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Just now the Rune Codes Claude is carrying suddenly emitted a strong glow, so Rena was startled; however, for some reason she sounds like it's Claude's fault (unless she's talking to the Rune Codes here, which would be even more stupid).

It's a non-stop journey for our heroes, and we've fast-forwarded a bit, but don't worry: here's a summary of what we've missed so far.

Finally at the top of the mountain, the group could see some ancient ruins in the distance, but while they were walking on the bridge that led there, guess what? No, the bridge didn't collapse... A gargantuan monster appeared before their eyes, blocking the path. Actually, it looked like an android heap of scrap metal with a funny voice (or at least that's how I imagined it talked); it said that our heroes had passed the test of power... so far. Of course the last part of the test was to beat said android to pieces, which they did easily, thanks to the Eternal Sphere. The way to the ruins was then freed.

Walking up to the small ruins, they could immediately see what appeared to be the Jewel of Power, but they could only get their hands on it after watching anoter vision: this time it was about Claude's adolescence, and his career in the Earth Federation under his father's shadow. 'No! I never wanted special treatment!', said Claude, but that wasn't what most people around him thought, but that we knew from the very start of the game. I can't remember what Rena saw, but there goes; Claude and Rena finally got the Jewel of Power, and everyone worked their way down the mountain (a process possibly involving avalanches, but they declined to comment on that).

Feeling strong of their success in the Field of Power, our heroes decided to press on and tackle the next one, the Field of Courage. So here they are, inside of a cave with multiple paths, and even more monsters inside.

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...But trying to echo on a snowy mountain like this one can lead to unfortunate events, like avalanches.

Don't worry, nobody's hurt (except maybe Claude, who might have been hurt in his pride), but everyone's now back at the foot of the mountain. If you were climbing up towards the Field of Power, you have made a mistake; otherwise, if you were coming back from the top after acquiring the Jewel of Power, and somehow had your way blocked by cave-ins (because of those meddling gorillas who love to play with levers), then you've probably found the only way out of the mountain. I don't know if you can get barred out of the Field of Power by many cave-ins, but I recommend reloading your last save if you let too many of them occur, since navigating the Field becomes harder.

Oh, right! The scene depicted in the above screenshot has Rena in Claude's place if you're playing the Rena version, whic means you can see her panties (you pervert! Actually, it still looks funny: remember the general quality of the sprites in this game).

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It certainly is, but... Imagine the scene: running through caves and climbing the mountain while fighting and slaying countless monsters, and then taking a break on a cliff to admire the scenery.

For some reason, Claude feels compelled to try the echo...

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
The assaulting monkey brute strikes again! And there's a lot more of them around here too.

Having gathered their strength in Giveaway, our heroes are now ready to climb the mountain on the top of which the Field of Power is located. This isn't a simple climb, however, as Claude doesn't have any suitable equipment, and the forking paths go through many caves hosting treasure, dead ends, and evil monsters. I mentioned treasure (not an unusual thing in this game) first because some treasure chests hold invaluable equipment for our friends, like the Atlas Ring (raises one's attack power exponentially, at the expense of magical resistance); there's also an elusive Marvel Sword, hidden far away from the main path, but if you already have the Eternal Sphere like me, you can ignore it.

There's something particular about this Field, other than strong monsters: in some caves you can find mysterious levers on walls and, more importantly, dangerous-looking gorillas guarding them. You have to walk by some them in order to go forward, and these gorillas aren't kind enough to ignore you passing by; once they notice Claude (or Rena, depending on who you're playing with), they'll run onto him (or her), doing... what you see in the screenshot above, and then a battle will start. There's four of those monkeys in the battle, and there's also a new rule: if any one of them gets to the right side of the field (the player's, which is where the aforementioned mysterious lever is located - weird, I thought it was behind THEM), the lever will be pulled, causing a gigantic explosion and a cave-in (and, incidentally, the end of the battle, with no experience points for us). The final result is often that either the path forward or the path back will be blocked. There's a lot of paths to get through the mountain, but all of them can be blocked this way, effectively trapping the party on the mountain. There is, however, a way out, which we will discuss in the next posts.

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Was this supposed to be a joke, or a pun? It didn't turn out too well, I'm afraid. On the other hand, we now know this is a chemistry class; which is something, considering we're on Nede yet we know so little of its culture.

There don't seem to be many students in the Giveaway University (there's 3 or 4 per room); it certainly shares the calm atmosphere of the town.It must be the music, so soft and tranquil... But I digress: Claude sees it's taking too long for him to gather more information on the Ten Wise Men and Nede, so he thinks it'd be faster if he asked some teachers about it. Most of the teaching personnel, however, seems to be too busy lecturing in almost empty rooms, to either sleepy or distracted students. There's also this researcher, professor Reyfus (Dreyfus?), who is working on 'questionable' stuff, but we can't find out much about it (either just for now, or forever, depending on my luck).

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Um, I don't mean to bother you, but using only one password for all this time isn't a good security measure; even using a password system alone isn't enough if you're trying to imprison world-destroying people. I was actually surprised it took so long for them to be freed, but then I read about Star Ocean 3...

Claude wants to have a look at the university library: there may be some more information that could not be found in North City. Unfortunately there's no database in here, so he has to spend a long time to research, and only manages to find small snippets of the history of Nede. He has to wonder, though: who released the Ten Wise Men? This is a question that won't find an answer in the game.

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I haven't the slightest idea what he's talking about. The only thing I know is that this guy habitually participates in the Cook-off contest in Fun City; as a matter of fact, if you try stealing from him, you'll get a cooking set or something.

Leon doesn't seem to like the cold too much, so he's staying inside the inn instead of playing outside in the snow. Precis instead seems to have a lot of fun in this town. Rena is walking around in the university, wishing there was one like that at home.

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How cute! A small kid listening to another kid singing (presumably, I couldn't tell for sure since it's so far). He says no one's listening to the music (there's no special music here actually, just the same as the town's), but there's hardly anyone in here right now.

Giveaway is a small town in the snow, the buildings all cramped together to hold as much heat as possible; it seems to be snowy all year here, which makes for a charming landscape, but I bet it's not easy to live in a town like this, even with all the advanced technology Nede has to offer. By the way, Giveaway is certainly the town with the least amount of technical facilities: the most advanced equipment they have is in a lab in the local university, which is weird considering the library in there doesn't even have a book database. Then there's this large music hall, which seems rather underused at the moment. Finally, our friends learn that Noel's house is in this town (that's what the on-screen label said when I entered the empty house); the owner isn't here, of course, but there would have been a nice little Private Action to watch if you had Noel in your party.

It's so very cold in here, and most of our friends have to cope with it: specifically, Celine states that the pride of her Heraldic village forbids her to wear something heavier, so she's almost freezing to death.

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Claude: Been asking myself that for a while... I've never seen mine eat anthing, perhaps they're substained by just 'magic'.

Since this is the first Field they've visited, our heroes think it's better to report to Narl: despite him having sent them blindly to a place so dangerous, they didn't seem to mind much, but surely now the mayor would have something to say about the matter... Not! Narl simply says 'Next you should go to the Field of Power' (which we can only assume is more dangerous than the first one). That's also exactly what he'll tell our group for each Field.

The Field of Power is not far from here, you can even see it from the west ocast of North City: it's located on a snowy mountain, but we can't land directly on top of it (or even see what is on the top) because of the strong currents and extremely uneven terrain. There are various paths starting from the foot of the mountain and leading to different places, so it's going to be a long walk. Ernest, being a hard-boiled explorer, decides it's best to study the situation at the town located on a nearby snowy island, and possibly get some information from the locals about the mountain. Opera wholeheartedly agrees, probably because she knows that in cold places they often have strong liquor to offer.

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So this actually isn't the Field of Intelligence, it's the Field of Knowledge.

Claude and Rena have defeated the guardian of the Field, and are about to get their hands on the Jewel of Intelligence - which is floating under a glowing cone of light - when suddenly they see a flash and momentarily pass out. While their friends seem unaffected by that light, Claude and Rena both experience a sort of vision: they're shown a part of their respective past, when they were just children. Claude saw himself when his father, Commodore Ronixis Kenni (remember him? He's probably still on the Calnus doing his job, but tormenting himself for the loss of his son inside), couldn't spend much time with him because of his job. Rena instead... I'm sorry, her flashback is only shown if you play the Rena version, and I don't really remember it.

So that's probably what all of the Fields of Nede boil down to: a 'dungeon', a final 'boss fight', and a 'vision' which serves to awaken Claude and Rena's 'inner strength' and to overcome their 'inner fears'. Sorry for all the quotes, but it was so cliché and overplayed even back then that I couldn't help it. It may also be worth noting that, after the vision is over, and our heroes collect the Jewel, they have to get back to the exit, no automatic teleport or anything; and while this is hardly an annoyance for the Field of Intelligence, it can be a bothersomely long trip for the other ones.

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Claude: Let's celebrate our victory with an acrobatic pose! Ready, precis?
Precis: Yeah!

Of course the jumping problem mentioned in the previous post applies to charachers as well: in this case however I doubt it could be exploited, because the character on top always falls down when attacking (attack range is very strict).

Claude's ordinary jumping attack is quite a clumsy one, having a slow start and a low chance of hitting the enemy because of how he swings his sword; this makes me try to avoid this attack whenever possible (for example, during raided attacks enemies fall from above, therefore I have to delay Claude's attack or else he'll jump at them, usually missing). Claude's got another jumping attack that's both faster and more effective, but he can only perform it at long range, which means you have to get away from the enemy to use it, so you're better off using Killer Moves. Precis has a very handy projectile attack against enemies in the air (like Opera's, only slower), but she prefers using a robo-uppercut instead, which is only slightly better than Claude's attack.

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Attacking an enemy that's higher up will make Claude (and most of the other characters) jump-attack automatically. In some cases your character may miss the target and land on top of it, as you can see in the screenshot above. Standing on this particular enemy gives you a huge advantage, because you can keep hitting it from there while it can't counter.

Activating all the spheres in the Field of Intelligence unlocks a teleporter to the final room, where the Jewel of Intelligence is hidden: this is a symbol of power, and acquiring it means obtaining some of the power of the Nedians. This means there are also additional protection measures for it, case in point that weird-looking mechanical arm, which seems to operate automatically and is equipped with some nasty weapons. Once in a while it will fire a huge ray of... something, which really hurts: since it can reach the other end of the battlefield, you might want to move your rear characters away from the centre (the mechanical arm can't move from that line, so don't stand in front of it when you're not attacking it). To make matters more complicated, there are three stationary spherical 'things' assisting the arm, one of which absorbs Star elemental damage (like the sparks the Eternal Sphere shoots).

This final guardian isn't all that though (it's the Field of Intelligence after all), but in any case the final room is very close to the entrance, so you can easily get out to recover and save your game before the battle.

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These enemies look like gamepads! If one of them gets too close to one of your characters, it will 'jack into' him/her and take control for a while, draining some energy in the meantime. The shape of these gamepads isn't familiar to me: it certainly doesn't resemble any of the standard gamepads used by consoles (except maybe the N64, with its three-pronged controller, but that's a bit of a stretch).

The Field of Intelligence is a solitary building on an island; it's shaped like a truncated pyramid, and inside there's one small room with three mirrors. These mirrors (not real mirrors, since they don't reflect our heroes) are actually teleportation devices leading to the 'real' Field of Intelligence, a sort of simple maze with one-way teleport platforms and weird spherical devices that start spinning once touched. There are also some weird looking enemies around here.

Claude isn't one to be scared by simple puzzles like this one, and takes the shortest path through the maze that allows them to 'activate' all of the six spherical devices in the fields (and take all the treasure along the way as well), which will hopefully trigger something other than a trap.

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Look! They've cleaned up the place, put a barrier on the broken bridge, and now there's a ladder to get to the inputting room! Neat, huh?

Before departing for the Field of Intelligence, our heroes decide to pay a visit to Artis and check the state the Home is in: they still feel somehow guilty about the incident with the Synard, but everything seems to be fine.

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But that only happens when the great responsibilities coming from those powers are left unattended, right?

The task our heroes are to complete is not an easy one: we've already had a small taste of what the Ten Wise Men are capable of, by fighting Berle and by witnessing the influence they have over wild beasts on Nede. Getting powerful enough to face all ten of them must be tough. It's weird, though: how can the Nedians trust our group of randomly assorted heroes so quickly? Providing them with their own sources of power might also make them the next biggest threat to the planet. I guess Narl can tell that Claude's intentions are good.

On a side note, during this playthrough I must have tripped on a bug of sorts: after getting the Synard and talking to Narl once again, I checked the news office to see if that stalker-reporter was there, and eventually return the job ID card she dropped to her. To my disappointment, and unlike every other time I've played Star Ocean 2 (i.e. a dozen other times at least), the hot-blooded girl wasn't there. I've tried checking numerous times later, with no success. I've also searched about the matter, and found that I was not the only one to have experienced this, but also that there was no consensus about the cause: one would suggest that talking with Narl right after getting the Synard would make me miss the 'quest', another would say that, since in the Synard cave I already had 8 party members (the maximum number), even if just temporarily, the game thought the group was already full and dropped the next encounter with her (yes, she's recruitable). If it's the latter, then it's all Ernest's fault!

I'll still check the office every time I can, but if that girl doesn't show up, I can say goodbye to my harem dream work of insight on the history of Nede.

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I guess they had to fit all that text into the dialog box, so they decided to skip a couple of spaces. Also, maybe it's just me, but doesn't Narl always sound a bit soulless? Be it his face (are those eyebrows, or his eye cavities?), his manners, or his way of speaking, he gives me the creeps.

Finally our heroes have obtained some means of transportation around Nede: the Synard might be an unusual flying vehicle, but apparently you needn't worry about falling off, nor about fuel (what do Synards eat?). They would gladly take this opportunity to go sightseeing around the planet, but no, they're heroes first and foremost, and since they wasted so much time on their quest, they've decided to fly back straight to Central City. There, Narl is ready to brief them with the next step of their mission.

What do we do now? Gather new weapons? Learn powerful spells? Train in battle? No, of course not! What our heroes really need is to master the power of Nede. What does it entail, you ask? Naturally, Claude and Rena must overcome their innermost fears and doubts, becoming stronger both in body and mind (sorry to spoil it for you, but this way I'm saying it once and for all). In order to accomplish that, they need to conquer the four 'Fields' that withold Nede's secrets: the Fields of Intelligence, of Power, of Courage, and of Love. Narl provides the group with 'Rune Codes' (don't ask me what exactly they are, they appear to glow or shimmer when used), needed to unlock the otherwise securely locked Fields.

That sounds almost as ridiculous as the Synard, but at least this time Narl omitted the 'overcome one's fears' part of his explanation, so our friends fell for it again.

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That's the Synard seen on the outside, in all its polygonal glory. Now it almost looks like a spaceship, doesn't it?

Having saved the Synard from those monsters and healed her (and spared it more pointless harm by Claude's sword - better be thankful about that) sure helped showing our heroes' superior heart: now the flying beast is ready to offer herself as a mount (pardon the odd wording, but it's technical speech, you might not understant...). What becomes of her cubs is anyone's guess, but I suppose that's not our problem now; since we don't want Noel in our party (he offered his help as well), we'll leave him here to take care of the little newborn creatures and the rest of the animals - it's his job after all. Don't ask yourself what happens if you accept Noel into the party though, you might want to get to the end of the game before.

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That's a very helpful explanation, Rena, thank you. You know what? She's been acting like this since the group landed on Energy Nede: always with such a mystical air in her behaviour and speech, so determined and self-confident... So uninteresting, compared to her former self on Expel. Rena almost turns into a tool, an icon, a deus-ex-machina for this part of the game; she still has her moments, but she's not that down-to-earth yet dreamy girl Claude met at the beginning. You might say 'character development', but I'd argue there's hardly any development, more like an instant transformation from one disc to another.

Claude puts down his sword and Rena kindly offers her healing powers to the wounded Synard, along with some conforting words for her bravery. Our heroes are about to give up on their quest and get back to Narl to ask for more sensible alternatives, but Noel notices that the beast, now fully healed, is 'trying to say something' (I assume she's emitting some kind of cry, but we can't hear it). Unexpectedly, Rena steps forth and claims to understand she's offering them her help. Whatever, if this gets us a flying vehicle, I'm willing to believe her.

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This is ridiculous: Claude now acts as if his friends are depending on him to tame the Synard, while they've been telling him 'you can't fight it, it's HURT!' instead.


See? He's trying to play the part of the kind hero. His friends don't even say a word about this sudden change in attitude.

Its last strength fading, the Synard heavily falls to the ground, revealing what it was trying to protect all the time: its cubs! ...Ok, those two 'things' near it, it's not easy to make out what exactly they are, but they do share the same colours with the mother.

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Well, I must confess that this whole Synard segment confused me in many ways: everyone looks like they're overacting their part, and the ones in the wrong are so obviously pointed out that i can't even figure out whether they're joking or not. Here Claude is asking himself if he should fight the Synard to demonstrate his superiority, but it's already wounded, so it wouldn't really count: but he's still in doubt about it, and Rena even goes all caps about it being hurt and everyone is like 'you can't' and 'you mustn't', not even bothering to mention why.

Taking the long way around, our heroes finally reach the Synard, but they're late, for a couple of arachnid-monsters have appeared, and are fighting against the poor beast; luckily these monsters turn onto Claude and the others as soon as they arrive, leaving the Synard still alive. It's battle time! Don't worry, these two certainly aren't a match, compared to the Synard we fought in the House (especially since they're on the ground, where the full power of the Eternal Sphere can be unleashed); however, they can teleport around on the battlefield, so keep an eye on your spellcasters.

Now that the monsters have been beaten, the Synard is safe, but it's wounded. Claude apparently perceives some hostility from the beast though, so he wonders if he should still try to tame it by force; the teary eyes and preaching voices of his companions can't convince him to let off guard, but then something happens...

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Here's the wild Synard; it seems to be doing fine, should we drop down and get to it? Naw, let's follow the long, interminable, roundabout path, there's treasure there.

This cave is huge and really beautiful in its colourful arrangements of crystals, but let's not get distracted: our objective is close by, and monsters are still around. Some of the crystals also get in the way though, like the huge pink one that always stands in the middle of the battleground, making my favourite battle formation, Astral Shift, ineffective.