I start this challenge with Claude, one of the first characters of the game. As briefly covered before, Claude is a powerful, versatile character, having powerful moves at both close and long range, as well as swift attacks and strong weapons. I have the most experience with him, so I expect this to be a relatively relaxing romp.
Helmetbreak is one of the few special arts that remains relevant throughout the game. It makes Claude fly through the air to strike his target. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it does break through their shields, which stuns enemies and lowers their defense. This is quite handy right now, but unfortunately their shields would eventually get too strong for this move alone to feasibly break through them. More importantly, it lets Claude rapidly reposition himself by targeting distant enemies, and move out of the way of dangerous attacks. It quickly got slotted in place of Air Slash, and proved extremely handy in most future encounters.
As this is my first challenge run, I'm going to lay down my rules here:
- I will play through the game on Galaxy and Universe once, using fresh save files for both.
- I will not use anyone besides the character I pick. This includes Super Specialities.
- I will not savescum my Item Creation results, what I get is what I roll with.
- I will not redo successful fights unless I deem it absolutely necessary.
- I will use Assault Actions, but I will not invoke other party members for them.
Alright, let's begin!
GALAXY
The challenge run didn't really begin until after Salva Mines. I set Rena to melee Allen Tucks, hoping to get her killed to give Claude all of his XP. Instead, she pummelled him to death, much to my surprise and amusement.
Once I got control over my party, I set Claude up as the sole active member, using Q to reduce the party size to one, with him as the leader. The controls for the party screen aren't really intuitive, but they are fairly convenient, and help facilitate this challenge.
The run didn't really pick up until Krosse Cave, even with a solo party the encounters around Krosse were just way too easy. They often died in like one or two uses of Air Slash, Claude's first special art(the game's name for special moves). It was notable for being his first long range attack, and while the damage was too weak to last the entire game, it was more than enough for these amateur foes.
I picked up all the armor for Claude I could, started leveling out Determination, and invested battle points into Qiqong. I believe that investing into combat skills generally pays off more than investing into special arts, especially since most of them don't really last for the whole game. I planned to invest into Power Burst and Qiqong, as additional attack and defense would always be extremely relevant. Other good picks going forward would be Guardbreak, which would ignore enemy defense on hits, Godspeed, which would make him maneuver faster, and Body Control, which would cut down on him getting stunned.
I picked up all the armor for Claude I could, started leveling out Determination, and invested battle points into Qiqong. I believe that investing into combat skills generally pays off more than investing into special arts, especially since most of them don't really last for the whole game. I planned to invest into Power Burst and Qiqong, as additional attack and defense would always be extremely relevant. Other good picks going forward would be Guardbreak, which would ignore enemy defense on hits, Godspeed, which would make him maneuver faster, and Body Control, which would cut down on him getting stunned.
Claude picked up Meteor Palm in the cave. Meteor Palm is a pretty good special art, launching multiple hits at close range, each having roughly the same power as his basic attack. Later on enemies would get too dangerous to fight up close, and so its lifespan was limited, but for now it was pretty handy!
Krosse Cave was a step up, but not by much. Most enemies were still melee fighters with low HP, and so could be handled with fairly easily. The most dangerous enemies were the Alraunes and Armored Knights, the former because of their poison ring, and the latter because of their sturdy defense and ranged sword throws. Both moves were bit risky, but fairly manageable, and Claude was never in any serious danger.
His first non-Determination skill point went to Penmanship to unlock Writing. I find that picking it first and then using it to get other skills up is the most efficient way to handle skill building. Of course, for Writing to do anything, he would also need one level in all the skills it could boost. Thus, he ended up leveling a bunch of 1 point skills next. This also had the very beneficial added effect of unlocking a bunch of item creation skills and specialities for him:
Now, of course, I wouldn't be able to use them for a while, as they would require having more investment and materials, but having them unlocked was still a nice gesture. And, with Survival active and randomly dropping those materials, even at level 1, it wouldn't be too long before I got something to work with, hopefully.
Claude picked up Customization and Familiar next, and then levelled up Writing a bunch. He picked up all the treasure from the crystal room, and decided to try his luck against the Gargoyles.
They were dangerous up close, with a rapid multi hitting attack that could hurt Claude quite a bit. As such, I generally spent most of my time trying to separate the two, and targeted them with Air Slashes and Ultime Camui to minimize risk. Ultime Camui was his first Assault Action, picked up from the treasure here, and it essentially acted like a slow bomb, taking a few seconds to initialize but hitting everything in a circular area. It struck multiple times, and dealt good damage, but its startup time and long cooldown timer made it a rare tool, mostly to be pulled out in boss fights or tough encounters.
Anyway, they died eventually, and Claude was well rewarded:
Helmetbreak is one of the few special arts that remains relevant throughout the game. It makes Claude fly through the air to strike his target. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it does break through their shields, which stuns enemies and lowers their defense. This is quite handy right now, but unfortunately their shields would eventually get too strong for this move alone to feasibly break through them. More importantly, it lets Claude rapidly reposition himself by targeting distant enemies, and move out of the way of dangerous attacks. It quickly got slotted in place of Air Slash, and proved extremely handy in most future encounters.
The Gargoyles also dropped a Sacrificial Doll. This is a very unique, handy accessory: it revives the wearer from a death once while halving damage from all elements. You heard that right, half damage from all elements! Naturally, this went onto Claude immediately. There will be accessories that supercede it, but they only come by the late game, and even then it's hard to argue against such a powerful defensive item.
The enemies wouldn't really pick up until the Forest of Symbols. Claude refilled his item stash at Kurik, got some more item creation materials, and did some guild quests. One of them was crafting this:
This sword was a huge boost to his offense, and enemies simply started melting in front of him.
He could also start Writing books, and used it to quickly level up Mental Science, Mineralogy and Item Knowledge. The first gave him some extra MP for his special arts, the second would aid him once he unlocked Alchemy, and the third gave him better prices for his sales. All very helpful.
Alchemy and Replication were unlocked next, the rest of the skill points were saved up for leveling Writing further. Claude cleared out whatever guild quests he could, and Crafted enough to earn this from the Challenge Missions:
The regeneration was mostly insignificant, but the HP boost was very beneficial. Together with the Sacrificial Doll earned off of the Gargoyles fight, he would prove quite resilient. I took Writing to level 8, then started leveling up Resilience, as that would boost Survival's item gain rate and couldn't be leveled up by Writing.
I also switched the combat formation to Escape Shift. For a solo playthrough, I find this the most reliable formation, it buffs evasion a ton and provides half a chance for items to not be consumed on use. Evasion helps out against most enemies, and the solo character relies on items a lot more than a party, so both were very welcome.
Most of Claude's Crafted items weren't very useful, so I sold them off. I held on to a Silver Charm, a Lunar Talisman, and a Weighty Ring. The first accessory cancelled out instant death, which could potentially come in very handy later. It also absorbed holy damage and nullified shadow damage. The Lunar Talisman boosted HP by 20%, and also rolled the Temporary Measures effect, which would let Claude recover 20% of his HP and MP at the end of every victorious fight. This would be quite handy in keeping him topped off, or refilling him if he landed in a tight spot. The Weighty Ring buffed his attack by 20%, at a minor cost of 5% of his accuracy. Obviously this was a big boost to his offense. It also had a weakness to holy damage, but that wouldn't really be relevant for a while, and could be easily worked around.
The Forest of Symbols served a very spicy encounter right off the bat, four Witchettes bombarding Claude with spells. They are quite hard hitting, but feeble, and normally there's a spellcaster disrupting them. Not here though. Here poor Claude was the target of their concentrated fury, and suffered many a death before I figured it out. Their most dangerous spell was Star Light, a holy spell, and the Silver Charm let Claude absorb it, removing most of their threat.
The rest of the enemies proved to be much less notable. The Bandit minibosses were easily dealt with by Helmetbreaking them, then finishing them off. The Snow Ogre was similarly handled. Every other enemy was some boring low HP melee fighter that died too quickly to matter.
During this quest, Claude upped Resilience to level 8 and started working on Aesthetic Design. Getting Customization as high as possible was critical to getting his best weapons. He also maxed Qiqong and started working on Godspeed.
During this quest, Claude upped Resilience to level 8 and started working on Aesthetic Design. Getting Customization as high as possible was critical to getting his best weapons. He also maxed Qiqong and started working on Godspeed.
Claude reached Harley, where he could finally buy Fountain Pens and fully flex his Writing skills. He got everything up to Biology in the Writing list to level 7 using books, and got Sketching to level 5. His item creation skills got considerably better, and while he still didn't have amazing rates on any of the high tier stuff, he could feasibly craft some useful stuff. Like this ring:
This would constantly apply the Rage status invisibly on Claude, effectively doubling his attack power. Normally this buff only kicks in temporarily, when a member the character likes falls in battle. This more than took care of his offensive needs for the foreseeable future. Now it was mostly a matter of progressing and finding better defensive items, as well as improving his item creation skills.
His Crafting gamut also gave him a bunch more cash, which he quickly poured into making more books. He now had everything up to Keen Eye in the Writing list leveled up to 7, but it was clear that he need to take Writing up further to get the really juicy rewards. That, or turn up a pair of Rainbow Diamonds somewhere...
Or he could just gamble on the higher level books to get them anyway! :D After all, he did have a lot of money, he could afford burning some on Fountain Pens. And just like that, he was completely done with Writing. Whew! He made a bunch of machines, most notably a RIRICA to Replicate things and a Magician's Glove to start Pickpocketing. He also Crafted a Chain of Might, effectively rendering the Weighty Ring obsolete, as it granted a 30% attack boost with no penalties attached.
He finally could Replicate the Shield Ring for use against particularly powerful physical foes. This had been an amazingly lucky find from a Goodie Box rewarded by a Challenge Mission, and now it could be practically used, so long as I ensured the last ring didn't break. With that, he was all set for the Lacuer continent, . Join me next time when he starts tackling it. See you till then!
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