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Back again, and I've been quite busy between chapters:



I've cleared several more random dungeons and gained enough levels to put my battle characters up to 40! I also took the liberty of "Rebirthing" Ms. Knuckles and Red Arremer as 10-point characters (read: making a 10-point character with the same name and fusing the 1-pointer into them), decking everyone out with some new gear and even adding two new characters: Shrubbery the Owl Knight (name courtesy of Syd) and Polysorbate the Owl Mage, both 9-pointers.

Incidentally, my non-battle characters were also leveled up significantly due to random dungeons, being in the 25-30 level range.

As the final touch, I also snapped some better titles on to everyone in my battle party, since we're now to the point where much better titles start randomly appearing on character on the character creation menu. Plus we can scrounge them off items in random dungeons.

All of that said, let's move on to the chapter proper.

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Could it be another high-powered anime hero trying to drive a stake through our hearts and end the phantom-posessed menace?



Nope, just this guy.



Might want to rethink that acronym - H.A.R.M. isn't exactly a flattering name.



Will we be blowing up a dam, perhaps?



Oh.



Ash finds the guy pretty suspicious.



Playing the guilt card!



D'oh.



Guess we're going to Monetopia.



Might as well check out the headlines before we go, though.



Hm, could this have anything to do with our current job?



The nasty bugger that killed Ash, Jasmine and Haze at last has a name.

I didn't screencap the last one, but it basically just says that deaths on the Island of Evil are now well into the triple digits due to foolish Chromas trying to make a buck. Ouch.

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Here we are in Candyland Monetopia.



I can't help but feel we've been mislead.



Ash apparently agrees.



Well we came all this way, might as well.

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On to the first battle map.



Bears an odd resemblance to Final Fantasy's Red Mages, eh?



Says the guy who was jumping around and shrieking.



Boo!



Your voice is really getting on my nerves.



I guess it's an improvement over being afraid of us.



I'm getting conflicting messages from this guy.



Alright, this board's pretty simple, but we're introduced to a new mechanic here - KeepOut protections. Basically, these just block off a section of the map until you defeat the enemy casting that Protection - in this case, you can't cross the Red X zone to get at Scrabbits in the corner of the map until you take out this Shade monster. However, they can't cross it either. You can use this to your advantage in some cases to break up the enemies into two more managable groups.

That crystal near the edge of the fence is casting all of those Green protections to the Scrabbits outside the red zone, by the way. More easy points.



Marona has better luck with Putty, it seems.



Or not.



I don't think I'd trust the guy as far as I could throw him. Maybe that's not the best metaphor since you can throw people about 50 yards, but I digress.



Least of all this goofball!

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This map's layout is surprisingly similar to the first, albeit without the KeepOut zone.



Further up, though, we see this - two Scrabbits receiving a Level +1 Protection from the Old Man there. This causes them to gain a level each time their turn comes up! Naturally, you'll want to take them out quickly before they overwhelm you.

You can also use this map to activate the game's other big level up trick - this entails Fusing the Titlist's Big Bang skill onto the character you want to level, clearing out all but one of the Level+1 Scrabbits, and then passing turns until they hit level 9999. Then you just toss Marona's weapon next to them and Confine the character to it - the resulting explosion will kill them and gain them about 120 levels (and 50 million Bordeaux for your party). However, I don't like this trick for three reasons.

1) It costs anywhere from 9,000 to 20,000 Mana to transfer the Big Bang skill, which takes a long time to accumulate in and of itself. On top of that, it takes about a half an hour of sitting through endless "LEVEL UP" alerts (with constant loops of the accompanying sound effect) just to set this trick up.
2) You can only level one character at a time with it.
3) For all that Mana you'd have to gather for the trick, you can just as easily spend it on a better skill like Healing Steps or Exp. Monger.

If you don't care about the post-game, though, this is a good way to power up 2-3 characters and plow through the story battles in no time flat.

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Putty's in trouble now.



Mmmyep.



Our big boss is receiving some weakening protections from the Shades surrounding him. Which is a good thing, since he's a pretty tough foe at this point in the game.



There's also this guy, who we'd want to take out if we hadn't already gotten the Titlist class from a random dungeon.

This map is actually deceptively large, and you'll have to go through about half a dozen Scrabbits near the starting point just to get to the boss. So just toss down a few phantoms to dispatch the nearest Scrabbits, and save your strongest ones for when you get close to the Manticore.



Saved!



As promised, here's Putty.



We've wandered into Okami, it appears.



I don't know, I'm pretty fond of cash.



Putty uses some strange magic, and our reward vanishes into thin air.



Canary really is a walking contradiction.



Mysterious Offscreen Voice!



Ringmaster Hamm. Looks like he's here for Putty.



And to put Canary to work making up for lost profits.



So you say. For now.



Hamm doesn't waste any time.



Well, looks like we're not getting paid for this job either.



Split between death and life in a sideshow. It's not easy being a Putty.



Or a Chroma.

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Oh boy!



...Not really, they're kind of lame. Their Attack and Speed stats are good, but the rest are pretty low, and their only worthwhile proficiency is plant attacks (which are usually INT based).

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Next time: Chapter 4, where we do another job we don't get paid for!

Click here to go to Part 4!