Pirate’s Island
Last time on Grandia, a very nice moment with Justin and Feena was ruined by Justin being an idiot after meeting a pretty girl in peril. It was extremely obvious the girl was luring Justin into a trap, to anyone except Justin, apparently. In any case, the location to explore now was called the Pirate’s Island.
The island part was all the way at the end though. I’m not sure what I was walking on most of my time in the area, but I’m guessing it was sand, or maybe magical sea foam or something. In any case, it was a maze of white, floaty, sandy stuff with a lot of twists, turns and dead ends.
That’s a really weird beach if you ask me.
I did my best to explore all of it before finally getting to the island in the center but there’s still a strong possibility I missed something. What I’m worried the most is that I somehow missed a mana egg somewhere. I also think I’ve spent far too much time grinding in the past, because the enemies here weren’t giving a lot of experience in any category.
Eventually, I got tired of walking in circles and got to the island at the center Apparently, the pretty girl in peril has a bunch of identical siblings, because identically looking pretty girls seemed to be the islands only population. They managed to convince Justin to get inside the cave and “beat the pirates” and then the obvious thing finally happened. The cave contained the monster behind the illusion – a giant angler fish with a lure in the shape of a pretty girl.
A trap! Who knew!?
The boss took a while to beat, since I only had two people in my party, but it wasn’t hard in any sense of the word. I have to say, though, it’s a very creative-looking boss. Enemy design is one of Grandia’s strengths.
The Virgin Forest
The island sank and I soon landed on the shore of the new continent, or a new part of the old continent, to be more precise, since the sea was described as “The Inner Sea” earlier in the game. Just as with the island, the Virgin Forest contained enemies that gave me very little experience, so I actually tried avoiding some battles. Of course, I ended up just getting ambushed because of it, so the exploration probably took longer than it should have.
New enemies and a new battle theme!
I soon met up with Guido, the talking rabbit I already met in Dight, so he used the opportunity to relieve me of some of my money by offering shelter and bed and then asking for payment after it was all done.
Again, I took some time exploring, but I didn’t find any mana eggs. At this point, I’m almost certain I missed at least one in one of the last few areas, because it’s been a couple of hours since I’ve last seen one.
Eventually, I got to the third area of the forest, where I met a new playable character and one of the final four party member – Rapp. Now, I think I already mentioned Rapp in one of these posts, but I also think I called him Ralph or something like that, so I apologize for that. I’m pretty sure I also said that Rapp doesn’t start with any magical elements, but it turns out I was wrong – he starts with the Fire skill already learned. It’s at a very low level, but this still means I need one less mana egg than I thought I would.
Rapp is involved in a sort of a “lost boys” situation.
Rapp uses daggers, swords and ranged weapons, so Sue’s Bow book will boost his strength quite a bit. He also has a lot of ranged skills, so I guess that’s supposed to be his focus in the game. Of course, I still want to teach him all the spells and other weapon skills, provided there’s enough mana eggs left in the game by now.
Anyway, Rapp leads a gang of kids and he thought Justin and Feena were bad guys so he trapped them in a pit. Soon after their encounter, though, one of his “apprentices” gets attacked by a monster, so I get the chance to prove Justin’s good intentions. Rapp invites Justin and Feena to his village and soon after takes them to the Petrified Forest, the next area.
Next up – The Tower of Doom
Apparently, a tower was built next to Rapp’s old village, by some people looking a lot like Justin (i.e. humans). Right after the tower was built, the village somehow got turned to stone, which is how the Petrified Forest came to be. The survivors built the village of Cafu and Rapp promised himself to destroy the tower sometime in the future. When Justin saw what happened to Rapp’s old village and his family, he immediately offered to help Rapp destroy the village, so this takes us to our next area.
Oh, and I finally found a mana egg at the Petrified Forest. I think Rapp will learn Earth or Wind next.
