Sandeltan, with its dirt paths and bales of hay, is a more rural village than Elcid. 1-12 "Village" plays here, a tune similar in feel to "Town", but more laid back. Everything seems to be normal here, except that the ground starts shaking violently soon after Maxim enters the town. He rather foolishly runs around with his hands in the air until it stops. The villagers seem pretty used to this sort of thing, though.

Maxim wanders around the village, talking to various people. A knight in the weapons shop gives him some advanced combat tips.

The I in IP stands for 怒り (ikari: anger, rage, or fury). Perhaps "indignation" or "ire" would work to maintain the acronym in English.

Incidentally, Maxim can't (or at least isn't willing to) wear a Dress. That suggests that a female character (or at least someone more openminded about their choice of clothing) joins the party fairly soon...

In battle, the player selects actions from a cross-shaped clump of icons. That's the cross cursor the knight refers to. Up, left, and right correspond to magic, item, and defend, respectively, with attack in the center.

Accumulated IP lasts between battles, the amount it rises varies based on the damage received, and the amount used up by different IP effects varies depending on the effect. More damage taken means a larger increase, and more potent IP effects tend to use up more.

Continuing around town, Maxim finds one old man who suggests an explanation...

As he says, none of the other adults agree with him, but none of them have any better explanations either. Maxim decides to investigate the cave.

The cave resembles the previous one, but with more water, stronger monsters, and trickier puzzles. "Cave" plays here, too.

In the first room, Maxim has to shoot a switch with an arrow to raise the water level, and then move floating log pieces onto the water to cross.

In one room near a pair of recovery tiles, there are several monsters running around and a sign on the wall.

This is some old-style Japanese, so I'm representing it in old-style English (or trying to, at least, as my archaic English isn't great).

When Maxim kills the monsters, stationary likenesses appear out of reach. If he shoots them in the same order as he beat the monsters, a door opens, letting him continue inside to find a chest containing the Insect Killer.

Another room has blocks arranged in a downward-pointing triangle, and another sign on the wall.

Rearranging the blocks opens another door. Inside, Maxim finds a chest of a different color.

In another room, Maxim finds a sign next to a doorway.

Through the door is a narrow passage crammed with monsters, but Maxim battles through them and finds a Mach Ring at the far end. Also check the top right corner from the outside...

In another room, part of the floor is cracked, and there's yet another sign on the wall.

Stepping on a weak section of the floor makes Maxim fall through, but falling in the right spot triggers a switch that opens the door to continue to the heart of the cave. Further in, Maxim finds a door that only opens with the Lake Key, and inside is an underground lake. With a great rumbling, a large catfish surfaces...

The catfish is being rather mean to Maxim, or at least condescending, even in word choice. ヤツ (YATSU) is a moderately rude term (usually) for a person, キサマ (KISAMA) is a very rude term for "you", and it's bossing him around at the end.

The earth shakes again.

The Giant Catfish is a lot tougher than the Lizardman, with an earthquake attack and an occasional painful lightning attack. It's also faster than Maxim, usually, depending on level and luck with statistic gains.

The exact bonuses for leveling up are fairly random, though each character does tend to level differently from the others. Because of this, agility, like every other attribute except GUT (which doesn't go up on its own), depends on the whims of the random number generator to a moderate extent.

However, Maxim has gotten stronger himself. The Battle Knife's Thunder Strike IP attack works well (the boss isn't actually weak against thunder, but it's still 1.5x damage), and Maxim should have a few useful spells by now (like healing!). With some difficulty, he prevails. The Giant Catfish may drop the Catfish's Cryptolith, but the odds are only 1 in 8, so don't count on it.

The Catfish sinks out of sight.

On his way out of the cave, Maxim goes to stop by the recovery spot he found earlier. But when he enters the room, he hears a high-pitched scream...

If you don't come here on your own, several NPCs mention a young woman who was looking for Maxim, and direct him back to the cave.

Maxim runs into the chamber and finds monsters attacking a woman with short blue hair. It's Tia!

The monsters, apparently recognizing the real threat, shift their attack to Maxim. He beats them without much difficulty.

Does anyone else think that equating running a weapon store with being able to fight could lead to problems? Yeah...

She starts heading off without him.

Another monster runs up from somewhere and attacks her.

Maxim dispatches the offending monster in a quick battle. The music stops.

Maxim and Tia leave the cave, and continue to travel north away from Elcid.

Tia can wield whips, staves, and small knifes, and can wear lightweight armor and (of course) female-only equipment. She's weak physically and strong magically, and can learn nearly every spell. Though her GUT is low, her agility is high enough that she nearly always acts first in combat.

Might as well make a quick stop here and check whether anyone has anything interesting to say.

That settles that, not that there was really anywhere else to go in the first place.

A bit out of the way beyond the border shrine, the party finds a forest that looks interesting. 1-18 "Capsule Monster" plays here. They start to look around when a woman stops them.

Maxim agrees.

Maxim stands in front of the spring nearby. Some strange lighting effects go off, and a creature that resembles a teddy bear made of soap bubbles appears.

The JP version uses あわあわ (Awa awa) as the default name, which translates to bubble-bubble (or foamy-foamy, or your pick of various similar things). In the NA version, the default name of "JELZE" appears to be an intentional misspelling of "gels".

Most significant distortion: Meeting the other monsters "when you need them" isn't nearly the same as meeting them if you're lucky.

Capsule monsters start out at class 1 and have a growth meter that fills as they're fed items that they like. When its growth meter fills up, a capsule monster attains the next higher class. Higher classes have different appearances, better attributes, and more and (usually) better abilities. Capsule monsters can reach class 4 through normal feeding, and any of these classes can be chosen for use in combat once attained. There's usually no reason use to a lower class than the highest one available, but sometimes a lower class monster may have a more useful skill. There's also a way to switch them between the four normal classes and a special fifth class... more on that later.

The effect of feeding a given item seems to be linked to the item's value, with the requested item giving an additional bonus. Higher classes have richer tastes. I've also noticed that they tend to demand different items in the JP and NA versions. Reportedly, the NA version is glitched and tends to produce demands for more rare and exotic items, while the JP version mostly asks for things you can reasonably buy.

Capsule monsters may learn new skills at class change, and may also learn new skills as they continue to battle. The skills always match the element of the monster, even when they may not look like they ought to.

In battle, the most annoying thing about capsule monsters is that they aren't quite party members. You can't control them, and they have a tendency to act foolishly. To make things worse, you can't target them directly, so the only way to heal them is with one of the few forced full-party recovery skills. On the other hand, it is nice to have an extra helper in battle, or at least an extra body to soak up some damage, and only rarely do they make things any worse. Occasionally a capsule monster will do something very useful, and some have very nice support abilities, but don't count on it. If only they'd use their skills more reliably!

As indicated, capsule monsters keep coming back even if killed. The same goes for when they run away from battle, which many of them tend to do with disturbing frequency. The active capsule monster is always present, alive, and at full health at the beginning of every battle. The only loss if one dies or runs away is that they don't get experience for that battle, and of course won't help again until the next fight. Capsule monsters are also immune to all status ailments, so they cannot, for example, be poisoned or confused. Most, however, are susceptible to instant death attacks.

Maxim and Tia continue on their journey, taking Mousse along.

Mousse makes a moderately good fighter and has middling attributes, except for a fairly high GUT, which on a capsule monster seems to mean that they're unlikely to wimp out and run away when hurt. At this point, Mousse's attacks are purely physical and minimally varied, but every little bit helps. Mousse's lack of an association with any element means a similar lack of any particular weaknesses or resistances. It also means that most monsters have no resistance to Mousse's attacks, but none have a weakness against them.