Apparently, Hugo wakes up at the other Roda tree, at the opposite side of the tower. Compared to Yunica, he seems much more confident in his abilities, to the point of arrogance. He also plays much differently. His main attack is ranged, shooting parallel missiles in the direction he’s facing. Once I use boost, he shoots 2 additional missiles, for 5 in total.

Hugo starts out at the second Roda tree.

I expected the story to be different, but it turns out it’s more or less Yunica and Hugo switching places, or at least that’s what it looks like right now. Of course, we have a different character now, so the events play out differently, but it’s not two parallel stories as I thought it would be.

I played up to the water area, the name of which I managed to forget again, and got to level 10. My first skill is again wind based, but this time, it’s a shield which blocks one or several attacks, depending on being charged or not. It also does a small amount of damage to enemies extremely close to Hugo and slows down Hugo’s falling speed. I expected a sorcerer to be more skill focused, but the way it looks like now, he uses skills more rarely than Yunica. We’ll see what the lightning skill will do.

The strangers are apparently called “The Darklings”

Instead of the first boss being the bat demon, I’ve fought Epona. She seemed really tough at first, because I kept trying to dodge everything and wait for my chance to attack, but eventually, I realized it’s better to use my shield constantly and just shoot her at point-blank range. She had very little health, so I killed her before she killed me.

The second boss was the same beast demon Yunica fought. The fight took longer, since Hugo does less damage, but I think it was easier overall. The shield helped me nullify the most dangerous attacks and made it much easier to climb on the bosses head when he was stunned.

Anyway, I saved my game at the start of the water area and ended my session.

I spoke to the priest first, but he didn’t know what to do. I then went to see the goddess and she told me it might be possible to remove petrification, but an extremely powerful item, the Dream Idol, is needed. Luckily, Dino might have it with him, since he was tasked with protecting it at the shrine. I went and asked him about it, and he had no issues with giving it to me. The problem was I still needed a strong source of magic to power it.

The flow of the story makes me think the game was cut short during development. It’s either that, or just poor writing.

The copy was enough to power the Idol and I managed to remove the petrification from the knights. They all thanked me and one of them gave me the medallion I needed to move on. I teleported to the boss immediately and started the fight. It was a huge mantis insect this time, and he wasn’t too hard to beat. The catch was, it summoned a bunch of minions once it was at low health, so I had to kill as many of those as possible, or they would heal it.Since I had nothing, I continued to explore the rest of Blighted Blood, using the key I found to open a door stopping me from doing so before. I managed to get all the way to the next boss, but I couldn’t open the door, since I was missing the required medallion. I backtracked a bit and soon found an area I didn’t see before. I stumbled into Hugo there, having an argument with one of the opposing party’s members, the man with the claw weapons. After he left, Hugo gave me the Black Pearl, or actually, a weaker copy of it that the enemy was using.

This boss wasn’t too hard, but mostly because I was a bit overleveled.

I returned to the tower base and spoke to everyone, as usual when I’m stuck. One of the students told me of a secret area in one of the rooms in Silent Sands. I went there and found a demonic ring. Hoping it would help me get past the gate, I brought it to the small tower. However, the ring was depleted of its power, so it didn’t work. Hugo did notice how the design similar to some of the undead enemies in Silent Sands. Sure enough, killing a few of those charged the ring. Now the problem was, if I wear the ring, it would kill me outright, but that blue necklace I used to get past the trap in the early game stopped that from happening. I put the necklace and the ring on and approached the gate. The ring was destroyed completely, but the gate opened.

Yunica has a tendency to just do things, without overthinking it.

As expected, Lady Feena was there. She was trapped under a force field, but fine otherwise, so she finally filled Yunica and the rest of the party in on what was happening. The black pearl and its magic is what created the demons. While it does give plenty of advantages to everyone in Ys, this is an unavoidable side effect of using it. The goddesses were hoping they could destroy both the pearl and the demons by bringing it to the tower. This is why it’s imperative to find and help Lady Reah.

The commander ordered the sorcerers of the party to stay and find a way to remove the force field, while the knights, including Yunica, were ordered to continue the search for Lady Reah. Before that, thanks to what she did, Yunica got promoted to a full-fledged knight.

I continued exploring the Silent Sands and soon got to the boss. This one was a plant like monster and I had a really hard time defeating it. There was so much damage coming from so many sources, I just couldn’t avoid getting hit well enough. After several failed attempts, I decided to take the easy way out and do some training before fighting the boss. Gaining a total of three levels seemed to do the trick and the boss was then easy to deal with.

This was an extremely annoying and difficult battle.

The next area was called Blighted Blood and it had a high-tech/corrupted nature theme. Tanks to the extra levels, the monsters there were easy to deal with, and the traps and puzzles were more skill oriented, so they weren’t hard to get past. Eventually, I’ve found the save point and encountered Lord Dalles in the next room. The rest of the knight squad used the opportunity to try and ambush him, but nothing worked. He played with us for a bit, but finally decided he was sick of it and turned everyone but Yunica to stone. After he teleported away, I contacted the tower base via the magical shell I got at the start, and was told to get advice from the priest or Lady Feena on what to do next.

I was tired, though, so I decided to end my session here.

Silent Sands, as the new area was called, was difficult at first, but after I gained a few levels, I had no problems handling it. This time, all the different areas intersected to a great degree, so there was a lot of backtracking. This was all made simpler once I’ve found an item which allowed me to double-jump. With this in hand, I’ve found some secret items, including a new pair of boots, and encountered Lady Reah (I mistook the other twin for Reah, when in fact she was Feena, so I’ll correct that in my previous logs). She had the pearl with her and told me she needs to get to the top of the tower to do something important. She was also very obviously sad, so I’m guessing she’s hiding something big.

That tower doesn’t look sinister at all.

She also said her captured sister was kept in a smaller floating tower connected to the main structure via a bridge. I soon got to that bridge and met two of the mages from the search party, as well as another mage who I’ve been hearing a lot about up until now – Hugo Fact. I believe he’s the other playable character and is supposed to be an extremely powerful magic user. He sensed something powerful and evil in the small tower so they were all hesitant to go there without knowing what it is. Since Yunica doesn’t have such issues with magic, she decided to go first. The gate sealed behind here the moment she entered, and the sorceress from the hostile party revealed herself. I believe her name is Zava, but I can’t remember right now. If you haven’t realized it by now, I’m really bad with names.

Anyway, Zava summoned a demon to attack me. The fight wasn’t too complicated. All I needed to do was to dodge everything on the ground trying to hurt me and hit it every chance I had. Since I played a lot of World of Warcraft in the past, it wasn’t hard to move out of stuff on the ground. I guess I learned something from that game. The demon was soon destroyed and Zava was about to attack me, but then a sinister sounding voice told her to retreat. She referred to the voice as Lord Dalles (or something similar – bad with names), so I’m guessing he is their actual leader.

Surprise, surprise! Another demon!

She retreated and the rest of the party came in after me. On the floor above, there was a demonic gate with a strong enchantment, blocking the way to Lady Feena. One of the mages said the enchantment only allows demons through, so I’ll need to trick the gate into thinking I’m a demon.

My last session was long, and I wrote what I did from memory, so it wasn’t one of my best posts. This time, I’m writing along as I play, so it should be better.

I loaded the game up at the end of the fire level of the tower. The very next room was called the Devil’s Corridor and it was a tough one. As soon as I entered, I started losing health. At first, I tried to run through it, but it didn’t work. I ran back to the save point and was told by Yunica I needed to go consult someone. I returned to the bottom floor and talked to everyone.

No one seemed to offer any good advice apart from one of the students saying I should befriend some small cute furry demon creatures I’ve already met before. I thought this was just general advice, but after looking all over, I returned to the Devil’s Corridor and tried to make it to one of the adjacent rooms. One of the creatures was there so I gave him some fruit. As thanks, it taught me a melody I could play on my flute to disperse the miasma causing me damage in the Corridor.

I needed the key…

I continued exploring the next fire area and quickly found a chest I needed to open in order to get the key to the next boss. In order to do this, I needed to relight four torches located at different locations on the level. The first two were ease, but the second pair gave me trouble. I didn’t realize I could jump up to the platform above one of the rope bridges. It wasn’t very visible, but both sides of the platform had areas with the fence removed, so I could use my Whirlwind to jump up there. With the last two torches lit, the chest opened and I got the key.

The boss looked impressive and difficult, but was surprisingly easy once I figured out his pattern. All I needed to do was to run in circles, hit both of his arms until they wall off and then hit his head. On several occasions, the boss would destroy the floor, causing me to take some damage, but it was low enough that I didn’t even have to avoid it. With the monster out of the way, I went to the next area, this time with a desert theme, saved my game and completed this session.

All bark and no bite. This was one of the easier bosses.

Side note: I won’t be able to write as I play unless I use real pen and paper or play windowed. It seems the game crashes if I try to alt-tab out of it. Oh well, shorter sessions should be enough to remember most of what I did.

Thanks to a friendly and generous person from /v/, this is another game I got for free during this sale. You see, I had enough money to get the other Ys game on steam, but I couldn’t afford this one, so someone hooked me up.It’s been a while since I played a proper JRPG on the big screen, and I knew I would enjoy this one from the start. I played a lengthy session yesterday and I’m actually delaying today’s session by writing this, so I’ll try to keep it short.

Ys: Origin is a prequel, taking place several centuries before the first game of the series. For a long time, the land of Ys was prospering. People worshipped the benevolent twin goddesses Reah and Feena. With their six high priests, the goddesses showered the land with happiness. They also created a powerful artefact, the black pearl, which allowed everyone in Ys to use magic.

Ys: Origin is as JRPG as you can get.

The happiness lasted for a long time, but eventually, something horrible happened. Suddenly, out of nowhere, demons invaded Ys. The land fell almost instantly due to sheer numbers of the invading creatures. As a last resort, the remaining survivors gathered at the shrine where the artefact was kept and, using it’s magic, they rose the shrine and the surrounding area to the sky. However, it was soon obvious that this was just a brief delay, as the demons began building a tower to reach the shrine. At this time, the twin goddesses disappeared, together with the artefact. A search party was sent to the surface, in hopes of finding and rescuing them.

As the first character I’ll finish the game with, I picked Yunica. She’s the granddaughter of one of the 6 high priests and the only known person in Ys that’s unable to use magic at all. The game described her as a melee fighter using a heavy axe, so I assumed she would be tough enough for someone new to the game like me.

The graphics are a combination of 3D environments and nicely animated 2.5(?)D sprites. It looks very nice.

I woke up next to a huge talking tree. It told me it can sense the goddesses, as well as most of the search party in the area of the demon tower. Sadly, it also said Yunica’s father is probably dead, defeated in the battle during the ascension of the shrine. Yunica pretty much expected this, so she wasn’t very shocked. She decided to get to the tower as soon as possible. I got there soon and immediately encountered a priest with two students being attacked by some demons. After saving them, the priest said we should wait for everyone else to regroup, but upon my request, he sent me to do some reconnaissance around the base of the tower.

I started exploring the rooms on the first level and soon found an artefact which taught me how to use a special attack called Whirlwind. It’s a wind based attack and as close to magic as Yunica could get. With some more exploring, I’ve found a couple of strange people – a young bratty girl and a large muscular man. They turned out to be hostile and summoned a large demon to attack me. After defeating the demon, I did some more exploring and found an injured party member. He gave me his family heirloom, which allowed me to get past a trap set by the group I encountered.

Once I passed the trap, I fought another huge demon. This one was a bit harder, but I managed to beat it after a couple of tries. I explored several floors, disposed of another couple of demons, acquiring another attack skill, all the while learning more about the mysterious couple I encountered. They weren’t from Ys at all, but from some other land. The girl introduced herself as Epona at one point, right before she attacked me. I managed to beat her quite easily, but she escaped.

After exploring for a while longer, I managed to find one of the goddesses, Lady Reah Feena, but she was hesitant to go back with me. While trying to talk her into going back, the enemy party tracked us down and revealed their intentions. They want to capture the goddesses as well as the black pearl they had with them. The muscular man revealed himself as the person who killed Yunica’s father. She attacked him in a fit of rage, but the man defeated me easily and the enemy party was gone with Reah in their captivity.

The Sword goes to its rightful owner.

Luckily, Yunica was saved by the rest of the search party and brought back to the tower entrance. After regrouping, I was told by Yunica’s childhood friend he has seen her fathers sword close to there she met the goddess. I went there to take the sword, which taught me a third attack skill. While the second one was lighting based, the element of this one was fire. I used my new skill to gain access to the next floor and decided to stop my session here.