0. the tutorial

when you select "new game", you get prompted for sound, subtitle, and
vibration settings. adjust as necessary, and start the game.

the credits roll during ashe and rasler's wedding parade.
cut to wedding ceremony's "kiss the bride" scene, fade out.
fade into dalmasca's military meeting, where they hear of nabradia's fall
to archadia. vossler heads out, and rasler opts to go to the battle with
him. rasler accepts a sword from king raminus and psychs up the cheering
masses.
switch to nighttime nalbina fortress - battle mayhem.
atop the fortress, rasler fights on despite vossler's request to retreat.
just then, the magic barricade guarding the fortress falls with the mages
being slaughtered by judges.
rasler seeks vengeance for his late father, but an arrow gets him.
vossler hoists the prince up on his chocobo, but gets cornered...
...and the crumbling fortress doesn't help.
cut to rasler's funeral - very somber ashe.

text summary: world (ivalice) is basically rozarria vs archadia.
now that nabradia fell to archadia, dalmasca was about to see same fate,
as a majority of their forces perished in the battle of nalbina.
dalmascan army was facing near certain defeat, when archadia offered a
"peace" treaty.
the dalmascan king raminus decided to swallow the bitter pill, and heads to
nalbina to sign the treaty.
however, the army hears rumors...
...that archadia will try to assassinate the king at the signing.

cut to reks coming to in the north ward of nalbina fortress.
basch helps him up, small talk of reks' family (parents dead, younger
brother in rabanastre).
vossler mentions need to get to the king before he is killed.
archadian soldiers attack, but are no match for basch.
basch says reks can get the hang of things...

[camera motion tutorial]
// swivel the camera.

[character motion tutorial]
// walk (or run) to basch.

[talking to npc tutorial]
// walk over to the soldier with the smiley on his head, and talk to him.

[! sign tutorial]
// walk to gate to hear basch's tutorial speech, then open it.

[party menu/battle tutorial]
// kill the archadian soldiers. feel free to look through the party menu.
// head straight forward to see next cutscene.
// cutscene will streamline into your first boss battle with the fighter plane.
// after a while, the battle will end with basch's mistnack sneak peek.
// fighter plane retreats.
// head forward and kill the next batch of soldiers.
// when you're done, head to zone (the dotted blue line).

[map tutorial]
// right before zoning, basch will teach you how to look at the area map.

[escape mode tutorial]
// in the battle after the small movie where basch looks for vossler,
// basch will mention that running away is a strategic tactic.
// you can fight the soldiers, but for tutorial's sake escape to zone.

[saving tutorial]
// before the next zone, basch will lecture you on the "save crystal".
// learn how to save. yay. :)

[utilize what you learned]
// now that you've saved and zoned up, reks tells basch to hurry along.
// kill off the three soldiers, and head into the ballroom.

reks enters the ballroom to see... corpses.
king raminus is dead, and the one holding the fatal weapon... basch!?
reks asks why as basch stabs reks...
basch replies that raminus was a sell-out.
archadian soldiers grab basch, who refuses to surrender.
enter vayne, who tells basch that everything that dalmasca was hoping for -
a peace treaty - has all been put to naught because of him.
basch claims dalmasca will never surrender, but vayne laughs that all the
people of dalmasca will hate basch as soldiers take him away.

text summary: the archadian army has reached rabanastre, and ondor spoke out
to the masses - "general basch von rosenberg has been executed for the
assassination of king raminus, and those that seek battle are rebels that
lead dalmasca to its demise. true patriots will drop their weapons and mourn
for king raminus... and princess ashe who took her own life from the grief of
her country's defeat."


[next: the beginning]