What started as just a run-down house and lonely Dragon God statue eventually grows into a thriving community, and it's up to us how it develops!

Our choice of carpenter determines both the aesthetics of the town and what bonus services the carpenter's house provides.

One carpenter builds houses in the same Victorian sort of style that many of the existing towns in the game use. When complete, this town has all six houses in the same fairly compact area, with the first three houses in the top row and the second three in the bottom row.

In his own house, this carpenter and his wife offer arguably the most useful service of any of them, taking items that we provide and cooking them into different items. Possible results include rare stat-boosting items and the expensive Golden Sugar (GoldBar). Sometimes they'll even make two at once, though other times the cooking attempt fails and just produces Char (Charcoal) instead.

If you have a convenient source of Beer (Cond.Up), combining three of them is an easy way to get Golden Sugar. For stat up items, recipies that work include the following: 2x Wonder Drug (Medicate) → Power Food (PwrFood), Fire Spice (F.Spice) + 2x Tuna → Stamina Source (Stamina), 2x Thunder Crisp (Frizbee) → Quick Meal (Dinker), 2x Fire Spice (F.Spice) → Miso Stew (MisoSoup), Fire Spice (F.Spice) + Thunder Crisp (Frizbee) → Lucky Bonbon (LuckCndy), 2x Shaved Ice (ShaveIce) → Gutsy Ball (GutsBL). Many other interesting and unusual items are also available; refer to a more in-depth guide for details.

One carpenter builds houses in a more Mughal style featuring domed buildings. When complete, this town has all six houses in the same fairly compact area, with the first three houses in the northernmost row and on the east side of the middle row, and the second three on the west side of the middle row and in the southernmost row.

In his own house, this carpenter opens a bar, which offers the least practical benefit of any option. As bartender, he sells a drink costing 600 Zeny per party member that puts everyone in Raring to Go! (Super) Condition, and the gossiping patrons talk about various gameplay stats for those interested in such things.

The information may be interesting, but as noted above, this one's basically useless from a gameplay standpoint.

The final carpenter builds houses in a pastoral treehouse style. When complete, this town has the first three houses fairly close together in the main area, and the second three houses in a more remote area reachable only by an inconvenient bucket ride.

In his own house, this carpenter and his wife offer a special minigame where the otherwise-useless Build Medals (Tolens) act as game tokens. The first board has a Beiger Sword (TigerSD), Headhunting Whip (LopOffWP), Ice Barrel (IceBW), and Radiant Helmet (ShinyHT), while the second has a King of Daggers (KingOfDR), Rider Tonfa (ThndrST), Rainbow Raiment (RainbwRB), and Giant's Shield (GiantSH).

Each token lands on a randomly-chosen empty tile. His wife runs a second board in the next room with the same rules.

All of the items are nice to get, especially early on, but none are the best of their type, and only the Giant's Shield is unique. I also find his version of the town itself to be needlessly inconvenient, with extra delay from climbing ladders just to get in and out of houses, plus the bucket ride to even reach half of them.

Which carpenters are available depends on how many villagers we saved from the well in Capitan Village. The Victorian Chef is always available, the Mughal Barkeep only if we saved at least three villagers, and the Rustic Gambler only if we saved at least five of the six total.

Any one of them works for progressing the story, but despite being the easiest to recruit, the Victorian Chef is widely considered the best choice. Golden Sugar is great for some quick cash, and potentially unlimited stat boosts are always difficult to pass up...

Each of the carpenters initially builds three uninhabited houses when working on the village, then can build three more for an additional payment of 1,000 Zeny once the first three houses are occupied.

What can we do with empty houses? Why, invite people to move in, of course! Each house can hold a single one of a selection of five (for the first three houses) or four (for the second three) tentants specific to that house. Once someone has moved in, the house is theirs permanently for that playthrough, and the other potential tentants are locked out. Some of the possible tenants don't even appear except when the house they can use is built and unoccupied.

On that note, I haven't actually verifed when or even whether some of the following lines appear. Most characters seem to have a different line when you meet them depending on whether or not their house is available, but characters who only appear when it is aren't going to be able to say their line for when it isn't!

Kay and Buck are functionally useless, and Watts may be interesting but ultimately doesn't tell us anything we shouldn't be able to figure out on our own. As far as I'm concerned, it comes down to a choice between a steady supply of fire-themed equipment from Heckler or the one powerful healing item from Bum.

He seems to be named after the German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch.

Heckler appears in an apartment in Origin, in the building next to the one where Ryu and Bosch lived at the beginning of the main story.

The Dragon's Tear does nothing here, so it's unclear why it displays at all.

If recruited, Heckler opens an equipment shop that sells Flame Sword (FlameSD), Burn Knuckles (BurnKN), Fire Ring (FireRG), Fire Bow (FireBW), Heat Staff (HeatST), Magma Armor (MagmaAR), and Flame Shield (FlameSH). Decent midgame equipment with a definite theme.

Her name has no obvious significance.

Kay appears upstairs in the church in Corsair Town.

If recruited, Kay provides temporary poison immunity when spoken to. Unfortunately, it only lasts for one battle.

Possibly related to Buck Knives, an American knife manufacturer.

Buck appears in a corner of the Gantz armory.

If recruited, Buck provides a temporary +4 defense to the character who speaks to him, but it only lasts for one battle or until changing equipment.

And unless this is an awkward attempt at bragging, maybe he is senile after all...

プー is short for プータロー (puutarou), a rather derogatory slang term for someone with no job despite having the ability and perhaps even inclination to work.

Bum appears upstairs in the pub in Corsair Town.

If recruited, Bum does nothing at first...

...but gets motivated after a while...

...and eventually sells a Moondrop for 1,000 Zeny.

His name has no obvious significance.

Watts appears at the Sideshow Tent, though he's only recruitable when it's at the Land of Music, and only before Aspara joins.

If recruited, Watts unsurprisingly asks a series of riddles.

These refer to buttons on the colorful Super Famicom controller, a bit of a problem for those used to the drab ones that came with the Super Nintendo.

I can never remember whether those have the same layout as a keyboard's number pad or have the top and bottom rows swapped.

The answer is yellow-green. I think it's because 黄緑 (kimidori) is two kanji, and the others would all be written with one?

This one throws in an excess of irrelevant information, but the answer is in the riddle itself.

1 meter is a bit over 3 feet, angstroms are microscopic, kilograms aren't even length, and 1 shaku (a traditional Japanese unit of length) is nearly as long as 1 foot, so the answer is 5 shaku. Converted to centimeters and rounded off, the lengths given are 100, 60.96, 7.62, 4x10^-8, and 151.52, in that order.

This basically just serves as a hint for anyone who hasn't found her yet. Also, there is no Lama Forest in this game, for what it's worth.

Pechiri and Bokuden are functionally useless, and Win feels like a waste of space that should have just been a menu option to begin with. Fishing enthusiasts might go for MacLean, but I always pick Remington without a second thought.

He seems to be named after the American arms manufacturer of the same name.

Remington appears upstairs in the Capitan Village inn.

If recruited, Remington opens an equipment shop that sells Rakshasa Tyrant Sword (KingSD), Peerless Rapier (WonderRP), Unyielding Armor (MightyAR), and Devilish Shield (DemonSH), all solid midgame equipment.

His name has no obvious significance.

Pechiri appears in the top floor of Thieves' Tomb.

If recruited, Pechiri does nothing at first... (The Dragon's Tear gleams before the final word of the line below.)

However, after getting the Thief's Proof (Evidence), any money we have banked mysteriously goes missing...

Either way, ask around Thieves' Tomb to find the real thief.

Although Pechiri does help us find the stolen money, the money is never stolen if we don't recruit him to begin with, so this nets a big fat nothing.

He might be named after novelist Alistair MacLean.

MacLean appears at Whale Beach, west of Whale Cape.

If recruited, MacLean can take us to a special well-stocked fishing spot that doesn't appear otherwise.

He seems to be named after famed swordsman Tsukahara Bokuden.

Bokuden appears in Yi Cave (ShowCave).

It's pretty much all puns. たんれん (tanren, training/practice/discipline) played against 足らん (taran, not enough), then 道場 (doujou, dojo/training hall) played against どうじゃ (dou ja, how about it)? That's almost physically painful. I did what I could with it. And apparently パオーン (paoon) is an elephant noise?

At first glance, it's just "that's too bad" with some unusual phrasing and an odd addition at the end. After further investigation, ザルそば (zaru soba) is a kind of chilled soba noodle dish, traditionally served over a bamboo strainer (the zaru) and with a dipping sauce. So yeah, it's another bad pun.

Standard Japanese number punning. 3 is san, 9 is kyuu, and サンキュー (sankyuu) is the language's phonetic approximation of English "thank you".

If recruited, Bokuden just spews even more bad puns, unsurprisingly.

道場 (doujou) is played against どうじょ (doujo), a corruption of どうぞ (douzo, go right ahead), then played against どうじゃ (dou ja, how is it?) again as before. The last line, at least, seems to be serious enough for a change.

Presumably short for "window".

Win appears inside Joker's hideout at Rokko Mountain, of all places.

If recruited, Win offers to change the window colors, as promised, which affects both dialog boxes and the menu. Unfortunately, this only changes the background color, not text or anything else, and as a result some of the options just don't work well at all.

Beretta is the clear favorite here, though Azusa makes hunting nice and convenient. Whoopi, Makoti, and Akky are all functionally useless.

She seems to be named after the Italian arms manufacturer.

Beretta appears in the Windia equipment shop.

If recruited, Beretta opens an equipment shop with an unusual quality: the stock improves over time.

At first, she offers an assortment of junk: Longsword (LongSD), Copper Baton (BronzeST), Dagger (WoodenDR), Leather Armor (SuedeAR), Forehead Guard (SaladBwl), Iron Guard (SteelAR), and Wristband (Ristband).

Some time later, this improves to Burn Knuckles (BurnKN), Fire Ring (FireRG), Quarterstaff (QuartrST), Bless Armor (BreathAR), and Obsidian Helmet (NationHT).

After more time passes, her inventory again changes, this time to Rider Tonfa (ThndrST), Chakram (ChuckDR), Piercing (PierceRP), Earth Armor (EarthAR), Circlet (SokletAR), and Decoy Shield (GuardSH).

If she's in town for long enough, she finally ends up selling some of the game's best equipment: Armor Pain (BreakSD), Greatbow (DeathBW), Kaiser Knuckles (KaiserKN), Amber Ring (AmberRG), Motherly Garment (MotherRB), Tyrant Armor (HeroAR), Radiant Helmet (ShinyHT), and Soul Shield (HolySH).

She seems to be named after Whoopi Goldberg.

Whoopi appears upstairs in the Origin Town church.

There's some dramatic pausing in the middle of every わかる / "I can tell" that doesn't translate well to static text.

If recruited, Whoopi gives fortune readings that change as the story progresses. Possible spoilers ahead, by the way.

Hmm. I was expecting more variety and more useful guidance for players who are stuck or have forgotten what they're supposed to do next, but nope. Those are all the lines she has, and none of them even give any information that's of any real help at any point in the story.

His name has no obvious significance.

Azusa appears in a cave in Futabi Mountain. We already saw him early on when searching for Suzi.

If recruited, Azusa can take us to a special well-stocked hunting spot that doesn't appear otherwise.

It's speculated that he may be a reference to Makoto Ikehara, the game's senario writer.

Makoti appears in the bathroom of the Corsair Town pub.

If recruited, Makoti moves in, and as far as anyone has been able to tell, that's all.

The cat names have no obvious significance.

Akky appears in a hut west of the Vast Woodland. Lin Pu must lead the party to recruit Akky.

Most characters only hear meowing noises when talking to the cats. When in her fused shaman form, Lin Pu hears actual words—Akky has a strong Kansai accent, no less—and I'm including only those here, unless someone really wants to see some cat noises. Fused form isn't needed to recruit Akky, though.

If recruited, Akky moves in. After a while, other cats may do the same, and similarly do nothing except say odd things.

Come to think of it, this reminds me of the developer rooms in Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. Could it be the same sort of thing?

There are a few different things しけい (shikei) could be. This fits as well as any.

...maybe? I'm not completely convinced that means anything in particular at all.

That's a particular peculiar kind of laughter.

This house comes down to a choice between equipment from Kalashnikov or spells from Burroughs. Gerber and Lacquer are functionally useless.

He seems to be named after the Russian best known for designing the AK-47.

Kalashnikov appears upstairs in the inventor's house in Gantz.

If recruited, Kalashnikov opens an equipment shop that sells King of Daggers (KingOfDR), Birch Staff (BirchST), Gladius (GradeDR), Piercing (PierceRP), Silver Armor (SilverAR), Shredding Bracer (SlashGL), and Silver Shield (WhiteSH), all solid midgame equipment.

He seems to be named after Gerber Legendary Blades, which makes utility and combat knives.

Gerber appears upstairs in the Fama Village inn.

If recruited, Gerber provides a temporary +8 attack to the character who speaks to him, but it only lasts for one battle or until changing equipment.

He might be named after the inventor William Seward Burroughs. He also talks in walls of text with no punctuation, most of the time.

Burroughs appears in the inn of one of the towns inside Gandaluf's mind. Since this area becomes inaccessible after advancing the plot, Burroughs also becomes inaccessible if not recruited before then.

If recruited, Burroughs will, up to four total times, teach magic to a character. However, he has some peculiar criteria we'll need to meet first.

If we say yes, and the lead character has more than 1 current AP, his Mood drops by 96 (six shades worth).

However, his Mood improves by 16 (one shade) if we say yes when the lead character has exactly 1 current AP.

And doing the same at 0 current AP improves his Mood by 32 (two shades).

The HP question works much like the AP question, except that the effects of 0 and 1 are reversed. Minus 96 Mood if over 1 HP:

Plus 16 if at 0 HP:

Or plus 32 if at exactly 1 HP:

After answering Yes to both questions when at no more than 1 AP and at exactly 1 HP, the lead character is given the opportunity to learn a spell.

Which spell he teaches depends on his current Mood. 0 to 63 (black to magenta) gives Val (Thunder), 64 to 127 (red to orange) gives Leygir (Freeze), 128 to 191 (yellow to green) gives Padarma (Flame), and 192 to 255 (aqua to rainbow) gives Domega (Missile). The last one is the strongest one, naturally.

His Mood persists across conversations, even after teaching someone a spell. Answering No at any point backs out of the conversation, with no further consequences, so meeting his criteria and going through the questions repeatedly without learning a spell is an easy way to raise his Mood.

Also note that he won't object if you try teaching a spell to someone who already knows it. It won't affect their spell list, but still uses up one of the four times he'll teach magic, so be careful not to waste it like that. Similarly, there's little point in teaching a spell to someone who learns it on their own anyway.

He seems to be named after the varnish, appropriately enough. And he talks kind of funny, so combining that with how he's apparently getting high on paint fumes, I've given him sort of a stoner accent. It... kind of works?

Lacquer appears in the back room of a house in Capitan Village.

If recruited, Lacquer will recolor the houses in your town.

Saying we like it keeps the current color scheme...

...and saying we don't prompts him to immediately rush outside and repaint the town...

...in a matter of moments.

Hans sells some very handy items, especially for cooking. Yozo's unique boost to max AP is also worth noting. Martin and El are functionally useless.

His name has no obvious significance.

Hans appears in an apartment in Origin, in the building next to the one where Ryu and Bosch lived at the beginning of the main story.

If recruited, Hans opens an item shop that sells Charm, Iron Bracelet (IronBR), Dream Earrings (D.Earing), Wisdom Band (WiseHoop), Guts Belt (GutsBT), Beer (Cond.Up), and Wonder Drug (Medicate).

His name has no apparent significance, though there is another character with the same name in a flashback.

Martin appears in the Land of Music inn.

If recruited, Martin spins a dubious tale and asks for money. (This is all one block of text, but I've broken it up to better show the Dragon's Tear reactions).

Before long, he vanishes, never to be seen again, leaving only a note behind.

He'll keep trying for a while, but eventually knocks it off.

His name has no obvious significance.

Yozo appears inside Windia Castle.

If recruited, Yozo continues to barely say anything. However, the Dragon's Tear gleams and his Mood increases by 4 each time we talk to him. As his Mood continues to improve and the Tear grows ever brighter, he eventually says more and more when spoken to.

Finally, after speaking to him a total of 53 times, he gets the whole line out. At this point, he can permanently raise one character's base max AP by 16.

He gives the bonus just once, and 16 extra max AP isn't a huge amount, but this is the only way other than gaining levels to permanently increase it.

El is short for a certain other name... In any case, El speaks quite strangely most of the time, frequently mixing what comes across as an awkward imitation of overly stereotypical masculine language with a highly cultured phrasing more befitting of someone like a princess. In particular, nearly every line ends with the masculine だぜ (da ze), often belatedly and even when it makes no grammatical sense whatsoever. I've decided to leave that particular quirk untranslated here.

El appears by the castle's treasury in the Land of Music.

If recruited, El stands around doing guard-ish things.

After some time has passed, talking to El as Sten may trigger a scene.

Now, that's nice for character development and all, but the fact remains that El doesn't actually do anything.

Functionally, Daie is the clear favorite here. Summoner and Salvador are both interesting, even if they don't provide any gameplay benefit. Safey is largely useless, with storage readily available in practically every town already, though she at least stands out as a character.

Her name seems to be based on a safe.

Safey appears in a hut on the cape northeast beyond Taguji Woods.

If recruited, Safey opens a storage. It works just like any other, even if the whole situation seems to be feeding some unconventional fetish of hers.

His name has no obvious significance other than apparently being a word.

Summoner appears in a house in the Land of Music.

If recruited, Summoner offers what's basically a music test, though not every track is available.

Not that I could tell you who Roxanne is. A reference to a song, maybe?

He seems to be named after Dalí.

Salvador appears in a prison cell in Swimmer Castle.

Ah, that explains why they locked him up. ヘアヌード (literally "hair nude") typically refers to nude photography or film that depicts unshaven pubic hair.

If recruited, Salvadore creates a stylized statue of Ryu, which then appears in the town.

At this point, speaking to him with any character who doesn't yet have a statue sets him off.

The character is removed from the group and is then stuck acting as his model for a random real-time duration not longer than about 15 minutes. During this time, they appear in his house, looking awkward as he circles around scrutinizing them from all angles.

Each statue appears in town when finished. Examining one shows what the artist named the piece.

This is a reference to an actual statue inspired by a dog remembered for uncommon loyalty after continuing to come back to the train station every day to await his owner's return, even years after said owner had passed away.

He might be named after The Daiei (ダイエー), one of Japan's largest supermarket chains.

Daie appears upstairs in the Windia inn.

If recruited, Daie opens a fish store that sells Sardine (Srdine), Mackerel (Mckrl), Foul Fish (Bait), Whiting (Unagi), Wrasse (Tuna), and Greenling (Minnow).

I'm guessing that's a reference to the ToreTore fish market and theme park?

There's also an enterable dry well in the corner of town next to the carpenter's house. Not only does it have what appears to be advanced machinery inside, it even gets its own music. Mysterious... but we'll get to that later.