HOW TO RECRUIT:
As you’d expect, this is another of the TPC characters you need in order to recruit the Princess. He’s probably the easiest of the three to acquire, with the shortest and simplest recruitment quest, so most players go for him first…particularly given that, for certain party builds, he can make the nastier parts of TPC substantially easier.
You’ll find him in the room right below the throne room, the one with the big map-table (which the fanbase has dubbed the “World Domination Room”). The first time you talk to him, he’ll talk for a while about how great you are and how grateful the denizens of his kingdom are for your various world-saving exploits, but he’ll also explain that he’s far too busy to get involved with the adventuring life personally. The kingdom won’t manage itself, especially not with its finances in such dire straits. Speaking of which, the Stars of Destiny are rich, any chance you could loan the kingdom 240,000 Gilpfennigs?
Obviously the recruitment plot won’t advance until you do just that.
Lend him the money, leave TPC, come back and talk to him again. He’s in a furious panic; the money apparently just disappeared before any of it could be spent. After a long (and awkwardly amusing) cutscene, some royal guards will try to arrest him for having stolen the money himself. You come to the poor man’s defense, of course. This is a trivially difficult battle by this point in the game; it’s just four Cataphractoi, and they’ll collapse in a minute or two unless you’re doing something very wrong.
After the fight, there’s another cutscene, and before long the truth comes out. A guard captain took the money and ran off through the Southern Catacombs underneath TPC. [And how many catacombs does this damn castle have?] Time for a chase sequence! And you’ll have to choose whom you’re leaving behind, because the Chancellor is joining your party.
The Southern Catacombs are simple to navigate, although the random encounters will mess you up unless you’re very overleveled. Watch out for Cyclone Ocelots, which automatically get a rearguard-attack on your party.
Get to the end, beat up the Renegade Captain, and reclaim the money. Enjoy another cutscene. Then leave and come back again. A grateful Chancellor will join the party and repay your loan.
GAMEPLAY NOTES:
Weird guy. His abilities are a weird mix of leadership-style buffing with command-delay reduction, stat-targeting debuffs, and…Water-elemental magic attacks (???). He’s not at all bad as a support character, although by the time you get him you’ll have way more non-healer support characters than you know what to do with, and it helps a lot that he has a few offensive abilities that actually pack a punch.
Most notably, however, he is the last and greatest of the Combine Tactic manipulators.
For one thing, he’s got a crap-ton of them. More than any other Terrestrial Star, bar none. Quite a few are excellent; most commentators seem to agree that he has the second-best library of 2-character CTs in the game, even counting the Celestial Stars. (His larger CTs aren’t as impressive compared to the alternatives, but some are still pretty great.)
More importantly, however, he has two of the the game’s best CT-enhancement abilities. Social Focus halves the AP cost of all Combine Tactics for the rest of the battle; Words of Ubiquity halves the command delay of all Combine Tactics for the rest of the battle.
WHY YOU WANT HIM:
He is the centerpiece of almost any serious build focused on Combine Tactics. His abilities turn an expensive gimmick into one of the more viable and cost-effective endgame strategies, and once he has his CT party buffs up and running, he can serve ably as a CT wielder in his own right. His stat debuffs are good enough to cripple powerful enemies in a pinch, if only very briefly. For fireside chat fans, he’s got unique dialogues with an absurdly large number of the other Stars. Makes sense given his gimmick, I suppose.
WHY YOU DON’T WANT HIM:
If you’re not running a CT party, he’s basically not worth it; there are better leaders, better debuffers, and certainly better elemental mages. (Not that you’re exactly crying out for leaders or debuffers in any case.) If you are running a CT party, well, you’ve got a lot of irritating constraints on your build. It’s hard enough assembling characters whose abilities work well together without having to start with “who happens to have good Combine Tactics together?”. Also, of course, Daggers are crap.
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