Feeding Toads

So, Rogue Galaxy.  I've finally managed to that point that experience has taught me to both love and dread: the penultimate dungeon.  I love it because that is typically the most flavorful and fun part of the entire harvesting experience, with lots of the plot threads finally coming together in a tapestry of awesomeness.  I dread it because it also tends to be the point where you have to give that tapestry a quick glance and bury yourself in all the little sidequests and last-minute crafting and grinding affairs a modern RPG entails. 


We've been introduced to the lost planet Mariglenn, home of crystal spires, togas, and where magic and technology have reached a point that the rest of the galaxy (itself an idyllic fruitopia of Clarke's Law) looks at them and starts complaining about how they're harvesting dirt and struggling to achieve fire.  The legends are true, but the tech (and magitek) level is a tad bit lower than believed, while still being quietly amazing.  We're also being acquainted with Mother, Jenova's avant-garde sister and local abomination.  Fortunately, no goth pretty-men have shown up to raze villages and screw with life in general.  Unfortunately, it's fairly obvious that totally-not-Shinra are going to come along and be dipshit ultra-capitalists.  Grimdark hijinks will likely ensue.  Fun fact: Daytron (the primary subsidiary of Shinra, Inc. the Galaxy Corporation) has a company logo that looks awfully similar to Atari,  Somebody at Level-5 probably has an evil sense of humor.


But we're now down to getting everybody's equipment optimized and ready to go.  The two crafting systems are the factory (which is both as stupid fun and infuriatingly finicky as you'd think), and the weapon synthesis.  It's your standard video game "item A plus item b equals item c" system, with the twist that you're giving your weapons over to be digested and regurgitated by magic frog. 


I'm not making this up; evil space mojo is tearing around and turning life forms into eldritch combination of Tyranids and the Borg.  Our little friend Toady (the frog in question) and his buddy had a close encounter with the evil space mojo.  Toady's friend got the shaft and wound up a giant Frogthulu zombie thing and promptly was found by the Harvest,  Toady wound up becoming a cute talking purple amphibian that also doubles as the Space Philosopher's Stone.  So we have a crew of kickass anime space pirates that feed weapons to a (presumably unique) frickin' frog, that promptly barfs back up as all sorts of magic swords and death rays and magitek bazookas and stuff.  Oh, and they have to be seasoned (read: used in 15 battles) for him to even taste the things.  Apparently he likes to taste the despair of my fallen enemies.


This game is awesome.