The Escape

Not a lot happened tonight. I got held back doing some house stuff, so tonight's going to be really short. Congrats?

We were being followed by a few shady fellas last night. They were blocking our escape, so the only way to go is up. I'm sure there's a fire escape somewhere.

Nope. There is not. After fighting through the army of robots, navigating the several terrible puzzles, and entering a porn filled library, we find our escape. But first, let's talk about the puzzles! The optional floor tile one was fun, but all the following sucked. The first one is a room with five rotating cubes. One is in the middle of the room, and four more are near the start. If you walk towards the middle one, you fall two stories down. To pass, select the second and fourth cubes. I think all three cubes are the exact same, but I don't know. More importantly, how we were supposed to know this. At first glance, all five cubes are the same. There's a plaque in the tile puzzle room that mentions four identical cubes, not two. Maybe that threw me off, but why was it here?
The next puzzle has you operating switches to move two panels around the room. It was alright, I guess.
The next puzzle is a sliding floor puzzle. Stand on one of the moving panels, and you'll slide across the screen. Have Nina hit the crystal near the floor to power it. The trick is, you need to hit it several times. I did ten to advance, but there are two treasures along the route you'll want to stop at. There's no indicator of how many times you need to hit it, so go light and hope you don't go overboard. Ya know, there are no battles in this room, so maybe it's alright too.
The last puzzle is just annoying. Use Nina again to trigger the crystal, and hope you're other characters aren't stuck behind the laser beam. They will run into it, trying to reach you, and it will damage them. It might even poison them. Targeting is also an issue because the game isn't built on a north/south axis but is tilted. Lining up a shot on a diagonal range can be an adventure. Do this three times to advance. If need be, switch out your character with the L1 button, and everyone will teleport together.
All the while you're walking through this tower, you're fighting mobs. And these guys have some high HP and attack. Worse yet, Momo sucks. Her attack power is massive, but she can't hit anything. Whenever you need her to get a hit in to save a teammate, she misses. Accuracy is an issue I'm going to have later on, but it's unbearable here.
The next room is the library that's filled with porn. Momo will tell us about her father, Repsol, a great engineer. He constructed many technological advancements using Chrysm, a magical crystal in this world. He foresaw a need to leave from the top of the tower and created an exit. Hit the switch under the desk, and the exit appears. It's not a door to a stairwell, though, but a rocket! Momo will tell everyone to grab on. They don't get inside; they hang on to something on the outside. The camera cuts to the world map, and we see a rocket blast through the roof. ...it immediately crashes. We're fine, but Momo finds the instruction manual at that moment. It says the rocket was built for one person only. Where was it supposed to take us?

Regardless, we're free of our pursuers for now. To the north of the crash site is a small cafe. Why is there a cafe in the middle of nowhere? While we get something to drink, we overhear several things of note. Firstly, Balio and Sunder have blocked off the bridges out of here, so we're stuck around this tower. Secondly, we meet an old colleague of Momo's dad, Palet. He tells us how cool he was, but, eventually, he gets to the gruff. Momo's dad died and left behind some machines that grew super good crops. However, the machines are on the fritz. Palet thinks Momo can fix them, and she jumps right in. She seems indifferent at the start, but she came around almost immediately after. The kids, with nowhere else to go, decide to tag along for the ride. To the west of the cafe is the factory, but we'll head there...

...tomorrow!

I tried to grind for a while but didn't get far. All the mobs are either too hard or unrewarding. And, for some reason, none of my characters wanted to hit our enemies. I got frustrated and quit before getting too far. I found a new Brood Dragon-a-jig and Yggdrasil, though. I have no idea what the Norse World Tree has to do with this area, but I found it.