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reynard531After one more fight outside the village, I wandered into the desert. Yes, yes, I know I said not to go in there except to cut across from the Drowsy Gate. But the rate of getting XP from other battles was rather slow, and I wanted to try to accelerate the process of maxing out my characters.
The first battle I got into involved two level 22 Beasts. I managed to freeze both and I actually beat them. The battle got me 1800D, 9000XP, and two S-Potions. After a few more fights I got Pea Princess to level up to level 19.
In general, there are four combinations of battles in the desert area here. They are:
1. Young Beast level 18 (x4)
2. Beast level 22 (x2)
3. Young Beast level 18 (x2)/Beast level 25
4. Young Beast level 15 (x2)/Beast level 19 (x2)
And while I am able to beat these now, it still isn't easy, and I was doing better because I had better gear and my characters were higher level, so level grinding in this area is only for later.
After getting Pea Princess to level 19, I went back to the village to get more supplies, and I also bought three level 3 Life Bubbles for my current party to finally give them the best health boost. These bubbles, again, cast a heal spell that restores 85% health or raise max HP by 40%. I switched these level 3 bubbles with the level 1 versions on everyone's armor. Like I said, if you don't have room for bubbles of all levels, at least go for a level 3 and a level 2. Each level 3 bubble cost me 6500D, and all that left me with 12, 377D.
While I was at it, I switched the level 1 Chaos Bubble on Jack's armor with a level 2 version I had in my inventory, just because. I also bought a level 3 Vampire Bubble for Alan's weapon while I had the money, and it cost 8000D. Alan's level 1 Vampire Bubble wasn't doing much anyway. So then I was left with only 4377D.
From there I had more fights in the desert, and even wandering back into the Zzz Forest. I got another L1 Fire Bubble, and some Total Elisirs. A few fights in the Zzz Forest actually dropped a new item, a Wake-Up, which cures the sleep status. I got a total of three of those.
Along the way I also gave Alan the Counter Attack Bubble that I had previously given Jack, since with Alan's new Omega Blade, he had the strongest attack, and Counter attacks do half the damage of a regular attack (indicated by the guide but not in the bubble description).
Once I got Pea to level 20, I switched her out for Alessa, who was still level 15. I also bought Alessa a level 3 Life Bubble and switched her level 1 Life Bubble for the level 3. After doing all that, I had 60, 969D.
I gave Alessa the More Armor Bubble, and gave her almost all the bubbles I put on Pea Princess's weapon, specifically the level 3 Ice Bubble, the level 3 Fire Bubble, and the level 3 Explosion Bubble. Alessa already had a level 2 Ice, level 2 Fire, and level 1 Explosion Bubble on her weapon. I kept the level 1 Explosion in the inventory, and put the level 2 Fire and Ice Bubbles on her armor instead. I also have Alessa the level 2 Thunder Bubble because of the Lead Soldiers. The only bubble I let Pea keep was the level 2 Dark Bubble, which she needed more than Alessa. Let it be noted at this point that at level 15 and with her best gear, Alessa had 19 weapon slots, when I thought the limit was 18. They are fully working too, so it's not like a glitch.
When I started to level up Alessa, I had a Poison Dwarf dodge her level 3 Ice spell. It was something I'd never noticed before. This means spells have four outcomes: they can fail entirely, taking your DP for no benefit whatsoever, they can be dodged entirely, they can hit and do damage, but the status effect with them, if any, is resisted and fails to apply, or they can hit, do damage, and the status effect can work.
I fought battles in the woods and the Zzz Forest first to be safe. I got a level 2 Ice Bubble out it, which I used to replace the level 1 version I had on Alan's weapon. I also gave Alessa the level 3 Dream Eater Bubble and Jack the level 2, since they were the ones using so many spells.
Alessa hadn't leveled up any when I decided to just go into the desert. For the Beast fights, I had to use Jack's level 2 Regen spell. And here's something you should know about the Regen spell, it only works on one person at a time. It was a real surprise to me because I was used to situations like Epic Battle Fantasy 3 where the regeneration spell worked on everybody at once.
As far as I can figure, the "duration:35" thing in the bubble's description means 35 turns. Also, the amount of HP given to the character is determined by their maximum base health, not altered by Life Bubbles. When Alessa was level 15, it gave her 55 HP back, which didn't help much against the kind of damage the Beasts were doing.
I did some calculations with other characters, and it looks like it returns something like 6.8% of the character base HP max. It's not much, but I suppose it isn't too bad. Just don't expect it to be able to keep your characters alive without a level 2 or 3 healing spell every now and then.
And if I haven't mentioned it before, here's what to expect from beast enemies. Their basic attack seems to be a claw move, and it can hurt, especially if multiple hit all at once. They also have a Super-Claw move that hits either one character for greater damage or everybody for significant damage, I'm not sure, but I've seen a group attack anyway. Usually the Super-Claw is proceeded by them throwing both their arms back. They don't seem to use items, thank goodness, and in terms of spells they only know vampire and dream eater.
A couple of Beast fights managed to push Alessa to level 16. And on the way back from the village, a fight with a Pinocchio General put her in chaos, and she wasted an Elisir on the Pinocchio General. Isn't chaos really annoying?
As far as strategy goes for these desert battles with the Beasts, you may want to start off by casting Regen on your weakest character. For me, that was Alessa. I also frequently had Alessa use her level 3 Ice spell to try to freeze them. As I've already stated, this is met with mixed results, most often the spell works but the freeze fails to take hold. Ultimately I guess it comes down to pure luck. I even tried the level 3 Fire spell once, which says "100% burn", and often times the burn effect failed on them. As time went on, I ended up buying a level 3 Poison Bubble for reasons that will make sense later. It says "100% poison", and yet it's effect usually failed here too.
It's one thing with the Red Apple Tree. A game designer could say "well that was a boss fight, of course the burn effect isn't going to work right away,". They could make that argument. But I don't think that was the case with the boss, because look what happens here. These Beasts are not bosses. They are upper-tier enemies, yes, but they are not bosses. And yet the fire spell which says "100% burn", a statement that reads as a 100% chance to cause the burn effect, frequently fails to burn them. Or the freeze effect often fails to work several times in a row, despite saying "90%" or poison fails.
I consider this a glitch, that or a massive flaw in the game design. When something says "100%", it better be 100%, or if the mathematical scales go beyond that, you better make that apparent and give us more information, because otherwise you are flat out lying to the players, and that doesn't endear you to them at all. The same thing is true of the protections. The level 3 Fire, Ice, and Poison say 100% protection from poison, burning, or freezing, and yet in my last run of the game, it still happened.
Another thing to do in these Beast fights is to use Dream Eater when you get low on DP. And when the return from Dream Eater gets low, move to another enemy.
After leveling Alessa to 17 and going back for supplies, I bought two level 3 Dreams Bubbles for Jack and Alan to replace their level 1 versions. After going back out into the desert and getting Alessa to level 18, I went back and bought two more for Wolf and Hook.
I also found myself once again confused by the order of the spells in battle. Alesa's level 2 Thunder spell was listed above her level 3 Dream Eater spell. I thought the list was sorted first by name and then by level. Also, when navigating the list, it's easier to use the arrows than the scroll bar.
In testing out the Poison Bubble I bought I found that it took 122 points off a level 18 Young Beast. Research from a gaming forum said that poison takes off about 1/35 of a character's max HP, so that would give the thing a max health of 4270, or something around there.
And after several more fights, I finally got Alessa to level 20. That made four out of six characters done. Captain Hook was my next target. I left him at level 13. I actually ended up taking Jack out of the group, because I had come to rely on the level 3 Ice Bubble and the level 2 Regen and Life Bubbles. I put Alessa in Jack's number 3 spot and Hook in the middle spot. I gave Alessa the level 2 Life and Regen Bubbles I previously had on Jack's weapon, and I put the Surprise Bubble on her armor. I also gave Alan one of my spare level 1 Ice Bubbles on his armor so he could cure freeze. I also bought Hook and Wolf level 3 Life Bubbles, something I realized I hadn't done yet.
I left Alessa with the More Armor Bubble because she had lower health and armor, and Hook had very strong armor. I did however give Hook the Turbo Bubble, because he was the slowest of the group. I started him off with battles around the village and in the Zzz Forest. One of those gave me another level 2 Earth Bubble. I am definitely going to end up selling many of these bubbles at the end game because by then I will be able to determine which ones truly are excessive. I still wouldn't advise selling bubbles until the end though, I really wouldn't. I put that one on Alan's armor to replace the level 1 version he had, for no other reason than to take advantage of the opportunity.
Hook had gotten to level 14 when I decided to take a chance and wander once again into the desert. There I got into a battle with two level 22 Beasts, and surprisingly managed to beat them. After one more fight there, Hook was level 15. I also noticed that the Beasts seemed to attack him more and attack Alessa less. It's funny, because when I had Pea in the group, she was in the middle spot, and the Beasts seemed to attack her a lot. I thought to myself "I guess they really don't like princesses after getting fired, huh?"
Whenever I had switched characters, it was always in that middle slot, basically because Hook was there first and he was the first to be switched out. When I brought Alessa back in, placing her in the middle, the Beasts seemed to attack her a lot. These fights with Alessa in the third slot make me think that perhaps the game is programmed to have enemies more frequently attack whoever is in the middle position. This is just a guess from what I was seeing.
At one point going back and forth from the village to the desert, I wondered if maybe I should use Cluster Bombs (the best explosion item) to help make the fights go faster. Each one costs 400D, and I had the money, so I bought five of them, and used them all up.
I had gotten Hook to level 16 after a bit, but by then I was starting to get really tired. Level grinding can be monotonous, and doing these same Beast fights over and over, which a few fights elsewhere, was getting boring. And I had already been doing this for so long, and in one day. So I restocked my supplies and left the village to go progress the main plot.
There were more battles on the way back, but there was nothing new so I didn't record them in my own notes. I built up a good amount of money again, and stopped by the merchant caravan near the Cobbler for more supplies. And then I finally made it into the shop of the Baker Witch before I called it a night.
The first battle I got into involved two level 22 Beasts. I managed to freeze both and I actually beat them. The battle got me 1800D, 9000XP, and two S-Potions. After a few more fights I got Pea Princess to level up to level 19.
In general, there are four combinations of battles in the desert area here. They are:
1. Young Beast level 18 (x4)
2. Beast level 22 (x2)
3. Young Beast level 18 (x2)/Beast level 25
4. Young Beast level 15 (x2)/Beast level 19 (x2)
And while I am able to beat these now, it still isn't easy, and I was doing better because I had better gear and my characters were higher level, so level grinding in this area is only for later.
After getting Pea Princess to level 19, I went back to the village to get more supplies, and I also bought three level 3 Life Bubbles for my current party to finally give them the best health boost. These bubbles, again, cast a heal spell that restores 85% health or raise max HP by 40%. I switched these level 3 bubbles with the level 1 versions on everyone's armor. Like I said, if you don't have room for bubbles of all levels, at least go for a level 3 and a level 2. Each level 3 bubble cost me 6500D, and all that left me with 12, 377D.
While I was at it, I switched the level 1 Chaos Bubble on Jack's armor with a level 2 version I had in my inventory, just because. I also bought a level 3 Vampire Bubble for Alan's weapon while I had the money, and it cost 8000D. Alan's level 1 Vampire Bubble wasn't doing much anyway. So then I was left with only 4377D.
From there I had more fights in the desert, and even wandering back into the Zzz Forest. I got another L1 Fire Bubble, and some Total Elisirs. A few fights in the Zzz Forest actually dropped a new item, a Wake-Up, which cures the sleep status. I got a total of three of those.
Along the way I also gave Alan the Counter Attack Bubble that I had previously given Jack, since with Alan's new Omega Blade, he had the strongest attack, and Counter attacks do half the damage of a regular attack (indicated by the guide but not in the bubble description).
Once I got Pea to level 20, I switched her out for Alessa, who was still level 15. I also bought Alessa a level 3 Life Bubble and switched her level 1 Life Bubble for the level 3. After doing all that, I had 60, 969D.
I gave Alessa the More Armor Bubble, and gave her almost all the bubbles I put on Pea Princess's weapon, specifically the level 3 Ice Bubble, the level 3 Fire Bubble, and the level 3 Explosion Bubble. Alessa already had a level 2 Ice, level 2 Fire, and level 1 Explosion Bubble on her weapon. I kept the level 1 Explosion in the inventory, and put the level 2 Fire and Ice Bubbles on her armor instead. I also have Alessa the level 2 Thunder Bubble because of the Lead Soldiers. The only bubble I let Pea keep was the level 2 Dark Bubble, which she needed more than Alessa. Let it be noted at this point that at level 15 and with her best gear, Alessa had 19 weapon slots, when I thought the limit was 18. They are fully working too, so it's not like a glitch.
When I started to level up Alessa, I had a Poison Dwarf dodge her level 3 Ice spell. It was something I'd never noticed before. This means spells have four outcomes: they can fail entirely, taking your DP for no benefit whatsoever, they can be dodged entirely, they can hit and do damage, but the status effect with them, if any, is resisted and fails to apply, or they can hit, do damage, and the status effect can work.
I fought battles in the woods and the Zzz Forest first to be safe. I got a level 2 Ice Bubble out it, which I used to replace the level 1 version I had on Alan's weapon. I also gave Alessa the level 3 Dream Eater Bubble and Jack the level 2, since they were the ones using so many spells.
Alessa hadn't leveled up any when I decided to just go into the desert. For the Beast fights, I had to use Jack's level 2 Regen spell. And here's something you should know about the Regen spell, it only works on one person at a time. It was a real surprise to me because I was used to situations like Epic Battle Fantasy 3 where the regeneration spell worked on everybody at once.
As far as I can figure, the "duration:35" thing in the bubble's description means 35 turns. Also, the amount of HP given to the character is determined by their maximum base health, not altered by Life Bubbles. When Alessa was level 15, it gave her 55 HP back, which didn't help much against the kind of damage the Beasts were doing.
I did some calculations with other characters, and it looks like it returns something like 6.8% of the character base HP max. It's not much, but I suppose it isn't too bad. Just don't expect it to be able to keep your characters alive without a level 2 or 3 healing spell every now and then.
And if I haven't mentioned it before, here's what to expect from beast enemies. Their basic attack seems to be a claw move, and it can hurt, especially if multiple hit all at once. They also have a Super-Claw move that hits either one character for greater damage or everybody for significant damage, I'm not sure, but I've seen a group attack anyway. Usually the Super-Claw is proceeded by them throwing both their arms back. They don't seem to use items, thank goodness, and in terms of spells they only know vampire and dream eater.
A couple of Beast fights managed to push Alessa to level 16. And on the way back from the village, a fight with a Pinocchio General put her in chaos, and she wasted an Elisir on the Pinocchio General. Isn't chaos really annoying?
As far as strategy goes for these desert battles with the Beasts, you may want to start off by casting Regen on your weakest character. For me, that was Alessa. I also frequently had Alessa use her level 3 Ice spell to try to freeze them. As I've already stated, this is met with mixed results, most often the spell works but the freeze fails to take hold. Ultimately I guess it comes down to pure luck. I even tried the level 3 Fire spell once, which says "100% burn", and often times the burn effect failed on them. As time went on, I ended up buying a level 3 Poison Bubble for reasons that will make sense later. It says "100% poison", and yet it's effect usually failed here too.
It's one thing with the Red Apple Tree. A game designer could say "well that was a boss fight, of course the burn effect isn't going to work right away,". They could make that argument. But I don't think that was the case with the boss, because look what happens here. These Beasts are not bosses. They are upper-tier enemies, yes, but they are not bosses. And yet the fire spell which says "100% burn", a statement that reads as a 100% chance to cause the burn effect, frequently fails to burn them. Or the freeze effect often fails to work several times in a row, despite saying "90%" or poison fails.
I consider this a glitch, that or a massive flaw in the game design. When something says "100%", it better be 100%, or if the mathematical scales go beyond that, you better make that apparent and give us more information, because otherwise you are flat out lying to the players, and that doesn't endear you to them at all. The same thing is true of the protections. The level 3 Fire, Ice, and Poison say 100% protection from poison, burning, or freezing, and yet in my last run of the game, it still happened.
Another thing to do in these Beast fights is to use Dream Eater when you get low on DP. And when the return from Dream Eater gets low, move to another enemy.
After leveling Alessa to 17 and going back for supplies, I bought two level 3 Dreams Bubbles for Jack and Alan to replace their level 1 versions. After going back out into the desert and getting Alessa to level 18, I went back and bought two more for Wolf and Hook.
I also found myself once again confused by the order of the spells in battle. Alesa's level 2 Thunder spell was listed above her level 3 Dream Eater spell. I thought the list was sorted first by name and then by level. Also, when navigating the list, it's easier to use the arrows than the scroll bar.
In testing out the Poison Bubble I bought I found that it took 122 points off a level 18 Young Beast. Research from a gaming forum said that poison takes off about 1/35 of a character's max HP, so that would give the thing a max health of 4270, or something around there.
And after several more fights, I finally got Alessa to level 20. That made four out of six characters done. Captain Hook was my next target. I left him at level 13. I actually ended up taking Jack out of the group, because I had come to rely on the level 3 Ice Bubble and the level 2 Regen and Life Bubbles. I put Alessa in Jack's number 3 spot and Hook in the middle spot. I gave Alessa the level 2 Life and Regen Bubbles I previously had on Jack's weapon, and I put the Surprise Bubble on her armor. I also gave Alan one of my spare level 1 Ice Bubbles on his armor so he could cure freeze. I also bought Hook and Wolf level 3 Life Bubbles, something I realized I hadn't done yet.
I left Alessa with the More Armor Bubble because she had lower health and armor, and Hook had very strong armor. I did however give Hook the Turbo Bubble, because he was the slowest of the group. I started him off with battles around the village and in the Zzz Forest. One of those gave me another level 2 Earth Bubble. I am definitely going to end up selling many of these bubbles at the end game because by then I will be able to determine which ones truly are excessive. I still wouldn't advise selling bubbles until the end though, I really wouldn't. I put that one on Alan's armor to replace the level 1 version he had, for no other reason than to take advantage of the opportunity.
Hook had gotten to level 14 when I decided to take a chance and wander once again into the desert. There I got into a battle with two level 22 Beasts, and surprisingly managed to beat them. After one more fight there, Hook was level 15. I also noticed that the Beasts seemed to attack him more and attack Alessa less. It's funny, because when I had Pea in the group, she was in the middle spot, and the Beasts seemed to attack her a lot. I thought to myself "I guess they really don't like princesses after getting fired, huh?"
Whenever I had switched characters, it was always in that middle slot, basically because Hook was there first and he was the first to be switched out. When I brought Alessa back in, placing her in the middle, the Beasts seemed to attack her a lot. These fights with Alessa in the third slot make me think that perhaps the game is programmed to have enemies more frequently attack whoever is in the middle position. This is just a guess from what I was seeing.
At one point going back and forth from the village to the desert, I wondered if maybe I should use Cluster Bombs (the best explosion item) to help make the fights go faster. Each one costs 400D, and I had the money, so I bought five of them, and used them all up.
I had gotten Hook to level 16 after a bit, but by then I was starting to get really tired. Level grinding can be monotonous, and doing these same Beast fights over and over, which a few fights elsewhere, was getting boring. And I had already been doing this for so long, and in one day. So I restocked my supplies and left the village to go progress the main plot.
There were more battles on the way back, but there was nothing new so I didn't record them in my own notes. I built up a good amount of money again, and stopped by the merchant caravan near the Cobbler for more supplies. And then I finally made it into the shop of the Baker Witch before I called it a night.
