) and went about doing some of the sidequests. I probably went way overboard as I went and cleared both the Teeheeti and Golden Grove quests that I could. Also spent a good chunk of time trying to capture the three automata for the researcher. Only managed to snag the Tin Man and Cog thing before hitting a story point that prevents me from talking to him.

So after the tank boss you get to meet the prince, who turns out to be the sage we are looking for, surprise! Except he's heartbroken, missing his "belief" (I would rather call it confidence, but eh), so thinks he's ugly and useless. As we depart to find someone with extra belief, the game decides to take a left turn and go for... Time Travel! So how are they going to solve this one? Are we destined to have always time traveled, this everything we are currently doing has already happened? Or are we now going to be changing the future?

My wild guess is that Swaine is actually the older brother Gascon, which is why he knows so much about Hamelin and didn't want anyone to know about Marcassion.

I see the time travel hook being their way to get around Shadar removing Mornstar from our plane of existence of whatever he said. If we go back in time before he did that, we can get Mornstar before he does anything with it, thus spoiling his plans.

The emperor mentions that you need Mornstar to cast Time Breach and you can only cast it once in your life, so how did we get sent back in time in the first place? Is this the mysterious Pea's doing? Did someone else cast Time Breach on us?

Edit: Also a friendly reminder to sleep once in each town to fill out your Wizard's Companion.

Edit 2: Oh right, some combat mechanics I found out by doing some research after being continually frustrated by the AI. Spoilered incase someone doesn't want to know.

Spoiler:

When you use All Out Defense or Attack, it will override your AI settings for the duration. During defense, your allies will use healing spells to restore HP and swap familiars to ones best suited for taking damage. During attack, your allies will swap to their highest damage familiar and start using attack abilities. This lets you safely set the AI to "Don't use abilities" for normal encounters and make use of the All-Out callouts for bosses. Used this to make the tank a lot easier to beat.

Edit 3: I found Horace in Castaway Cove and he wanted me to translate some Nazcaan lettering on the page The Tools of Wizardry. I figured this could be extremely tedious for people without a second copy of the Wizard's Companion like I had (and it was already a little tricky). Below is the answer if you want to skip translating yourself.

Spoiler:

Finest Fiber

Malkroth wrote:

I am on PS4 and have the generic PS4 save screen. Since the game was originally a PS3 exclusive, I assume any other platforms that got the game got a very simple save screen implementation.

Having played the original on PS3, I can confirm that the save screen for that version was also the generic PS3 save screen; transparent and utilizing the simple, system font.

In fact, I can't recall any PS3 game that didn't use that same screen, though I'm sure there must be some.

Haven't posted about my progress in a bit, but I cleared Hamelin and made it up to -- but not really into -- the Sky Pirate's Den. Once again, Malkroth and I are more or less hitting these things at the same time!

Spoiler:

I was also totally caught off guard by the Porco Grosso, but somehow managed to make it through. I'm not really sure how I managed that. I think with that fight, and the Candelabracadabra (great name!), I really started chewing through my recovery items. Have not been paying attention to keeping those stocked.

I'm a little farther than you, unless you've played more, so I won't spoil the story segments coming up on Tombstone Trail. But I thought the wrap-up to Marcassin's belief was really touching.

After clearing Hamelin, I hopped around the world map completing side quests. FINALLY, we get Ni No Kuni's version of the Zoom spell! Completed most of them, but I'll leave the rest off until I clear the next major story beat. Tried the first level of the Solosseum Series (great name), but bit the dust. I'll come back to that later. I also noticed a big old difficulty spike in the wandering monsters on the way to the Sky Pirate's Hideout.

Kozmo, thanks for the tip on evading. I hadn't realized that's how it worked, and I still struggle with the tight windows anyway. But I think the addition of All-Out Attack / Defense will help, because it's much easier to press square when I see a boss prepping a big attack.

I got another good chunk of time in today and have now completed Hamelin and all but one sidequest that opens after that point (the remaining one requires courage which I cannot find currently). Having Vacate and Travel is so nice, I can just hop around the world to check in on sidequests and available "virtues". I am also abusing Travel to zip to a dungeon and use those stones as a free hp/mp restore rather than having to pay for an inn now.

Hamelin spoilers:

Spoiler:

I definitely liked what they did with Marcassion's restoration. Taking the belief he had in himself and his brother from his previous self and restoring it to him in the present is a really touching implementation.

I also like that there is apparently at least one if not more rebellious people among the White Witch's council. It seemed like there are also implications that Shaddar does not want to kill us, and is doing his bare minimum to keep up appearances. With how powerful they have set him up to be so far, it seems like he should have been able to wipe us off the map already. Also, the cutscenes show him having a little bit of hesitation about removing Oliver. Is he somehow related to Oliver? The White Witch also implies Oliver cannot defeat her because of who she is, and we got a glimpse in Fairyground that Drippy originally traveled with Alicia to defeat Shadar but failed. Could she possibly be Alicia?

We can now officially declare this a JRPG, as I reached the casino where you can play some games of chance to get a different currency to purchase powerful items. I found a guide online for the Platoon game and was able to get myself about 18k coins and grab a new sword for my Mighty Mite. The casino isn't completely broken as there are two more tiers of items that are currently locked. Even with the platoon guide I was still losing to luck a fair amount, so the game do not seem weighted in the player's favor like they normally do in these games.

I also completed the Horace quests up through Hamelin and he gave me a spell that reveals chests for a short time in interior locations (towns and dungeons)! Yay! Used it to find some green chests I had missed around the cities.

I must be overleveled at this point. When I reach the area around the Sky Pirate's Hideout, a few of the enemy groups are already running away from me. I didn't go in the hideout yet, so not sure what inside is like. I also tried out Rank E in the Solosseum Series and beat it without too much trouble. Getting the hang of swapping to Esther and using Chirpy Tune to heal earlier than I think since it takes so long to cast.