i finished disc 2 of lost odyssey,the mansion dungeon was nice even tough it still falls pretty close in the grand list of JRPG trope (or at least close enough that i guessed there was one!) the boss looked ultra-complicated but all i needed to do was spam that "no-elemental-damage-all" (i think it's called shadow or umbra?) spell and he was done
then there was a boring cave and oh god was it boring! it even had holes that sent you to a previous room,that's like the worst trick a JRPG can pull off,i think the only part i don't like of nocturne is when you have to go trough the 3 temples and it's because it has those fucking holes!
but anyway the cave boss had several flunkies with him but they all went down in 2 attacks,the boss itself had barely any more HP than the flunkies so he too died in a few hits
then i got to a ghost town which had a nice air to it,it had talking cars and creepy swinging dolls and paired with numara (which i keeps reading as nomura for some reason) it was probably the only place i have seen so far with a modicum of personality
then the heroes got to a boat and as JRPG rule dictate,you can't travel on a boat without being attacked by some monster,but this one had the interessing gimmick... there was a boss and 3 flunkies,everytime you hit the boss he disappeared and to make him reappear you had to defeat the 3 flunkies but everytime he disappeared the 3 flunkies reappeared so in short i had to murder lot of flunkies
anyway the boat takes the heroes to a mechanical complex and it was somewhat of a pain to navigate (tough at least there is some bombastic uematsu music which kinda reminds me of FF7

) one interessing gimmick is that some door could only be opened with keys but you had to steal the keys from a certain enemy while engaged in battle...
after that the heroes meet the villain and the whole discussion goes like
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Heroine: YOU KILLED MY FRIEND
Villain: no it was you
Heroine: NO U!
Villain: UUUUU!
Heroine: SHUT UP YOU ARE MEAN!

Villain: YOU GUYS ARE THE VILLAINS!
Hero: NO U ARE THE VILLAIN!!1!
then you fight the guy and he spouts taunt everytime you hit him like some kind of villanous pinata,after that he murders your party in a single attack..... yes it's one of those fight you are supposed to lose that are designed just to make you waste the occasional healing item,you haven't seen one of these since... FF9? no wait i still think you need to punch your way to defeat in FF9
then after that.....
spoiler (click to show/hide)
.....the prince who thinks the villain is a good guy comes in
Prince: WHAT HAPPENED HERE?
Villain: CLEARLY A BUNCH OF ASSASSINS!
Prince: BUT THIS IS THE QUEEN OF A NEARBY COUNTRY!
Villain: A MURDEROUS COUNTRY!
Prince: AND THERE ARE LITTLE KIDS!
Villain: MIDGET NINJA'S!
Prince: AND A LITTLE KITTEN
Villain: A MAN EATER PANTHER CLEVERLY DISGUISED!
then the tower start self destruct and the villain takes a moment off just to do the best villain laughter he can pull off and after that the heroes escape
there i guess that's a pretty good summary of disc 2