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Is it just me, or does this sound a bit too ridiculous to be funny? Although now I get why this girl gets so much attention in town: it's neither because of her machine-geekyness nor for her temperament, but because of this house here. Yeah, the only existing Japanese old-style house on Expel.

So Precis gets Claude to her home to make him see the rest of her stuff, but not before asking him two very important questions: his age (if you recall, he's 19), and whether the blue-haired girl with him is his girlfriend (I guess the blue hair hate has spread throughout all the planet, it's not just me). Once she's made sure Claude is 'approachable' and 'available', Precis walks him into her home, only to find her father chatting with Rena inside.

After a rather unremarkable scene of misunderstandings and general embarassment (even that of the player), everyone joins at the table to talk about machines. Oh, about that, I don't really understand this fascination about geeky girls with robotic equipment like Precis, but I know that, about a year after Star Ocean 2 was released, another game sporting a girl much like her came out in Japan: I'm talking about the character of Area in 'Street Fighter Ex2 plus Alpha' (arcade and Playstation, 1999), who wears similar clothes and carries some robot arm to attack (but she uses rollerskates).

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Precis is a pretty straighforward girl, or at least you may think so at first. She is quick enough to clarify her much peculiarly worded sentence, but I bet in her mind she's still walking that road.

Claude's plans have definitely changed, and the interest over the robot prevails; I guess they'll have to go to the Sanctuary of Linga after all. Meanwhile he has to endure some unusual, I'd say undesired, company for just a little while; or so he hopes, for I have specific plans regarding Precis, and I'm less than likely to be stopped in putting them to action, unlike Claude.

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Like Precis, I still don't get that radio-controlled business; I always thought a car was a transportation device with wheels, and Bobot has none. Please let me know whether radio-controlled cars with feet exist. Not to mention that we can't be sure Bobot is radio controlled, it could be an automaton, or it could work with higher frequency waves; and does Claude have a built-in radio receiver in his head? I thought so.

Claude is desperately trying to achieve at least one of two objectives: either find out more about that Bobot, like who built it and how, or get Precis out of his way so that he can continue on with his original plan of kidnapping Bowman's wife. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.

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Apparently this girl was more than a little concerned about the name she's given to her robot; however I don't really know in what way a name like 'Bobot' could be considered a BAD name. Maybe it's just my ignorance in the matter.

Before going to the Sanctuary of Linga, our adventurers split up: while the girls are looking around town, some in search of an easier-to-come-by linguist, some looking to buy additional Skills, Claude proves once again to be the true leader of the group, thanks to his wonderful plan. He'll go to Bowman's alone and lure him out with the excuse that some other person is in trouble: while he's busy with attending his favorite hobby, Claude will kidnap her wife Nineh and blackmail him as needed.

However, despite his cunning plan, Claude hadn't considered a somewhat unpredictable situation: right in front of Bowman's house is the girl they saw when entering the town, with her radio-controlled car, robot or whatever beside her. Since he would have looked suspicious this way, Claude gives up his plan and resumes his interst in that little blue machine.

Meet Precis F. Neumann (I think the F. stands for 'Von') and her favorite toy, Bobot! At first Precis thinks Claude is trying to pick her up, but after the disappointing revelation that he's more interested in Bobot she becomes even more intrigued with him. More as it develops.

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Are you kidding me!? Do you realize that the monsters in the Sanctuary of Linga, which is precisely where you want us to go, is home to ferocious monsters numerous levels beyond those found in Cross cave? If we were to get in there with the same experience levels and equipment we had back then in Cross, we'd surely be slaughtered on our first random battle! This is why I don't want Bowman as a party member (well, not really, there are other reasons).

Claude seems to have found a linguist who could decipher the ancient writings found in Cross Cave, but his assistant kicks him out because the professor is busy, and since there won't be an opportunity too meet with him in less than one month, Rena cleverly suggests we should ask someone he knows to get in touch with him sooner. Well, the guy in the screenshot is our man: Bowman Jean (despite the name, he carries no bow, nor does he bow at anyone, given his character), a University reject... er, dropout who owns a pharmacy; he's very altruist and helps people in trouble (but not our heroes of course, he thinks they're deceiving him), is very active and knows martial arts, and always carries with him an endless supply of poisonous pills (please don't ask me why).

Long story short, Bowman (I'm pretty persuaded his first name has been switched with his surname) could trust the adventurers if they proved themselves by exploring the Sanctuary of Linga, a natural cavern with monsters included, and coming back with rare herbs, possibly of a kind never seen before. He must have been smoking those herbs, because:

• How can there be herbs in a cavern? Where do they get enough light to live? You know, photosynthesis and all...
• I realize the place isn't as 'labyrinthic' as Cross Cave, but it's way larger and teeming with powerful monsters; this guy wants us dead, plain and simple

But then again, we ARE on a planet where people cast magic spells, the day-night cycle is plot-driven, and giant bouncy bunnies happily hop around plains, green hills and mountains.

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I don't know what to make of him, this sentence sounds so empty... I know! It's a code! Hmm, let's see... If we only take the capital letters from his text box, we have 'SIUL', which might be 'LUIS' backwards... But wait! The letters might refer to their respective positions in the alphabet, which would give us the sequence '19-9-21-10'; now, if we take the letters corresponding to those positions in the text box, we have... 'scuo'... Nah, something's wrong. Ok, let's try backwards... 'htsi'... That rings a bell, maybe it's an anagram... You know what, let's stop here, alright?

Linga really is full of eccentric people: as one of the townspeople tells Claude, there's a man and his daughter who always tinker with strange machines, and there's a pharmacist who's always trying to help with other people's problems... Really weird, I tell you! The group even happened to have a taste of them on their arrival: there was this running around chasing after what Claude and Opera recognize as a radio-controlled car (but it looked like a small, round two-legged robot to me).

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What exactly is that? What kind of place would ground coloured like that suggest? Desert sand? Marshes? I honestly can't tell. Even when I enter a battle while on that ground, the landscape doesn't tell me anything. I don't think anyone in nearby towns tells you anything about it either.

Onwards to Linga! As strong as our group of adventurers is right now, they could afford not to stop by Lacour Castle and keep going (also, Claude had bad memories of his stay there). Even after all this time our heroes had spent journeying around, it seems that the king is still busy, so it would be pointless to visit.

In terms of sights, Lacour is pretty boring when compared to Cross (and I didn't even go to a certain mountain zone in Cross either; it's a short trip, but it's beautiful), so we won't make side-trips. Here's the information we've gathered so far on our next stop, the town of Linga: apparently it's host of the only University on Expel, and it's also home to some of the most eccentric people around, including that little girl Claude had saved from Zand's minions. I wonder if it's also Leon's hometown...

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I wouldn't be so sure about the uselessness of this item; just look at its shape... Ok, sorry! This joke was in bad taste. The funny part is that only now I realize that this decoration has something engraved on its tip (supposedly a pair of round eyes): I swear, because of the filtering and watching the game on TV I couldn't make out this detail, while playing it on an emulator finally revealed the funny figure to me.

Some of our heroes were evidently bored of this roundabout journey, so they thought about ways to pass the time: as you can see, Rena entertained herself by practicing sculpture of small wooden idols, probably reminiscing of ancient gods related to her cloudy past. Celine helped her along by identifying the undescribable products of the blue-haired girl's art. Opera could only think of her love, Ernest, which was the only thing she couldn't get off of her head beside her precision goggles. Claude simply enjoyed the exploration of this unknown planet, and the company of three beautiful, yet somewhat weird, girls. You should be thankful, Claude, that the inhabitants of the planet you were beamed to were human.

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I wouldn't call that... thing... a 'cute little rabbit', at least not 'little'. And apparently this sentiment is somehow shared by our heroes, since they all call him Barney or something, rather than a bunny.

This is a Super Specialty skill that combines the party's abilities to do wondrous things, like blacksmithing, playing in an orchestra, or summoning a bunny from anywhere on the world map. What.

Each Super Specialty skill is obtained when you reach a certain level for a couple of specialties: in the case of 'Come on Bunny', it requires Level 4 Familiar for at least two characters and Scout for at least one. Using the skill doesn't cost anything (except having to hear random characters in your party call the bunny), and when you succeed the bunny replaces your main character on the map: at this point, much like with a Mountain Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII (Playstation, 1997), you can roam the land while avoiding random enemy encounters and obstacles such as mountain ranges. This is a convenient means of transportation, but has serious limitations:

• you'll need to waste some Skill Points on skills you may not need
• you can't cross rivers or the sea
• by the time you learn the command, you won't need it anymore, because cities aren't that far away from each other, and on the second planet you'll obtain a better alternative very soon

The only reason you could have for learning this skill is to hear more character voices (there is a voice collection screen in the initial menu).

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That's not the way to talk to a child, Claude. Granted, the little girl does sound extremely paranoid, but I wouldn't blame her if a guy like Claude were near her... Ok, I'm being a tad too hard on him, and she sure is annoying, mistaking the Warrior for a bad guy, but I think the joke is played too long to be enjoyable (she's around for three whole Private Actions!).

Our heroes are about to leave the continent of Cross: their ship will take a while to set sail, and everyone is walking around while they wait. Claude has nothing better to do but wander inside a dockyard, and is surprised to find someone inside: it's the little annoying girl he met a while back in Lacour! She apparently ran away from her home in Linga, but was terrorized by stories about the dangers of the big city of Lacour, so much that when Claude approached her, she threw a scream and pointed at him as if he were the most dangerous and horrible man to ever walk the earth.

After this little misadventure, Claude had left the little girl alone, even though she could in fact be in danger, alone and away from home; after all, she herself wouldn't want him near her, and he had other things to worry about (namely, mentally recovering from his defeat at the Tournament of Arms). But then here she is, even farther from home, hiding away from 'agents of evil' - she says - and acting desperate as Claude doesn't seem to believe a word she says. Unfortunately for both of them, hard facts come up to prove her right, at least this time: Zand's minions come in and attack Claude, who was ready to defend that little ungrateful girl (I'm not sure I mentioned it before, but Zand is a very 'influential' man here in Herlie).

Depending on how the fight goes (you can't get a game over), you get a different scene; if you lose, the girl gets kidnapped and you'll never see her again, while Claude walks away wounded and frustrated that he couldn't save her. Of course, being the courageous hero that I am, I couldn't settle for a loss (those bandits in green are pretty hard to fight alone), that's why I pre-emptively made a 'Paralysis check' accessory, to avoid their paralyzing knives (if you get paralyzed in a solo fight, you lose automatically). Still, it took me several Blueberries and other healing items to defeat them, but that's because I had pretty outdated equipment. Anyway, to make things short, the girl doesn't even thank Claude for saving her: she even believes he was in cahoots with the bandits to get her to trust him. Claude gives up, joins the others without saying a word about the incident, and they sail together towards Lacour.

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The 'Shingo' Forest... Doesn't the name sound strange to you? Shingo is actually a Japanese term whose meaning is, more or less, 'holy protection' (or so I've read). This translation error was fixed in the PSP remake (it's called Sacred Forest), but I admit Shingo is a somewhat obscure term, and translators might have had trouble getting it right the first time.

All the way back to Arlia, and to the very beginning of out adventure: the forest where Claude was beamed to, and the place where Rena was found by Westa when she was little. We now come to know that this is an important place for Opera as well: this is where her spaceship had crash-landed. This must be a place of destiny.

Opera reveals her ship to her companions (who don't question the thing much, except for a single remark by Celine; I swear, those Expellians get surprised only by the most unexpected things!), and confesses she had hoped it would still be functional, which isn't the case; that's the reason we side-tripped back here. Inside his mind, Claude is losing all hope of getting back; that Ernest guy should have a spaceship as well, but hearing about it from Opera, he wouldn't be surprised if he had crash-landed as well.
Claude:Oh well, might as well settle down here and save this planet from the Sorcery Globe, in order to be recognized as the Warrior of Light and gain back the interest of Rena... No, that seems too complicated, I'll try to hit on Celine instead, she seemed impressed by my bravery... On second though, I guess I'll try with Opera if she doesn't find Ernest: she may have three eyes, but I bet they'll be all blurry once I get her drunk! Oh, what am I worrying about? Once my Phase Gun recharges (it's taking forever though...), I'll be the Warrior of Light again and I'll have all the girls I want!

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And I hope you fall down along with it, old man. No, seriously, there are so many things wrong with this sentence that I don't know where to start. Ok, list time:

• Why another earthquake? Here in Salva there has been none, that was in Clik, and if the people in Cross didn't feel it, I doubt Salva, which is further away from Clik, would get any shock
• Why do you care if that sign falls down? It would be a simple matter to get it back up, unlike with the houses around, you know; getting YOU back up after it's come down over you is another matter, but if it happens you certainly won't care anymore
• A wooden sign, however big, is the least likely to be affected by a quake: look at this old geezer caring about that while there's a mine that could cave-in and bury all the workers (and monsters) inside
• There isn't even anything written onto that sign! I've checked! How is it even a sign if it's blank!?
  

Opera said she wanted to check back on something around here, so our heroes are back in Salva; while Rena and Celine stock up on iron ore (we'll need it to work it into an anti-paralysis charm) and jam, Claude is still thinking about how to trick Opera into getting him away. She seems loose-lipped enough, but evidently her perseverance in finding Ernest is keeping her back. Claude had hoped to use alcohol to his advantage, but unfortunately they're holding a frat party at the tavern (in which almost nobody is participating) for refugees from Clik, so the whole place is booked up.

You know what, playing this part now makes me think about the recent earhtquake in Italy: anyone I know from those parts is safe, but still a lot of people have died. Seeing the people of Clik scattered around Cross in the game is terribly analogous to the people from L'Aquila I've seen in other nearby places with my own eyes. It kind of made me feel uneasy, almost moved.

What a frightening coincidence that I played this game at around the same time as the real quake had taken place.

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I guess it's plural because she has three eyes... But that's not it, I think that guard was there when Opera supposedly came, or maybe it's another guard: they all look the same. However, it just so happens that the three-eyed woman is right here with Claude! How can he not see her? Besides, the Warrior's also right in front of him, don't you think?

Before getting back on track, the party takes a last-time trip around the continent of Cross; that's right, we won't get back here again, so enjoy the ride! This is just my decision though, because you can revisit Cross as much as you want until a certain part of the story, which is near the end of the first game disc, after which you can only get back to it through a neat trick at the end of the game. Note that I will use that trick, but only to revisit Lacour for a certain scene. So mysterious...

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Claude: "Ah, the sunset on lake Col, how fascinating! Looking at it, I can feel a lot of emotions flowing through me: excitement for this adventurous journey, calmness and carelessness for being far away by my former life as an Ensign on Calnus, under my father's shadow. But other feelings, less desirable, cross my heart: the red sky reminds me of the bloodshed of both friends and enemies, both in struggles and calamities; and the melancholy lake embraced by the warm earth fills me with nostalgia and makes me homesick. Oh, I wonder how my mum's doing right now...".

No, no, wait! This isn't right! And for two good reasons: one is that, like when we approached Cross for the first time, the sun (or rather some other star) suddenly came down just like that; the other is that Claude is nowhere near as deep as I tried to make him sound (and that means he's extremely shallow). However the setting here is really beautiful, despite its blocky, polygonally crude appearance; it's not like there are special effects in place or anything, just a moment of reprieve in our adventure which happens to match the background perfectly.

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While playing this part of the game I couldn't help but notice how often Rena mentions Ernest: it's almost like she cares more about him than Opera, his lover, does. Either Rena's fascinated by the adventurous behaviour of this Ernest guy, or she's simply being down-to-earth (or, rather, down-to-Expel, haha...), while Opera's just being an air-head... Well, she IS a bit air-headed after all, you can tell right away the first time you meet her; but this doesn't really go well with her perseverance in chasing after Ernest, even across planets. Hmm...

We got pretty far into this cavern... er, ruins site or whatever. I can't help but wonder why the designers of this game couldn't elaborate a bit more on this strange place: I mean, it's fine if you want to leave it to our imagination, but here, what's to imagine? Actually, knowing a bit about the story of Star Ocean 3 (I haven't played it though), I think I've lost interest in those details, but you can't just overlook such finely created backgrounds, can you?

Ernest Raviede, the interplanetary adventurer with a whip but without a hat, seems to have already left, so Opera promptly agrees to join the group when asked (I was actually surprised at her instantaneous resolution), in hopes of finding her love during their travels. I'll briefly describe Ernest here because I won't recruit him: he's blonde and has three eyes like Opera, he's a Tetragene, and wears something that resembles either a kimono or pajamas; his fighting techniques and equipment suck, and he has very few Private Actions, none of which are great. End of story.

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I could have taken a better screenshot, but here you can see Opera's third eye clearly enough; you can also notice a pair of red goggles she's wearing, probably an infrared visor for aiming with her plasma cannon. The way she wears them, however, makes them look like bunny ears; and the fact that only two lenses are present is weird, won't she need a third one for her additional eye?

A close in of Opera after a victorious battle: every time you win a fight, the character who gives the last strike and another one (I don't know the criteria, maybe it's randomly picked) say their victory line. Depending on how the battle went and on how strong your enemies were, suitable quotes are chosen. The 'results' window also appears, with the number of experience points and Fol gained: Fol is the famous intergalactic currency I mentioned several posts ago, it's used on Expel, as well as Roak and other planets, so you don't need to worry about exchange rates when space-travelling.

You can also see some numbers in green: those are recovered HPs and MPs in battle. The Stamina attribute of your characters establishes how much you can recover at the end of a fight, although the longer the fight, the less you'll recover. It's a good idea to raise the Stamina statistic early in the game, by raising your Danger Sense skill level, so you won't have to heal very often and you'll regain MPs for your killer moves and spells during easy fights.

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I swear that casting Heal has worked every single time for me; what's the deal with this 'certain probability'?

This is the Specialty screen for Rena when she still hasn't learned anything but magic spells; once a character learns a field skill, a list of all the skills will appear instead, alongside 'Spells/Killer Moves/Heraldry'. It should be noted that Rena's spells fall under 'Magic' (like another certain character you meet on the second planet), while Celine and other spell-casters have 'Heraldry': you'll learn the reason for this towards the end of this Disc.

The spell screen lists all the spells a character has learned so far, with a brief description of its effects, MP consumption per casting and the character's degree of proficiency with the spell: the latter, which applies to Killer Moves as well, is simply the number of times the spell has been cast, and usually a higher proficiency means a more powerful spell. Over a certain proficiency number, the spell animation changes a bit, generally becoming more spectacular.

You may have noticed that the spells are scattered around: more often than not, JRPGs place spell names in fixed slots, and this game is no exception. You may also have noticed the circles and crosses next to each spell name: a circle indicates a spells which can be used outside of battle (practically all healing spells). One cool feature that you cannot notice by looking at this screen is the possibility to 'disable' spells, that is, in battle an AI-controlled character won't be able to cast spells that you've disabled; this is a very useful feature, especially considering that the AI in the game is quite dumb with regard to spell choice (and actually quite complex with regard to targeting, more on this in later posts).

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Well, the more you know... I was surprised by the amount of information you can have regardings the items you find. And if you consider the huge amount of items you can find (and create), you'll realize how painful it must have been for the translators to write all that.

This is the inventory screen, where you can view all your items (remember, you have a common inventory every character can get items from), sorting them and using them (only those with the circle); the 'E' indicates equippable items, while the green ones are newly acquired/created. To the upper right is a 3D rendition of the currently selected item. By pressing Triangle you can access a menu with some options, among with Item Creation and Super Specialty commands: the latter is a group of special 'Item Creation' abilities which rely on the whole party's abilities.