We’re back in Carona. This time around, we’re following the perspective of the quirky, plucky, selfish, adventurist, magician, Princess Mint. I'm sure it'll be an experience.
Her story starts with the camera panning over a massive table filled with food. Mint walks in and is told, by Gramps, that dinner is in ten minutes. Rather than wait in her room, she decides to begin eating now. After a time, she takes a seat on the King's Throne, much to everyone’s dismay. Her little sister, Maya, with Doll Master on her side, walks into the room. They insult our soon-to-heroine, but Mint reminds them Mint’ll be queen one day, so who cares about decorum? And then it’s revealed that she won’t be resigning anytime soon. The council has decided that Mint isn’t worthy ff the title and believes the kingdom would collapse under her rule. They decided Maya will be the heir and striped Mint of her right. Upon this note, Maya threatens her sister and summons pumpkins, which Mint hates, and chases her out of the dining hall.
We skip ahead two years, and Mint is on the ship that Rue was on at the start of his story. She has fled the castle and is searching for a way to regain her titles. We meet the same cast as before, and the red ship causes them to nearly capsize. Unlike Rue, Mint is thrown into the sea. She winds up being saved by a local, and the game begins as it did for Rue. Everything is closed, and Elena is missing.
So Mint goes on the same trail as before. She has similar controls, but her unique skill is magic. Press square, and it brings up a magic submenu filled with various spells. The spells are split into seven types based on color, with several more spells within those categories. There seems to be 49 spells in total, but we start off with four, a rapid and a multi-shot, across two types, normal and water.
But we’ll discuss them as they come; back to the story. The dungeon has the same everything until we reach Elena. Mint isn’t one for subterfuge and, rather than sneak in, just straight jump-kicks her way to Blood’s face. In the confusion, Elena casually walks away, and the fight begins. Going from OP Rue to a starting Mint is rough. I feel like she does no physical damage, and I’m not big on magic. Fortunately, tutorial bosses are simple, and I win.
We then continue to meet the KME family on the same hill. Somehow, Rue got here before us but didn't save Elena. Eventually, Mint goes down the same route Rue did. The only difference on the way to the atelier is Mint needs to beat up the gargle puzzle, and then she counts the steps up. It's filler, but it takes 3,345 steps. Then we fight the boss.
I died! Mint doesn’t have the physical prowess of her counterpart, and it shows here. She stands still when using magic, which also takes time to charge up, so she lacks the mobility as well. This is gonna be a long playthrough, isn’t it? On the second attempt, I succeeded, only missing most of my HP. She walks into the house, tries to open the vault, and is interrupted by Klaus, who fills her on the book's contents. He then asks Mint and Rue to carry things back home. Mint gets fire damage at the end of the cutscene.
The story progresses until the Underground ruins. Rue is awaiting Mint at the entrance and suggests they team up. Mint doesn’t want to, as that might mean sharing the treasure. He assures her he doesn't care, and they unofficially team-up anyway. The dungeon goes the same, but it’s Rue who gets eaten by the rock. I figured out how to avoid the falling rocks: jump when you hear a sound. Mint doesn’t wind up in the drink this time as she treads the path Rue did. I feel like Rue getting eaten is slightly out of character, but I understand not doing a total rewrite for the scene.
The big difference is we don’t fight Duke down here. Mint, instead, fights Belle. She summons green spheres to attack and defend her, but I start to understand Mint. You have to passive and wait for an opportunity. I didn’t need to wait with Rue, so I can see how much effort the devs put into boss AI. That’s always fun. I probably won’t bring it up here since I don’t know them from Rue, so don’t worry about me being boring with technical stuff. Regardless, it's hard to hit Belle with her green orb shields, to hang around a wait for a chance to cast your preferred magic. Mine's Water: Three Blades.
Continuing on, we run through the immortal boss where, when we get cornered, Rue jumps down to save us. He’s a good guy, that Rue fella. Even when he’s not the star, he’s there for the save.
We return to Klaus and carry on to Mel. I wanted to get this out of the way tonight since it still sucks. I play the games, save the fourth mini-Knuckles, and get help from Mel. The difference in these scenes is, rather than learn of Rue’s magic head, Mint gets “accidentally” insulted by Mel. Mell asks if Mint knows of the missing princess from East Kingdom and lists off an extensive list of negative traits. Mint collapses to her knees. Mel then says how great her replacement is and says a bunch of positive qualities. Mint falls on her face. Mel claims she didn't know Mint was the missing princess, but Mint gets the feeling there's a white lie somewhere.
Yadda yadda yadda, we beat up Duke on our first try, and I call it a day.
Mint is an interesting character. She starts as an anti-hero, who almost bleeds into full-blown villain. She doesn’t change much in Rue’s story, but that might be because the devs want us to play her, and she didn’t get the spotlight. I’m hoping something happens to make her a good character. I’m also curious how her magic will function. With an estimated 49 spells, how is everything gonna work? How different will everything feel? I’m only slightly afraid of how the battles will work now with her bad physical attributes and the need to worry about MP. Tomorrow we do her unique dungeon, so things should start ramping up. This was the worst day in Rue’s story, so it’s all uphill from here!
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