Shiren the Wanderer DS Diary 5

Mar. 19 7:55 AM by Lynxara

I've had really good luck with this run, but I expect you guys are tuning in to see it just as it peters out. I've unlocked the all-important Melding Jar by advancing Gaibara's subquest, and gotten the restaurant at the Mountaintop Village going. My big problem is food-- while the Armor Ward is wonderful for improving survivability, I'm not getting enough in the way of Big Riceballs on this run to keep myself from starving. If the lack of food doesn't end up killing me, it's going to be taking my shield off that does.

It's a shame, because my shield now is pretty awesome. I've melded together the Gold Shield that doesn't rust with an Armor Ward and a random Wood Shield with a +2 bonus to create an incredibly potent piece of defensive equipment. I've shredded through the game thus far, but I expect that a lack of good weapons on this run is going to catch up with me as the Table Mountain monsters get nastier. Let's see if I'm right about how I'll die this time, shall we?

Stream Village

If I remember right, this is the last village in this part of the game, and actually the first time I've been through here. I'm honestly not sure what to expect. I'm near-starving and low on HP, so first stop is the inn. My second stop is going to be the shop, where I can sell off the more extraneous bits of loot I've found. It's not quite enough money to upgrade my kit, though, so I expect to do some dying soon.

22. Table Mountain

An annoying spring-trap level like the one that killed me last time, but this time I get lucky and find the exit after only three "springs". Unfortunately, tough monsters and not much loot here, either.

23. Table Mountain

Same basic problem, although the loot is a little better-- basic necessities like Power-Up Scrolls. I encounter a Polygon Jive, an enemy that's probably going to mess me up severely. I'm still toting a shield based on an Armor Ward, you see, so having spells suddenly reduce my fullness to 28% means I may be a good candidate for dying of starvation... until I suddenly find the exit to the next level of the dungeon, with a Riceball besides it. Hooray for luck.

24. Table Mountain

I immediately use my Staff of Paralysis on the Schubell I spawn next to. This map is very strange-- a true maze with lots of long winding passages. Pretty good for me, all things considered, provided I don't end up having to take the long way around to the exit. It means my chances of getting dogpiled by enemies I don't want to fight are pretty low, but it also means no escape. That said, I do run into a Polygon Jive who almost completely undoes the good fortune of finding that Riceball earlier. I don't starve to death, though; since I have to drop my shield to slow down the rate at which I'm starving, a Minotaur wanders along and kills me to death. Well, that's a little more dignified, as is the 332526 final score.

Now that I have the Melding Jar unlocked, my goal is to either use a Hide Shield (which slows down rate of hunger) as a melding base so I can give it a ridiculous amount of defensive bonuses, or meld together an Armor Ward and a Hide Shield so I can have extraordinary defense without putting myself in quite so much danger of starvation. As far as weapons go, I seriously need to start finding better stuff; for all of this run I had nothing better than a Katana with no damage bonuses.

Anyway, see you guys next time. I'm drawing nearer to the end of the game and three trials, so the diaries will get shorter-- progress gets kind of incremental at this point. Ah, but I'm still making plenty of progress.

Comments

Melding a Hide Shield onto an Armor Ward is definitely the way to go! From then on you won't have to worry as much about starving. If you're having a problem finding enough Big Riceballs, what you could always do is start from Canyon Hamlet, talk to the bartender there to get a free Big Riceball, then go to 1F, find the exit, go back to Canyon Hamlet, repeat... of course, each time this is done counts as a separate "adventure", if the number on the main menu screen bothers you.

And really, grinding back and forth to buff up weapons/armor isn't a bad idea at all. You can take a weapon to the smithys at the first two towns for stat boosts, and then backtrack to Canyon Hamlet to start a new "adventure", but keep all your equipment. Keep repeating this and you can buff a Katana up pretty well (Air Bless Scrolls help too obviously). Building up armor is harder since it can primarily only be done through Earth Bless Scrolls, but you can also get small boosts by sticking any armor that's at least +1 into a Melding Pot too...

Another nice side effect of grinding and then backtracking to Canyon Hamlet is that it also lets you advance some storylines along faster (like making Pekuji less worthless)

 

Ah, Pekeji. Early on, the partner who is kind of worse than not having a partner! I actually have a hard time finding him lately, it's always Oryu or Kechi.

Backtrack grinding is something I've heard of, mostly as a way of preparing for post-game dungeons. If I do another Armor Ward run I think I'll give it a try. I'm not in a bad position now, though, my current run has given me a Drain Slayer that's up to, I think, +5 and an Iron Shield, which is like an Armor Ward that doesn't try to kill you.

 

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