Altamira: The Seaside Paradise
If you didn’t upgrade your weapons before, or if you didn’t plan ahead and get Colette weapons when you visited Altamira previously, do so now on the second floor of the hotel here. The storyline propellant is found in the upper quadrant of the first screen; an old man standing in front of what looks like a gravestone will give you an Employee Pass to the Lezareno Company building, which you can take a lift to. You can explore said building all you like, but the only area of interest is the Sky Terrace, where you’ll view another scene involving Presea and her sister.
After that business is done, head to the Otherworldly Gate, near where you fought Rodyle’s dragon pets.
The Otherworldly Gate
After hooking back up with Raine, you’ll be able to use the Otherworldly Gate to warp back to Sylverant. Now would be a good time to wind up any loose ends that you may have left dangling when you jostled off to Tethe’alla. There are a bunch of new scene points all over the place, as well as a few field chests that you weren’t able to access before.
At any rate, your first goal here should be to hit Palmacosta and drop Mithos off at the government building. You’ll be seeing him again later on, of course, but for now, your business doesn’t concern him. After that, fly up to the Palmacosta Human Ranch to meet up with Yuan and Botta one more time. After your conversation with them (note the Tosca-esque subtext in Yuan and Botta’s last lines to each other), you’ll be able to speak to Botta to warp out to wear Rodyle is apparently building his Mana Cannon. Be sure you’ve restocked your restorative items!
Remote Island Human Ranch
This is apparently the last stronghold of the Desians, so be prepared to be called "inferior beings" a few dozen more times before you stop hearing it for a while. The first segment of the base has a couple of simple light-tile puzzles; you have to step on the tiles so that they all light up, but you’re unable to go backwards.
First Puzzle: First, go straight across, then go up or down and circle around from there.
Second Puzzle: From the first square, head down, right, then down at the intersection, right again, up, left at the first intersection, up all the way to the top of the puzzle, right, down through the first intersection, right at the second intersection, then wrap around to the beginning of the puzzle.
This will lead you to a shifter, so shift your Ring over before taking the elevator up. You can release the prisoners on this floor, but first grab the items in the chests around the prison level. It’s all one big room, so they shouldn’t be difficult to find.
After you unlock the elevator to the third floor, you’ll have to spend a little more time tripping the light fantastic. This is a platform game; your Sorcerer’s Ring will tell your little platform whether you want to take a left or right at each intersection. There are spark traps along the path, which deal small amounts of damage and paralyze your party members; use Raine’s Recover or Purify Tech when you reach the end of the line to deal with the latter affliction. This puzzle is impossible to fail, so just keep maneuvering towards the orange rings that send you upwards, and you’ll eventually reach another doorway.
No, Seriously; Are We All Going To Get Cancer After This?
The next puzzle here is fairly complicated, so we’re going to go through it step by step. This whole room is lit up with multiple color-coded warp platforms. You can change the color of white platforms with your Ring; if you change a white platform to red, for instance, it’ll take you to the closest red platform. Your main objective is to unlock three different seals on the door at the very tip-top of the room, but along the way, you’ll find plenty of items and goodies in chests. Our solution is but one way through; there are plenty of ways to clear out the entire room, so feel free to give it a go on your own.
To begin with, change the color of the first platform to green, then use it to pick up some Saffron. Return to the first chamber, change the white platform to red, then warp up one room to grab an EX Gem Lv 2. Change the white platform in this room to blue; this will take you up to the final door of the Ranch, but it’s still locked at this point. Save your game.
Now, head through the red warp in this area to be warped down into another large room. Get both of the chests here before hitting the blue warp; this will take you to an area with another chest and Lock #3, so examine the machine to disengage it. There’s a white and a blue warp elsewhere in the room; first, hit the white warp with your ring until it turns red, go through it to grab a chest, then return and hit the blue warp. Two more chests here, so grab them before hitting the red warp.
As soon as you exit from the warp, change it to green and go through it to reach another chest and lock 1, then return and change it to blue to find yet another chest. Go back through it and head downstairs to find another chest and a green warp. Head through the warp, then shift the white warp to red for one last chest before returning and proceeding through the blue warp. This will lead to yet another white warp, which you can shift to red to find the last lock. After you return to the white warp, head left to find a blue warp, which will return you to the starting room; from here, head back up to the save point, save and heal, and head through the now-unlocked door.
Boss Fight: Rodyle
Even though you’ve been seeing Rodyle since the beginning of the game, and thus were perhaps expecting some kind of super-boss, he actually isn’t all that difficult to beat. You’ll definitely want Raine along, and be sure to disengage any of her Techs that aren’t directly related to healing your characters. If she has Nurse and Healing Circle, those two alone will be all she needs to cast. As for your other members, Genis is, as always, a good man to have along, but be sure to deactivate any of his low-level spells. Your fourth member should be another frontlines character, but if you choose Zelos or Regal, be sure to deactivate their healing Techs; let Raine worry about that aspect of the fight.
Beyond proper preparation, though, there isn’t much you need to do to beat Rodyle. He alternates pretty evenly between offensive spells and swiping with his blade-arms; don’t forget that you can hit X in midair to land on your feet, because you’re going to get knocked backwards pretty often. He generally focuses his attacks on the members of your party that are attacking him, leaving Raine and Genis to cast their spells in peace. Lloyd and your other fighter will be taking severe damage, so don’t hesitate to use items to boost their HP. If you’ve been wooing the ladies with Zelos since you obtained his services, you should be overflowing with restoratives.
Rodyle is something of a novelty, in that he actually dies when you kill him, instead of acting like your fight was just a scrimmage. A breath of fresh air, that, but you won’t have time to rest on your laurels, as you’ll soon be fighting three Baby Dragons. These guys are a piece of cake compared to Rodyle, so off them and get back to business.
Back To Altamira
The next piece of the puzzle lies in Altamira, so after Yuan shifts you over to Tethe’alla, head there and take Regal up to Presea’s sister’s grave to get a bit of his backstory, which makes no sense whatsoever. Something really must’ve been lost in translation here, because, well: Regal and Alicia fell in love, but his servant George somehow split them apart? And sold her into slavery? After which she was turned into a monster, whom Regal was later forced to kill? And somehow, for killing a monster in self defense, he gets thrown into prison? And yet, Regal’s not mad at George at all, and in fact made him president of his company while he was in prison?
Bah! The sooner you can get out of Altamira, the better, but before you go, head over to the hotel and ask to leave during the night. During the night, you can head to the casino, where there’ll be a dog that Colette can name, and a man on the bridge that sells one of the Devil’s Arms. There’s also a Wonder Chef appearance on the fourth floor of the hotel. After you’re done walking around at night, examine the bed on the fifth floor of the hotel to return to daytime and leave the city. If you check back in Mizuho, you’ll hear rumblings of a Dark Temple to the south, so head down to the Fooji Mountains, where a new white spot should appear on your minimap, near the southern tip of the southwestern continent. Head on inside. Unfortunately, you can’t see anything inside the Temple because, well, it’s dark. You’ll need to head to Meltokio and the Elemental Research Laboratory to find a way inside.
When you reach the lab, you’ll learn that Kate has been imprisoned and is scheduled for execution because she helped you earlier. The way to save her? Fight in the colosseum. Apparently, there’s a passage from the gladiator’s chamber to the prison. If you head to the colosseum and fight one battle (choose Zelos to get around the registration fee), you’ll be able to enter the prison without anyone seeing you...because the door to the high-security area will be left unguarded. A stretch of logic, but roll with it for the moment to get the Blue Candle that you need to enter the Dark Temple.
