Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World/Headscratchers

Richter's observational skills.

 * Considering that Aster is so important to Richter, why does it take Richter so long to notice the resemblance between Emil and Aster?
 * It doesn't. He notices immediately, but thinks its a coincidence, which is why he's so nice to Emil in the beginning of the game. When he finds out what Emil is that's when he becomes fully antagonistic.
 * Even when he starts to be clearly suspicious of Emil's origin he seems to find it fairly difficult to dislike him. It's quite probable that

Why are some characters not affected by Centurion's cores?

 * Its explained in the game that touching Centurion Cores can infect you with insanity, but while its explained why Lloyd (New World Tree's blessing most likely) Zelos, Collete (Being angels) Marta (Having Ratatosk's power) and Emil can touch them, sfor some reason, Richter has none of these and yet can touch the cores without going mad...just because. Its completely unexplained.
 * Simply put, Richter's willpower is too strong to be overtaken by the power of the Cores. It's stated that his willpower is so strong that he can affect the Cores instead of the other way around, which is why Aqua falls blindly in love with him. Also, a correction: Colette and Zelos are not immune to the Centurion Cores. The reason why Lloyd takes it upon himself to collect them is because he is the only one in his party who is immune (because he has the blessing of Martel as the namer of the new World Tree).
 * Which, fitting with his character, is an absolutely retarded idea. What, he didn't think to just tell his friends not to touch them and just tell him where they are?
 * There's the implication that even proximity to the Centurion Cores can drive someone crazy. Lloyd probably thought that asking his friends to seek out the Cores would put them in danger of exposure. Which again is a stupid idea, since the lack of information from Lloyd causes his friends to seek out the Cores anyway.
 * Where does it say that? Marta states that touching the core drives you insane, and even though Decus and Brute held Solum's core long enough to go insane, the rest of the Vanguard didn't. Not only that, but by that line of logic Lloyd and co. would have been driven insane during the Journey of Regeneration, as the core rooms are very close to the seals.
 * I thought the implication was that the reason the cores would drive people insane was because of Ratatosk's  I think Tenebrae calls them "beacons of ill intent", which seems to imply that the dormant Centurions are just filled with the   and are sort of spreading it around. If Lloyd and co had been around them before that point it probably wouldn't have been a big deal.
 * I guess that makes some sense. Still, it's pretty clear that you need to touch the core in order to go insane, as only Decus and Brute (the only two members of the Vanguard who touched Solum's core) went insane. This is especially notable with Alice, who spends a lot of time working with Decus. She's a bitch, but she isn't insane.
 * Not that it's out of character for Lloyd either way.
 * My interpretation was that Lloyd didn't tell the others because he made a pact with Martel or Yuan saying he wouldn't. Remember before heading to the tree Lloyd says "I've made a pact, so I can't say anything about it for the time being."
 * Problems with that: Why did Lloyd even make the pact in the first place, and why didn't Lloyd just do what he eventually did anyways and direct his friends to Yuan?

What's up with the ending?

 * So, at the end of the game, if you don't get the bad ending, Ratatosk explains that in order to save EVERYBODY and permanently seal the Ginnunga-whatever, he'll have to re-write the laws of nature so the world no longer uses mana as its energy source, meaning it will slowly decline and the summon spirits will cease to exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he said it'd take about a thousand years. Now, keep the following in mind:
 * Tales of Symphonia is a prequel to Tales of Phantasia.
 * Tales of Phantasia occurs about 4,000 years after the end of Tales of Symphonia, in the same world.
 * In Tales of Phantasia, the world is still working pretty well, and they still very much rely on mana. The summon spirits (except Celcius) all are clearly still around and still doing whatever it is summon spirits do.
 * Except that Ratatosk doesn't say that he will change the fact that the World Tree still produces mana. That is, magic is still possible via mana, and all the technology associated can be utilized. Thus the mana just kind of floats around ambiantly, able to be used whenever it is needed.


 * Now, if you take Dawn of the New World to be canon (which Namco seems to be doing, given how much they've promoted it and shoehorned Richter into cameo roles), either Ratatosk went back on his promise (which would mean the world should be overrun by demons, which in Phantasia it obviously isn't and there's no evidence anywhere of some kind of demon war), the bad ending is the canon one (unlikely given it's fairly short, doesn't give you a New Game Plus, and one of the main points of the game is constantly bringing up how absolutely made for each other Emil and Marta are), or Namco just Ret Conned away the entire existence their very first Tales game.
 * This troper won't pretend that all of Ratatosk's magibabble made total sense to her but it seems like they were trying to explain why mana isn't as important to people in Tales of Phantasia. Most people don't even seem to know that Yggdrassil exists, much less that it's the source of all mana! I think the reasoning is as follows:
 * At the beginning of To P, Martel's tree is already dead. This doesn't seem to mean the world is in decline, just magic.
 * When Cless & co. revive the tree, it's not because they think that all life will die without it, but because they want mana to be available when they return to their own time so that they can use Sorcery to beat up Dhaos.
 * Ratatosk says he's going to draw mana out of all living things to seal the door, by which I think he means mortals, because Sheena explicitly asks him whether he means spirits too and he says that no, they will still need mana. Apparently this will all work out because by the time he's done draining the planet's (currently low anyway) mana, Yggdrassil will be big enough to produce mana for all the beings that still need it.
 * Not to mention, wasn't the whole reason why Dhaos sought for the Mana Seed from Aselia was because they didn't need it as much as his world did?
 * Considering that Dawn is considered an "Escort" title, it's doubtful that Namco Bandai considers it part of the canon of Phantasia and Symphonia. Your entire complaint is based on an assumption. Maybe Namco Bandai just really likes Richter as a character and design.
 * It's likely that Ratatosk's new seal isn't as good as the original one. As such, some demonic traces still remained, resulting in the Daemonium (I think that's what it's called) in Phantasia.


 * The seal is not impregnable in Phantasia- note the whole Daemonium thing, which is probably the same bunch of demons under a different name- a group of humans can even go in and make a pact with them. After Marta died, Emil was probably reabsorbed into Ratatosk, and everything went back to the status quo of a limited seal on the dimensional border- either he couldn't go through with it, or he couldn't find a way to wean the planet off of mana without killing everything.
 * Or the seal itself needs mana, even if everything else doesn't, and is unraveling because Yggdrassil has been weakened by Midgard's mana cannon.

Did Ratatosk mess things up for the other Spirits?

 * I think Ratatosk shot his own people in the foot here, because now if mortals screw up and use to much mana again, which they do, all the spirits and the Tree will die but mortals will just wonder what happened to all that sparkly magic. Then again, since everything in the Aselia timeline games seems to ultimately happen because of people coming from Derris Kharlan and bringing their mana with them you could make the argument that the planet is better off without them anyway. It's all stupidly convoluted too but, well...it's a JRPG.
 * Well, doesn't that mark a big turning point for Ratatosk? That he can decide to make this accommodation, knowing that it can very well lead to a situation where mortals outlast him and the rest of the Summon Spirits? Almost a full 180 from his previous attitude of "KILL ALL THE MORTALS FOR DEFILING MY TREE!", isn't it?
 * Well sure, it's all fine and dandy from the standpoint of his own personal character development, but it's not like he bothered to ask the rest of his race how they felt about it...
 * First, we know spirits can live if not necessarily thrive, in a mana-poor environment; hell, they were using some of 'em as batteries during Mithos' reign, and they seemed OK with it. Second, how do we know he didn't ask? He might have had his mobile part Emil ask 'em before going through with it.
 * Since Martel appears for a brief moment in Phantasia while mana was gone from the world in the beginning of the game, this might be the case. Perhaps summon spirits go into a state of dormancy rather than die in the absence of mana.
 * Martel and Sylph both explicitly state in Tales of Phantasia that the Spirits will die without mana. Perhaps there's still some residual mana left in Cless' time period. After all, it's only been about 100 years since Yggdrasill died at that time, and there's residual mana sustaining the worlds (which need it a whole lot more) 4000 years after the Giant Kharlan Tree died in Tales of Symphonia. Granted, Mithos was managing things so that this would be the case, but still.
 * If memory serves me correct, the Great Seed produces mana, though it is a small amount compared to when it's germanated. It is this mana that sustains the two worlds, with one world getting the flow at a time.
 * Which explains Cress' era; the fact that one of the two worlds got along without the mana from the seed for generations at a time, but the spirits were still going, indicates that the time between cutting off of the source and total consumption of reserves is quite significant.

Nazdrovie?

 * How did a Russian toast to one's health manage to become the official term for a fire-causing amphibian, anyway?
 * It was first discovered at a party being held by Russian-speaking biologists?
 * In Soviet Russia, Light-Frog names YOU!

Emil's fashion sense.

 * Who wears a heavy scarf in a hot spring?
 * Emil obviously.
 * It's the source of his power. Or his head will fall off if it's removed. Take your pick.
 * Or he thinks it's stylish.
 * Correction: Emil didn't choose his clothes (at least, not at first); "the darkness" did. (Or whatever it was Tenebrae was talking about.) So...the darkness thought it was stylish. Now, why he didn't just change clothes...well, he kept the weird tube-top-coat-thing, didn't he?
 * "The Darkness" was Tenebrae. He came up with such weird clothes because his fashion sense is a few centuries out of date, or because he's 10,000 years old and hasn't ever had the chance to mess with his master's head before. Probably the later. He obviously enjoys it immensely.
 * +1 protection from Clingy Jealous Girls?
 * If that's the case, then it's terribly ineffective.
 * Its only a +1. He'd need a +8 or so to have any effect.
 * He normally wears a boob tube, and you're questioning why he's wearing a scarf in a hot spring?

Doesn't Colette know the new Tree's name?

 * Colette was with Lloyd when he named the new world tree, so most likely she caught the new name of it. Lloyd however still tries to keep the name a secret all over the time even towards Colette, just as if she doesn't know it already!
 * This is Lloyd and Colette we're talking about. Either he forgot she knew, she forgot it, or she forgot it and he knows it.
 * Or maybe she tripped and fell over, thus missing the name. Colette has already proven she has the ability to just fall over for no reason.
 * It's been a while since I've seen that part, but I thought they clearly said that the entire original party knew the tree's name, and Lloyd was keeping them out of the loop because if they had gotten corrupted by the centurion's cores they would have run the risk of slipping the name to Ratatosk, which would have allowed him to take control of the new tree away from Martel.
 * Yeah, I think that was it. The whole team knew the name, but because Lloyd was the one who named the tree he got the divine protection of Martel. He could walk around with the cores and not have any adverse effects, but everyone else would lose their minds and possibly let the name of the tree slip in front of the wrong person, which would allow the power of the tree to be turned over to a ultra-powerful creature who wanted to destroy every human and elf on the planet.

Lloyd gets caught AGAIN

 * You know, considering how fast Lloyd is in general and how he's supposed to be a quick thinker, why is it he didn't immediately run the hell away from the girls in the hot spring, especially since he already knows what will happen if he gets caught?
 * Are you familiar with the phrase "deer in the headlights"? Also, even if he runs, they'll still see that he was there and saw, and will suffer for it eventually.
 * Actually, the girls couldn't see who was peeking on them. Remember that it wasn't until Undine had beat the crap out of Lloyd were the girls able to go check out who it was.

Courage is the -- yeah we get it already.

 * You know, aside from the first chapter (and maybe the second), "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" really isn't used that much. Yet the way people complain about it, you'd think it was a freaking Verbal Tic.
 * Because it's used a LOT in the first chapter. And often gets an annoying flashback interrupting dialogue/monologue.
 * Most notably, because he flashes back to this saying and event mere SECONDS after it happens. Several times. It gets really annoying.

What's with the map?

 * I've seen pictures on the internet that overlapped the Sylvarant and Tethe'Alla maps before, creating a near-perfect image of Aselia in Phantasia's world - but the developers somehow chose to reverse the Iselia/Triet and Luin regions. Iselia-Triet is now gigantic (and Symphonia 1 said it was turning into a desert - also where Efreet is found, etc.), and it's to the north of Luin, which "becoming an even grander city", should have matched perfectly with Midgard, then swing Palmacosta over and make it the Venezzia-Harmel region, with Undine's island becoming... Undine's island. Basically, that whole area did a 180 and screwed up the continuity something fierce.
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's like 4000 years between Symphonia and Phantasia right? I imagine things could change, especially considering how crazy Gnome is.
 * There is also a World War between two ultraadvanced WMD-posessing magitech civilizations and a life-as-we-know-it ending meteor impact on the schedule for the 4000 year interim. Stuff can mess with geographic features something fierce.

Tenebrae is not a dog!

 * Why does everyone call Tenebrae a dog? Sure his snout and ears are a bit on the long side, but his shape, the way he walks (well, the few times he does walk), and the way he moves his tail makes him look more like a cat than a dog (specifically, a black panther).
 * Emil and Marta never refer to him as a dog. The first member of the first game's cast to meet him was Colette. She has an affinity for dogs, and later party members first heard about him from her. Thus, her biased conclusion shaped their perceptions.
 * It started with Colette thinking he was a dog. After that it was probably just to fuck with him.

What's up with Ain Soph Aur?

 * Ain Soph Aur. Just Ain Soph Aur. It means "infinite light", am I right ? But then why does Emil/Ratatosk use a dark fireball to perform the attack ? And what about that "Darkness devours !" ? This could mean that the attack, hum... devours infinite light ? But then, why is it Light Elemental ?
 * This troper assumed that even though it's labeled light elemental, Ain Soph Aur was more of a Yin Yang Bomb. In a world where Dark Is Not Evil, light and darkness should be flip sides of the same coin right? Besides Ratatosk is a pan-elemental Summon Spirit, it doesn't seem that weird that his power would blur the lines between different elements.

Why can Marta use magic?

 * How can Marta use attack magic like Photon and Divine Saber? To use this kind of magic you need to have elven blood in you, or at least access to Aionis. Marta is a plain human, though, and really shouldn't be able to use magic like this (healing arts are a different story since those seem to rely on chi, rather than mana).
 * She's got Ratatosk's core in her. He may not be actually in it, but its still enough of a mystic powerup to give her access to magic, presumably as a gift from Ratatosk.
 * But supposedly
 * Just because it doesn't  doesn't mean it can't still be an incredibly powerful artifact. Apart from anything else, it may be that it was specifically designed to give all the physiological and magical effects as   because if it wasn't, people might start asking Questions and figure out the truth too soon.
 * It's not . It is indeed . Towards the end of the game, we're shown that Ratatosk is able to
 * Just because he can doesn't mean he did. What reason would Tenebrae have to lie about that?
 * The same reasons he had for lying about the other things he lied about, I suppose..
 * It would actually make more sense for Ratatosk to create  because that would keep him safer from attack by Richter and anyone else who'd like to kill him. Indeed, this is exactly what happened. The Vangard chased Marta around for months while Emil was safely in Luin. It would have been a brilliant plan if
 * In the first game, Sheena and Lloyd talk about how one needs Elven blood somewhere in your family tree to even do any kind of magic (and explicitly states that Sheena's ability to Summon means she had an Elven ancestor somewhere way back in her family history). Presumably, Marta does as well.

The complete lack of introduction of everyone past Regal

 * Every original cast member introduced after Regal is sort of glossed over with a "(name) what are you doing here? You helped us on our journey of world regeneration!" without a word about who they were in that journey, what their life story is or anything, whereas we were beat over the head with Collette, Raine, Genis, and Regal. Sheena bugged me in particular, seeing as how there was a mention of one of the original party members being a summoner, but then when she does summon very soon after her introduction, there isn't a mention of it anywhere. No one marvels at or explains it. In contrast, Collete had mentioned she had a friend who went into Ruin Mode. Then, when we meet Raine and she flips out at the ruins, there are several conversations about said Mode. Don't get me wrong, they could easily have turned this into irritating Continuity Porn, but, as an example, without any sort of hint as to the relationship between Regal and Presea or what happened to her in her past, any new player is left completely in the dark as to why she came along in the first place.
 * To be fair, the latter is to be expected when one plays a sequel first.

We never meet the other centurions, or even find out what they look like.

 * Tenebrie and Aqua are the only centurions that actually make an appearance in the story. The other six don't get so much as a cameo. It's not because they're still dormant, because the whole game's about waking them up. And worse, it's not even hand-waved; someone briefly wonders why, but then quickly drops it and it never comes up again. Did the budget run out before they could get to animating and finding voice actors for the rest?
 * Probably. The game's an escort title after all, and Vesperia was being produced at the same time.

Ratatosk and the destruction of humanity

 * So Ratatosk wanted to wipe out humanity, but over the course of the game his conscious develops until he changes his mind. But... what did the humans do exactly to change his mind? While of course I wouldn't want Ratatosk to wipe out humanity, they DID destroy the Giant Kharlan Tree with a disastrous war that would have led to the end of all life on the planet if it hadn't been for Mithos, and unlike the monsters Ratatosk leads and the Summon Spirits, humans don't seem to contribute anything to the earth by being here, they just live off it. And yet Ratatosk not only spares them, but he's kind enough to reprogram the laws of life so that humans are the only ones who WOULDN'T be killed by a mana shortage. This seems like a generous accommodation for them, and I just feel like if Ratatosk has to do that, then the humans should do something in return to show they can change their ways.
 * What happens? Emil's personality happened, along with a love for Marta. Also, the adjusting the way mana works is technically the right thing to do, since it is, when you get down to it, his fault that the tree became a Cosmic Keystone in the first place. The planet got along just fine before mana came along. Presumably once he got a view at reality from the perspective of a mortal, without his pre-existing Spirit biases, he realized this.
 * It's not so much his fault as the elves.' They were the ones who parked Derris Kharlan and the Tree on Aselia in the first place, after all.
 * If by "the planet got along just fine" you mean "there was no life on the planet at all," then you're right. But if you're looking for life, it didn't show up on this planet until Derris-Kharlan arrived, the elves descended to the planet, and the Giant Kharlan Tree was planted. The first life form, protozoans, sprang up from mana raining down from Derris-Kharlan. Emil's personality changed, I get that, but the humans still almost ended life on the planet and at the end of the story showed no signs that they had changed, eventually doing the exact same thing to the second World Tree. They still don't contribute anything to the planet the way monsters and Summon Spirits do, and they demonstrated perfectly that they are a danger to the planet when they killed the Giant Kharlan Tree, so I'm not convinced it was entirely irrational of Ratatosk to conclude that the planet was better off without them. I feel it shouldn't have been just him who had to change, the humans should have changed as well to demonstrate that they could live without being a danger.
 * There's a fossilized dinosaur skeleton in Syback, though, indicating life millions of years earlier- whereas Derris-Kharlan only arrived 12,000 years earlier, which is also far too recently for any evolution from single cells to humans. The most logical conclusion is that life already existed in a manaless state having evolved in a reasonable amount of time and fossilizing as geological processes naturally do, and the Tree hijacked the ecosystem.
 * Except that it's explicitly stated that the first life on the planet were protozoans, and that mana was "the very source of life" before Ratatosk re-wrote those laws. The fossil is a Plot Hole; either fossils form more quickly in Tales world than in real life, or Namco just wasn't thinking about that when they put it in.
 * When you get right down to it, the ending has a meta explanation. They just plain wrote themselves into a corner when they made mana vital for all life in Tales of Symphonia when it clearly wasn't in Tales of Phantasia. This game's plot basically had to close that hole. Still, Ratatosk's dialog when he explains what he's about to do indicates that there was probably life on the planet before he arrived. He claims that removing the mana dependency will return the world to "how it was meant to be". While it might seem a little lame for humanity to get off so lightly, remember who revived the tree (arguably Ratatosk's kid) in the last game, and who  in Tales of Phantasia. Still, the ending of this game is a lot less upbeat considering that
 * It's possible that protozoans were not so much the first lifeforms as they were the first of a new type of lifeform on Aselia, one that depended on and drew power from mana. Eventually, even the native species would come to rely and draw power from mana as well. Ratatosk saying that the world would return to its natural state seems to indicate that there was life on Aselia before he arrived. It's possible Aselia was lifeless and he could somehow tell life would arise naturally on its own without mana, but that's stretching it a bit.

Why haven't we seen them before?

 * The Centurions have been around for quite a while, so why doesn't anybody know about them? There must have been SOME book, SOMEWHERE about them. Not even the CHOSEN seemed to know about them in the first game. Or Raine, for that matter. Nobody seemed to give a damn about them, so why are they so important NOW, when they decided to appear out of thin air? Plus, they're never seen in any other games. Why this one?
 * To be slightly fair, though you still retain an incredibly valid point, in Symphonia, they had to search for hours in a library to find any book referring back to Martel's quest just so they could find a cure for Colette's reaction to the crystal. It's possible that records dating back to the days pre-death of the Kharlan Tree are either even more difficult to find or, at least by this point, no longer exist. It's also possible that people could never tell the difference between a Centurion and a Summon Spirit or monster. And if none of that convinces you, there's always the chance that the centurions just don't get out much (and considering the way Tenebrae acts, that one makes a lot of sense).
 * And it could be that the cores scattered when Ratatosk was killed, since the centurions go to their altars when they take to much damage and Ratatosk isn't around to heal them. Since Ratatosk created the centurions, Ratatosk dying could actually hurt them enough.
 * But what about Aqua and Tenebrae? If the above was true, then wouldn't they have both gone back to their altars as well?
 * The way I figure it, Cruxis may have purposefully left out the existance of the Centurions, as well as Ratatosk's from history. After all, if Ratatosk is awakened, or all of his Centurions are, they'd have a massively powerful enraged summon spirit on their hands. Cruxis woulnd't want people to try and seek Ratatosk or the Centurions out for this reason, so better to keep them a secret.

How did the altars get there?

 * The little tables the centurion's cores are sitting on aren't there in Symphonia, so how did they get there? Did someone decide that these places were missing a few pieces of fancy furniture or something?
 * Magic. Presumably the altars manifest physically when the cores are ready to wake up, or if they sense Lord Ratatosk approaching, spending the rest of the time immaterial and diffuse mana.
 * Note how many of the entrances don't show themselves except in the prescence of Ratatosk's core . Either the above is true, or the altars have always exisited there, and the way to get there doesn't appear except in Ratatosk's prescence. There's the matter of Lloyd finding the altars, but perhaps having Martel's protection has something to do with it.

Why did Ratatosk hide himself so thoroughly?

 * I get trying to escape from Richter when he turned back into his core form, but why did Ratatosk create a whole 'nother personality for himself, steal someone's elses life, give himself amnesia, and put a fake core in Marta's head?
 * Much of that was something of an accident, or just incidental. The game implies that Emil is not an invented personality, but Ratatosk's conscience and kindness, previously surpressed. He let these traits "surface" because he might have believed that's how humans acted - weak and pathtic. He unintentionally took the real Emil's identity when he stumbled upon Emil's dying mother. He seemed to have subconciosuly took on Emil's identity as his own. He probably got amnesia from Ricther killing him. The trauma of the fight might have been enough, though then it wouldn't explain how Tenebrae didn't get amnesia from being blown to smithereens by Alice's monster. Could always chalk that up to plot convienence, I guess. The fake core was part of Ratatosk trying to evade Ricther. Also Ratatosk did not turn himself into a core conciously. It happens to Ratatosk and his Centurions when they sustain a lot of damage. Even so, it does seem that Ratatosk has some crazy self-preservation instincts and abilities. He subconsiouly did all this to prevent Richter from finding and/or killing even, perhaps including taking on Aster's apperance, correcly guessing it would be the oen form that would make Richter hesitate.

Why does no one call Tenebrae out on his willingness to destroy humanity?

 * It's not like he didn't have a choice. Aqua was able to betray Ratatosk and she was a Centurion. Granted, it's a moot point by the time everyone finds out, but one would think it would at least get a skit or something.
 * Because they've seen what Aqua rebelling has done to the environment- that dried up lake? Water shortages? They, and he, knew that if he turned on Ratatosk too, the distribution system for dark mana'd be out too, and the planet would be even more doomed.
 * But Tenebrae isn't all that enthused about destroying humanity. If he was, wouldn't he have told Emil who he was in the first place?  I've no doubt he would have done it if ordered too, but I don't think he liked the idea.

Why did Marta find it necessary to kill Alice?

 * It seems as if the reasoning she had was that she needed to kill her then to protect Emil. However, that doesn't make one damn bit of sense: Alice was severely exhausted after losing the battle, Emil was completely on guard, and Alice was trying to use Decus's BFS which she could barely lift much less wield properly. She was less likely to kill Emil than she was at any previous point. Was their any point in her and Decus dying other than to save the protagonist's the inconvenience of having to turn them into the authorities for once? As a side-note, what the hell weapon was Alice normally using? I always figured it was a riding crop which she used while controlling monster, but in her last cut scene she's swinging it around like a sword.
 * Good question, and I don't think there's a better answer than "Rule of Drama." It was dramatic for the heroic pair of lovers to defeat the villainous pair of lovers. I dunno, I felt like there was some kinda comparison going on between the pairs of Emil and Marta, and Decus and Alice. They're all willing to kill to protect the one they love. And when you see someone you've hated forever swinging a BFS at the one you love, you're probably not thinking rationally enough to do anything beyond "kill them before they kill him!" Marta certainly wasn't. As for that side-note, I was thinking the same thing, so I figured it was an extremely sharp riding crop (that the in-game graphics didn't allow for), allowing her to use it pretty much like a rubbery sword...What? What're you looking at me like that for?
 * Marta felt extremely guilty about it, if I remember that skit right. So yeah, she was definitely acting before thinking.
 * Having seen the scene for myself a while ago, this troper thinks the above complaint is bunk anyway. Given that she was lifting up Decus' sword thanks to a newfound Unstoppable Rage, it certainly looked like she would have been able to kill Emil had Marta not intervened with a spinning blade to the back.

What did Noishe see floating down a river that Tenebrae found amusing?

 * A quick gag.
 * Or perhaps a Noodle Incident that's supposed to be left to Emil and Marta's (and, by extension, the player's) imaginations.
 * A red fish.
 * The wish tag from the last game, I assume.

What's up with Ain Soph Aur?

 * Y'know, the second part of Emil's Mystic Arte in the sequel. The name is Latin for "light without limit", and it's a Light-elemental attack. So why does Dark-elemental Emil get it, and why in the Temple of Darkness, of all places?
 * It's Hebrew, not Latin. And he always had the Arte -- remember, he's gradually regaining his memory, identity and power.
 * Precisely because it is Light Without Limit. Light shining in the deepest darkness is a sign of hope--maybe a hint that ?
 * Crap. That's right, I forgot about that. Then I'm stumped.
 * Because: 1.  2. It's a freaking LAZER, which makes it light elemental. 3. You get it in the Temple of Darkness, because Ratatosk was in full control there, and it's HIS Arte. 4. Ratatosk is waking up, hence that's why he isn't doing it before hand.
 * Right. OK. That makes sense. I was confused before as to why Emil got that arte, considering that he's Darkness Elemental, but that makes sense.
 * Also listen to what he says when he preforms it it, "Darkness Devours Ain Soph Aur", or translated, "Darkness Devours Light Without Limit". It seems to be talking about the darkness devouring light with no limit. Kind of eerie if you think about it that way...
 * You're missing an exclamation mark there. It's "Darkness devours! Ain Soph Aur!" The original Japanese line goes, "Be devoured by darkness! Ain Soph Aur!"
 * This troper assumed that even though it's labeled light elemental, Ain Soph Aur was more of a Yin-Yang Bomb. In a world where Dark Is Not Evil, light and darkness should be flip sides of the same coin right?
 * This troper assumed that even though it's labeled light elemental, Ain Soph Aur was more of a Yin-Yang Bomb. In a world where Dark Is Not Evil, light and darkness should be flip sides of the same coin right?

Why doesn't Sheena use her Summons in the sequel?

 * I mean, that was her whole gimmick in the first game, but in the sequel, she doens't get any of the summoning moves, or even the Tethe and Sylva seals. And yet she summons effortlessly in cutscenes (granted, she only does it twice, and we don't even see the second one).
 * Because Namco was intent on driving home the Mons thing, and nerfing all of the original cast. There's no good reason for it, it's just a case of Its So Bad Its Horrible.
 * You obviously didn't realize that  On top of that- they all have elemental attacks due to UNCHANGEABLE equipment... Hmm? Lloyd's Mystic Arte? Yeah. 1 Damage to Heqet. Oh, yeah? Unknown? Unless you're very skilled, don't even try it using them.
 * Actually, they level with the storyline, it has nothing to do with Emil and Marta's levels. They can't get past level 50 no matter what you do. On the other had, Emil and Marta can reach level 250. The main cast could do that in the original as well. If only allowing them to reach 1/5 of the level of the other characters isn't nerfing, then what is?
 * It's an off-screen Undine in the Hot Spring Scene.
 * The Summon Spirits are probably Literal Genies - the pacts Sheena made with every Spirit after her second, Volt, was on the vow that they would make it so that the two worlds no longer had to vie for mana. Since that's been accomplished, the pacts are void, and she's back to just Volt (maybe; I don't remember what that vow was) and Undine (definitely; that vow was more open-ended), and hasn't gotten around to remaking the pacts, likely because she doesn't have a worthy vow for them. Doesn't quite explain why she can't use them in battle, but it's a start.
 * Except that she uses Celsius' power to create an ice wall in the Temple of Ice (after Alice and Decus try to attack you). All the spirits still had pacts with Mithos in the previous one (except for Origin, for his own reason) despite him screwing them over. She probably just didn't need them.
 * To add to the above, Lloyd's Mystic Arte has him use the Eternal Sword, which means they still have Origin's power.
 * I personally think it only makes sense if you go with the "The original cast has removed their Exspheres" WMG. Without her Exsphere, Sheena can't properly gather elemental mana (or whatever she needs to summon) unless she's literally surrounded by it. Think about it; she summons Celcius in the Temple of Ice, and Undine in the Hot Springs. Both times, she is in an area filled with the element she needs.

The dino skeleton in Sybak

 * Tenebrae says that Derris-Karlahn first came 10,000 years ago, and that's when mana first appeared. The dinosaur skeleton, however is clearly a fossil, which take much, much longer to form than that. It is also demonstrated that water mana is needed for water to exist, fire and ice mana are needed for a stable climate, earth mana is needed for soil fertility, etc. So, how did life (IE, dinosaurs) exist on what ostensibly was an uninhabitable planet exty-million years ago?
 * The dinosaur was eaten by a Cockatrice. Obviously
 * It's explained by Ratatosk that mana is 'not' needed for life or the elements, but when mana entered the world it altered the laws of physics(and apparently biology) within the planet. Mana is magic after all.

Ratatosk and Marta

 * Okay, if Ratatosk hated humans, what's with him going all Clingy Jealous Guy on Marta in the second half of the game? It's strange to hear him talk about protecting her at all costs after the flashback where he announces his intention to destroy all humans and half-elves.
 * One, a decent piece of his mind is currently in love with her, even if it isn't the current active part. Two, he's technically inside her the entire game, at least in part, which may make him feel for her. Three, he's in the process of a Heel Face Turn. Four, she's fiercely loyal to him- maybe he's going on the "as a reward, you die last" theory of genocidal minion-management.
 * That, and this troper was under the impression that while the Ratatosk Mode persona *acted* like Ratatosk did, he was still every bit as afflicted by his amnesia as Emil's default personality.
 * He was definitely amnesiac. There are a couple incidences where Tenebrae refers to Ratatosk Mode Emil's memories, only for him to have no idea what Tenebrae's talking about. One of the most direct examples is when Marta runs away in Altamira and Tenebrae tells Ratatosk Mode Emil to "remember when [he was] killed." This is, of course, referring to the flashback, but Emil just thinks Tenebrae's referring to the fact that he's probably Aster. The way this troper sees it, Ratatosk Mode Emil believed he was Emil (or at least not Ratatosk) from the start and just gradually took the duty of protecting Marta to Knight Templar levels.
 * Another thing most people miss is a moment before the Earth Temple, where Ratatosk mimics Emil to make Marta feel better. He specifically says that "You asked me to help you, and I helped you." Ratatosk has been being nice to Marta because she asked him to help her. This is also another easily missed moment

Not a huge one, but why does Lake Sinoa have the same BGM as Welgaia?

 * A dried up lake bed with a bear and a cave with weak monsters shares music with the home base of the antagonists from the previous game. Just seems a bit odd.
 * Possibly so the game could just have the Welgaia BGM somewhere.