Big deal

The Tower of Ordeals is the location for Chapter 23, a five-level section of the castle, with stone statues that come to life when the sections are entered. As the entire island is sailing over the ocean and won't reach its destination until I distract myself, I figure I'll accept the challenge.

This section is notable because it has fun, new music at the start of every Ordeal, and a symbol splashed on the screen to represent the various disciplines: defence, strength, intelligence, humanity and bravery. They might all say completely different things, or nothing at all, but I'm convinced they are what they say they are.

After each challenge a new piece of kit is given over: swords, shields, speed, that sort of thing. They'll all come in very handy in later battles.

The final challenge is to fight the General himself, and he is difficult (although as I learned near the end of the game, his second in command is even tougher).

After eventually succeeding and learning the new art of how to counter attacks, I head for the exit - only to be confronted by Calista's fiance. He seems really friendly and that immediately got me on edge - and he does two really nasty things: he poisons me via a handshake (final episode of 24 season 2, anyone?) and unleashes a stone Ogre on me. I have just 30 seconds to defeat it before I am overcome with a fatal case of Game Over.

Since I made it to the next chapter, I guess I did what was necessary - eventually. So many retries, but not the most - which I'll explain later.

It's like being inside a Rubik's Cube.

Chapter 22 is eventful. Lots to do - get up, swear allegiance to the Earl, make sure the public knows we're the saviours of radio one the entire kingdom, have an all-night party, visit the castle, discover the entire island can move by itself, discover secret passages, go to prison as a visitor, find the locking mechanism that keeps the island from moving.

It's the latter part that is the most fun.

Being told about the secret staircase means I can travel deeper than the prison and find a mysterious portal that leads to some kind of other dimension - which in actuality is about half a mile to the left of the castle.

Once inside, there is a Rubik's Cube-like structure with doors and stairs high above us and along the walls, but only by standing on a central platform can the entire structure turn and become accessible.

How my eyes deceived me when the room started turning - like one of those standing cinema experiences. I felt I was falling - but it didn't work for me the next three times I tried it.

Every time a new door becomes accessible, I needed to go through it and attack a shadowy creature that would become solid when I used the gathering. There were servants that were there to make sure I couldn't reach him, and each had different abilities - archers, poisoning the floor, attacking with swords, that sort of thing.

Eventually I reach a summoning floor and decide to level up Mirania - make her catch up the ten levels she missed by not being included in our big battles - and from now on she'll be uncatchable, levelling up before anyone else.

Finally I reach a strange possessing snake, taking control of my party and forcing me to fight them at the same time as the snake - but I can't seem to damage the snake. After a good ten minutes of not-sure-what's-going-on fighting, he withers and dies, leaving me with a hexagonal stone to stand on. Activating the gathering makes the floor power up and the island - the castle and the town - sets sail for a collision with the Gurak on the other side of the ocean.

Quick pint at the Shadow and Sixpence

Off to the pub for chapter 21. I was led to this particular pub has a shadowy figure wearing a hoodie, and he has a menacingly gravelly voice to complete the outfit.

When I confront him at the bar, asking him to turn around and take us to a missing girl, the entire population of the pub descend on us. Making short work of them, we head upstairs. We find a whole complex of well-defended rooms and enemy mages and crossbow operators all designed to slow us down.

Working our way up to a Locked and Sealed room, I commence a rather daring crawl along the outside of the building and through the window. Frenetic battle ensues and I have to focus on attack, defence and opening the door to let my companions in.

With all that cleared up the only thing I have to do is leave the building with the freed child.

Unfortunately, a giant shadowy figure takes up the generous floor area of the bar's lounge. It can't be harmed, it causes confusion and takes over the minds of my party. 

After a gruelling fight I stumble on a lighted coal stand and knocking it over causes the big bad to turn vulnerable. Now I've mastered this trick, every time he turns shadowy I light him up. Then, with his hissing, fizzing form disappearing back to the basement, we leave the bar and return the daughter to her father. Rescuers II, monsters 0.

Luigi's Mansion

Chapter 20 is a wonderful haunted mansion - much like my favourite Luigi's Mansion game. Dropping chandeliers, locking doors, dogs jumping into the mansion grounds - they're all here. All my team get dragged off, one at a time, into dark metallic mirrors by skeletons and there's nothing I can do to rescue them.

In my lonely explorations I discover ghosts of people who once lived in the house. Some are angry, some sad. One small, ghostly boy never seems to notice I'm there, but I think he does secretly.

I eventually stumble on an outdoor area with stone coffins. Opening the coffins causes explosions to go off in my face. After lots of wrong guesses, I find my party very much alive and we go to find a key to open an area with a big bad in it.

The big bad is a vampire, who can be powered-down by firing silver arrows, left for me in handy bundles by the small ghostly boy. Once he turns dark and powerless, we can perform a combo and cause him to melt away (although he'll be back beneath the castle later - and back in the mansion as soon as we leave)

We discover the weapons expert's wife is the valuable item he has lost, and we recover her. Quite how she puts up with the weapons expert cum explorer of catacombs, we'll never know. 

Now famed for our rescuing ability, we head off to do more rescuing. We could be called The Rescuers, except we're not mice.

Prison Break

Having scraped and scraped with the plastic spoon we reach a massive system of tombs under the castle (which isn't the last of the surprising things we discover reside under the castle) and plenty of monsters live there.


Apparently, almost everything I look at explodes in my face - something that occurs with greater regularity in the next chapter. Taking with us an expert in weapons upgrades and exploring unusual shapes in the rocks, we being to get lost through chapter 19 in a series of mini treasure rooms and massive halls.


Battling a giant spider, some regenerating skeletons, and a recurring necromancer menace, the prison break leads us to an ice-covered door. Fortunately, there's a sunstone we can use to open the passage. Unfortunately, it opens to a room with a sheer cliff-face of ice, and we have no way of getting out.


Reluctantly, we shuffle off to the gaol again. Fortunately, Count Arganon himself has interceded in my trial and I am set free. Calista's fiance is humiliated in court and exposed as a liar.


After a meeting with Count Arganon, I discover I will be offered the chance to swear allegiance, become a knight and be offered Calista's hand in marriage. Now, that's quite a turn around. Everything is less muddy and more optimistic.


The weapons expert has told us that he's lost something valuable in a mansion - and we speed over there with our new-found confidence to bust some ghosts.

Bars (Iron) Brouhaha

We're all locked up in chapter 18, but I'm the one in trouble because I like Calista - so her fiancé is doing everything he can to have me executed. That will definitely sort out his suitor problem.


Dagran has been released immediately and it's never really explained why or where he's going. Off he goes nonetheless.


In what appears to be a scene from the original Star Trek - but not the scenes with polystyrene rocks on a sound stage - I'm on trial. I choose to remain silent and receive several beatings before being thrown back into gaol.


Mirania heals me (because that's her specialism) and I speak to all the other inmates. One of them has lost something valuable to him in a mansion in the city (which we'll cover later), and is currently digging a hole with a plastic teaspoon and we agree to help.


Before long, we've dropped into a catacomb, huge, undisturbed and far beneath the city. Now I can experience some tomb raider fun.

Homeward Bound

On our return leg I can delay our imminent docking indefinitely by wandering around the ship buying, trading, assessing my weapons, upgrading, talking, selling, exploring. Chapter 17 is much like chapter 12 in that respect.


When I discover Calista, she is crying and we talk about how she wants to travel the world with us. Given we glow bright white when we're together, I think it would be lovely, but I say I'll talk to the mercenaries before I make any firm plans.


Before we arrive we're all discuss taking Calista away from the castle (and her impending wedding) but most of my band are against the idea on the grounds we will be fugitives. We collectively decide the best thing is to return her to the castle.


When we dock, Calista is taken away and we charged with kidnapping the princess by her fiancé and are slung into prison. We find our comrades that stayed behind. They've been put in prison for no good reason.

We'll have to swim for it (to begin the next chapter)

Chapter 16 officially starts after we discover a Gurak base, sail to it and swim from the boat before they spot us.


The assault on the Gurak base takes a great deal of time, sharp-shooting, treasure hunting, and using the Gathering to protect both your party and the General and his Knights from Lazulis Island who arrived in an armada.


The most notable thing in this battle-heavy chapter is the point where Calista and Zael are surrounded by Gurak and Calista has spent all her magyk halting their advance. She collapses into Zael's arms and the Gurak step closer and closer.


Suddenly, the couple glow a brilliant white and the Gurak are thrown back unconscious. Something in The Gathering and her royal blood has reacted to their doomed situation and saved them.


After a bit more searching, we find the throne room, but Ganondorf is not interested in talking to us and he leaves his super-fast cat to mop us up. After five minutes spent missing the cat with arrows, swords, bombs and The Gathering, I finally figure out how to throw bombs.


Bombs properly away this time, the cat is stunned and some damage can be dealt. However, we learn the Gurak forces have fled in their ships, and we decide to point our own ships in the direction of home.

Through a mirror, darkly

Yulrick goes all quiet and wants to be alone when we get back to the ship. Something on the Vono Islands has made him quiet, and he wants to explore alone. Naturally, I went with him (otherwise who'd tell the story, right?)


In Chapter 15, we visit a shipwreck (as depicted in The Goonies) but with the addition of giggling voices behind the heavy curtains.


We're drawn deeper inside, under water, across rotting planks and past small spinning crabs until we find the captain's dining room. It is here that we discover something akin to Time Bandits' bedroom wall scene. Everything we see is a trick from now on, a trick played with mirrors.


In the next room is another wall-to-wall mirror, and in that mirror is me. On the floor is Yulrick's Dad's skeleton, and his dagger. The log he is clutching reveals his Dad saved the village from huge monsters and couldn't return from its final mission.


Wait! In that mirror is not me, because it's doing different things like scratching its head and yawning.


Suddenly, I have a big problem. My entire team is duplicated and fighting becomes really hard because I CAN INJURE MY OWN TEAM MATES. When I've fought for nearly 20 minutes and my team is incapacitated, there's one enemy left and he seems to recover hp as quickly as I knock it off him.


Somehow, I manage to defeat him and my team stand up again. Exploring the ship has been fun, fighting the giggly mirror monsters exhausting, and returning to the ship encouraging because Yulrick is more confident and the repairs are complete.

Of gods and women

Mirania tells me (because I spoke to her first) that she really wants to explore the Vono islands. Something there is bringing back memories. 


Chapter 14 opens on the islands, and quickly I discover a treasure chest behind me because (as in Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Mercury Meltdown, Super Monkey Ball and many others) I start the level plonk in the middle of a footpath with an obvious pathway behind me.


Behind that are a bunch of baddies so far out of my league I know that I must come back and fight them later in the game - perhaps in the epilogue. I gave it a good go, but it was pretty much GAME OVER in under a minute.


So, back on the original path we discover a lush jungle, brimming with life - and some enemies to tackle. Fortunately, there's a bit of a maze thing going on here, and having looked carefully I discover lots of rare items. 


Pressing on, I find one of the scariest baddies I have faced in the game. It was an armoured meta-spider that could fire web on to my team mates and pull them in while the baby spiders continued taking it in turns to stun me. As a result, I lost team mates to the spider quickly every time I battled it, and they did not come back for their four other lives. 


The secret, I learned, was to wipe out the baby spiders, then use armour break, and then to slash at its rear while the meta-spider was a raw, red colour. 


When he is defeated, the way is clear to find Mirania's memory-awakening forest god. What we find is his decomposing corpse in a copse. A forest god just like this one had brought up Mirania when she was a girl. What killed it, says Mirania, is the slow but steady death of the land across the globe. 


However, in the closing of the cut-scene, the cold-Ready-Brek cat has been watching us, so maybe it stole all the cereals and the forest god starved.


Mystery solved, we headed back to the ship.

...Is now mine (albeit a bit broken)

Chapter 12 is all about roaming the human-controlled ship and doing a spot of shopping. There are lots of things to do: plenty of people to talk to; weapons to appraise, buy, upgrade and sell; outfits of which to change the colour.

The room which the crab came through has had its wall repaired - perfectly. However, in Chapter 13 the ship is taking on water and needs serious repairs. Also, there's a door which got a bit damaged and someone is going to take three chapters to fix it.

I speak to Yulrick and he asks about my relationship with Dagran. Although I paint him in a great light - rescuing me from poverty and giving me purpose and building a bunch of mercenaries together -  he thinks we have a special kind of relationship and that makes for an awkward moment.

I speak to Mirania and she wants to go to the nearby island - I think it's called Vono. She says she senses something on it, something she sensed when she was a girl.

What once was yours...

Chapter 11 opens with Dagran, Calista and I boarding one of the enemy ships. In what is an enjoyable Splinter Cell-type assault on the soldiers without alerting the reinforcements, I manage to tackle three troops in defensive positions without sounding the alarm.


Things all goes horribly wrong when I try to sort out the cannon operators using the crossbow as a lure and waiting for the question mark and the ALONE symbol to appear above their heads. Somehow, everyone comes to investigate my first attack and I'm faced with a three-sided attack.


Using The Gathering again, I manage to see them off. However, I now have no idea which way I am supposed to go. Fortunately, my companions always know where we need to head as they are standing, backs to the walls and swords gripped tightly in front of them.


I recover the rest of my captured band - yes, we were on the same ship all along! I find keys, open locks and explore large rooms with spiders. Ugh! Apparently, according to one website I viewed, spiders are an essential element in a JRPG.


Finding the captain's room, the captain laughs at us before being devoured by his own monster. I don't know whether he saw that coming or not, but we have a spinning, poison-spine-hurling armoured crab to deal with. It seriously ruins the pillars in the cabin, and unlike in Zelda, they don't contain hearts.


Finding cover, and using ARMOUR BREAK I am able to defeat the crab. It's a good moment to point out that there are red symbols on the floor of rooms with major battles that allow me to summon more baddies to bring the levels of my team mates up. Very handy, particularly if, like Mirania, they're ten levels behind.


Soon we discover the boat is broken and needs to be repaired near an island that also contains interesting stories of their own for my band. Zangurak will have to wait until we've fixed the vessel up.

Cliffhanger

The battle spills out on to the cliffs. The Ganondorf character still has Calista and has sent his troops to slow me down while he reaches his ship. Fortunately, I have company and The Gathering to help me dispatch them without too much of a delay. Chapter 10 is mostly combat.


On the edge of the cliff, I cannot cause Ganondorf any damage, but he's very happy to give me plenty. As I lay crumpled at the foot of a boulder, he is about to give me a finishing blow. This is where I discover Calista has inherited magical powers from her family.


Activating something that looks a lot like the Monado's shield power, I am protected from his crushing blow and can now start to damage him. As usual with a damage gauge, it doesn't quite reach the bottom and there's a cut scene.


Amused at my sudden ability to fight back and at Calista's powers, he leaves us on the top of the cliff and gets into his boat. I decide to try and stop him escaping by jumping on one of his other ships...

Guard duty

We have been ordered by Count Arganon to supplement the knights of the castle in chapter 9, and we dutifully welcome everyone into the Ballroom. There's lots of chatter and it's possible to listen to people chatting - which is odd when later in the game people are talking about me and I'm right there - about the royal engagement and the hubbub before the wedding.


Soon we are introduced to Princess Calista, slowly walking down the double flight of stairs and to the thrones. Soon she disappears to the balcony behind the thrones because she is so sickened by her husband-to-be. Dagran manages to sneak me out and I start to talk to her, when that nasty piece of work fiance comes to challenge me over my interest in his beloved. 


Before we can proceed any further, we are interrupted by a Gurak attack. It devastates the castle (and not for the last time either) and in the ballroom we meet the leader of the Gurak - a huge man not dissimilar to Ganondorf. I can't hurt him (because he has a personal forcefield) and he sends me across the room. Calista rushes to me to try and help me up but when I awake, Calista has been kidnapped and I make my way through his various attack parties to the castle exit.

Getting to know the p(a)lace

I like exploring large places, and the castle is no exception. Its Grand Hall is huge and seems to have a mirrored marble floor effect that I like. 


Unfortunately, the castle is also mostly full of nothing. In chapter 8 I discover there are one or two things to see (but some of the castle is still "not ready") and my party is spread throughout the castle so that I can find them and talk to them about how they're feeling. About the most interesting thing I have to do is witness the break up of a fight between my loud-mouth companion and the knights. There's a General called Ashtar who comes in and diffuses the situation so there's nothing for me to do but watch. I hope I'll meet the good General again.


Soon, though, it is time to start guard duty, and with my limited explorations complete I try to act properly in front of the nobles - by yawning out loud and not trying to hide it.

Stargazing Live

For probably the first time in the game we have a romantic scene: the sky is purple and blue, there are torches lighting the Greek-style ruins and there's a sky full of stars. I'm standing with Princess Calista and stargazing - live.

In chapter 7 we learn that Calista really wants to be free and to travel with us, but says today is her last day of being free. We explore our favourite stars (albeit a little clunkily as I don't know which star she wants me to look at) and then we say farewell - but not, it turns out, goodbye.

A viper's den of thieving gangsters

In chapter 6 we perform a little manoeuvre I remember from Twilight Princess: I climb in the hideout high up and walk across the wooden joists to surprise the guard. Successfully avoiding an early alarm, I can search the whole place for a secret meeting room, which I find by using the focused search function.


Once inside the room we despatch the leader's henchmen. Then we get so confident we find ourselves in a trap and end up in some underground cells.


Working our way back up, we find there are hundreds of monsters locked up here, ready to unleash on the city. Once released, the remnants of the Don's Mafia would rob everyone's houses. Quite what invulnerability they had to the monsters is never really explained, making this a hair-brained idea that might make them a fiver before they are all gobbled up.


Eventually we return to the room of traps and confront the leader of the gang. He gives us little resistance - probably because we've levelled up a couple of times on the way back up the stairs. Grabbing the medicine from where he points, we head back to the tavern to save the little boy. Now all I hear is how much the little boy wants to be like me when he grows up.

The party's true colours

When we are hidden in the tavern, it's time for everyone to have a good go at my character for picking up a girl of the night. It's not like that, but they don't want to hear about it. Still, one of the party decides it's a good idea to take her off for a bath, allowing me to talk with everyone in the tavern.


In chapter 5 we discover we need to bust up a gang of robbers and retrieve some medicine they stole from a poorly boy. As soon as I've spoken to everyone, including a female weapons dealer, it's time to leave the tavern.

Look who I bumped into

They're all at it, shouting at me for bumping into them. Men, women, children, some animals, knights and shopkeepers, fishermen and my team mates. Some of them I believe weren't actually bumped but they still stumbled back a couple of paces and complained.


The town's a funny shape. There are a lot of dead ends, but with that come a lot of treasure chests and things I need to find while standing in certain places. I haven't got the hang of this yet because I walk past the point where the noise and graphic occur. Finding it again doesn't always work and being precise is even harder. Just what am I looking for?


At one point I lost my money to some streetwise urchins, and despite my protestations they made me search for them all in a where's wally competition. It turns out they're rubbish at hiding.


In chapter 4 I meet up with a girl. She's a well-spoken lady, so I'm glad she wants to talk because I can listen. We watch the fireworks together and it's very pretty. Lazulis city is a big place, but not big enough to hide her from the guards. It seems they really want to take her away, so we dash about getting into non-lethal tussles. Eventually I find a place that's safe and we can head to the tavern to hide.

Taverntastic

When we arrive in the city we make the local tavern (belonging to Ariel) our main base. It gives us a chance to hear a little of the history of the city and to catch up with the team and buy some new weaponry. Since the starting weaponry is poor, it's a good job there's a merchant in the tavern to improve our attack.


Syrenne gets drunk and has a foul mouth. That's pretty much why I play this game late at night. The others in my party all have their own failings. One's no good at chatting people up, another wants to be left alone, and yet another ponders other-worldly things.


Chapter 3 is a bit of a getting-to-know-you chapter, because we'll come back here again shortly to sort out the problem of a very ill boy in one of the guest bedrooms. We head out into the big, Professor Layton-esque city.

The snow leopard incident

On the Road to  Lazulis City it's clear no-one really likes the mercenaries. We are called on to rescue civilians from an attacking leopard. Chapter 2 gives us our biggest challenge so far. My team is battered by the leopard. Somehow I manage to get the beast's HP down little by little until it runs away. Clearly, this beast is important in the main story because it doesn't just melt away at the end of the fight.

Sure, we're helpful, but everyone's brutally honest that once we've rescued a bunch of schoolchildren - from the jaws of a snow leopard that's probably eaten cold ready brek - that they don't want to be seen associating with us.

So, they discover we're not knights (they're the esteemed bunch), throw money at our feet and leave. That means all we can do is bump into people (one of the more unusual parts of the game) on our way to the city. This is where the title music plays over our entrance and the game finally begins.

The adventure nearly begins

After watching the advertising videos on The Ninty Channel, I was eager to start this adventure. Having been spoiled by the well-thought-out Xenoblade Chronicles, the controls for this game already seemed clunky.

Chapter 1 takes place with the team already assembled and fighting their way to the capital through a series of lizard caves, already populated by a great many lizards and giant lizards ready to ambush us. I count all this as preface, getting used to the look and actions of the characters. Xenoblade has a similar preface, dealing with events before the story kicks off.


Ducking and diving, rushing out with my sword and performing some chain attacks, it was very hard to see exactly what was happening after the OVERVIEW of the battle disappears. It's probably like real swordfighting; it's not possible to lift the  camera (set just behind your character) or see what's behind you when fighting what's in front.


Some of my party lift themselves in the air and fire coloured balls of light around the level. This is their magyk attack. I have to protect them while they do this or they have to start all over again.

A little way into some stone ruins, one of my party is knocked out, but after a weird dream sequence I have a new power known as The Gathering (last heard of in Highlander and Babylon 5) which can revive my mercenary ally and make all the enemies focus their agro on me. Now that they are shooting daggers (which is shown as coloured sight lines across the room), everyone else can concentrate on wiping the enemy out.


Finally we are put to the test - a massive monster called Cocoon. Here's a natty concept-art depiction of The Gathering and Cocoon. If the whole game had looked like this I would have paid double.

Drawing it outside with The Gathering allows my team to wipe it out. Now we can head on to the main road...