[twillight]

This is one of those made by RPG MAker things, but darn, I played my share of those back then, I looked up some more on GoG recently, but this has some updated graphic! That wa sone of the reasons I decided to buy this.

The game is also conversation-heavy, but it avoids he typical manga-game-problem where you are just clicking away the stuff. One of the reason this succeeds here is the witty bantering and humour.

There are 4 very different personalities for your party. Oh, and this is not one of those evil games where you have to cosider who to hire, and get alternative endings based on that choice, yadda, yadda, yadda. Your entire party also gets exp, unlike in the evil games where if one of them is knocked out/dead won't. Also the entire party gains exp for the battle, not based on the damage/kills, so again, this is not one of those evil games.
I have to warn you though: YOU CAN GET SOFTLOCKED, so use more than one save, and before you enter an area MAKE AN ARCHIVE SAVE! There will be though battles where you'll simply need consumables, and you can get Fed if you don't can't reload lacking those. One of it is in the Thief Godess' tmeple being attacked by the Earth God's high-priest, and another is the wizard's hut - for this later you might get away with sneaking around, didn't finish that quest yet.

The game is very open world, and encourages exploration. For instance att he beginning when you first try to leave the starting town (there's plenty to do inside by the way, so there's no pressure), you'll face paying taxes for it every time you do so. If you are asking the city hall wassis, you'll get a higher pay option for unlimited pass - which you probably can't afford for spending your money left-and-right. Then again if you are snooping around, you might find another option. It's all up to you.

One slight problem you might feel is, there are no respawning enemies in the game. With the occasional "month of the mimic" event. Also no respawning loot (again with the afformentioned event). So you might want to be cautious with your spending.
Actualy, the main effort you'll do is making every memeber of your crew slightly useful. The priestess will turn so when she gets her curse (lowers enemy defenses) - this happens during the search for a Thief Badge. Note: interactive hotspots are highlighted with sparkles - with the exception of chests! So always look out for chests. And stairs. And traps.

Speaking about traps: your main stats upp when you gain exp, and though the game says you should do the thief-approach, fighting things is a major part of gaining exp, so fight, fight and fight some more! And avoid using consumables. Remember: even if only 1 member of your party survives, you're 100% winner of that fight! On the sidenote, there's also a quest which demands clvl 4. Now leveling up only boosts your stats slightly, so there's also collecting Godess Gifts for the thief to rise her perception-level, which makes you notice traps.

Deactivating traps rises your lockpick level along unlocking doors. You'll be given a range how difficult a trap is, like 20-30. The trap do have an exact difficulty, but be my guest figuring that out. If you are 10 slvl higher than the lock/trap though, your skill won't advance, so you might feel the need to figure out where is what. Don't. Just like with the time-limits these ranges are very generous, you'll have plenty of opportunity to enhance your skill. Leave the obviously too high things for later though, if your skill is like 5 level below the requirement you risk breaking a lockpick, and if it is too high you'll not have the random roll unlocking them. Yes, in that instance there is a random roll.
You also gain abilities around from quests. So leveling up won't help with those. And there is the question of equipment, which are always expensive, so try going with the loot you find.

After the Tief Badge go for the Priestess' (my fav char) quest you gain there, that'll be useful until you gain 2 perception-item for your thief. The thief is by the way is on the level with the warrior when it comes to fighting - if you are using a dagger. So there's that.Cherrish it, because the warrior is a hugh pain, because she'll get the "afraid" condition if you are fighting a rat, facing a very big monster (HP in the thousands), or get hurt to maybe 25% of her HP (I'm eyeballing it, but it seems around 75% HP left). To cure her condition you might try to give her booze (even right before entering the fight) but that makes her berserk, under which condition she can't use her skills. Still, it can come in handy. Another option is to heal her to 100% using a healing potion (or another healing method if you come across such). This is obviously expensive, and if you rmemeber, there's no respawning in this game, so trust your judgement. Most of the time I just let her stand around doing nothing (although worth mentioning she has a skill which makes her more resilient to damage).

Back a bit to finding traps and using perception in general: whenever you find on of the Gifts you might want to run around checking if new loot is available. Yes, this is "annoying backtracking", but up to lvl 14-16 you'll find stuff enough, and at 18 (yeah, this late I did the priestess quest, huh) you'll find some very nifty items, so it isn't too annoying.
Now the wizard... One of her problems is the need of Living Ink. Now you culd BUY those if you are easy on the money, but as I said I wouldn't. Now those are rare unfortunately. And come from obscure sidequests. The other problem is, her target settlement is bloody far away, and using the roads on the worldmap will make you bump into bandit groups, which are loody though, and I'm not sure how long you can avoid them (maybe random, maybe not). So save a lot, and figure out how to get where. Those bandits come in 3-4 member party, with 2,000+ HP when added together, so that's a problem. They also like to heal (500 HP per character, adding at least a thousand more HP to beat off). And the pocket-dimension is big, and I'm afraid the whole thing might close down when we are done there, cutting off all the nifty exp. Which rmeinds me, when you are at the Fighters Guild, trying to apply membership and get down to the cellar/prison - you are better off doing everything right there and then, because there is a skill to gain, and rodents to fight, and though it'll probably unlock when you gain membership (maybe not), that membership is locked behind the wizard's questline.

And to be honest, the wizard is not even the worst mandatory questline to beat. Because the game won't let you out of chapter 1 before doing those. It literaly cuts you off from a map-location. At one point you'll encounter some ghost - I mean it's worse, it's a Hell Denizen. And it heals like crazy. Yu don't have to win there, before whole party kill NPCs will show up and save you. But it gives you an idea what you'll face.Because you'll face more than one of those during the priestess' quest, so you better pump up your stats, abilities and gear like crazy, because I'm pretty confident goblins are NOTHING compared to that!


Starry Cave Guide:
- you can go in and out of the cave as much as you want BUT ingame time is still spent if you leave the area. I have no idea how this works, how much real time you have to clean up the place etc.
- there are spawn-points. During your first visit you shall find an NPC inside the cave who explains it all. Point is, the spawn-points only re-activate at the start of a week, and not when you leave the cave/the area. No idea if a spawn-point reactivates or not is it rotates back to a type of animal you already looted.
- before exploring beyond the first enemy, right after that fight go to the astrologer and buy his spell. It's the best thing for this dungeon, trust me.
- loot does not respawn with the rotation of the weeks. The maximum Perception Level here is 17 they say (at least one less you can have).

- all monster-type has a boss, that drops 1 unite of Star Alloy which can be brought to the dwarf smith at the warrior guild. There are exceptions though, like:
a) mimics. mimics don't have bosses, and do not spawn, and the week can't be bought from the astrologer. Then such week happens, 3 mimic spawns inside the cave.
b) hen. Dunno how this chicken-event works, but I've read you should run through the spawns and such, and only fight the boss. The reward is a special cloak this time.
c) cow, aka. minotaur: this is where you SHOULD kill everything inside, at least so they say, so there'll be a special chest in the NE corner. Will try to confirm. There is a double-boss for this one at the stone gate (the huhn appear there too), who drop a special staff.
This event can NOT be purchased from the alchemist, randomly appears after you deal with the Hen-week. You must defeat the Mother of All Chicken. Do NOT kill little chickens during that, or she'll have a swarm or something, so they said. Rather big battle, every turn the chicken heals itself like 150 HP. Give courage-potion to the warrioress, the effect will be gone for the whole fight. The potion does NOT work if you drink it before the fight.
After defeating the Mother Chicken you MIGHT get a Week of the Cow, and you only get it ONCE in the entire playthrough, so stack up on potions when you go in or something.

IMPORTANT: for the very first quest about alcohol, after getting the sample GO BACK TO THE BASEMENT OF THE BAR. There should be a new hotspot.
The quest has two (three?) alternative endings depending whose reward you wil take. It's best not to rob the robber, but turn to the owner, and then to the authorities. But it's p to you, really.

There is a 5,000 HP ogre/troll in one map. Pretty inconsequential, it's just for braggging rights to fight it. To win there you want Enfeeblement, [Godess] Curse rotated by the priestess, Fireball (to lower resistance and that first fire-spell, and the warriior get a Potion of Courage. Accumlate your TP until the priestess manages to set up 2 resistence-lowering debuff.


So, this is how Cow Week works:
1) request the Week of the Hen
2) defeat the Mother Chicken
3) wait until Cow Week triggers, and re-enter the star-maze
4) activate all seashell. They'll do nothing beside a visual effect
5) go to the stone portal and enter the Secret Cow Level, where will be many non-hostile cows
6) go to the NE corner where two minotaur (doble boss) are guarding a chest.