That took barely any time at all because Rondo of Swords Path B is way easier than Path A. Also Path B Serdic has ZOC, so I could trot him out where angels fear to tread without fearing too much for his life. I gave him a Black Ring (+1 MOV) and went all out. Unfortunately I missed out on getting Alberich because I spoke to him with the wrong person back in the cell (Serdic instead of Yumiluna), but even without him it was a complete cakewalk.

Apart from the ease, Path B also has a few more story elements than Path A. The main thing is that you find out that Serdic is actually a homunculus of the real Prince Serdic, created by Mephreyu, though it’s not explained how he ended up injured in the woods or whether that was just a manufactured memory. Also instead of Gauss and his Four Grands going out like pussies halfway through the same, they persist until the end. For all the good it does them, of course. (see: Stomping, Mudhole)

At some point Gauss got his hand on a Sword of Darkness from goodness-knows-where and planned to use it for goodness-knows-what, but you manage to stop him goodness-knows-how. Something about Igraine and self-sacrifice, I don’t know. Her role in the story was very poorly-explained so I didn’t give a fig what happened to her. Some kind of princess? Priestess? Dunno, dun care.

As a bonus I got to kill Mephreyu two more times. He was a complete walkover compared to the nightmare that was Path A’s ending though. Part of it was because I already knew the best strategy to take him out: Ansom + Holy Favor to clear out the bad guys, Cotton soaks up his MP with ease and finishes him off. I wonder what people without Ansom and Cotton do in these stages, seriously. I guess you could substitute someone strong with Sprint for Ansom and one of the better mages for Cotton, but still, sounds like hell. Mistress Cotton was also the one who took out Ernest most of the time I fought him. Thunder Rampage? Pffft, you’re a funny guy. She also took Gauss out in the first battle against him (the one with all the Grands) with one massive Fire Dragon.

Somehow Gauss seems to have learned his lesson, and in the final battle Fire Dragon barely did 132 damage. Still I only had to fight that battle twice because he was kind enough to come down and face me. The first time he killed Sasha and then used the resulting OB to wipe out everyone in my party. DO NOT LET GAUSS USE HIS OB! It won’t end well! The second time I was on to his tricks, so I got a number of kills early with Serdic and built up his OB gauge to 3. When Gauss waltzed down, I whittled his HP down as best as I could with the others and then let him have it. Simple, and short. My final party was Serdic, Ansom, Yumiluna, Cotton, Izuna and Sasha, by the way. I wasn’t impressed with Alhambra’s performance in Path A.

Ding Dong, the Evil Emperor is dead! Serdic celebrates continental peace by evidently deciding, “What good is becoming Emperor if I can’t get wimmin?” and asking Aegil to marry him. And they all live happily ever after, the end.

So now I’ve finished both Paths of Rondo of Swords and there’s nothing else left to do in this game. All things considered, I had a blast, but I can’t let it off the hook so lightly. There were a number of serious frustrations:

1. The randomness of the shopping system was stupid. When you send someone out, you can’t control what they buy or how much or even if they buy anything at all. BS. Of course, the real good stuff can be got through battles, and your healer exists to cure you anyway, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

2. The promotion system sucked. You’ll have to play the game at least three or four times if you want to accumulate enough seals and proofs to promote everyone in your party. This time round, I got a Palta Seal pretty early only to discover I was missing a second Hunter Proof, with no way of getting one, and thus couldn’t promote Ansom to his highest level. Crap! And it sucks that your units have to miss a battle to get promoted.

3. Not being able to move and use OB/Magic at the same time is ridiculous. Some say if mages could move and attack at the same time they’d be seriously overpowered. I say there’s gotta be a better way to nerf magic than that. Even Tactical Guild wised up and let you switch to a more intelligent class later (which was indeed overpowered, but that’s Tactical Guild for you).

4. Apart from Marie and Cotton, mages are weak and useless. I’m talking about offensive mages like Selmer/Elmer, Arios, Igraine and Galahad. The only thing offensive about them is how useless they are, with their low MOV and terrible attacks that either hurt your whole party or only hit one enemy. And their low starting MP pools that mean they can only cast a few times before needing to refill. And if they get hit once? Poof! Sure there are ways of getting use out of them, but it’s so much easier to just use Queen Cotton’s Fairy Fire or Fire Dragon which won’t hurt your allies, AND will refill her OB gauge so she can cast magic over and over again. There’s no comparison.

5. The story in both paths was pretty sketchy. The presentation was lazy as well: a few lines of text, a few lines of dialogue, there go you, your next battle. How’s anyone supposed to get excited from that?

6. Not being able to place your troops on the battlefield is killer for a strategy game. Not being able to even see the battlefield and find out  the winning conditions before you pick your troops is even worse. In that respect it’s fortunate I had my preferred party that I just went out and steamrolled the battles with.

7. Wooden characters were wooden. Apart from Serdic, everyone seems to be tagging along for the heck of it. This is always the case in RPGs, but at least try not to make it so obvious, will ya? Character motivations are never delved into in detail, and the short description in the Info panel is all the backstory you’re ever going to get about most of them. Why did Gauss want to take over the continent (lol bicuz hez evul)? What happened to Mephreyu’s friend, when, how? How is releasing the Darkness going to help? Why homunculi? And why a homunculus of Prince Serdic? How was it created? Was Prince Serdic in on the plan? Etc, etc. You’ll never find out, so don’t bother.

But all in all, that stuff didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment. It’s going to take me a while to readjust to normal battle systems after this Route Maneuver business. It was fun, in its own tough, unforgiving way.

Moving on, I started Tales of the Tempest a few days ago, I’m about 4 hours in. It’s…well, I just started so I’ll hold off judgment till now. The weather’s too nice to stay indoors today so I’m heading out to run errands. Toodles!

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Rondo of Swords – Ten hours in First trailer of Nora to Toki no Koubou Rondo of Swords – Path A Finished (spoilers)! Nora to Toki no Koubou – Finished!