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That is, if you omit the time you would need to get an Energy Stone from a cave of bloodthirsty monsters, not to mention the time to move that huge and heavy cannon from the lab. Really impressive! Leon: But I CAN!

The horde of demons (or was it monsters? I lost track of the correct name long ago) has been obliterated, with fireworks and all; the stupified crowd at the fort now seems relieved, if not thrilled to have gained a surefire weapon which could grant them a safe victory against the enemy. Claude and Dias, however, don't look impressed: Claude, of course, because he knows of even more dangerous stuff (probably like the Death Star or something), and Dias because... well, because he's Dias! He's too cool to show emotions.

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This isn't necessarily funny, I just thought I'd show the power of the Lacour Hope. I didn't realize we were so far away from the coastline, though.

Leon then hurriedly delivers the Energy Stone, installs it into the Lacour Hope, and the cannon is ready to fire at the incoming monsters. The attack is illustrated by a nice-looking FMV which combines hand-drawn characters with 3D landscapes and special effects. The cannon fires a light beam of some sort, which flies towards the sky and then scatters into smaller rays, hitting all monsters and generating a large explosion. It's a pity it doesn't always work that way (as you would see later on). There's also a mysterious old man who seems to cast an enchantment to the Lacour Hope before it fires, and we don't see him anymore.

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I'm sorry, I'm out of words for this one.

Leon tells Precis he got interested in her Hammer Punch machine, so he worked on one himself (sort of casual like...), and now wants to see if it's good; therefore, he hands the Thunder Punch weapon to Precis for use in battle. To this, Precis comments as you can see. If I remember correctly, there's a chance that this scene happens with Opera instead, and naturally you get a Booster Box weapon for her instead of a Hammer Punch, but I can't remember the dialogue.

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I personally found the wording of that sentence funny.

Before all the knights and soldiers in the fort give up to complete despair at the sight of the monstrous horde, here comes Leon! With an enthusiastic, boisterous and childish voice (which would have sounded funny had we an audio sample to hear it), the little scientist shouts a reassuring 'We don't need any meaningless fighting!'. Then, running towards the Lacour hope, he... stops by Claude's group and starts talking to Precis!

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Well, duh! Claude never misses an opportunity to show his smarts.

After several weeks of wait, the Energy Stone yet to be seen, a huge horde of monsters can be seen on the horizon: to my utter surprise, they weren't all flying monsters, as you could clearly see, in a fairly well-made movie cutscene afterwards, large monsters walking on the ground. How they managed to cross the ocean is beyond me (there's no way they could swim with those claws), but for Claude, Dias and the others, this is the last of their concerns.

Oh, the cannon-thing you can spot in the background is the Lacour Hope itself: quite majestic, don't you think?

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Was this supposed to be a joke? Or is rubbing one's back a way to make pain go away?

Nothing new to add today, except maybe you'd like to know that you can make your party rest by talking to the nurse in the lower-right corner: it's no inn, that's for sure, but not nearly as strange as some other inn replacements you usually find in JRPGs.

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Even though that may be a laugh of pain and despair, it doesn't fit here at all.

Some NPCs have different dialogues if you talk to them more than once: in this case, most of the patients here have two dialogues, one of which is randomly chosen every time you talk to them. Chances are the first dialogue you get from that wounded soldier there will be this.

Despite being unable to damage that powerful monster, our heroes get some praise because they retreated after that; they're counting on us to hold ground until the arrival of the Energy Stone, which appears to have been completed and only needs to be transported here and installed onto the Lacour Hope. The wounded keep growing, however, and what little hope had been restored by Claude's bravery will slowly wane as the days pass in wait of the secret weapon.

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Here's an example of your typical 'bad guy' mentality: you're clearly winning against the heroes of the story, yet you decide, for no apparent reason (skilled writers can usually put up a decent motivation), to spare them and promise to finish them off 'next time' (which is traditionally when said heroes manage to overpower you). Also, too many ellipses.

I should have mentioned in my last post that the fight I got a Game Over with was against an invincible foe. 'But then' you might say 'isn't it only normal that you would lose?' That depends on the rules of the game: in scripted battles (of which I believe I've already written about), the outcome is already decided for you, but there are variations on how this is handled. Usually scripted battles are made with the same rules of normal battles (reuse is very important in programming), but use additional rules, like:

• Making the enemy invincible
• Making the enemy too strong to be beaten by the heroes in their current state
• Surprise attack the heroes can't fight back
• Timed battle, during which the enemy can't lose, but the heroes losing doesn't cause a Game Over
• Game-controlled battle

Many of these options can however be sidestepped by experienced gamers who want to 'break' the game (it can be fun to play a game differently from what the developers intended), and the outcome of their efforts depends on how many guards were placed in the game to prevent problems. The worst case would be that, after the heroes manage to beat the 'invincible enemy', the game gets to an unpredicted state in which anything could happen, from locking up to randomly changing things. In most cases, though, the battle simply ends and the story goes on as if the heroes had lost. Rarely do games 'acknowledge' these extra efforts (purportedly or not) by making something different happen, without changing the overall outcome: as an example, Xenogears (PSX, 1998) has a scripted fight which you normally lose, but if you win, you gain extra experience and might get a rare equippable item (though the scene after that will still show you beaten).

I've talked about scripted fights up to now, but the fight I lost wasn't really scripted: it was a battle with special rules, in this case you have to survive for a couple of minutes. The problem here is that the game doesn't tell you! And since you should have fought an invincible enemy before (Dias), you might think this would be the same, and decide to let the boss kill you quickly, which would instead bring you to the Game Over Screen, puzzled for the unexpected outcome, and possibly angry at the progress lost. In JRPGs there are some battles with hidden rules, but usually there's some hint about what you should do (for instance, a character says 'He's too strong, should we give up?', and then you figure out you should flee), or what you shouldn't do (sometimes you can play the battle 'wrong', like killing an enemy you shouldn't kill, and get a bad game ending as a result). This is just bad design.

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This is the Game Over screen: since it's an old staple of videogames, every new game tries to put in something original, and for Star Ocean 2 they chose to put the 'A' upside-down. In mathematics an upside-down 'A' (sorry, can't find the Unicode character) is the universal quantifier, and it could be said it means 'any and everything'. Now please explain to me the witty pun here, cause I don't get it.

This is what happens when you're careless, but also when the story events of the game subtly switch one of your characters out of your party and then back in, and you don't pay enough attention. Remember when Rena chased after Dias? She got out of my party that way, and apparently another party member took her place in the main 4-character formation, so that once I got her back, she was put outside of the active party. Now guess what happens when a distracted player starts a 'boss fight' without knowing that the only healer character he has has been shifter out of the fighting party... I should probably explain that, no matter how many characters you have, if the four active members die in a battle, it's over for you.

Rena finally tells Claude about Dias's story: his family was exterminated by bandits! Even her little sister Cecille died before his very eyes. It certainly explains a lot about Dias's character, but this event is also the apex and last extent of his character development; except maybe if you play as Rena and try to get romance scenes with him (and that's hard, because he has hardly any Private Action). Just after that, monsters attack!

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After talking with Dias, Claude walks through the barracks and out on the balcony, and that's what he says right away...

That's it, really.

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A bit slow today, are we, Claude? Dias is already gone, by the way; who are you talking to?

Claude goes after Dias and Rena, only to find just the lonely swordsman apparently lost in tought. Although none the friendlier, Dias seems to have been affected by Rena's talk, and (for no real reason if you ask me) chooses to entrust his 'little sister' to Claude: he motivates his choice by saying that, despite his strength, he himself could not protect Rena (from what? 'Mamoru', to protect, is a pretty common word in Japanese comics and animation). Claude seems a bit hesitant at first: he knows Dias outmatches him in combat and the idea of having to fight enemies stronger than him frightens him. But in the end he finds in his heart that he can do it as long as he fights for a person he cares a lot about (or at least that's what Minato Kojo wants us to believe; I don't buy it).

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Took you long enough, Precis... She needed to hear Rena say she's Dias's 'little sister' in front of Claude and see his reaction to figure out everything, because she couldn't tell right away, like, the first time they met (well, actually the second time).

Rena thinks Claude is making Dias aware of 'something' and decides to find out what exactly; Dias considers her as a little sister for reasons we're about to learn (cue mysterious and melodramatic music), so she thinks talking with him would help out both parties. If you had chosen Rena's story, you would have watched this dialogue; I chose Claude, therefore we'll be seeing him talk with Dias instead, after Rena's done her job.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the scene depicted in the screenshot above can happen with any other party member, possibly in relation to the friendship level Claude has with him/her (or romance, I don't know). There are many little scenes you might get by having different party members at a given time or having different relationship levels at certain points in the story: it's hard to cover them all, especially this early in the game, when you can't easily manipulate relationship levels to your advantage.

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This came out of nowhere... Just as Dias leaves (after saying what you saw in the last screenshot), Claude states one of his most profound thoughts, to which nobody pays attention, luckily.

Claude, as usual, is sort of dumbfounded by these discussions about fighting and romance, but Rena quietly listens, and seems to get something out of them. The situation at the front is still calm, so I guess there's time to sort things out before it's too late to bother.

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For the record, Claude has never, ever said 'essentially I hate fighting' in the game so far (and neither will he ever do that), nor anything similar.

After jokingly alluding to the possibility that the cause of their frequent encounters may be Rena, Dias tells Claude that he goes wherever there's a battlefield; moreover, he steal Claude's words from his mouth by conceding that Claude is just investigating the Sorcery Globe, not seeking fights (yeah, Dias is cool like that), but follows up immediately by noting that the Globe is always at the centre of wars. Then he says just what you can read above: I suspect Dias meant to say something like "please don't say you hate fighting now", but what's done is done.

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Well, that actually depends on how long you, the player, have been wandering around between the Tournament and now; Dias's dialogue nicely covers both possibilities, apart from the fact that it makes him sound dumb in both cases.

So Claude and Rena meet Dias once more: since Lacour is recruiting mercenaries, it's only obvious they would hire the winner of the Tournament of Arms as well. After an official meeting with some general who is convinced we're not in a bad situation, Dias exchanges a few words (as usual) with our friends here: he speculates about the reasons they keep crossing paths, first in Mars, then at Lacour, and now at this front. Despite their talk about the matter, any experienced player already knows the real answer: he's a recruitable character (except if you're playing with Claude, thus making all this intricate plot device go to waste in this case). This, however, may be a good time to settle things down with respect to Dias's and Rena's relationship (you know, after all the time Claude and Rena have spent travelling together, they haven't found a single moment to discuss about that, would you figure?).

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Star Ocean Quiz! Wheeeeere's Claude?

For some reason, entirely unknown to me, you can get behind the curtains in this room: it might look kind of neat, but it has no real purpose, nor it is amusing. It might even make you think there's a secret behind them, which leads to disappointment when you find out there's not. It kind of reminds me of a certain place at the east end of Kalm Town in Final Fantasy VII.

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'Or else I'll lose my job!'

The situation is more desperate than I thought. Now I wonder what our heroes can do against such a huge and violent horde of monsters; sure, Claude may be the Warrior of Light, but without his Sword of Light he can't hope to overcome a whole army. Here's hoping the Lacour Hope is the real deal... You'll have to trust Leon for that, and depending on how you feel about him, your mileag may vary.

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At first I mistakenly read it as 'We'll have to start a fire', but I still don't quite get it even now: is it a way of saying that they should hurry up?

For being a military room at a battle front, it surely looks well furnished... However all the shadows look off! And what of those chairs? Are they made of plastic or something? Also, those white and green drapes hung over there look like flags to me; that could be interesting, since all flags I've seen in Lacour Castle are red, therefore they must represent something other than the kingdom. So many questions to which I can't find an answer.

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That made me almost laugh out loud!

As you can see, most of the soldiers here at the front are wimps; which makes me wonder about Expel's history and the wars that their inhabitants have fought in the past. Lacour seems a belligerant country and is quite prepared for war with their weapons, cannons and warships, but who did they fight against? Monsters? Or other Expellians? Also, how long has it been since the last war? This is an Undeveloped Planet, but its history is mysteriously intriguing. I'll say that again: if the game had provided some means to study it a bit more in-depth, I would have played it a lot longer (and trust me, finishing the game half a dozen times takes a lot of time already).

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Soldiers at the front are a sight to behold! Not to mention what they say or how they say it. This guy in particular is special in many ways, and he charges for supplies.

There's a handful of soldiers here, ready to fight anytime; the battle with the monsters is 'in a temporary lull', but there's a good number of injuried people and little mediacal assistance. Some soldiers are anxious, some are scared, and many are infuriated for the delay in building the Lacour Hope. The situation doesn't seem too good, yet they have the nerve to sell equipment instead of giving it away as needed. The soldier in the screenshot is the one you can buy weapons from; like any other shopkeeper in the game, he has a different closing comment for when our heroes don't buy anything from him, and his line is probably one of the funniest. It's a nice touch that makes the game more enjoyable, but it must have been a pain to think about all these different dialogues and probably not really worth the extra effort, since most players won't read a lot of them.

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Claude: yeah, we're totally not spies because I say so. Also, these four girls here are part of my fighting squad, alright?

This place looks pretty cool for a war front: the waterfall on the right, the ocean on the horizon, the admirable cliffs...
I'll say it right here though, I'm not going to rant on the tactical fallacies of this stronghold or its facilities in my next posts, because I'm not really qualified for that.

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It may be one of the funniest scenes in the game, but some sound effects and extra animations could have made it better, it looks so dull the second time you watch it.

...That's it! Habanero Pepper Jam! The special jam 'flavour' Precis had bought in Salva! Well now, if you remembered about that (or had developed some suspects about the 'jammed' tea anyway), when prompted with a choice you might want to take the option that makes the conversation run longer and spares Claude a very spicy drink thanks to the intervention of Precis.