Our journey truly begins now with the first dungeon we don't have to dodge monsters. Going forward, I will say this so that we try to remain around the same battle rank and thus you have the same opportunities to farm rare items and abilities along with me: Fight one of every monster icon you find in the dungeons starting now, but if you want to stretch it with a couple more because you got a good item/ability, that is okay too, but don't get too crazy! It will be VERY frustrating at first, but eventually, battle rank will no longer matter and we can fight to our heart's content. Be vigilant for now! Also, since you can only restore LP at the Tanzer inn, be frugal with your WP/JP because you will need it for the boss! If you run low on WP/JP, switch your battle parties; the characters not fighting will regen a little for each battle they are on the sidelines.
Note: You can return to the beginning screens of Tanzer and monsters have taken up residence there now if you want to do some extra fighting. Tanzer is also a one-time dungeon, but since there are no treasures, it's a bit redundant to say.
If Rouge is in your party, have him cast Realm magic during battles and you'll have a chance for him to learn the tremendous VermilionSand magic afterward. If you took my advice and picked up FlashFire for him, or another character, it's not necessary, but will be a great help during the upcoming boss and the entire game. Also, Liza has great potential to quickly learn one of the best attacks in the game, the Dream Super Combo (DSC), and you should begin to develop the abilities necessary to use it. The worst of it will be using the Punch default to spark the Sliding ability; which can take a while, but is necessary for the combo. Use AirThrow to learn Suplex (If she didn't start with it) and GiantSwing, and lastly, Suplex to spark BabelCrumble. Equipping all four of these fighting abilities at once unlocks the use of the Dream Super Combo in battle and it is devastating! Liza has the best potential for this, but any character can eventually use it.
Exiting the lair, Fei-on is waiting for you by a rope ladder to the north. Climb it, then the one on the following screen, and get sucked into the, uh, cavity (?) to the upper-left. This places you in the area of the screenshot above with a mec and fairy monster (Apologies for the dark screens, but as you can tell, the area itself is dimly-lit like a lot of dungeons in SaGa Frontier). Exit to the north and don't get near the cavity to the right-side or you'll be taken back near the entrance; in fact, all detours will take you back to early areas unless stated. Continue north, climbing a vein to the northeast, to the next area.
You're now here. There's a purplish-wormhole-thing to your south you can actually use to visit Nomad's hideout, but there's nothing you can do there but talk to her minions. It only plays a role in Riki's story. Instead, head east, past the skeleton, and into the cavity Fei-on is near. Next, run by the bird enemy and into another cavity; following up by jumping down the wormhole to your lower-right.
This place seems like an endless loop going nowhere, but there is actually a place you can jump over to another section. From the top of the second-tier of "slides", go down left, then left again, and position yourself in the location of the screenshot. Use the run button and your character will leap over to the other side and you can continue down. Fei-on will give you a warning, so save first, then you can slide down to the Vitality Rune.
Put any characters that have multi-target attacks in your party. Gunners, like Roufas or Emelia that have TotalShot, any swordsmen that might have learned GaleSlash, Rouge or another mage with FlashFire/VermilionSand, or Thunder if it still possesses its GroundHit ability. A character lacking any of these can equip the Magihat to drop MagicStones. Without any of these you're in for a long, tough battle.
Having taken the Vitality Rune, Tanzer gets a bellyache and decides to spit out the ship you came in on; which I guess you managed to make it back to somehow, and then you're back in Koorong. In all the commotion, you might not have noticed a bluish Slime monster sneaking his way out of the slime pool and forcing himself into your party and there's nothing you can do about it! Being locked into the Rune quest from the start, Emelia doesn't have the flexibility that other characters do in filling up all their party slots before being forced to enter Tanzer, so just except the little guy!
With Tanzer out of the way, we should be around the 3-4 battle rank
mark, and since we have the possibility of a good number of monsters
joined: Slime, Cotton, Thunder, and Riki, let's take a timeout to gather
a few rare monster abilities that are available at this battle rank to
increase their maximum HP. Note that any of the next suggested abilities
are not missable; so don't fret over any later-joining monsters you may
recruit like Sei, Suzaku, or Kylin missing out of them, but going ahead and getting them for the monsters you have currently will save you A LOT of headache later! Trust me on this.
We're hunting slimes first, and if you'll recall, there's the three-slime room with the chests in Mu's Tomb back in Shrike. Save your game before engaging battle and look for the WhipJelly monster to appear; if you don't get one, or don't absorbed the right ability after taking out all three slime enemies, reload your game and try again to preserve battle rank. Absorb both the Sweep and Coils abilities for your monsters from the WhipJelly; the latter is a bit rare, but be persistent. Remember: even if the ability isn't useful, your monster gets a +4 maximum HP bonus for every new ability they absorb.
Next, stay in Mu's Tomb, and from the entrance, use the lower-right exit that warns you about entering. There's two bug-type monsters just inside. Save, and look for KillerBees. Absorb the SpiderNet ability from them, or if you get lucky and get the rarer BladeNet, that is great, too, but there's a better chance to get that ability later on. Lastly, we need a plant-type enemy. Fly to Koorong, then over to Shingrow. Enter the Ruins of the Ancient Ship dungeon to the northwest of the map. There's a plant monster on the entrance screen that we can fight, exit, then go back in and fight again. We're searching for Mandrakes at this battle rank. Try to absorb SleepGas from them, but if you happen to acquire Scream or MagicHeal instead, keep them as they are great abilities to have!
Note: If Fei-on joined your party, you can view a scene with him if you talk to the girl near the northern exit of the street in central Shrike. Also, before the next event, make sure Emelia is equipped with the Mizukagami shield and the best physical defense armor you have. In my case, that would be: ArmorVest, Hyperwear, LaserScope, and JetBoots.
Return to Koorong and the Gradius hideout. Enter Roufas' room on the right-side of the downstairs corridor and a story scene will occur. Roufas asks for a volunteer to infiltrate a masked event in Shingrow that Joker is rumored to appear. Air-headed Emelia foolishly thinks because it is masked that it is a Masque of the Red Death-style party and accepts.
Note: To actually advance Emelia's story and trigger events in Roufas' room, you need to use the training room via the middle room in the corridor.
Emelia and Liza are automatically whisked away to Shingrow Palace and all your characters are temporarily dumped from your party. Liza regretfully informs her that this is actually a masked martial arts tournament and Emelia is forced to change into a Lucha Libre-style outfit to compete, despite her objections. You can't fly out of the Shingrow port, or visit any of the nearby dungeons, so save, line Emelia up behind the rest of the goons joining the tournament, and enter as the Pink Tiger!
Note: The Pink Tiger costume, along with a few others Emelia can wear, are not for just for show! When donning the Pink Tiger outfit, Emelia's default talent for sparking techs becomes identical to Liza's; meaning you can spark martial art, gun, and some sword skills, much easier. Due to this change, I recommend emptying most of Emelia's ability slots, besides MindHeal or a strong offense one, to spark new abilities in the tournament.
Emelia's first opponent is the MaskCat. As you can tell from the screenshot, I actually sparked the great LocomotionG ability against him almost immediately thanks to the costume! The MaskCat has a decent amount of HP, but his attacks are weak and most will be blocked if you equipped the Mizukagami. You may use this chance to learn the DodgeTail ability from it, but not totally necessary. Punch, Punch, Punch to learn new martial arts abilities and cast MindHeal if your HP gets near 100.
Note: Because Emelia is just a supermodel, and this is her first real mission, you're not suppose to get far in the tournament. The only benefit is potentially sparking some new abilities and earning some Credits, but the Credits aren't worth having to keep redoing the entire tournament if you fall, in my opinion. There are no extra scenes or anything from winning, either; the story continues the same way regardless of your success.
The second battle is against a deadly CrimeLady and you are only going to make it past this round if your Mizukagami comes through to block her attacks. If you were lucky enough to survive, Emelia then faces a Titania in the semi-finals. This fight is incredibly difficult to overcome due to the Titania using Bloodsucker to deal tremendous damage AND recover their HP. Emelia sparking DodgeDrain immediately is your only real chance to survive. The finals pits you against a MaskedGiant that you know well if you've played Red's scenario. He's gonna beat the tar out of you physically and dodge your attacks frequently. Casting of MindHeal, if you still have the JP, and lucky Mizukagami blocks are absolute musts. If you do somehow manage to deplete the MaskedGiant's HP, he will flee from the battle, but I wouldn't suggest frustrating yourself to get that far.
Note: After the Shingrow Palace events, you can still access the areas that you pursued Joker; including the free healing on the top floor (Which will be helpful when we explore the other Shingrow dungeons later), or if you didn't get the two treasures there, but the YellowFighters are no longer loitering around.
With some extra Credits, fly back to Devin and pick up a Rune spell for Emelia, Liza, and Annie; any of them are fine, as long as they have one, but Vitality or Victory are best. When receiving a magic gift, each character must have one spell of the gift's base type learned to actually receive it; so you need to purchase one of the spells for the ladies before we collect all four RuneStones. If you don't already have it, pick up the Arcane-based Shield spell for one of your favorite characters, too, but try to save 600 Credits.
Let's make a trip back to the Junk Shop in Scrap, next. If Emelia's HP
has exceeded 300, the price has gone up to 600 Credits, unfortunately,
but we still need to pluck items from here before it goes even higher! I
reiterate: you don't have to get these items now; they are
available throughout the game, but the amount of Credits charged
increases, as does the item pool, making getting what you want rarer and
more expensive, and you can only find these items for your inventory here. Make sure to save first!
Try searching around the box seen in the above screenshot to find a WaterCannon weapon. It's not great, with a power of 20, but we can only obtain one here. It will provide mecs a +70 to HP and a +10 to Will and Vit, also. If you wanted more than one (From Despair), you can look in the same box and occasionally pick up LightBazookas.
Note: As precaution, I wouldn't leave here until you have the Knife (Without Lute), BroadSword (If not going to recruit Gen), HardLeather (No Lute or BR 9 System Data Mei-ling), and WaterCannon all in your inventory. While not technically missable because you can manipulate the Junk Shop's available inventory (See Prolouge), these four items will eventually be unobtainable because of the rising rank of the item pool.
After the events at the Shingrow Palace, we're very likely to be firmly on battle rank 4, so let's take another timeout and gather some rare things now available. First, fly to Shrike and enter Sei's Tomb again. On the very first screen is a fairy-type monster. We're looking to encounter the Banshee monster and have our monsters absorb its Bloodsucker ability. This is a decent monster ability; especially if your monster is of the undead-type, but will become semi-rare later in the game.
Note: If you happen to get any extra AGUNI-CP1 from battling the Soldiers, save them, and make sure your gunners each have two guns equipped to use the incredible TwoGun ability when it's learned. Also, if you get lucky and the Soldier drops a KillerRifle, save it, too! It's a very rare weapon, but we can get find it a little easier from another enemy.
Any players that aren't planning to recruit the mystic, Mesarthim (Who comes pre-equipped), or just want more than one, will need to pickup the next item for their inventory. There are three aquatic-type monsters hiding out in the depths of the sewers we can draw out and battle. Frillneck monsters are what we are looking for from them. Although rarely, they will drop the useful BlueElf armor, that besides being removed from Mesarthim, can only be obtained from two specific monsters. At late battle ranks, it is still possible to obtain this armor from another, but trust me: getting it dropped from the Frillneck will save you a lot of time and effort! The BlueElf completely negates water-based attacks, provides a +20 to physical and status defenses, and +25 to elemental defenses, so it's likely to be better than most armors you already have. It's a decent piece for mecs, too, with a +100 to HP and +15 to Intelligence and Psychic.
Note: Frillnecks drop the water-nulling PearlHeart accessory, too, which are very useful. Also, while farming Frillnecks, although it is quite rare, see if you can get a monster to absorb its Stampede ability. It's very useful, but not necessarily hard to find later.
Note: When searching for Frillnecks, you'll probably see plenty of Platoonpuses. They can drop unpurchasable CottonShirts as well as the very rare Egg Hat helmet. There is a better place to get the Shirts, and late in the game, you'll likely end up with more Egg Hats than you need, but they are worth noting for now.
Our next destination is to head back to Owmi and the Lord's Manor. Not only is there some good equipment to snag in its basement, but there's also a weapon that has a special ability we can use to either recruit a new character or obtain a very powerful sword more easily. The entrance to the basement dungeon is in the eastern-wing of the Manor, behind a large wooden door found just after descending the stairs.
After climbing down the first set of stairs, you'll be in a room full of monsters and two glowing treasures on raised platforms. One is the JP-restoring Magi-Water and the other is a SanctuaryStone. Exit to the lower-left, next to where you found the latter item.
Using the stairs to the bottom-right of the screen puts you face-to-face with a giant Squid blocking the stairwell! Before engaging the beast, if you have Rouge, make sure he has the Implosion spell and the Mizukagami shield equipped. If you picked up a BlueElf armor, or PearlHeart accessory from the Frillnecks, equip them to other characters also to be immune to the Squid's devastating water attack.
The DevilSquid is a tough customer, but entirely beatable at this point in the game even without more than one character having immunity to water. Its first attack will be Maelstrom that is likely to do 300+ damage to any characters without the Mizukagami, BlueElf, or PearlHeart. If any characters have the MindHeal spell, cast it immediately afterward to recover, or for a monster, they can make use of Bloodsucker or HPDrain. The DevilSquid will use Maelstrom again, unfortunately, but only after several turns of the much-weaker Feeler. You can cast Shield to soften the blow from these attacks, as well. Otherwise, the DevilSquid is vulnerable to instant-death, so Rouge's Implosion has a chance to destroy it if only he, with the Mizukagami, can survive Maelstrom.
Note: The DevilSquid will respawn to block the stairwell again when you leave the room; this is actually to our advantage, though! It has a rare drop, plus some nice monster/mystic abilities to learn, but we'll be back to this location before long.
After cleaning away the calamari, grab at the faux treasure to be dropped to the bottom floor of the dungeon automatically (If the DevilSquid is still on the screen he'll mock the party!). The basement is completely bare, but is filled with plant and slime-type monsters which makes for an excellent farming place for these types of monsters; in fact, this entire dungeon is a great place to find all sorts of monster types going forward. Anyways, take the stairs out of the basement to the lower-left of the room. The next room is flooded with even more creatures, but houses a LeatherBoots treasure (To the far-left-corner) and a free PearlHeart accessory on the raised platform. Besides the immunity to water, the PearlHeart only has minimal defense, and makes you slightly weak to electric attacks, so it's more of a situational accessory. Exit to the southeast.
For the dungeon's prominent item, search around off-screen, on the platform across from where you found the ArmorGlove, to discover another one-of-a-kind item: The JackalSword. At +33 attack, it's a good sword at this point in the game, but its true worth is found in its hidden skill: DirtyFang. While not overly impressive in power, DirtyFang has the unique effect of stopping an enemy's regenerative abilities. Besides the pieces of armor we found, it was the main reason we came to this dungeon as we'll be using it to make a boss fight much easier. The stairs next to the MaxCure treasure takes you back up to where the DevilSquid is waiting again. Take it out and return back to Koorong.
Note: Emelia's new Bunny costume is purely cosmetic and provides no changes.
Head in a counter-clockwise motion around the casino, climbing the stairs upward, and the fellow Bunny ladies will either say they haven't seen Joker or that he went up to the next floor. Eventually, you'll be told the masked man hopped in one of the elevators and went down to the parking lot. Continuing the chase to the garage, you'll find a manhole has been uncovered leading to the underground Gnome Cave and Liza and Annie will join up with Emelia to go further below in the search.
Note: If you're curious, the seemingly never-ending hotel floors eventually end at room 1001 and you are prevented from going any further. There's nothing to see there, either.
It's at this point that you will decide the outcome of Emelia's storyline; although it does not change the progression of the story; only the ending. After seeing the event with Joker in the Gnome's lair, simply leave the Caves and return to the parking lot to receive the "good" ending where Ren will reunite with Emelia. However, if you choose to chase Joker deeper into the Gnome Cave, you will fight a boss and be put on the path of the "bad" ending where Ren does not survive at the story's conclusion. Fighting said boss does net you a good, although purchasable, accessory, though.
Whichever ending you opted for, Joker will have eluded you again upon your return to the parking garage below Baccarat and you're back in Koorong with your regular party. Like usual, hit Roufas up for an extra 1500 Credits. If your humans don't yet have the MindHeal spell from Kyo, or Emelia, Liza, and Annie having bought one Rune spell in Devin, prioritize them with your Credits. A character with the Arcane spell Shield in Devin, and the light-based StarlightHeal from Luminous should be considered, also. When you're ready, head over to Shrike and back to Sei's Tomb and let's finish it up.
With the three items, proceed to the antechamber back towards the Tomb's entrance. You'll see three glowing pedestals to place the unique items you found. At this point, you have a decision to make: do you place the objects, losing the one-of-a-kind items permanently, to open the door to Sei's resting place and a chance to recruit a monster character or obtain a powerful sword, or do you keep them in your inventory? Personally, I always pick one of the seven main characters to keep the trio, for completionists sake, but none of the equipment pieces are near the best in the game; although the Mizukagami will continue to be one of the best shields late into the game.
Deciding to place the relics, prepare for battle when you search the sarcophagus in the adjacent room. Make absolutely sure one of your characters has the JackalSword equipped, each character should have a shield, and bring any multi-enemy attacks you have such as FlashFire, VermilionSand, GaleSlash, TotalShot, the Magihat to drop MagicStones, ect., but bring your best single single-target attacks, also.
Start by having two characters use multi-target spells; particularly FlashFire and/or VermilionSand (Physical ones like GaleSlash and TotalShot can be blocked, but work if they are all you have). One character attacks with DirtyFang, and the other two use their strongest single-target attacks on one DeadKnight. If Roufas has learned Lifewave, your swordsmen have CrossSlash, or gun users have CrossShot, they are extremely effective against our undead adversaries. Focus on eliminating one DeadKnight at a time; particularly the two out in front of the DeathLord which will allow us to target him directly and hit with DirtyFang as soon as possible. Exposed and without his HP regeneration, try to combo your attacks to prevent his excessive shield-blocking and whittle down his HP. Like always, Shield is a fantastic spell to use and MindHeal will recover your HP.
Defeated, not only coughing up the highest single-battle Credit drop in the entire game (1000+), King Sei will offer to either join your party or to give you a powerful sword: the non-katana Kusanagi. King Sei is one of my favorite characters in the game, but despite his unique, but only slightly above-average special DeathLord form, he's not much different than any other monster-type character. Alternately, the Kusanagi, with a power of 66, has a special battle animation in place of its basic attack (Requiring WP), but this attack cannot cannot spark abilities, which is a bit of a negative (Using abilities can still spark, however); the Kusanagi also has unique look when drawn in battle.
While the easiest to obtain of the game's most-powerful swords, it is marginally outclassed by others that are much more difficult to acquire, however, perhaps the best usage of the Kusanagi is for any sword-using mecs. It provides a +250 to HP and +25 to Strength and Quickness whose combination is one of the very best of any weapon in the game, in my opinion. Sword mecs, with generally high Strength, can get the best use of the Kusanagi's special attack without the need for ability sparking, and can be a devastating blow when combined with a program like PluralSlash. Needless to say, if Sei isn't your cup of tea like he is mine, take the Kusanagi and let the guy go back to sleep!
Also with Sei, depending on where your battle rank falls at the moment, I highly recommend you go back and try to absorb the monster abilities that I talked about previously in the chapter. As stated, these aren't missable, but if you can still pick them up now, it will save you a lot of headache later in the game (He does not need to absorb Bloodsucker, however). You may want to go and splurge on some of the Credits you picked up from the battle, too, but I advise waiting until after the next mission. When done, head back to Koorong, put Emelia through her training at the Gradius hideout, and speak with Roufas in his room to continue the story.