Duke Reivier's Grand Game Emporium

 We now move away from the "natural" elements and into the realm of divine and deathly duality. We're first covering the more lawful/"divine" side of it, the school of Life. LIFE Life is the realm of the divine. It expresses its themes through spells that "bless" their targets and either directly make them stronger, or protect them from deathly effects, usually from the Chaos and Death realms. It also has spells to similarly "bless" cities and either make them more defensible, or improve their economy. And, to top it all off, it has a bevy of appropriately "divine" summons. But its clearest focus is on its buffs, and as such, most of this list is made up of them. Thus, it is much more dependant on regular units than other realms, and picking the right race matters far more while playing this school. Common Tier 1. Bless: Cost: 7(in combat)/35 MP Effect: Grants 5 defense and 5 resistance against Chaos and Death spells, fire/lightning...

 It's time for the next magic school, and the last "elemental" one in the lineup. CHAOS Chaos represents the forces of hell. In practical terms, this means channeling fiery, destructive powers, summoning demonic creatures, and warping its own forces with demonic power. Chaos is a difficult school to play, as most of its Common tier spells are quite weak, but once it can climb out of that, it has some decent bases to work off of. However, its strengths are not particularly straightforward, relying either on combat damage, mass buffing units, or a mixture of the two. Common Tier 1. Animate Ammo: Cost: 5 MP Effect: Steals the ammunition of the targeted unit and converts it into casting skill. Heroes and summons ignore this effect. Analysis: Chaos really doesn't start out impressing with this extremely niche effect. It would be good if it affected more targets, either at once, or by type. Heroes and summons tend to be far stronger, and being able to kill their ranged dama...

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 Here's the last wizard of this game, and quite an interesting one at that, too. Noel is essentially a hybrid of a cleric and an attack mage, carrying roughly equal amounts of both healing and damage spells. But that's not all; Noel can equip several pieces of fighter gear. This generally works out to his favor, as the defense they grant is usually more helpful than the intelligence on wizard gear, although the latter does have some spiffy pieces with elemental absorbs on them. Still, I had high hopes of his broader equipment selection paying off. As you can see in this screenshot, he starts off as a guest, which means he can't swap out anything until he joins "for real". This happens at the end of the Cave of Crimson Crystals. Like with Celine and Leon, I'll attempt to complete his first challenge with him in this state, and only switch to a full party if he's not up to the task. Noel starts with 800 SP and 400 BP. This is not as big as you'd think, b...

 Some of you might remember that I had started evaluating the magic schools in this game to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. I picked Nature as that was a fairly straightforward school. The rest...aren't quite so clear cut, but they still have themes they try to convey via their design. Anyway, it's now time for.... SORCERY Sorcery loosely represents the forces of wind, water and most importantly, magic itself. Its summons have great control over water, and it manipulates wind to make units fly and even become swift transports themselves, but by far their most impactful spells are magical tricks that undermine the "rules" of battle. As such, Sorcery very much is the realm of trickery...and it kind of has to be, as it has little power backing it up. When they work, they work very well, netting it amazing rewards and letting it crush its foes with ease. But when they don't , it is in deep trouble. Now, it does have some nifty logistical spells too, and th...

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 Well, I was wishing for a challenge at the end of last run, so why not take a look at the game's second, and only other attack mage? Meet Leon! Leon is essentially a darkly flavored mage, most of his spells are darkness elemental and he gets instant death and debuff spells. That said, he starts with a few water elemental spells, and those give him a decent alternative element to tap into. Leon starts at level 30, and with level 2 Alchemy. He also has the grace of starting with 500 SP and 350 BP. Now, this isn't as big as it sounds, especially since 120 of the SP has to be spent on Determination, but it's nice to have some flexibility building him up at the start! He also joins at the start of the Hoffman Ruins arc, and is a guest until the dungeon is cleared. This puts him under the same restrictions as Celine - he can't swap any equipment until he joins "for real". No armor, no weapons, no accessories, nothing. Speaking of weapons, Leon uses books as his mur...