Ys: Memories of Celceta Pre-Final Dungeon Thoughts

Taking a break from posting about Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen since I’ve spent most of last week blowing through Ys: Memories of Celceta. I do have an entry typed up on another computer for DA though so I’ll upload that later. :3

I’ve been playing the game on Hard mode since I recall Normal being kind of a walk in the park where I didn’t have to use potions very much nor did I die very often. But it’s a different case with this difficulty mode! I’m surviving the bosses and the large enemies thanks to potions. ^^;;; It’s only cuz of them that I was able to best Duren in the duel. XD However, the worst battle I had was with the Tower of Providence boss’ first form. Holy crap. I was hardly able to avoid any of its beams. ^^; I wish I could Flash Guard and Flash Move at will. 😦

But! I only got Game Over once so far. XD And it was only because I was stupid and got too close to an attack by one of the large enemies in the Forest of Dawn. 9__9 I dread to think how absolutely terrible I’d play against the optional boss in there. XD It was a pain in the ass already on Normal.

Anyhoo, I’m currently finishing up a Danan quest and also beefing up equipment for the fights in the final dungeon. IIRC, when I was playing the Japanese version, I actually left the final dungeon to reinforce stuff and then went back in.

Honestly, many of my impressions about Memories of Celceta haven’t changed from the Japanese version. (Warning: there may be possible spoilers in that link.) After all, XSEED only translated and published the game and I don’t think they asked Falcom to tweak anything. As a result, the slowdowns and frameskipping in certain areas STILL occur. I haven’t checked any forums yet but I assume that it isn’t an issue with my own Vita. And of course, because none of te programming was altered in any way, this means that your party members are still kind of stupid and will break away from a battle just to beat up on harvest points.

I finally noticed what causes party members to run in tight circles over and over! Sometimes, money spoils remain on the ground as if they never dropped but the AI still acknowledges them even though they can’t be picked up. >_>

Now it’s time for bullet points!

At this point in time, I have 63% of trophies~! They include the G-Pikkard one, getting all info from Mouse, getting all tickles from Zara, finding all Mishy locations, 100% map & quests completion, and all play time trophies related to character usage. :3 I am on a roll! I’m also managing to complete most of these from memory. ^^ The only time I checked for an answer was for the stupid Rabbit Hunting quest. Funny thing was, I was in the vicinity of the Frogs’ Inn several times to grind for items but never went in. 😛
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The English voice acting is pretty typical Saturday morning cartoon-like, unfortunately. At least the dialogue isn’t bland and boring.
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Frieda Teehees (or was it Heehee?) too much. I suppose she “フフフ/Fufufu”‘d quite a bit in Japanese or something. I can’t remember. Spoiler question about her: Those two brothers she mentions — are they Geis and Ernst? I mean, there’s mention of the Black Key (which is used to access the Ark of Napishtim or something in Ys VI).
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Again, I waited until really late before reinforcing equipment. 😛 My reasoning is that I didn’t want to spend time and money pumping up weapons and armor that I was eventually going to replace anyway. And I still superbly despise the coding(?) for reinforcement. You select the item, choose the material, complete the fusion, and then REPEAT THE ENTIRE FUCKING PROCESS AGAIN. Why couldn’t Falcom just let us choose how many of EACH material we want to spend instead of having us use a quantity of *1* each time? I suppose the reason is that the Golden Pedestal item exists. Alas, it’s nigh expensive. 😛 But what’s REALLY annoying is that there is no “memory” for your last selection meaning you have to scroll up or down the list every single time to select both the weapon/armor and material. Incidentally, I have a guide for the cheapest method for reinforcing equipment! The screenshots are in Japanese but they should be really easy to understand.
Ow. The cost of doing this.

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Still hate the background music to Table Mountain and Ashen Forest. I think Colonia Artifact Laboratory has BGM I don’t care much for either. Seriously, the Memories of Celceta OST is quite forgettable. Shame on you, Falcom Sound Team jdk. 😦
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Mishy is still one bigass ugly cat thing.
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Ooh! Found a money-making tip on the Celceta board at GameFAQs — Selling Titanic Bones will get you lots of $$$ since they sell for 1,000 Gold each. I believe Sturdy Bones can be exchanged for them at the Roos’ Nest or you can just grind the hell out of enemies that drop them such as the Pogarov (boar-like thing with club) in the Colonia Battlefield, Grunpe (weird penguin thing) in Mt. Vesuvio, and the Merahva (boomerang-hurling creatures) and Tolmeus (the dino looking thing with a long neck) in Lake Tolmes.
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Totally spamming the hell out of Canlilica’s Gold Rush on every enemy right now. I even have the Golden Axe equipped on her. I know she doesn’t get much money out of that skill but every little bit counts, right? ^-^