On to the next planets!
Sure, if you Slayso!
…I should have stones thrown at me for that pun.
 |
While I'm preparing to attack this spider alien with a robot
in it, my shoes Spectrobe is kicking it left and right.
This is a weeeeird game sometimes. |
After the stop by Wyterra to present the latest shard to Radese (and reporting on the planetoid-sized Krawl coming), Rallen and Jeena head over to Slayso, the fifth planet of the system, permanently covered by a sandstorm. Its only building is a thousand-floor memorial tower built right after the Great Krawl War, many millenia ago. Only two residents: Tidy and Scout, the robots who take care of the tower. On the ground floor we encounter a spider Krawl with a robot stuck in its body; after it escapes, the officers meet Tidy, who says that Scout was captured by that thing. It fled upwards, so we must go up the floors to rescue the robot.
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| Go on, lil' Spectrobe doggo! Fetch that elevator! Good boy! |
No other NPC in sight, so this chapter is low on story events. We climb the floors using elevators. On several floors, there’s a puzzle to solve. On others, there are seven rooms with elevators, only one of which works, while the other rooms have Krawl encounters. Other times, an elevator is located out of reach, and so we send a child Spectrobe to bring it down after following a maze of pathways. So much of this tower feels like padding that an entire hour’s worth of floors could have been cut. The only perk is that, if you force yourself to do it, there’s a lot of options for level-grinding. Your beasts will need it.
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There's a couple of decent puzzles in this tower. Lots of
fights, too. But damn, it's so freaking linear.
And so... damn... long... |
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A giant alien spider with an emitter up its ass.
I've fought weirder. |
The Krawl boss encountered at the top is the giant, electric arachnid. Its nasty trick is to stun your current Spectrobe, or your player character – the latter is worse because the stunned/shocked status prevents them from attacking or calling orders to their battle partner. But hey, at least its weakness to ground is easy to figure out. The Krawl is defeated, disappearing and leaving behind Scout and another glowing shard. After Jeena repairs Scout, the robots give the officers anothr glowing fossil; the vision get get when touching it shows Kaio’s Spectrobe master confronting Grant about his experiments with the weird liquid, seemingly the Krawl life source. The master rants about how this discovery could be the one that saves the universe, if someone dares going further with these experiments.
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All fine and good, if Menahat is permanently visible from
this tower - which, I doubt it is. |
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| Grant isn't helping his case, still acting so suspiciously. |
As for why this memorial tower is so tall? From its top, one has full view of the desolate Menahat, the planet that was ruined by the Krawl War. (If the planets in this system spin around their sun like in our solar system, this shouldn’t work, but – fictional world, whatever.) After Jeena repaired Scout, she got access to its memory bank, and thanks to it, the officers witness the moment Scout was taken by the Krawl, under the supervision of Krux – but the data is too broken to see the guy’s face. (That hair, though? You can tell who it is.) They try to send the image to HQ for cleanup, but what they get instead is a transmission from Grant, who takes the video claiming he’ll do it for them. His transmission seems to come from close by…
Bahmud
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The desert planet was hot, but this is something else
entirely. Who even built a temple on a volcano planet?? |
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Come on, Kamtoga, that red hair isn't seen everywhere.
There's your old pal, or Rallen, and one of these two is
standing behind you at the moment, so... |
Same stop by Wyterra as usual, and then the two prepare for Bahmud, the final planet. Before leaving, they get a message from Kamtoga, who will accompany them – he will help in exploring the ruins there. They meet at the entrance of ruins and have an encounter with Krux. Gee, wonder who that red hair could belong to. The King of the Krawl speaks to them, implying he already knows Kamtoga, though the veteran doesn’t recognize the malevolent masked man. Krux admits that he's been following the heroes around, and then gloats some more before departing. We also see a scene of the past showing the young Grant quarrelling with the Spectrobe Master over what to do regarding the “Krawl fluid”, with the Master arguing that by controlling it, one could control the invasive monster species – and end their threat forever. Even later attempts from Grant to knock sense into his friend only led to him getting hurt, with the Spectrobe Master leaving, seemingly for good.
 |
I still love it so much that we can choose to play as Jeena.
Or that we can switch at will between her and Rallen.
Even if, or especially because, it makes no difference.
They're equal in skills, that's awesome. |
The three enter the temple, and right in the first room, we encounter a mid-boss that knocks Kamtoga down several floors below. Just great. After beating this boss, we travel down another dungeon with a couple floors. Minimal puzzles that are easy to solve and only require some exploration, but a lot of tricky fights. This is the point where enemy levels get significantly higher based on where you’re at in the story, so you can get overwhelmed if you don’t bother to level grind your team. Ands not just in each dungeon, either; the levels of Krawl monsters increases everywhere else as well, so you WILL need to be prepared for everything.
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| Grab the tail and toss 'im into a bomb! ...Wait. Wrong game. |
That reality came back to bite me in the ass when my Level 30 team had to fight this dragon-like Krawl boss (yep, another dragon) at the bottom of the temple. That fucking thing. I hated that boss. Its weak point is the bulb on its tail, but it jumps to flip itself around as soon as it gets hit there, hurting any player or Spectrobe in the way, so you cannot stay there for very long. That target moves, so it's hard to aim for it. The beast will often take flight, then attack, and then come down right on you or your battle partner, and it's very difficult to avoid that attack. Yeah, everything made me hate that fight. Took me forever.
Once the fight is over, Rallen and Jeena find Kamtoga, who was knocked out but is otherwise fine, regaining consciousness shortly afterwards. The fifth and final shard is revealed and we pick it up. Krux appears, but Commander Grant also shows up in this room to say that this isn’t the real one. And indeed it isn’t; it’s a disguised Jado.
Oh, right!
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Relegated from major boss to just a mockery. Oh, Jado's still
tough, the one time we do fight him; but we know Krux is
holding his strings. |
Yeah, this game doesn't explain this at all, but in the previous game, Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, we were introduced to four High Krawl, who have human-level intelligence compared to the more mindless destructive monsters that this scourge on the universe tends to be. As a result, they served as commanders for the invasive species, working under Krux. Three of them were eliminated and assimilated into a Krawlosphere (unclear if it’s the same one we encounter here), and this guy here was the only one who remained alive. No idea why Jado escaped that fate, but the very little we know of the existence of these guys is a quick cameo in Spectrobes Origins’ intro movie, nothing else. High Krawl, on top of their humanlike form, have a Krawl boss form as well, with Jado having a different one in each game.
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Time and too much Krawl blood haven't done too
much good to this guy, huh. |
Anyway, Jado-disguised-as-Krux turns out to be working for the real Krux, who appears right afterwards. Krux reveals himself to be – yep, this was no Agatha Christie-level twist, you all knew this was coming – the old Spectrobe Master, still recognizable but half-consumed by Krawl in both appearance and mind. Ah, so that’s why it’s called Origins – it’s Krux’s origins! …And Grant’s, since he rose in ranks at Nanairo to become Rallen and Jeena’s commander after his adventure in Kaio.
Krux appears to Sith-like Force-obliterate his lackey, considering him to have failed one too many times; then, he blasts the temple, causing it to fall apart, and teleports away. Rallen and Jeena get out, but Kamtoga and Grant get trapped. The young officers are forced to leave them behind to an apparent doom, and flee on Pegatinum's back. Well, the mission isn’t over. The Krawlosphere is still coming, so there’s no time to lose.
Awakening
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I wished the game made more use of Spectrobes like this.
Imagine having specific creatures you can call on to
access more secret areas. |
Back at Wyterra, we report to Radese, who says that there is an ancient village in the mountains with a pool where Kaio, the Spectrobe whose five shards we collected, can be awakened. The road there is destroyed, but Pegatinum can create a light bridge to get there. So we head to the location, and indeed, our mount can cross the chasm. Great! On the other side is a temple locked with sigils of all five properties; you need one fully evolved Spectrobe of each property in your team to open the door.
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What you're not seeing is how Jado's current Krawl form
has two normal arms and one huge-ass goddamn arm
on one side. He looks RIDICULOUS. |
The road to the Pool of Awakening is tough, because there are mandatory Krawl fights on the way. At high levels, too. But nothing is too tough if you’ve come prepared. The officers reach their destination and set four of the shards around the Pool, but before they can set the fifth, a shadowy figure appears. Jado, not dead yet, attacks. Levels/dungeons in this game aren’t too hard (even if some are too long, boring and/or feel like padding), but the bosses definitely are in comparison. Damn things keep kicking my ass! Yeah, yeah, I know, skill issue. Jado is no exception. I was annoyed that I had to repeat the entire sequence of placing the shards around the Pool before the battle began… until I realized I could leave the place after setting 4 of the shards, go back to save the game in the mountain path, and then return. I was worried that the game wouldn’t let me do that.
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| Now that's what I call Legendary! |
The fight against Jado is tough, but he's soon defeated by our team, and this causes Krux to abandon him completely, right as he’s sending a massive wave of Krawl meteors to attack Wyterra. There’s just enough time to place the final shard and awaken the Legendary Spectrobe, Kaio, which takes to the skies and destroys all the meteors – and Jado as well, for good measure. When the threat has been eliminated, Kaio returns to Rallen and Jeena as a portable item named a Geo. Since this creature is so large, we can only call it when it’s necessary. Well, that’s alright, we have a planetoid-sized threat coming.
We don’t even get to trek back to the village – we cut to it directly. It’s a recurring issue with this game where, after a cutscene and a loading screen, the characters are moved directly to their next destination. This is frequent after boss battles. I would have preferred if there was the option to talk to someone to do so, instead of it being automatic – since there would sometimes be a good reason to stay in an area a little longer, like going back to look for missed secrets. It’s annoying since there is no way to fast-travel between notable areas on one planet, so if you missed out on something deep into a dungeon, well, you’ll have to venture through all of it again! I can see why they did it this way, but it can be a major pain.
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This scene is right after coming back from the Pool of
Awakening. Which... walking back to Haven Village
could have made for good EXP for the Spectrobe team! |
The officers return to Radese, only to meet Kamtoga and Commander Grant there alongside the chief. Glad these two survived! The young officers question Grant on his suspect behavior; turns out, even he didn’t know about the portal in Sector W. It’s by complete luck that it opened just as the NPP ship was near it. Grant joined in, believing that his old friend turned enemy was behind its appearance. They arrived at the right time to stop Krux’s ploy to awaken the system’s Legendary Spectrobe and take it for the Krawl. Of course, Grant couldn’t say much to his colleagues just in case the disgraced Spectrobe Master was listening.
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| A bit of extra grinding won't hurt. |
With that, it’s time to stop the Krawl’s greatest threat yet, and that means going into the Kawlosphere, and destroying it from the inside using Kaio. Better level grind some more and stock up on rice balls, we’ll need every boost we can get. Rallen and Jeena are then ready to depart for the final stop in their adventure.
Uh… Iku ze, I guess! (…I feel like such a dweeb, doing Rallen’s thing.)
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