Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland DX – FAQ/Walkthrough
PC
FAQ/Walkthrough by Swetzie
Version: 1.10 | Updated: 02/03/19
_______________________________ ATELIER RORONA DX/PLUS FAQ/Walkthrough by Swetzie _______________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Version history: v1.1 Some text formatting to make it more visually appealing v1.0 Initial release __________________________________________________________________________ Firstly, this is my first guide ever, so there are bound to be some mistakes in the design of the guide, as well as some grammatical errors. If I’ll notice it, I’ll fix it straight away (I’ve proof-read it, but it’s possible that I missed a sentence or two). This is a new account (my old account has a wrong username and GameFAQs doesn’t want to change it). PM me if you found any mistakes or if you want to suggest something I can use to improve this guide. Or PM me if you have any questions about any aspect of this game (or other Atelier game). I’ll happily reply to your question or suggestion. Thanks in advance! To quickly jump to a certain section of the guide, just hit CTRL+F (or use the Find function on your phone) and enter the 6-digit combination mentioned in the “Table of Contents”. So, the question a lot of people might ask - is this guide for a specific version of the game or can you use it for multiple titles? The answer is: you can use it with ANY version of the game except the original Rorona for the PS3. That’s because the original Rorona has some different gameplay aspects compared to Plus/DX. You can use it mostly for finding out which events you need to trigger for a certain character to get their ending. Also, in the original Rorona you couldn’t pick your ending meaning you had to trigger ending after ending, but here you can easily pick between endings (that ending selection box is really a godsend). Since there is almost no difference between the Plus (PS3 and Vita) and DX (PS4, PC and NS) versions, this guide covers all those versions, but I’ll primarily play on the PS4. This guide also covers New Atelier Rorona for the 3DS to some extent. That version is largely the same besides the combat, which is turn-based as well, but on a grid space (and I dare say the combat in the 3DS version is better than on the other versions), it’s a fairly easier game and it has a completely new additional story (Atelier Astrid) which I won’t cover in this guide (neither I got to that point yet). If you know Japanese I suggest you tried that game. This guide has four parts - general helpful tips, explanations, basic overviews, event lists and trophy list (all text before the walkthrough); the in-depth walkthrough of the main game; Overtime; special thanks and legal stuff. You can platinum the game no problem using either combinations of the first three, but I suggest using all three, especially if you’re stuck at some point. Also, if I’m going to mention the other two Arland games, it’s going to be strictly Plus versions for the Vita. All righty, enough with that. Let’s start, shall we? ========================================================================== Table of Contents ========================================================================== (1.) Introduction.................................................[INTR00] (2.) Basic Gameplay...............................................[BASI00] (3.) Story, Characters and Endings................................[STCE00] (4.) Character Events.............................................[CHAR00] (5.) Trophy List..................................................[TROP00] (6.) Walkthrough..................................................[WALK00] (6.1) Notes and Pre-assignment Period..........................[ASIG00] (6.2) Assignment 1.............................................[ASIG01] (6.3) Assignment 2.............................................[ASIG02] (6.4) Assignment 3.............................................[ASIG03] (6.5) Assignment 4.............................................[ASIG04] (6.6) Assignment 5.............................................[ASIG05] (6.7) Assignment 6.............................................[ASIG06] (6.8) Assignment 7.............................................[ASIG07] (6.9) Assignment 8.............................................[ASIG08] (6.10) Assignment 9............................................[ASIG09] (6.11) Assignment 10...........................................[ASIG10] (6.12) Assignment 11...........................................[ASIG11] (6.13) Assignment 12...........................................[ASIG12] (6.14) Ending Choices..........................................[ENCH00] (7.) Overtime.....................................................[OVER00] (7.1) Events during Overtime...................................[OVER01] (7.2) Cost Supplements and Junk................................[OVER02] (7.3) Equipment Synthesis......................................[OVER03] (7.4) Item Synthesis...........................................[OVER04] (7.5) Boss Strategies..........................................[OVER05] (8.) Special Thanks...............................................[SPTH00] (9.) Disclaimer...................................................[DISC00] ========================================================================== (1.) Introduction [INTR00] ========================================================================== So, you’re here to destroy the game? To find a tip? To see the requirements for a certain ending? Yes, yes. Don’t worry, I got you covered. First thing to note is that this game has a ton of endings. There are four generic endings (Bad, Normal, Good and True Endings; Bad Ending is not required for platting the game), seven character endings and three miscellaneous endings. So, that’s 14 endings in total. Quite the amount, right? They’re actually quite easy to obtain if you put your mind to it. You don’t have to follow this guide too religiously, but there’s certainly a lot of things I wish I knew before, when I was platting the game on the PS3/Vita. Also note the time limit. Oh, the time limit, why do you make our lives harder? It makes you a bit more conservative with your time, something that’s been an Atelier standard since Marie up till Shallie (after that Gust removed the time limits, Firis is an exception). However, while the time limit might seem like a nightmare, it’s actually pretty lenient and it’s easy to manage your time, so don’t worry (well, if you want to plat the game in two or more playthrough, else it’s a nightmare). As I said, you don’t have to follow this guide too religiously since you have enough time to do everything (if you’re not messing around, that is). Just enjoy the game. Also, the main part of this game is divided by the assignments you get. Some are 90 days long, some are 80 days long, all are easier than I initially thought. Even though this game is classified as a JRPG, it’s more like some sort of “crafting simulator”, with JRPG aspects inserted into it just to spice things up a bit. ========================================================================== (2.) Basic Gameplay [BASIC00] ========================================================================== -------- Battle -------- With the exception of New Atelier Rorona 3DS, the games are standard turn-based JRPGs, so the combat is fairly simple. Seriously, anyone can pick it up and play. Think of the combat as Dragon Quest, only with support attacks and guards (I’ll get to those in a bit). ------- Skills¬ ------- You know what are skills in JRPGs, right? Then you know what skills in this game are. Basically, they’re special attacks you can use against your opponents. They take a fraction of your MP (a great improvement, the original Rorona didn’t have MP, instead it took a fraction of your HP), but they’re more powerful than regular attacks so they’re totally worth it. However, they’re not only attacks, but other things as well. They can heal your allies, they can inflict or cure status ailments, and more. --------------------- Elemental weaknesses --------------------- Also, there is a very simple elemental attack scheme present in a lot of JRPGs: Water <==> Fire and Earth <==> Wind. It’s a really easy scheme to master. You can insert a lot of elemental traits on your equipment, from traits that protect you against certain elemental attacks to traits that add elemental attacks. It’s best if you fight against, for example, a Water monster (generally “Whale” type monsters), you equip yourself with bombs that inflict Fire damage or use weapons that have a Fire damage trait. How to transfer traits will be explained later. --------------------------- Support Attacks and Guards --------------------------- As you perform actions during battles, you might notice a bar next to Rorona’s HP and MP. As the bar fills up, the number next to it will raise by one. If you have at least one filled up bar, you can perform a supporting attack or guard. If you perform an attack skill or use an attack item with Rorona, you’ll be able to use a support attack. Those are basically attacks that don’t waste a character’s turn and do around the same damage as a regular attack. Performing this attack drops the number by 1. However, if you have more filled up bars (like 2 or 3), you can perform a second support attack (also drops the number by 1) and you can perform a third support attack as well (also drops the number by 1, meaning you need a total of three filled up bars to perform this action). The third support attack is generally a strong one, wiping out the whole field. However, not all support attacks are “attacks”. They can also heal your allies, buff them up etc. Support guards are simpler. If an enemy tries to attack Rorona, you’ll have the ability to use a support guard (requires one filled up bar). An character will move in front of Rorona, protecting her from the oncoming attack (the character that protected her also guarded him/herself, lowering the damage inflicted to that character). ------ Items ------ There are only three characters that can use items - Rorona, Totori and Meruru (the alchemist trio, yay). Totori and Meruru are available in Overtime only, so you’re stuck with Rorona for now. There are two types of usable items - healing items and attack items. Healing items are, of course, useful when you’re low on health. A lot of characters have skills that can heal your allies, but healing items generally have a stronger effect. Attack items are where it’s at. Those will save you in the long run, especially in the beginning. Don’t cheap out on attack items, synthesize as many as possible. Attack items also have elemental properties on them, such as Fire on Bombs and Water on Ice Bombs. Some items attack only one enemy, some attack a larger group, and that totally depends on the type of the item as well as how you synthesized it. An important thing to note is that you need to put the items you intend to use in your basket, else you’re going to have a rough time. Also, items are categorized into multiple categories, such as (Fuel), (Water), (Oil) etc. Some (or more like most) items have are part of two or more categories. ----------------- Adventurer Level ----------------- An Adventurer Level is your combat level. As you fight monsters, you’re going to earn some experience. The stronger the monster, the more experience points you gain. As your level increases, you’ll earn more skills as well as “finishers”, special moves that obliterate everything in your path, and, what’s best, your HP and MP stays the same! So yeah, it’s a standard JRPG-style leveling up system, nothing special. ------------- Exploration ------------- --------- Locations --------- There are a total of 11 locations you can explore, as well as 2 locations that get unlocked once you start Overtime. The 11 locations are as follows - Nearby Forest, Ortoga Ruins, National Mines, Traveler’s Way, Catacombs, Ster Highlands, Night’s Domain, Dark Woods, Nabel Lake, Lost City and Orthogalaxen. The two Overtime locations are Machina Domain and Abyssal Tower. Every location has several smaller maps in them and you need to spend time to go to travel to a location and you also need to spend some time for each of the smaller maps. ---------- Gathering ---------- One of the most important aspects of this game is also one of the most simple ones. To gather items, you approach a “shining” spot, just press that button and gather. Unlike the sequels to this game as well as the first two Dusk games, gathering does not spend your precious time, so gather up! Every item is precious and, even if you’ll never use it, you’ll be glad to have them to keep you company. Well, I did say “gather up”, but there is a limit to how much you can carry. Initially the basket size is 60, but after the upgrade it’s 100. ----------- Synthesis ----------- And here we go, the most important aspect of any Atelier game. The part of the game that makes Atelier unique. The part of the game that made me and a lot of people fall in love with the series. Synthesizing. This game has ridiculously simple alchemy, but I tell you it’s among the best ones purely for the infinite possibilities (well, not infinite but it seems like it). It’s a really enjoyable alchemy system anyone can use. However, it’s the sort of “easy to use, hard to master” kind of system. It requires some trial and error, but nothing that can keep you from enjoying the game. --------------------------------- Recipes and Item Categorizations --------------------------------- You can’t synthesize without recipes. Recipes are usually learned through books. You can get those books from stores, as assignment rewards, from character events, finding them in chests on the field etc. Recipes from these items have categories, just like items have. There are, once again, a lot of categories, including but not limited to (Cooking), (Liquid), (Ingot) and (Cloth). --------------------- Traits and Effects --------------------- What is the main difference between traits and effects? You can transfer traits from one item to the other, while an effect is limited to the current item. When you gather items, you can see that they have some words on them besides the item name. Those are traits. Traits are very useful “enhancers” you can add to the items you synthesize. There are tons of traits, ranging from quality traits to stat enhancers to elemental guards and attacks. An important thing to mention is that you can combine two traits into one superior trait, but with a higher Cost number, such as Quality Lv1 (10% quality increase) + Quality Lv2 (15% quality increase) = Hand-Crafted (20% quality increase). The new trait will first show as ??? and it’ll stay that way unless you discover it at some point. Making trait-less items is not too great since they’d be pretty weak, but it should be fine for the first couple of assignments. What’s “Cost”, you ask? Since you’re not almighty, you need to be limited on how much traits you can transfer onto an item, as well as which traits. Just because you found an item with a great trait doesn’t mean you can transfer that trait. So Cost Points do just that. They limit you in transferring traits. At first you’re going to have a small amount of Cost Points, meaning you can’t transfer whatever trait you want, but those Cost Points will gradually improve as your alchemy level increases. You can also increase your Cost Point amount if you use specific traits such as Cost +1 and Cost +2. Those will help you immensely in the later parts of the game, especially during Overtime. Now, let’s talk about effects. They’re kind of like traits but, as I said, fixed onto an item. An effect, like a trait, shows as ??? if it’s not discovered yet, so some trial and error might take place. During the synthesis of an item, underneath the image of an item you require for the synthesis is a bar. In most cases you want to increase that bar as much as possible, so how do you do that? Best thing to do is use more rare items that have a higher quality. You can scroll on the item selection and find the item you deem the most useful. Increase your effect bar as far as possible every time you’re synthesizing an item you want to make good use of. ---------------------- Quality and Item Rank ---------------------- The higher the item quality, the better. The quality cap is 120. Item quality is important because it increases the effects of everything. Equipment - it increases the base stats. Bombs - it increases the dealt damage. Healing items - it increases the healing effects. Preferably use high quality items in most synthesizes, and if you wish to save items and are satisfied with a weaker effect, fine. The new item you make is usually the average of the items you used during the synthesis. Here’s an example - if you want to synthesize two Supplements you’ll need to use two items. Let’s say the first item is a quality 40 Cabbage, and the second is a quality 30 Beehive. You’re going to get the average, which is 35 (unless you use a quality enhancing trait such as Quality Lv1). Simple, right? Quality also increases your Item Rank. Item Ranks range from E (very low quality items) to S (high quality items). However, there is one thing to note - it’s not just the quality of the items that determine the Item Rank, but also the traits you apply to it. The better the traits, the better the Item Rank, despite the quality staying the same. So what’s the exact use of Item Rank? Well, the most useful place to use items with high Item Ranks is when doing Friend Requests at Esty’s since the higher the Item Rank, the more friendship points you get from doing a single job. ---------------- Alchemy Level ---------------- Well, now we can’t compare alchemy levels to anything from other JRPGs because other JRPGs don’t have this sort of thing. Alchemy increases simply by doing synthesizes. Nothing more, nothing less. But the amount of the experience you get varies depending on the level of the item you want to synthesize and your alchemy level. If the item level is higher than your alchemy level, you’re going to earn significantly more experience than vice-versa. But if the item level is higher than your alchemy level, you’ll have a percentage of success, meaning the synthesis can fail (especially if you don’t have enough MP), resulting in garbage (that is not without its uses since it can be used for Supplements). I have to note one thing, though. If your alchemy level is 10 levels lower than the item level, the synthesis will have a 0% success rate, meaning it’ll definitely fail. ========================================================================== (3.) Story, Characters and Endings [STCE00] ========================================================================== ---------------------- Basic Story Overview ---------------------- Once upon a time, there was a girl called Rorolina Frixell. She’s a simple-minded cute girl (also somewhat of a cry-baby) who always wishes the best to the people around her. She’s also pretty gullible, believing everything her teacher, Astrid Zexel, says. One day, a message from the castle arrived, saying the workshop will close down, but not straight away. The alchemist in charge of the workshop has to complete a series of assignments in 3 years if they don’t want to see the workshop demolished. So that would technically mean Astrid would get off her lazy bottom, but no, she dumped the responsibility to Rorona. So poor Rorona has to deal with this mess by completing those assignments. I’d like to tell more about the story but that’s it. You’re just doing a series of assignments from the castle. Sure, events happen, but those are related to characters or are random, with no influence to the story. Overtime is even more simple. You meet Totori and Meruru. You just need to synthesize a Dragon Hourglass so Totori and Meruru can travel back to the future. ------------------------------- Character Overview - Base Game ------------------------------- (+) - playable character, (-) - supporting character + Rorona (Rorolina Frixel) - as mentioned above, a simple-minded cute girl who’s tasked with saving the workshop. Her weapon is (of course) a staff. Also able to use items. + Cordelia (Cordelia von Feuerbach) - Rorona’s childhood friend, who calls her Cory; a very short-tempered girl who gets pissed at everything, very sensitive of her short height, the definition of tsundere. Her weapons are two guns (whoa). + Iksel (Iksel Jahnn) - Rorona’s childhood friend, who calls him Iksy; a very passionate cook who (maybe) gets too worked up when cooking is in question, he hates mushrooms. His weapon is a (umm) frying pan. + Sterk (Sterkenburg Cranach) - also known as Sterky; serious (and seriously handsome) knight dude who’s the main person taking care of Rorona’s assignments, allegedly has a scary face, accompanies Rorona on her adventures to keep her safe. His weapon is a sword. + Lionela (Lionela Heinze) - also known as Liona; a quiet and timid traveling dancer, accompanied by two puppets (Horoholo and Aranya). Her weapon is a bracelet. + Tantris (-spoiler name-) - also known as Tant; a traveling musician who likes to flirt with the chicks (as he did with Rorona), likes to tease Rorona. His weapon is a glove. + Gio (Ludwig Giovanni Arland) - the king of Arland, old dude who loves running from his duties, extremely strong. His weapon is a sword-staff thing. + Esty (Esty Dee (Airhart?)) - the receptionist at the castle who deals in managing jobs, a scary chick who jokes about death with a smiling face, very sensitive about her age and how she can’t find a husband. Has the dumbest name in the history in the series. Became a playable character in Plus. Her weapons are dual swords. + Astrid (Astrid Zexis) - a lazy genius alchemist, bitter and cold towards most townsfolk, likes to tease Rorona and dump her work on her, cured her parents from a disease. Became a playable character in Plus. Very expensive to hire (9980 Cole). - Hom - a homunculus (a being created using alchemy), helps Rorona with gathering and synthesizing. - Hagel (Hagel Boldness) - the recurring blacksmith of the Atelier series, loves his job and is a pretty positive person overall, very sensitive if you mention his bald head. - Tiffani (Tiffani Hildebrand) - a beautiful widow who attracts a lot of men, a really cheerful and helpful person, can’t hold her alcohol very well. - Pamela (Pamela Ibis) - the recurring ghost-girl of the Atelier series, a ghost that loves pranks and lives in a teddy bear, can’t remember anything of her past. - Cole (Cole Dueller) - a kid who’s already a successful businessman, pretty serious about his craft. - Laura and Ryan Frixell - Rorona’s parents, they constantly go on trips and give Rorona souvenirs. - Meredith Alcock - head of Ministry of Arland, typical evil guy who wants to demolish the workshop, a very stern and manipulative person. ------------------------------ Character Overview - Overtime ------------------------------ + Totori (Totooria Helmold) - Rorona’s apprentice. A cheerful and responsible girl. Her weapon is a staff. Also able to use items. + Meruru (Merurulince Rede Arls) - Totori’s apprentice. A cheerful (and not very responsible) princess. Her weapon is a staff. Also able to use items. -------- Endings -------- As I already mentioned, there are a total of 14 endings (4 generic, 7 character and 3 miscellaneous endings) in this game. I’ll list every ending as well as write the requirements for each ending (all character endings require completing the quest-line of that specific character). The specific events required for the endings will be listed in the paragraph below. ---------------- Generic Endings ---------------- - Bad Ending - fail any assignment - Normal Ending - assignment stars = 94+; town popularity = <80% - Good Ending - assignment stars = 94+; town popularity = 80%+ - True Ending - assignment stars = 100+; town popularity = 90%+ ------------------- Character Endings ------------------- - Lionela Ending and Tantris Ending - requires Normal Ending - Sterk Ending and Iksel Ending - requires Good Ending - Cordelia Ending and Gio Ending - requires True Ending - Astrid Ending - every character flag triggered and True Ending ---------------------- Miscellaneous Endings ---------------------- - Pie Master Ending - synthesize every pie with a quality of 80+ - Adventurer Ending - triggering Cordelia’s ending flag, both Rorona and Cordelia need adventurer level of 50, True Ending, defeat Iron Giant and Demon - Rich Ending - own 1 million Cole ========================================================================== (4.) Character Events [CHAR00] ========================================================================== In this section I’ll mention which character events are required for a specific event, and refer to them in my walkthrough. Note that these events are NOT optional if you want that character’s ending. There are a multitude of random unimportant events so take note of which ones take place. Most of the time just jump across various parts of the town and you should be fine, but you still need to beware of certain events since some character events lock other character events. If the events require a specific amount of Friendship Points, I’ll mention it so there won’t be any sort of confusement. Friendship Points cap at 60 and every character flag requires 60 or less Friendship Points. Tantris is an exception where you’ll have to do his friend requests to increase the Friendship Level to 80+. Also lastly, if an event says, for example, “Year 1, Month 9”, it means the event can happen at any time during or after that month (there are exceptions). -------- Lionela -------- • Year 1, Month 9 - you’ll have an event where she dances and loses her wallet - after one day you’ll return the wallet back - after a week from that she’ll visit you at the workshop, enabling her friend requests • some time later, you’ll see her dancing again. A couple of days passes and she’ll be able to join you in your adventures (you also unlock Traveler’s Way as a location you can visit) • Year 2, Month 3, 30+ Friendship - go adventuring with her. After a day, Lionela will visit your workshop. Cory is jealous. After some time there is also an event with Cory and Astrid • Year 3, Month 2, 60+ Friendship - go to any part of Traveler’s Way (this area should’ve been unlocked after a specific event with Lionela, where she talks about where she went traveling). An event where Rorona is lost should trigger, and how Lionela saved her. If it won’t happen straight away, explore the area a bit. Return to the workshop and wait a bit, Lionela will visit your workshop to explain what happened in Traveler’s Way • Year 3, Month 5 - you’ll encounter at the Town Square once again. Lionela is clueless to why her Horoholo and Aranya stopped talking. After a week, Rorona will explain the situation to Astrid, and Astrid will give her a recipe -synthesize this recipe (can be done at any time before finishing the 12th assignment). Upon synthesizing the recipe you’ll see her ending flag. You also earn the trophy “The Puppet and the Girl”. Required - Normal Ending -------- Tantris -------- • Year 2, Month 4, 30+ Friendship - finish the assignment with 9 or 10 stars (shouldn’t be a problem). Leave the city with Tantris and an event with Meredith and Tantris will trigger. There might be an event where Meredith tries to poison Rorona (screw that guy) • Year 2, Month 7, 50+ Friendship - go adventuring with Tantris in your team • Year 3, Month 1, 70+ Friendship - a scene where Meredith gets kicked out of the bar happens. After a couple of days, Tantris visits the workshop • Year 3, Month 4, 80+ Friendship - Tantris reveals who he actually is and what he was tasked with. He’ll ask of you to synthesize an instrument •synthesize this instrument (can be done at any time before finishing the 12th assignment). Upon synthesizing the recipe you’ll see his ending flag. You’ll also get the trophy “Duet”. Required - Normal Ending ------ Sterk ------ • Year 1, Month 10, 30+ Friendship - first, talk to Sterk about his job. Then talk to Esty. • Year 3, Month 1, 60+ Friendship - beware of this event, it might lock you from finishing all of Gio’s events! Finish Gio’s event at R&T Sundries first since that event requires Sterk’s presence. - first things first, you need to gain access to Ster Highlands before this event can trigger. Ster Highlands will get unlocked after finishing some of Pamela’s events (you go to the Catacombs, find the doll, return to the workshop, progress along her quest-line until she opens her own shop). Wait for the 15th and buy all Sunny Crystals. Go to Pamela and, since she’s struggling with here shop, Cole will help her. Some other month on the 15th once again buy all Sunny Crystals. Rorona will ask where he got that item, and Cole will mention Ster Highlands, unlocking the location. - Sterk visits your workshop to warn you about the dragon and tells you not to fight it (he’s actually encouraging you) - after that, you can fight the dragon anytime before Month 7, it’s located on Ster Highlands, the last area located in the northwest of the location map. You need to be decently prepared if you want to beat it, but you can also lose to it and it’ll still trigger the required ending - after the event, Sterk will be hospitalized for almost three months, so if he was in your main team be ready to find a temporary replacement for him - once he recovers, he’ll visit your workshop. You’re rewarded with the “Honorable injury” trophy. His ending flag is triggered after that event. Required - Good Ending ------ Iksel ------ Probably the easiest character ending to trigger because you don’t have to wait for a specific date (besides the one for unlocking certain locations). His events also require the lowest Friendship Level of only 30+. You can go to these locations as soon as they get unlocked. • you just need to visit a total of 9 locations with Iksel in your current team (you also earn certain items, mostly eggs and mushrooms): - Nearby Forest -> Mudhead - Ortoga Ruins -> Triberries - National Mines -> Some Egg - Catacombs -> Mystery Mushroom - Ster Highlands -> Some Egg - Traveler’s Way -> Sour Apple - Night’s Domain -> Mystery Mushroom - Dark Woods -> Dreamy Crown - Nabel Lake -> Swirly Shell If the event won’t trigger, either re-enter the first area or go to the second area. There are also events for visiting 3, 6 and 9 areas. He’ll give you 100 and 1000 Cole for visiting 3 and 6 areas, respectively. After visiting all 9 area, go to Sunrise Cafe and an event will trigger (the cafe is crowded) and you’ll get a trophy (“Busy Cafe”). That’s his ending trigger. Required - Good Ending --------- Cordelia --------- Her events are based on doing her Front-End Requests. If you check the Request List often enough, you might see a request for a specific item (usually a crappy one) and a very big reward. Cordelia herself posted those requests. You need to finish 5 of the 7 Front-End Requests, so there is room for a mistake or two. Note that every Front-End Request decreases your town popularity by 5%, so try to regain that after completing the request. The Front-End Requests are as follows: - Pebble -> 1000 Cole - Iron Clay -> 1800 Cole - Cotton Flower -> 2400 Cole - Glow Sand -> 5000 Cole - Sunny Crystal -> 3900 Cole - Mont Blanc -> 10000 Cole - Shadow Grass -> 7300 Cole • after one Front-End Request, there will be a cut-scene that shows Cordelia is the one making these requests • after three Front-End Requests (if it’s not triggering, you might need 60+ Friendship. Shouldn’t be too hard if you grinded her adventurer level for the Adventurer Ending), there will be an event at R&T Sundries • after four Front-End Requests, fail a synthesis (either synthesize a high-level item or synthesize with 0 MP). An event happens where Rorona synthesized some sort of gem, which she gave to Cordelia • after five Front-End Requests, Rorona will confront Cordelia. She’ll be unavailable for some time. Talk to Esty • some time passes and an event with Cordelia will happen, how she looks through the window • wait some more and another event with Cordelia will happen. She gives you a great accessory (equip it for the time being) and they went back to being best buddies. See what I meant when I said she’s a tsundere? You also get the trophy “Making Up”. That event is her ending trigger. Required - True Ending ---- Gio ---- • Year 1, during third assignment - you meet Gio for the first time, trying to sell a ring at R%T Sundries - wait a couple of weeks, and he’ll visit your workshop. He becomes available for Friend Requests (my advice is that you do as many of his requests as possible because he needs a quite large Friendship Level at one point) • Year 2, Month 10 - he visits your workshop and asks you to be his bodyguard. After that, you’ll earn the trophy “Slicer” and will be able to hire him as a playable character • Year 2, Month 12, 50+ Friendship (assignment end) - see why I told you to do his requests? He’s available to hire only for three months and you already need 50+ Friendship for him. So, during the Martial Tournament, you’ll have to fight some enemies. After defeating the first three (including Sterk), you get to fight Masked G (I wonder who’s that?). - the fight against him is among the hardest in the game (considering you might didn’t have enough time to prepare for it), but luckily, you don’t need to beat him. You get the “Martial Artist” trophy even if you lost to him, and his events continue despite you losing to him. • Year 3, Month 1, 60+ Friendship - this is the event where you have to go to R&T Sundries, where Tiffani will mention a group of bandits close to the town (as mentioned in the Sterk Ending part, Sterk must be healthy, so don’t go fighting the Sumi Stern before this event) - some time later, Gio will visit your workshop - some time after that, Gio will ask you to help him out against the bandits. Be sure to accept it. After the event, his ending flag is triggered. Required - True Ending ------- Astrid ------- While I did say this is a character ending, it’s more like a miscellaneous ending since it doesn’t require doing any events specific to Astrid. As mentioned before, you need to trigger every character flag and you need to have the requirements for the True Ending. Her events generally unlock new areas (like Nabel Lake and Othogalaxen) and they should happen at some point. ------- Pamela ------- Her events are generally unimportant. Increase her Friendship until you unlock Wholesale at her shop but that’s it. I’ll still list the events: - after discovering her at the Catacombs, return to the workshop for a scene (trophy “The Ghost & Teddy Bear”) - multiple events will happen, such as Pamela trying to posses Hom and her complaining about being bored - after around a month later, an event at the workshop will happen - some time later, another event will happen at her shop (nobody wants to visit her shop) - buy all Sunny Crystals from Cole on the 15th - around a week later, enter Pamela’s store to a surprise - it’s crowded! Cole explains the situation - some time later, visit Pamela’s store to encounter Astrid -------- Tiffani -------- You earn a trophy after you reach 60+ Friendship. Her Wholesale is probably the most important one so make good use of it. - you might encounter Tiffani being sick. This is random and has no effect on the trophy - when you reach 40+ Friendship, visit Sunrise Cafe and you’ll be treated to a scene where Tiffani and Esty are drinking - when you reach 60+ Friendship, visit Sunrise Cafe once again and you’ll be treated to a scene where Tiffani and Esty are drinking, but this time Tiffani does unspeakable things to my innocent Rorona. You unlock the “Drunken Tiffani” trophy after this event ------ Hagel ------ His Wholesale is great if you wish for strong bombs but don’t want to synthesize them every time. While he has multiple events, the two most important ones are: - go to the Town Square once he has 30+ Friendship - once he has 80+ Friendship (Overtime also works if it’s a big issue to raise that Friendship), he’ll ask you to make a wig. Make it and you’ll be treated to a pretty hilarious scene, it’s worth it (fun fact, when you start playing Totori and visit Hagel’s store for the first time, you’ll see him wearing the same wig) ----- Cole ----- Cole is a merchant kid that starts visiting your store ever month on the 15th (so make sure you’re at the workshop on that day) and sells some pretty neat items. He has pretty useful events: - as mentioned in the Sterk’s Events paragraph, you need to unlock Pamela’s store and buy all Sunny Crystals twice to unlock Ster Highlands - enter the workshop with a full basket while he has 10+ Friendship (and it has to be the 15th like always) and he’ll upgrade your basket - if you’ve reached 80+ Friendship you get two consecutive optional events ----- Esty ----- While she’s a playable character in this game, she doesn’t have her own ending (only some sort of Overtime ending). She gives you special requests that you absolutely should do because her Item Exchange store gives away much better items as you progress. You get requests for every 10% town popularity. Remember that her requests unlock as you improve your town popularity and her Friendship Level matters only in the Overtime events. There are a total of six requests: - three Supplements with quality 60+ (just use your highest-quality items to synthesize it) - Subdue 10 Green Puni - fight 10 Green Puni at Nearby Forest or Ortoga Ruins - Give Witch Salve with the (Poisonous) effect - synthesize a Witch Salve using a Mandrake - Witch Scent (made with Price Up Lv1 and Price Up Lv2) - combine these two traits to get Finest Goods. You can also just transfer Finest Goods if you have an item with it - Bunny Tail (with Loot Chance +) - find the recipe in a chest in Ster Highlands by blowing up a rock (the area is called Snow Stone Area), synthesize it using a Puni Ball - Gorgeous Dress (80+ quality) - fight any dragon to get a Dragon Scale (or make Hom gather at Orthogalaxen), synthesize a Scale Cloth (has to be 80+), go to Hagel and ask him to make ???Beautiful Dress??? The prerequisites for getting her ending are: • attend the first swimsuit event. Return and she’ll get pissed at you for not inviting her (don’t worry, you didn’t have to invite her) • finish main part of the game with a town popularity of 90+ • get her Friendship Level to 90+ (it’s actually easier than it sounds) You’ll get her “ending” and the trophy “Endless Search for Marriage”. And yes, I said first swimsuit event. There is a second one at the beginning of Overtime, where Esty, Totori and Meruru join you. Another 10 days wasted, but you’ll get the trophy “Once More Unto The Lake”. ------ Other ------ Well, you also have the first swimsuit scene. You unlock the famous swimsuit scene if you have 30+ Friendship for Cordelia and 20+ Friendship for Lionela (Pamela’s store must be open too). You’ll also get a trophy (“To the Lake”), but you’ll lose 10 days. There are also a couple of events with Meredith where he tries to sabotage the workshop. ========================================================================== (5.) Trophy List [TROP00] ========================================================================== Since I play on my PS4, I’ll refer to the PS3, PS4 and PSV trophy system for the sake of simplicity. The achievements on the Steam version are exactly the same (same names, same requirements) so don’t worry (thank you, Gust, for making my life easier). I’ll list the trophies as well as point you to the part of guide which talks about it. There are a total of 54 trophies/achievements for this game: • Complete (Platinum) - get all other trophies • Assignment 1 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 1 • Assignment 2 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 2 • Assignment 3 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 3 • Assignment 4 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 4 • Assignment 5 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 5 • Assignment 6 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 6 • Assignment 7 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 7 • Assignment 8 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 8 • Assignment 9 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 9 • Assignment 10 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 10 • Assignment 11 (Bronze) - finish Assignment 11 • Assignments Cleared! (Bronze) - finish Assignment 12 • Rorona’s Workshop (Bronze) - the easiest trophy. Just finish the tutorial • The Puppet Show Begins (Bronze) - encounter Lionela for the first time • The Wandering Bard (Bronze)- encounter Tantris for the first time • The Ghost & Teddy Bear (Bronze) - obtained after Pamela’s first event at the workshop • Making Up (Bronze) - you need to see the event where Rorona and Cordelia make up (no, they do not kiss) (refer to “Cordelia” under “Character Events”); • Honorable Injury (Bronze) - fight Sumi Stern, Sterk gets hospitalized (refer to “Sterk” under “Character Events”) • Busy Cafe (Bronze) - Rorona helps out Iksel at the cafe (refer to “Iksel” under “Character Events”) • Puppet and a Girl (Bronze) - fixed Lionela’s puppets (refer to “Lionela” under “Character Events”) • Duet (Bronze) - Rorona and Tantris play music together (refer to “Tantris” under “Character Events”) • Slicer (Bronze) - watch Gio slice down a monster (refer to “Gio” under “Character Events”) • Hom and Kitten (Bronze) - Hom interacting with a kitten • Drunken Tiffani (Bronze) - the second time you see Tiffani drunk (refer to “Tiffani” under “Character Events”) • To the Lake (Bronze) - Rorona goes to the lake with her friends (refer to “Other” under “Character Events”) • True Ending (Gold) - see the True Ending (refer to “Generic Endings” under “Story, Characters and Endings”) • Cordelia Ending (Bronze) - see Cordelia’s ending (refer to “Cordelia” under “Character Events”) • Gio Ending (Bronze) - see Gio’s ending (refer to “Gio” under “Character Events”) • Astrid Ending (Bronze) - see Astrid’s ending (refer to “Astrid” under “Character Events”) • Good Ending (Bronze) - see the Good Ending (refer to “Generic Endings” under “Story, Characters and Endings”) • Iksel Ending (Bronze) - see Iksel’s ending (refer to “Iksel” under “Character Events”) • Sterk Ending (Bronze) - see Sterk’s ending (refer to “Sterk” under “Character Events”) • Normal Ending (Bronze) - see the Normal Ending (refer to “Generic Endings” under “Story, Characters and Endings”) • Lionela Ending (Bronze) - see Lionela’s ending (refer to “Lionela” under “Character Events”) • Tantris Ending (Bronze) - see Tantris’s ending (refer to “Tantris” under “Character Events”) • Pie Master Ending (Bronze) - synthesize every pie in the game with a quality of 80+ • Adventurer Ending (Bronze) - triggering Cordelia’s flag and the True Ending, both Rorona and Cordelia on adventurer level 50, defeat Iron Giant and Demon before Overtime • Rich Ending (Silver) - finish the 12th assignment with a millon Cole in your pockets • Adventurer Lv. 50 (Silver) - Rorona reaches adventurer level 50 • Alchemy Lv. 50 (Silver) - Rorona reaches alchemy level 50 • The Cabbage Girl (Bronze) - win the Cabbage Festival contest (end of Assignment 4) • Martial Artist (Silver) - win the Martial Contest (end of Assignment 8); defeat Bandit, Engineer and Sterk, Gio is not required • Dragonbane (Bronze) - defeat one dragon (for Sumi Stern, refer to “Sterk” under “Character Events”) • Demon Hunter (Bronze) - defeat Demon at Night’s Domain • Destroyer (Bronze) - defeat Iron Giant at Orthogalaxen • Alchemists from the Future (Bronze) - encounter Totori and Meruru for the first time (start of Overtime) • Endless Search for Marriage (Bronze) - help Esty find a husband (refer to “Esty” under “Character Events”) • Let’s Meet Again! (Gold) - successfully send Totori and Meruru back to the future • Lord of the Demonkin (Silver) - defeat Demon Lord at Machina Domain • Emperior of the Deep (Silver) - defeat Ozean Kaiser at Abyssal Tower • Ancient Champion of the Sky (Silver) - defeat Wyvern at Orthogalaxen • Present from the Future (Bronze) - send something to Astrid in the future and get something else back • Once More Unto The Lake (Bronze) - visit the lake a second time (refer to “Esty” under “Character Events”) ========================================================================== (6.) Walkthrough [WALK00] ========================================================================== --------------------------------------------- (6.1.) Notes and Pre-assignment Period [ASIG00] --------------------------------------------- My suggestion is to make a lot of saves in case you mess up. A save at the beginning of each assignment should be fine. Okay, in the options you have the ability to change every possible sound setting, as well as switch the voice language between English and Japanese. If you’re playing on a PC, I suggest playing using a controller, as it feels much more natural. You also have access to the Dressing Room where you can dress up Rorona, Cordelia and Lionela (only Rorona is available at the beginning). Additional costumes will unlock as you progress the game. In terms of your team, I suggest you have Cordelia in your current party for most of the game purely for the Adventurer Ending (she starts of a bit weak but gets much stronger as the game progresses). The other character can be any you want, but I personally had Sterk for most of my playthrough (he has really strong “crowd-control” skills) and switch him out with a character whose Friendship Level needs increasing. I had Tantris instead of him during the last assignment. You have a bingo board in this game - finish special castle requests and you earn stamps. Filling up the bingo board gives you tons of goodies, but always focus on the books. Again, always get the book first, you’ll need them. In terms of requests, each normal request increases your town popularity by a variable percentage, such as 0.5%-1% (depends on the quality of the item and the request). Don’t worry, some of the requests are special and increase your popularity even more. Later in the game we’ll synthesize a Goddess Statue to further increase our popularity. I cannot stress it enough - you absolutely HAVE to do tons of requests. About friend requests... Ranks are the most important thing. Always give items with high ranks (B-S) to people you wish to befriend. S items increase your Friendship Points by 7, A by 5, B by 3 and C-E by 2. I won’t talk about completing the requests in the guide since that’s something that you should do on a daily basis. I’ll mention the trophies/achievements where I think you should’ve got them (I didn’t note them the first time around). Lastly, this is MY playthrough. It should mostly be the same as yours, but there will be minor differences (such as an event triggering at different points) so don’t be confused if an event didn’t happen or I didn’t mention it yet. Also, it’s not a perfect playthrough (some of my events trigger kind of late), but it probably should get you all trophies/achievements in only one shot. I still recommend doing a NG+ since you’ll transfer all your equipment, money and decorations. In short, it’s not a perfect guide, but I gave it my best. While I often say “buy all the books”, if your budget is small you should only buy the books you deem the most useful (you can buy the books you didn’t buy at a later point). If you feel underpowered at a certain point closer to the end and have some spare time, refer to “Equipment Synthesis” under “Overtime”. It says Overtime but it’s feasible in the main game. Okay, launch the game and enjoy the prologue. It explains the current situation with the workshop, and what you need to do to prevent them from demolishing it. If you wish, you can also change some music tracks from old to new versions specifically made for the Plus version. Just to the desk, pick “Change BGM”, and look for Atelier Rorona Plus closer to the bottom of the list. Or pick any song from the list. ---------------------------- (6.2.) Assignment 1 [ASIG01] ---------------------------- After the prologue (and the first trophy, “Rorona’s Workshop” (1/54)), you get your first assignment. It’s a really easy one, so don’t worry. You just need to synthesize a couple of Polish Powder, Zettel and Alchemy Coal. You need to fill out all ten stars so turn in as many items as needed. You won’t have a lot to do during this first assignment besides exploring, fighting and synthesizing. As soon as you gain control of your character, press RB or R1 to fast-travel to a specific location. The locations with specific events have a shadowy figure (or a character you know) with a bubble box next to the name of the location. Make a habit of going to every place so you don’t miss any events. After all three events, exit the town and go to Nearby Forest (Cordelia is already in your team so don’t worry). You just need to fight several Puni to and Wolves to level up (you can use Uni for extra damage, should be fine for now. There is also a chest with Barrel on the second area, Puni Woods). Gather on every gathering point. Unlock every possible area (until you reach the area with an unbreakable rock, we’ll return here later in the game) and return to the workshop. Go to the castle and do any request you can do. After arriving at the workshop, an automatic event with Rorona’s parents will take place and another how Astrid forbids Rorona to bake pies, instead she has to synthesize them. Go to Sunrise Cafe and you’ll be able to hire Iksel. Immediately hire him. After that, go to the Town Square to unlock Ortoga Ruins (that’ll be your next location to explore). Also, check the requests in case if you see Cordelia’s Front-End Request (I got mine at the beginning of Assignment 2 but still watch out so you don’t miss it) and if you find a request that suits you. After that, let’s get synthesizing! First, go gather some Water from the well outside the workshop and synthesize a couple of Supplements (use the Water from the well so you don’t waste your materials). Then, synthesize a couple of Zettels (and maybe Alchemy Coal if you got the materials) and deliver them to Sterk (he’s at Palace Hallway). Try to fill at least three stars for now, and if you don’t have enough materials, go gather them quickly at Nearby Forest. For this bingo board, by far the most important reward is the book, like I mentioned in the Notes above (that’s why you need three stars for now), so get that. Money and HP/MP increasers are also useful. Buy the two books at R&T Sundries and Sunrise Cafe (you’ll spend 1000 Cole, but don’t worry, earning money is easy). You should also get a pie recipe book (required for the Pie Ending) sometime during this assignment. We’ll synthesize 80+ quality pies closer to the end, though. Go synthesize some Barrels and Crafts with some weak traits or no traits, maybe a Healing Salve or two (you can buy Eiche, Magic Grass and Nuse in Tiffani’s store). Don’t forget to put them in your bag. We’re going to visit Ortoga Ruins, but first go to Nearby Forest with Iksel to trigger one of his events. After that, go to Ortoga Ruins and you’ll trigger one more of his events. Two out of nine are already done! So, not much to do in Ortoga Ruins besides leveling up a bit, gathering items (Triberries and Cobaltberry are important in the long run as (Oil) items, Phlogiston for Bombs and Fest for Polish Powder) and testing out your items. Explore the whole location if you wish (should take you 18 days in total). After you’re done, head back to the town. There’s nothing going on for the rest of the assignment (except maybe filling up the bingo board), so synthesize some Zettel, Alchemy Coal and Polish Powder and deliver it to Sterk to claim all 10 stars. You’ll experience an automatic event with Rorona’s parents where you get some materials (make a habit of visiting their place at the beginning of every assignment, they often give you rare items). After all that, either synthesize random items, do requests or sleep for the rest of the assignment. Trophy earned “Assignment 1” (2/54). Stats at the end of A1: AdvLv 7, AlcLv 5, TownPop 8.7%, Stars 10 --------------------------- (6.3) Assignment 2 [ASIG02] --------------------------- Next assignment: make Bombs, Barrels and Cannons; the higher the quality, the better. And now you can hire Sterk, yay! You can switch him with Iksel a bit later (Iksel requires a low Friendship Level of 30, just take him out everytime you discover a new location and you should be fine). Go to Hagel. He’ll explain Equipment Synthesis, give you a book and unlock a new location for you - National Mines. Also check other events (such as unlocking friend requests). I also got Cordelia’s first Front-End Request right at the beginning of this assignment, so definitely finish that (and regain the lost 5% popularity). That request is supposed to happen during Assignment 1 but I apparently missed it. And, strangely, I got Cordelia’s second Front-End Request a couple of days later (Iron Clay). So, that Front-End Request happens at the beginning of Assignment 2. Again, regain the lost 5% popularity. Next, go to National Mines (and don’t forget to equip some attack items, because I did). Unlock a couple of areas. Have Iksel in your team for one of his events, which happens in the second area (and return in case you want to switch with another character, but that’s up to you). Explore the location a bit, fight some enemies to level up, gather and return. So that’s the third Iksel event, go to Sunrise Cafe for an event. Okay, let’s start with the assignment now. So, Barrels, Bombs and Cannons. It’s best that you do a couple of each, but go with the one that’s the easiest to synthesize - Barrel. Either do a ton of them with low Quality, or a lesser amount with higher Quality (high Quality Water from Tiffani helps). I synthesized 10 low Quality Barrels (that’s only 4 days spent synthesizing) with Eiche from Tiffani and some Water from Tiffani and from the well. Filled all 10 stars so we’re done! See, we have so much free time left (65 days in my case). I told you the time limit is not that bad! After that, play through the rest of the assignment. Go to National Mines and explore it a bit, do some regular and some friend requests, synthesize some items etc. We still have weak traits so equipment synthesizing can wait, for now we can only rely on bombs (and Sterk). Try to explore National Mines as much as you can. Also, refrain from trying to destroy the rocks in this area as you don’t have bombs that are strong enough (we’ll get them soon though). I personally turned in a lot of requests so I regained all the lost popularity from not doing requests during Assignment 1 and from losing 10% from Cordelia’s Front-End Requests. I also created a lot of Bombs with some decent beginning traits (Forceful Lv1, Swarm Slayer Lv1, Rank Boost Lv1 and Burning Vapor; without Narrow Range effect) so I don’t waste my time in the future. Trophy earned “Assignment 2” (3/54). Stats at the end of A2: AdvLv 12, AlcLv 10, TownPop 10.9%, Stars 20 --------------------------- (6.4) Assignment 3 [ASIG03] --------------------------- Okay, Assignment 3. This one is a bit harder than the last two, but nothing impossibly hard. So, we need to synthesize a high amount of Witch’s Salves, Beast Statues and Healing Aromas. The quality, again, matters here. Two characters will make an appearance here: Gio and Lionela. Start doing Friend Requests for those once they’re available. First, like always, go to Rorona’s parents. Go to Esty and you’ll get her first personal request - three Supplements with Quality 60+. A pretty straight-forward request, just synthesize a Supplement with a high-quality item (use Tiffani’s quality 80 Water if you wish). That’s just here in my case, you might got this request before. Next, go buy the two books at Sunrise Cafe and R&T Sundries. Now, you can choose between two things - synthesizing and finishing the assignment straight away, or go explore a bit and rack up your adventurer level. I’ll go with the former. Healing Aroma is a bit harder to make because of Pure Oil, so I’ll focus on the other two. I synthesized 10 Beast Stones and 5 Witch’s Salves (all of them low-quality), and filled up all stars. It might seem like a lot, but R&T Sundries has most of the materials you need in case you don’t feel like gathering. All this took me only 10 days. Also, while you’re at Sterk’s, fill up the bingo board so you get a book. Balbomb inside that recipe is extremely useful for breaking rocks (though we’ll need to wait once we unlock Traveler’s Way). You can go to Nearby Forest to face the Puni King. It could be a hard fight if you’re not prepared for it, but I had no problem using the Bombs I synthesized before. What else...? Oh yeah, I managed to destroy the rock in Nearby Forest with the Bomb I synthesized. You could’ve destroyed it during Assignment 2 as well. After that you can visit the last area in Nearby Forest. Right after I got back, the first event with Gio happened. Now you, again, have a bunch of free time. Until the events with Gio and Lionela happen, you should do some requests. I also went to National Mines to grind for Chainweb and Stim Stones (I’ll try synthesizing some basic equipment soon). Right after I got back, Gio’s event happened (and it unlocks his friend requests). Make sure you complete a lot of his requests. Okay, let’s try synthesizing some basic equipment. You might’ve got weapons for Iksel and Cordelia if you completed the bingo board, so I’ll try to synthesize weapons for Rorona and Sterk, as well as armor. In terms of traits, you can’t do much. Go with simple Attack, Defense and Speed traits as well as skill traits and HP/MP traits. They should do fine for the following two-three assignments. Your best method for transferring traits onto weapons is Pure Oil since Pure Oil requires Supplements, while nothing yet for armor. Since you need two ingots per weapon, my suggestion is that you make two separate groups, one with one trait and one with the other so they combine during Equipment Synthesis (for example, Speed +5 on one ingot and Speed +10 on the other so they combine into Speed Charge during the synthesis). It’s going to cost a lot of money, so be prepared (around 10000 Cole in my case), but you should have the cash if you did a lot of assignments. After I was done with synthesizing (around 15 days before Assignment end), Lionela’s event happened. Trophy earned “The Puppet Show Begins” (4/54). So, I’m done with my first equipment synthesis. If you’re interested, here are the traits I used: weapons - Speed Charge, MP Cost -10%, Inflict Poison, Attack +3, Defense +3; armor - Speed Charge, Red+Blue Shield (Resist Fire Lv1 + Resist Ice Lv1), Resist Lightning Lv1, Attack +3, MP +10. All of these are traits I had at the moment and I deemed them useful (Speed is not the most important stat but I had a lot of items with Speed traits. It gives you an advantage in battle). Unfortunately I didn’t have Resist Ice Lv1 at the time. Around 11 days before the end of the Assignment, the second event with Lionela happened. And just 2 days before the end of the Assignment, the third event with Lionela happened, unlocking her Friend Requests. Be sure to do a lot of her events if you don’t plan to keep her in your team when she becomes available. With that, Assignment 3 is done! Trophy earned “Assignment 3” (5/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 3: AdvLv 13, AlcLv 15, TownPop 17.5%, Stars 30 ----------------- (6.5) Assignment 4 [ASIG04] ----------------- This assignment isn’t too tough. You just need to synthesize a lot of items in the (Food) category. Nothing too tough. Actually, if you have some spare money, you can easily buy food at Sunrise Cafe and deliver it to Sterk (Cabbage Soup is the cheapest; you need 25 of them to fill out all your stars, meaning you need only around 1000 Cole to complete the assignment). Again, get the book on the bingo board. The assignment starts off with a conversation between Astrid and Cordelia on how dumb Rorona is. Go to Rorona’s Parents (the materials aren’t amazing yet but just wait for several assignments). I triggered Esty’s second request. You need to defeat 10 Green Puni. It shouldn’t be a problem with our current level and equipment. Took me only 4 days (go to Ortoga Ruins - Green Puni Habitat). Straight after completing her request, go visit her one more time and you’ll unlock her as a playable character! She’s pretty strong (a great alternative for Sterk). Leave and go to her again for another event (gee, she has a lot of consecutive events). On the first 15th of this assignment (that’s 10/15), Cole visits you. You can buy the 5 Cabbage Soup from him since they’re cheaper. Buy other staff if you need. After that I went gather some materials, and once I got back 10 days later, an event with Lionela at the town square took place. Only a couple of days later, Rorona talked to Lionela about Traveler’s Way, unlocking that location. This is definitely the next place you should go to because it has a lot of materials you’ll need (like Quake Crystal and Cotton Flower). Don’t forget to put Iksel in your team and head out. After gathering some materials, go back to the town. An event where Astrid asks you if you wanted a sister or brother triggers. An event with Sterk being a bit down also happens. Go to Esty and you’ll see Cordelia’s third Front-End request (Cotton Flower). I assume it got available once you unlocked Traveler’s Way. Once you leave the requests board, an event with Esty about Sterk takes place. Synthesize some high-quality Balbomb for breaking rocks that stand in your way. If you wish (and have time), go explore the rest of National Mines using the Balbombs to destroy the rocks. If not, do requests to negate the 5% loss from the Front-End Request. Yeah, one thing I noticed is that Cole has very high-quality Flour (80 quality). I suggest you buy them for synthesizing pies. One last thing to note: just before assignment end, don’t take requests that you need to complete in a short period. The following event will take 10 days so you might mess up. Also, empty up your basket because the of the following event. Trophy earned “Assignment 4” (6/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 4: AdvLv 18, AlcLv 17, TownPop 23.7% (because of the Front-End Request), Stars 40 --------------------------- (6.6) Assignment 5 [ASIG05] --------------------------- Next assignment - synthesizing Tonics. Should be easy, right? It should, if that dastardly evil government dude didn’t buy out all Magic Grass. Well, we’ll get to that in a bit. This assignment will have tons of events. There are so many it even crashed my game once (I’m not kidding). Don’t worry about work for now because there’s a festival to be enjoyed! You’ll join the Cabbage Fair. The only thing you need to do is gather cabbages at all available spots, it’s a really easy mini-game (especially now when this game has a running feature, Plus didn’t have that). If your basket got full, you can discard the lowest quality Cabbage (don’t worry, time freezes if you’re in any sort of menu). Trophy earned “The Cabbage Girl” (7/54). Equip the new Mercurius Eye you got as a reward for winning the fair. You will get those Cabbages for synthesis and they’re high-quality. Aren’t we lucky? You should keep like 5 of the highest-quality Cabbage in your container just in case (one pie requires Cabbage) and you can use the rest for decent Supplements and other thingies. As the game reminds you, your allies left your party and you need to hire them again. Do that now so you don’t forget. Okay, so I got Cordelia’s event (you know, the one when you finish three Front-End Requests). Her Friendship wasn’t 60+, so don’t worry. Since I’m there, I’ll buy all Magic Grass she has so I won’t have to waste time gathering it. Buy the books at R&T Sundries and Beefy Weapon Shop. Go to Rorona’s Parents (the items you get now are a bit lame though). Go to Esty and she’ll give you seeds - plant them in front of the workshop. Harvest them as soon as they’ve fully grown. Keep at least two of them for seed synthesizing. All right, let’s synthesize the Tonics to stop worrying about that. During synthesis, use the Cabbages from the festival if you wish. I managed to synthesize 5 Tonics for now, filling up 5 stars. Also get the book from the bingo board since Meteor is an extremely useful attack item. I synthesized some high-quality Blitz Symbol, those do a lot of damage. After that, Astrid talked about the Catacombs. That location is now unlocked. Going to Esty unlocked her third request - Witch Salve with the effect Inflict Poison (just synthesize the item using a Mandra Root on the (Poison) category and done; the effect says Poisonous but don’t worry, it’s the same). She upgraded the Item Exchange, and there are two things you have to get: a LOT of Flour (it’s the best Flour you can get from a store), around 20 should be fine (you need it for the Pie Ending and it’s good for Supplements); and Rune Stones for each character. There are a lot of other Esty’s events so check them out. After that, go outside of town, but don’t go to the Catacombs yet. Go to a different location (like Nearby Forest) and an event with Tantris will happen. Trophy earned “The Wandering Bard” (8/54). After you’re done with that, go to the Catacombs (for some reason, it didn’t trigger Iksel’s event, so visit with him again sometime later). Explore it at least until encountering the teddy bear. There is also a book inside a chest, get that. As I returned, three events at the workshop happened (exit and re-enter): Tantris talking with Meredith, Rorona’s first encounter with Hom, unlocking Hom’s services (make good use of them) and Rorona’s first encounter with Pamela (trophy earned “The Ghost & Teddy Bear” (9/54)). The event where Tantris visits Rorona’s workshop (you can hire him after that) happens a couple of days later. There will also be a line of events where Meredith tries to sabotage the workshop, as well as a line of Hom-related events. I unlocked Cole’s requests as well. Do a couple of his requests so you qualify for a better basket. In terms of equipment, you can synthesize some Gnardi Rings with basic stat enhancers to have alongside the Rune Stones we got from Esty. Do some requests until the end of the assignment, or explore The Catacombs. It’s up to you. Trophy earned “Assignment 5” (10/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 5: AdvLv 21, AlcLv 19, TownPop 27.8%, Stars 50. As you can see, I slacked off a bit during this assignment. ------------------------- (6.7) Assignment 6 [ASIG06] ------------------------- Other than unlocking some Wholesales and Pamela’s Store, this assignment is rather empty. Next assignment is different since you need to defeat Vultures at Nearby Forest. You just need to keep fighting them until the game shows it’s enough. As Sterk says, you don’t have to report this assignment. You could either fight them and rack up that adventurer level, or use Wild Scent. The most important thing on the bingo board this time around is Hom Gath Lv Up so get that first. Right after the assignment started, I unlocked Pamela’s store. She specializes in alchemical items, so make good use of her store. You’ll also unlock her friend requests, but beware. Her requests require some pretty hard-to-make items. I also managed to unlock Tiffani’s Wholesale, so I’ll register some more important items, like Barrel (you’ll need it for a future assignment and a lot of friend requests and assignments ask for them), high-quality Supplements, Polish Powder etc. I also unlocked Iksel’s Wholesale. He duplicates food items (Gio’s friend requests always ask for a food item; it’s a good place for duplicating Pure Oil). There are three books you can buy - one at Pamela’s Shop, one at Beefy Weapon Shop and one at R&T Sundries. All three are extremely useful books so don’t forget to buy them. The items Rorona’s parents give you this time are decent so don’t forget to visit. The next 15th of a month, buy all Sunny Crystals. You’ll have to wait for the next month to unlock Ster Highlands because this time a different event happens - the event where Cole helps out Pamela. A couple of days later another event at Pamela’s Shop will take place. I checked the requests board and saw Cordelia’s fourth Front-End Request (Glow Sand). I completed it. The next 15th, buy all his Sunny Crystals again. You’ll unlock Ster Highland which is crucial for Sterk’s quest-line. Since I had some time left, but not enough to explore Ster Highlands, I went to The Catacombs to finish Iksel’s fifth event. Trophy earned “Assignment 6” (11/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 6: AdvLv 24, AlcLv 21, TownPop 33.8%, Stars 60 My Town Popularity is a bit low considering we just passed the halfway point of the main game, so I’ll focus more on requests despite already doing a lot of them. --------------------------- (6.8) Assignment 7 [ASIG07] --------------------------- Next assignment: turn in Ice Bomb and Spring Cup. Since Spring Cup is harder to make, it yields more stars, but I suggest you go with Ice Bombs. If you don’t feel like making Ice Bombs, Pamela’s Shop has them if you got the money. Around 20-25 of her Ice Bombs should net you all the stars. In terms of the bingo board, get the book. This time I’ll take Cordelia and Sterk out of my team (they both have Friendship Level 60) and I’ll go with Tantris and Lionela. As soon as you start the assignment, you’ll unlock Nabel Lake. Now we have two completely unexplored areas, though I suggest you go with Nabel Lake (we’ll deal with Ster Highlands some time later). Rorona’s parents give you Night Lady this time. This item is pretty useful so keep it in your Container, just in case. Again, this is a pretty empty assignment. You can just do requests, explore new areas, gather stuff etc. etc. but not a lot of character events take place. Go buy the books at Beefy Weapon Shop and R&T Sundries. One book has Goddess Statue, a crucial decoration if we want to get the highest possible popularity. We’ll be able to synthesize it at the beginning of the next assignment (Graceful Crystal is an ingredient you can buy at Pamela’s Shop only at that time). You may synthesize the other ingredients if you don’t want to spend your precious time during Assignment 8. Go to Nabel Lake (with Iksel if you want; also take some Ice Bombs with you) and take the book in the first area. Explore as much as you like, and go to Ster Highlands if you want. I went to both places with Iksel so that’s already 7 locations. Since I managed to increase Cole’s Friendship to 10+, and I returned back to my workshop with a full Basket. Cole upgraded it. Right after that, the first swimsuit scene got triggered. Enjoy the view, earn the trophy, and return to the workshop with 10 days wasted. Trophy earned “To the Lake” (12/54). After I returned, I synthesized an item and Hom’s event with a kitten happened. Only two of those events need to happen for the trophy. Trophy earned “Hom and Kitten” (13/54). Now, I’m not sure if this event happens before, but I failed my synthesis and got the gem necessary for Cordelia’s event. A day later the event where Rorona gives Cory the gem happens. And after that, I put Lionela in my team and went outside of town to trigger the event where Cory is jealous. After exploring some areas, I returned to the workshop and unlocked Dark Woods. You can go check it out if you have the time. Right when I got back, I got Esty’s fourth request: Wild Scent with Price Up Lv1 and Price Up Lv2 (which get combined into Finest Goods). Just combine those traits or directly use Finest Goods. One thing to note - I forgot if you unlocked the costumes at this point, but if you do, you can glitch the game so you get the costumes for free (I didn’t try it here on DX, only on Plus, so don’t hold me by my words). You basically have to save, buy the costume, exit to main menu and reload the save. You’ll keep all your vouchers as well as the costume. Trophy earned “Assignment 7” (14/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 7: AdvLv 26, AlcLv 24, TownPop 41.2%, Stars 70 --------------------------- (6.9) Assignment 8 [ASIG08] --------------------------- Next assignment is very easy if you followed my previous advice. You need to turn in Cannons and Barrels. If you registered Barrels at R&T Sundries you can finish this in just a couple of days (20 Barrels should be fine). This time the bingo board has tons of important rewards. As always, first go with the book, then Hom Syn/Gath Lv Up and then World Spirit (you’ll need World Spirit for Traveler’s Shoes). Go buy the three books at R&T Sundries, Beefy Weapon Shop and Pamela’s Shop. I should note one thing - during the 11th month of this year, go to Dark Woods. You should be able to gather high-quality Dunkelheit, an ingredient you’ll absolutely need. You can gather as many as you like, but only during 11th month (you can go gather it the next year as well). I managed to get 9 of them which should do fine for now. We can synthesize the Goddess Statue now. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a gem strong enough for the “Wonderful Rumors” effect, so I have to be satisfied with the “Good Rumors” effect. Or there is another alternative: you can synthesize a pretty high-quality Arland Crystal for the first ingredient slot. Just make sure to synthesize it some other time. Try to synthesize Secret Bag once you can synthesize Bunny Tail (the book is available at Ster Highlands; alternatively, you can buy it from Esty’s Item Exchange once it gets unlocked). I got the event with Gio on the 15th of October (you’ll lose 8 days so take care). Trophy earned “Slicer” (15/54). You’ll be able to hire him after the event. Listen, you HAVE to put him in your team and travel around with him (I had to reload my save and try again because the first time around his Friendship was just 44). The other character should be another character that needs a increase in Friendship Points - Lionela or Tantris. I’ll go with Tantris (because he needs a Friendship Level of 80+) and Lionela some other time. I also unlocked Hagel’s Wholesale. He’ll take care of your bombs as well as some other items so make good use of his services (I suggest registering Balbomb for now). You can synthesize Air Drop and go to Nabel Lake if you wish so. You will need to go to that place eventually, though. When I went outside of the town, an event with Tantris triggered. Trophy earned “Assignment 8” (16/54). Stats at the end of Assignment 8: AdvLv 29, AlcLv 27, TownPop 47.3%, Stars 80 -------------------------- (6.10) Assignment 9 [ASIG09] -------------------------- The assignment this time is: turn in Komets and Arland Crystals. You can either synthesize them or you can cheese it and buy Komets at Pamela’s Shop. The bingo board this time around is pretty weak - the only notable rewards are Hom Syn Lv Up and the garden upgrades. The Martial Contest shouldn’t be a problem. You have two weak enemies, Sterk (who is still pretty easy) and Masked G (who’s hard but not necessary for a trophy/achievement). Trophy earned “Martial Artist” (17/54). After the event, go hire your allies once again. I’ll hire Tantris and Lionela for now. As soon as you start the assignment, Astrid will be available for hire (she’s a pretty great supporting character, but be ready to pay up since one trip with her costs 9980 Cole). Also, I saw Cordelia’s fifth Front-End Request (Sunny Crystal). Complete it and regain the lost popularity. A couple of days later, Sterk visited the workshop telling Rorona to avoid Sumi Stern (sorry to disappoint you, but we WILL and you’re coming with us!). Don’t go there yet since we don’t want to lock Gio’s events. The cost is that you’ll unlock Orthogalaxen relatively late in the game (it unlocked after the first month of Assignment 11 in my case). An event with Cory will happen, where Rorona is confronting her. Talk to Esty right after that. Also, there is Tiffani’s first event where she gets drunk with Esty. I went exploring a bit and returned. I saw that Tantris’ Friendship Level capped at 60, so I switched him with Cordelia. You should do his friend requests to reach that 80+ Friendship Level. Gio’s event at R&T Sundries happens close to the end of the assignment. After this event and the event where Gio visits you at the workshop happen, you can go fight Sumi Stern (I won’t go yet since it’s almost the end of the assignment). Do requests until the end of the assignment. Trophy earned “Assignment 9” (18/54) Stats at the end of Assignment 9: AdvLv 32, AlcLv 30, TownPop 58.7%, Stars 90 ----------------------------- (6.11) Assignment 10 [ASIG10] ------------------------------ Right, next assignment is the following - gather Shadow Grass, Midnight Flower and Dark Coral. Night’s Domain also gets unlocked. This is probably the most time-consuming assignment of them all because traveling to Night’s Domain and back, as well as exploring the location, requires quite a bit of time. Gio visited my workshop for an event. Okay, now that we have some time, I suggest you synthesize ingots and cloth for weapon and armor for the fight against Sumi Stern and the two upcoming mini-bosses (Demon and Iron Giant). This will be your final equipment for the main game, so make it count. In terms of traits, on one ingot put the Attack +6, Skill +20% and Red+Blue (combine Fire+ and Ice+), and on the other Attack +9, Skill +15% and Green+Gold (combine Earth+ and Lightning+). If you have more cost points, go with Rainbow Power from a Prism Coral (but that one requires a lot of cost points so use items with Cost traits alongside it) or, if the cost is too much, get traits that covert the dealt damage into HP (like Convert Lv1 on one ingot and Convert Lv2 on the other). In terms of armor, go with Defense +6, Resist Fire Lv2 and Resist Earth Lv2 on one cloth, and Defense +9, Resist Ice Lv2 and Resist Lightning Lv2 on the other cloth. The other traits can be traits that increase your HP and MP (like HP +20 on one ingot and HP +30 on the other). In terms of accessories, traits like Stats +6 are a must. Other than that, attack and defense traits and traits that increase your critical hit chance (like Critical Lv2/Lv3). If you need any further information, refer to “Equipment Synthesis” under “Overtime”. Don’t take too long since we still need to go to Night’s Domain. Now, there are something we absolutely need to do before assignment end: go fight Sumi Stern. You can hire Astrid if you’re not confident enough. Go to the last area on Ster Highlands and you should trigger a fight with it. You don’t need to defeat it (it shouldn’t be a problem with the equipment I mentioned above), but you get some pretty high-quality Dragon Scales if you do. Sterk will get injured and you won’t be able to use him for a while (80 days, if I remember correctly). Trophy earned “Honorable Injury” (19/54) and “Dragonbane” (20/54) (there are a lot of dragons to defeat in Orthogalaxen if you didn’t beat Sumi Stern). Again, you NEED to do it now because if you don’t, you’ll unlock Orthogalaxen too late. Cordelia’s ending trigger happened (she gave Rorona the pendant). Trophy earned “Making Up” (21/54). Alright, first character ending is triggered, still 5 left to go. We’re not done with Cordelia yet (still need her for the Adventurer Ending), so I kept her in my team. Since Lionela’s Friendship Level reached 60, we should go to Traveler’s Way to trigger her event where she saves Rorona. After you got back, go to the Town Square where Lionela explains her “unique” powers. Gio visited Rorona to take her to the bandits. After defeating the bandits, and with that Gio is done as well. Four character ending triggers left. Also, Esty’s fifth request happened - Bunny Tail with Loot Chance+. Since we already got a recipe, just synthesize it until you get that effect (you can use a Puni Ball). Now, let’s complete the assignment, shall we? I suggest you take Iksel with you since that’s the last location you need to visit with him. You just need to go a bit deeper in that location and gather a lot of the items mentioned, no big deal, just very time-consuming. Try to visit every location, and (if you’re confident enough) fight The Demon (Iron Giant is harder but this is no piece of pie). Fight it only if you’re confident you can beat it because if you’re not, losing to it will make it disappear for some time. My suggestion is that you take Astrid with you and say goodbye to 9980 Cole. Trophy earned “Demon Hunter” (22/54). As you return, go to Sunrise Cafe to trigger Iksel’s ending trigger. Trophy earned “Busy Cafe” (23/54). We’re halfway done! Now, since all characters have a Friendship Level of 60 (except Iksel), I’ll put in my initial team, except this time I’ll switch Sterk with Tantris (he got pretty good supporting skills), so the formation is Rorona-Cordelia-Tantris. I don’t have any time left to travel around, so I’ll just do a couple of requests. Trophy earned “Assignment 10” (24/54) Stats at the end of Assignment 10: AdvLv 35, AlcLv 32, TownPop 69.4%, Stars 100 --------------------------- (6.12) Assignment 11 [ASIG11] --------------------------- Next assignment is a super easy one - deliver a bunch of items in the (Sundry) category. As with Assignment 9, just deliver a bunch of Barrels from R&T Sundries and done. In terms of the bingo board, Hom Syn Lv Up is the most important (Soil Level Up too if you want to grind materials using the garden). Check for any available books and buy them if you think you need them. Go to Nabel Lake with Air Drops (bring a lot of them) and use them to unlock Lost City (you can use it on the third area south of the second area, where you could use a Ice Bomb before). The most important thing in this area is a book with the item Windrider, which will take you back to the workshop from any place without any time loss. A very helpful item, so once you got back, synthesize the item and register it at Pamela’s Shop (if you unlocked her Wholesale). You’ll need it for grinding money for the Rich Ending and for grinding experience for the Adventurer Ending. Also try to explore as much as possible. You’ll need to explore the whole location if you want to unlock Abyssal Tower in Overtime. After I got back, the event with Sterk happened, where he visits Rorona after he recovered. This is his ending flag. After I did a quick synthesis, he came to the workshop and Orthogalaxen got unlocked. This is the area we’ll visit the most during the last two assignments. Also, I got the event with Lionela at the Town Square (she’s clueless why Horoholo and Aranya stopped talking). You’ll be tasked with synthesizing an item, and after you’re done with that, you’ve triggered her ending flag. Trophy earned “Puppet and a Girl” (25/54). So, now we only have Tantris left (as mentioned before, he requires 80+ for his last event so complete a lot of his requests). Actually, now I see that his second-to-last event happened (where Meredith got kicked out of the bar). Alright, let’s continue. Let’s try to do most of one ending here: the Pie Master Ending. You need to synthesize every pie with quality 80+. Use the Flour from Esty’s Item Exchange (if you didn’t get that, it’s possible to to it with Iksel’s Flour but it won’t be easy), the Water from Tiffani and a high-quality item depending on the recipe. It’s best if you saved before doing anything so you don’t lose your ingredients if the quality’s too low or if you mess up. I’ll mention every recipe: Plain Pie recipe (Plain Pie), Basic Pie recipe (Berry Pie, Cream Pie, Meat Pie, Honey Pie), Cabbage Pie recipe (Cabbage Pie), Tasty Pie recipe (Ice Pie, Seafood Pie, Tea Pie, Mushroom Pie), Alchemy Pie recipe (Living Pie (get ready for an event), Dunkelheit Pie, Elixir Pie, Meteor Pie) and, lastly, Ultimate Pie recipe (Ruby Pie (another event), Gold Pie, Dragon Pie, Dark Pie). If you don’t manage to synthesize every pie, don’t worry - we still have Assignment 12 (I, for example, couldn’t do some of the recipes in the Ultimate Pie book). Just don’t forget to do it. If you didn’t defeat The Demon yet, do that now (don’t forget to take a Windrider with you). Until the end of the assignment, go explore Orthogalaxen. Exploring Orthogalaxen will take a while (around 50 days) so make sure you have enough time. I managed to reach Floor 12 by the end of the assignment. After I got back, Esty’s last request happened (dunno why so late) - Gorgeous Dress with quality 80+. Just synthesize ???Beautiful Dress??? at Beefy Weapon Shop. Since I don’t have any time left (literally came a day before assignment end), I’ll do it at the beginning of Assignment 12. Trophy earned “Assignment 11” (26/54) Stats at the end of Assignment 11: AdvLv 41, AlcLv 39, TownPop 82.6%, Stars 110 ----------------------------- (6.13) Assignment 12 [ASIG12] ----------------------------- Next assignment is the last one (finally). This time, you need to create the ultimate alchemy item. You can synthesize anything you like since we have 110 stars by now, but try to synthesize something good, like an Elixir, Ruby Prism or Gold. I synthesized a 120 quality Elixir and got 9 stars (very close to 10 though). The bingo board, though… It’s probably the most useless one. Just get those stat enhancers and done. I forgot if there are any books (I wrote this part after finishing the assignment) so, if there are, buy them (or wait until you grind for money). So we have only one ending flag left to trigger - Tantris’ ending flag. Luckly, I gave him a S ranked item and reached Friendship 80+, so after returning to the workshop his event will trigger. He’ll ask you to synthesize an instrument, so you should do that. That will net you his ending flag, and with that every regular character ending is done! Trophy earned “Duet” (27/54). However, we’re FAR from done in general. Firstly, I’ll synthesize the rest of the pie recipes so I’m done with that. Next, explore the rest of Orthogalaxen, and go fight The Iron Giant on the lowest floor. I had a lot of trouble with that boss, but it’s manageable. Get Astrid in your team if you have problems. You can do it after level grinding if you feel underpowered (not that it would help much but still), you just have to do it before the main game ends. Trophy earned “Destroyer” (28/54). Now, there are two more endings to trigger - Adventurer Ending and Rich Ending. For the Adventurer Ending, we already fulfilled some requirements (defeated the two bosses and triggered Cordelia’s ending flag), but we need to fulfill only one more requirement - both Rorona and Cordelia have to be at adventurer level 50. For the Rich Ending, we’ll need a million Cole. Now beware, this will be an extremely grindy part of the game, so if you want to plat the game without this part, be ready to start a NG+ after Overtime! This is how it goes - stock up on Windriders (a lot of them) and go to Floor 9. You need to fight Grow Plantze. They drop Dunkelheits when you defeat them. Use a Windrider to return to the workshop every time you defeat every enemy on the screen (else you’ll waste 4 days of precious time; this way you’ll spend only a single day - when you go to Orthogalaxen). Sell the stuff you got. I usually get between 15k and 30k on a single run (this is all RNG, you know). So, this should take around a month and a half (sell your stuff if you won’t have enough time). There are also some other ways of grinding for money, but this one is the most efficient (at least to my knowledge). The good thing is that this way you’ll also manage to grind enough experience to reach level 50 with both Cordelia and Rorona (trophy earned “Adventurer Lv. 50” (29/54)) AND get a million Cole. The bad thing is that this’ll take around 3 to 4 hours of grinding. I managed to get all the requirements around 10 days before assignment end. After I got back, the second event where Esty and Tiffani get drunk happens (you can get this event during Overtime too, if you couldn’t increase Tiffani’s Friendship Level in time). You’ll see the CG that evokes nightmares in the eyes of any normal person. Trophy earned “Drunken Tiffani” (30/54). During those 10 days, I just jumped around the town enjoying the sweet, sweet victory! Every ending triggered, every pre-Overtime non-ending trophy, obtained! A day before assignment end, create a save which we’ll use for triggering endings. Trophy earned “Assignments Cleared!” (31/54) Stats at the end of Assignment 12: AdvLv 50, AlcLv 42, TownPop 90.6%, Stars 119 ------------------------------ (6.14) Ending Choices [ENCH00] ------------------------------ As mentioned above, you need to use a save to trigger each individual ending. Here are the choices for each ending: • Lionela’s Ending - “Keep Studying”, then Lionela • Tantris’ Ending - “Keep Studying”, then Tantris • Iksel’s Ending - “Keep Trying”, then Iksel • Sterk’s Ending - “Keep Trying”, then Sterk • Cordelia’s Ending - “For Everyone”, then Cordelia • Gio’s Ending - “For Everyone”, then Gio • Astrid’s Ending - “Work For Master” • Rich Ending - “Relax” • Pie Master Ending - “Open a Pie Shop” • Adventurer Ending - “Fight Strong Enemies” • Normal Ending - “Keep Studying”, then anyone except Lionela and Tantris • Good Ending - “Keep Trying”, then anyone except Iksel and Sterk • True Ending - “For Everyone”, then anyone except Cordelia and Gio The trophies/achievements we’ll get here are: “Lionela Ending” (32/54), “Tantris Ending” (33/54), “Iksel Ending” (34/54), “Sterk Ending” (35/54), “Cordelia Ending” (36/54), “Gio Ending” (37/54), “Astrid Ending” (38/54), “Rich Ending” (39/54), “Pie Master Ending” (40/54), “Adventurer Ending” (41/54), “Normal Ending” (42/54), “Good Ending” (43/54) and “True Ending” (44/54). With that, we can safely move onto Overtime. ========================================================================== (7.) Overtime [OVER00] ========================================================================== This part of the guide won’t be the same as the in-depth walkthrough above. The reason is because, well, this is one part of the game where nobody has the same playthrough since you can do whatever you like. It’s kind of like the sandbox mode of the game, but with several objectives you can do if you feel like it. Don’t worry, even though I won’t write a step-by-step walkthrough, it’ll still be full of tips and things you might not know or will find useful, as well as a mention of every important event and trophy you’ll earn during this period. ------------------------------------- (7.1) Events during Overtime [OVER01] ------------------------------------- You’ll start Overtime by encountering two very familiar faces if you played Totori and/or Meruru - the two adorable alchemists Totori and Meruru! They traveled to the past because of an, what else, alchemy shenanigan caused by Astrid. Your task is to send them back to the future. Trophy earned “Alchemists from the Future” (45/54). Next event is where Totori and Meruru mention the Dragon Hourglass - you’ll need to make this item to return them back to the future. Well, you’ll need to make the True Dragon Hourglass, but more on that later. Next, you’ll get an event where future Astrid sends a time capsule. You should place an item or two to get an achievement (trophy earned “Present from the Future” (46/54)), but it’s not an extremely useful feature. Then, the event where future Astrid sends Rorona “clothes” (read: underwear with transparent cloth) happens. You’ll get a costume as well. The second swimsuit scene happened. It happened way later than I recall, but you should get it no problem if you did all of Esty’s requests and events before Overtime. Trophy earned “Once More Unto The Lake” (47/54). If you fulfilled all prerequisites for Esty’s ending (main game popularity 90%+, both swimsuit events, Friendship Level 90+), you’ll get her ending and a trophy (trophy earned “Endless Search for Marriage” (48/54). The last two important events are the ones after you make the Dragon Hourglasses: • the first one is when you synthesize the normal Dragon Hourglass, but Totori and Meruru failed to travel to the future • the second one is when you synthesize the True Dragon Hourglass (you’ll need to fight Wyvern but he’s not hard if you got decent equipment). Trophy earned “Champion of the Sky” (49/54) and “Let’s Meet Again! (50/54). The last notable event is if you failed to synthesize the True Dragon Hourglass in time, and you’ll get the “bad” ending. To complete the trophy list, let’s say you’ve got alchemy level 50 (you should get that if you synthesized equipment for Overtime). Trophy earned “Alchemy Lv. 50” (51/54). Also, if you defeated the two more bosses, you’ll get two trophies: “Lord of the Demonkin” (52/54) and “Emperior of the Deep” (53/54). And, to complete the trophy list, you’ll get the platinum trophy “Complete” (54/54). Congratulations! ---------------------------------------- (7.2) Cost Supplements and Junk [OVER02] ---------------------------------------- Alright, this is the real deal. This is where we’ll start synthesizing like crazy. What are Cost Supplements, you ask? We’ll, simply put, they’re Supplements with cost traits. However, when I say cost traits, I mean the most powerful cost traits you can get. They are the most useful item during Overtime because you can transfer ANY trait you want if you use them properly. There are four cost traits we’ll put onto the Cost Supplements: Expand (Cost +1 and Cost +2; cost increases by 25), Enhance (Cost +2 and Cost +3; cost increases by 30) and Maximize (Expand and Enhance; cost increases by 50), as well as the mother of all cost traits, Vessel Essence (cost increases by an insane 100), though you’ll be able to get that one only after you gain access to essences. You should also use the other three cost traits if you have free slots. Let’s start, shall we? There are different methods but the result should always be the same - get Supplements with strong cost traits. Here’s the best method I found online. Firstly, all credits to Salary for this method! I didn’t do much on my own here; I only added my minor explanations. For this method, let’s say you only have the weakest three traits - Cost +1, Cost +2 and Cost +3. You should have them in your Container, or if you don’t, get Hom to gather for “Traits” on different locations until you get the desirable traits. Okay, so what can we do with them? Combine them, of course! We’ll make multiple Supplements so transferring the traits will be easier. Also, if you have free slots and available cost, you can also add some quality traits. Here are the steps: • First Supplement - required: 2 items with Cost +1, 1 item with Cost +2 and 1 item with Cost +3, make at least 4 Supplements; go with Cost +1 and Cost +2 to make Expand. After that, also use items that have Cost +1 and Cost +3 (it’s best to use those since they don’t get combined with each other; using Cost +2 with any of the two will combine them into one trait and we don’t want that now) • Second Supplement - required: 1 item with Cost +2 and 1 item with Cost +3, make at least 3 Supplements; just combine them so you get Enhance • First Pure Oil - required: 1 first Supplement and 1 second Supplement, make at least 2 Pure Oil; combine them so you get the trait Maximize. Transfer that and Cost +1 • Second Pure Oil - required: 1 first Supplement and 2 second Supplements, make at least 2 Pure Oil; combine them and you’ll get tons of traits, you just need Enhance and Cost +3 • Rainbow Oil - required: 1 first Pure Oil and 1 second Pure Oil, at least two Rainbow Oils; here you should transfer four traits - Maximize, Enhance, Cost +3 and Cost +1 (if you use Expand, it’ll combine with Enhance and you’ll get a duplicate Maximize; the same with Cost +2) • Get your MP to 0 (use skills on the field to drop it) or, if you have a low level, go with an ingot with a small percentage of success (that’s unlikely this late in the game). Make a save. Try to synthesize an ingot (any will do; try to make at least 10 of them) using the Rainbow Oil we synthesized before, but fail so you get Junk. Transfer Maximize, Enhance and Cost +3 onto the Junk • Use the Junk to synthesize Cost Supplements (use only one Junk so you don’t waste it) and to transfer any trait you want onto a Supplement (I’ll mention the best traits in the next section). You should register the new Supplements at R&T Sundries so you’ll have them at any point. That’s about it with the Cost Supplement and Cost Junk part. Now, you’re ready to go with the real meat of the synthesizing: transferring traits onto ingots and cloth. ---------------------------------- (7.3) Equipment Synthesis [OVER03] ---------------------------------- This part is totally up to you, but the equipment should always result in being the strongest possible. Note that the first part is without essences and I’ll cover them later. -------- Weapons -------- For weapons, the best possible combination is to go with Power Hitter (Attack Charge + Attack Boost) and traits that improve your elemental damage. Also go with skill enhancers now that we have Cost Junk. There are two unique combinations we’ll go with here - Deity Power (Spirit Power and Spirit Repel) and Time Spirit (Spirit Power and Inflict Slow). So, the priority is increasing our attack, skill and elemental damage. First, we should synthesize a couple of Supplements (around 10) using one Cost Junk from before and items that feature the following traits: Attack Charge (if you don’t have it, it’s Attack +3 and Attack +6), Spirit Repel, Skill Boost (if you don’t have it, it’s Skill +15% and Skill +20%), and, this is important, you need to use FOUR different traits - Fire+ and Ice+ (which combine into Red+Blue) and Earth+ and Lightning+ (which combine into Green+Gold). It’s important you go with all four because a trait can be combined only ONCE in a single synthesis (meaning that, for example, Fire+ and Ice+ will always result in Red+Blue and WON’T combine with Green+Gold into Spirit Power). So, the traits on the first group of Supplements are Attack Charge, Spirit Repel, Skill Boost, Red+Blue and Green+Gold. Next group of Supplements is similar but with traits that can get combined with the ones above: Attack Boost (if you don’t have it, it’s Attack +6 and Attack +9), Skill Charge (if you don’t have it, it’s Skill +10% and Skill +15%), Rainbow Power (additional elemental damage; get it from a Prism Coral), Inflict Slow and, the same process as above, Red+Blue and Green+Gold. So, now we go with the first group of Pure Oil. Use one first Supplement and a Cost Supplement. You need to transfer all new traits you get, which are Attack Charge, Skill Boost, Spirit Repel, Spirit Power (Red+Blue and Green+Gold got combined despite being on the same item). Use a quality trait on the remaining slot so you increase the base skills of the equipment at the end of the synthesis. The second group of Pure Oil is the same thing but with different traits - Attack Boost, Skill Charge, Rainbow Power, Spirit Power, Inflict Slow and a quality trait. There is also a third group of Pure Oil - Cost Pure Oil. It’s very simple, just use a Cost Supplement and transfer all the traits from the Cost Supplement onto the Pure Oil. Register the Pure Oil at R&T Sundries since you might need it in the future. Now, we go with synthesizing ingots. Go with the strongest ingot you can make (such as Platine) and we’ll create two groups of ingots (note that every group needs at least 3 ingots so every character in your team gets a weapon) - the first group uses one first Pure Oil and one Cost Pure Oil, you’ll get the traits Attack Charge, Skill Boost, Deity Power (Spirit Power and Spirit Repel got combined) and a quality trait; the second group uses one second Pure Oil and one Cost Pure Oil, you’ll get the traits Attack Boost, Skill Charge, Time Spirit (Spirit Power and Inflict Slow got combined), Rainbow Power and a quality trait. Go to Beefy Weapon Shop and transfer all those traits (Power Hitter, Master Skill, Time Spirit, Deity Power and Rainbow Power). ------ Armor ------ Next, we’ll move to armor. On armor, we’ll primarily go with defense enhancers and elemental protections, also adding HP enhancers and MP cost decreasers/MP enhancers (depending on which one you want). First group of Supplements should have Defense Charge (Defense +3 and Defense +6), Red+Blue Barrier (Resist Fire Lv2 and Resist Ice Lv2), HP Charge (HP +10 and HP +20), a quality trait and MP Cost Pack (MP Cost -15% and MP Cost -20%) or MP Boost (MP +15 and MP +20). Use a Cost Junk like before. Second group of Supplements should have Defense Boost (Defense +6 and Defense +9), Green+Gold Barrier (Resist Earth Lv2 and Resist Lightning Lv2), HP Boost (HP +15 and HP +20), a quality trait and MP Cost Cut (MP Cost -10% and MP Cost -15%) or MP Charge (MP +10 and MP +15). Next, we’re going to synthesize two groups of Zettels (also create some Cost Zettels using Cost Supplements only). First group should use a Cost Supplement and one first Supplement. Transfer Defense Charge, Red+Blue Barrier, HP Charge and MP Cost Pack/MP Boost as well as a quality trait. The second group of Zettels should use a Cost Supplement and one second Supplement. Transfer Defense Boost, Green+Gold Barrier, HP Boost and MP Cost Cut/MP Charge as well as a quality trait. Now, we’re going to synthesize two groups of Magical Paints. Just transfer all the traits from the groups above. Also don’t forget to use a Cost Zettel. Also, make at least two Cost Magical Paints using only a Cost Zettel. Now create some more advanced cloth (Scale Cloth, for example). We’ll need to create two groups, with at least three cloth per group. First group should use a Cost Magical Paint and one first Magical Paint with the traits we need, while the same with the second only this time you need to use one Magical Paint from the second group. Now we can synthesize the armor at Beefy Weapon Shop and we should get the following traits - Defender, Life Guard, Red+Blue Barrier, Green+Gold Barrier and Eco-Skill/Mental Guard. ------------ Accessories ------------ We only have accessories left. You can generally insert any traits you like onto them, but overall stat enhancers are a necessity. First, synthesize at least two Cost Komets using Cost Supplements. Now, what are the best accessories? That’s debatable, but one of your accessories has to be Gnardi Ring. Make three accessories so each character can equip them. Transferring traits to a Gnardi Ring is easy! Just synthesize two Komets (use a Cost Supplement and a Supplement with the traits you want), use one of the Komets you synthesized in the synthesis, also use a Cost Komet (or Cost Ingot using a Cost Pure Oil if you wish). For the second accessory, I suggest Spirit Necklace (it straightens your elemental attacks) using the trait Komet as well as Cost Komet I mentioned above. In terms of traits, I suggest stat traits depending on the cost you have available (Stats +6 requires 9 CP, Stats Charge (Stats +2 and Stats +4) requires 15 CP, Stats +10 (Stats +4 and Stats +6) requires 25 CP and Stats Power (Stats Charge and Stats +10) requires 50 CP), as well as speed traits (Speed Charge or Speed Boost, maybe Speed Star if you got the CP) and maybe weaker attack and defense traits such as the Attack Charge and Defense Charge traits. --------- Essences --------- Last but not least, I’ll talk about essences. Essences are sort of special traits that are extremely powerful, but they come at the price of a high CP (all of them are 75). You can grind for them at certain points, but by far the best place is the last room at Abyssal Tower (Ozean Kaiser Room), go right on the first platform and gather it. Exit and re-enter the place to gather it again until you got all the essences you want. You can unfortunately transfer essences only to accessories. The essences I suggest you transferred are Demon Essence (60 to Attack but takes 200 HP every turn; use only if you synthesize a Warrior Mask because that one got HP Regen effects, get HP Regen XXL), Flame Essence (30 to Attack and 60 to HP) and Black Essence (30 to Speed and decrease skill WT). Definitely transfer a Vessel Essence to a Cost Supplement and create a new Cost Supplement with Vessel Essence, Maximize, Enhance, Cost +3 and Cost +1. If you have a Cost Supplement like that, transferring 2 or 3 essences as well as another trait such as Speed Star or Veteran Skills (if you have it) shouldn’t be a problem. ----------------------------- (7.4) Item Synthesis [OVER04] ----------------------------- As you already know, there are two item types - healing items and attack items. We’ll need Meteors, Infinity Meteor (you can get that one in a chest in Machina Domain) and Pinwheels as attack items and Elixirs as healing items. Meteors are generally great for swarms, while Infinity Meteors and Pinwheels are useful against bosses. Note that quality is extremely important for items. Traits and effects are as follows: • Meteors - Mortal Blow (Sure Shot (Critical Lv2 and Critical Lv3) and Satisfactory (Critical Lv1 and Critical Lv2)) or just Sure Shot, Swarm Slayer L (Swarm Slayer S and Swarm Slayer M), Ultra Quality (Hand-Crafted and Professional), Demolisher (Very Painful (Forceful Lv1 and Forceful Lv2) and Destroyer (Forceful Lv2 and Forceful Lv3)) and Soul Steal. Effects - Attack ??? and Attack L • Infinity Meteors - same traits and effects as Meteor, only with Loner Slayer L (Loner Slayer S and Loner Slayer M) instead of Swarm Slayer L • Pinwheel - traits aren’t important, but go with something similar to Meteor. Effects - Cyclone and Knock Back L • Elixir - Spiritflower Energy (a trait on a Dunkelheit), Cure-All, Mender (Heal Lv2 and Heal Lv3) or Recovery (Fast Heal (Heal Lv1 and Heal Lv2) and Mender), Ultra Quality and an auto-healing trait (I suggest Pepped Up, it auto-heals your allies when Rorona’s HP drops to <50%). Effects - HP Recovery XL and HP Healing L ------------------------------ (7.5) Boss Strategies [OVER05] ------------------------------ There are three bosses during Overtime: Wyvern, Ozean Kaiser and Demon Lord. There are also a couple of mini-bosses as you progress to the main bosses. These bosses can be pretty problematic at times (for example, I had a lot of trouble with Golem on Floor 2 and Blood Elemental on Floor 4 of Abyssal Towers). In this section I’ll try to give you some advice on how to defeat the boss in the most effective way. In terms of your team, I suggest you go with Rorona-Totori-Meruru (since they all can use items) and switch Totori out with Astrid whenever necessary, mostly for the bosses (Astrid has great skills that decrease the enemy’s level). That’s if you want though. I finished Overtime strictly with Rorona-Totori-Meruru. All bosses and mini bosses have similar strategies - just hit them with all you got. Spam Infinity Meteors (or Meteors with Loner Slayer L if you have it) and Pinwheels (to delay its turn), use Meruru’s Pinwheel skill which has the same effect as the item, Elixirs auto-heal you but use them when necessary. Note two things though. The effect of Pinwheels decreases with each turn so try to deal enough damage to the enemy before it gets a turn. Also, you absolutely SHOULDN’T use a healing item (such as Elixir) against Demon Lord (it should auto-heal you) because if you do, he gets a turn where he completely devastates your team (I learned that the hard way). If you have Astrid, use her skills to decrease the level of the enemy. ========================================================================== (8.) Special Thanks [SPTH00] ========================================================================== I would like to thank the following people because of their encouragement and their content: • x410xDragon for his/her trophy guide for providing the trophies and character event dates • Drache The Dork (or Top Loser) for his/her guide which I referred to for some small pointers • Salary and his/her method for synthesizing Cost items • Tons of other people on the World Wide Web for supplying me with various other information I used in this guide • The kind Atelier community on Reddit. Thank you for your encouragement, guys! You rock! • Everybody else who encouraged the creation of this guide • The fact that I’m unemployed and had nothing else to do (but that’s unimportant) ========================================================================== (9.) Disclaimer [DISC00] ========================================================================== Blah, blah, let’s go to the legal information. This FAQ/Walkthrough is copyrighted (c) 2019 Swetzie. Here’s some copy-paste: This guide may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. The sites I’ll currently place this guide on are: gamefaqs.com under the Atelier Rorona DX section and neoseeker.com under the Atelier Rorona Plus section. If you wish to use this guide in some way (such as place it on your web-site), just contact me and we’ll sort it out. Contact information: lecram629@gmail.com. Write me a email or PM if you need any sort of information, if you wish to ask me about the use of this guide or if you want to tell me about any issues with the guide (if the issues are notable, I’ll credit you in “Special Thanks”). It’s especially helpful if I missed something (like an important event). I’m also currently active on Reddit, so you can PM me there as well (u/Swetzie). Lastly - THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR USING MY GUIDE! It means a lot to me that I finally contributed to something since my existence before this was questionable.
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