Day 02 - Transformations

Akakiba's back and it's day two in Ether Saga. I'm playing as I write, a great little advantage of the game's automatic pathing system. Last time was more of a broad game overview, this time I'll really start to get into the adventure itself.



First things first, new duds! After completing a few more quests, I was able to pick up some new equipment, and find out that equipment can be upgraded with spirit (the same currency used to learn new skills.) Additionally, after inspecting the equipment menu, I was happy to find something out. There's two types of equipment; fashion and armor. Of course armor is your standard gear, it's what you're wearing, and what gives you defense and stats. Fashion on the other hand, is equipment you can wear that gives no stat bonuses, but changes your appearance should you choose. Fashion includes all the things you can buy in the online store with real money. So from what I can see of things, all of the items as far as gear on the online store goes are mostly just visual bling. And ironically, the button to display fashion gear instead of armor was literally the bling button, ha! So with an upgraded spear, and new duds I set off on my adventure to learn the art of transformation.

Even with the simple low poly graphics and cartoon like style of Ether Saga, the beauty can often be striking. There were many times where I simply had to stop and take a picture of the countryside. Not far outside of town on a small island I found a fat old pig man who insisted he was going to teach me how to transform. After a requisite number of kill and fetch quests of course. I didn't mind terribly though, there were lots of new things to see.


Finally, I finished his fetch quests and learned a lot about the history of the world. Although the translation is humorously awkward most of the time, the general gist of the dialog always gets across, and it's easy to follow where it's going. Enough about dialog though, my first transformation! A cerulean pixie, a cute blue guy who moves by slithering on a wiggling tail.


So how do transformations work? Well, you hit N then select the creature you want to transform to, or you can set them to hotkeys. Much like many other games, there is a wheel of power for creatures. Certain creature types are strong against others, and inversely weak against others. Transformations are learned from creature cards that can be found in loot, from quests and purchased. Not only do creatures affect your combat stats and abilities, the coolest part is creature size matters! Large creatures won't be able to fit through small gaps, and you'll even need to transform into small creatures to fit through small gaps! I love seeing stuff like this done in an MMO.

After learning my first transformation I returned to my starting area, the Yaoh town not far away. From here I was sent off on a quest, a test of endurance, strength, wisdom, mercy a road of enlightenment. So after completing a quiz, gathering some herbs, traveling and defeating some enemies, I used my return home spell to return to the Ancient Ruins, the Yaoh starting area. Here I spoke with the Goddess of Mercy, and apparently having done even their Buddha proud, I was ready to be an emissary for the Yaoh race.

Off I go, to Pokari city. I was informed that there I'd be able to learn more, as well as form clans and fellowships, and that clans can ally with other clans through rituals. It sounds like there's still a lot to see and learn. Oh and I didn't mention this earlier, but I learned my first Nascent skill, one of what seems to be 8 skills based on my Zodiac and day of birth. The first skill was Blaze up which raises my affinity to Pyr, the game's fire element. But it's been a long adventure this evening and I think it's about time to take a break.


Have a good night, see you on my next adventure!