LITTLEBRO'S PROFILE

I was just coming back in to edit Elina out as I'd just found her. I've been to Garamonde already, but I'll try again. Thanks.

Bavira is north of Invalice Citadel and directly east from Horeseman's Rest, near the coast. The encounters which cause it are close to the town itself, just a few steps away to the north, slightly east.

EDIT
In case it makes any difference at all (scripted events or whatever screwing something obscure), I am at the stage where Vahn has escaped through the sewers from the Citadel, and I'm running around getting summonses for Vera, doing Arena fights and generally exploring. I have not yet gone to Branch Castle.

Taking off the running shoes from Vahn reduced his speed from 177 to 170 which is correct, as the description does say +7 speed. Putting them back on, he just goes to 177, even after another fight.

Ah well, like you said another quirk of 2k3. I shall just ignore what's said in the menu and plough on

Bad news, I'm afraid. I haven't got the new download yet, so maybe something there will correct this, but anyway.
Your question about speed got me curious, so next level up I looked (these stats are with gear) and Vera (who had shown up as 118 with gear) had jumped to 262. The next level she was back down to 133. Nobumas jumped to 383 and is now back down to 202. With Ami it was 260 and is now 136. Vahn went to 303 and is now 174.

I hadn't intended to do this leveling up, like I said, I just got curious but hey, at least my team is stronger now than it was, though I wish I'd done another couple of fights in the Arena while their speed was through the roof. Or maybe it wasn't and it's just an error in the numbers showing in the status screen?

EDIT
The plot thickens. My actions since posting the first part were as follows:
Went to Arena, fought and won fight 81, lost fight 82 (damned 'haunted' every time)therefore got the game over screen.
Went to Rift Shrine, took Ami out and put Darius in.
Returned to the world map at which point the speed stats read as follows:
Vahn 354, Nobumasa 404, Vera 266. I haven't been keeping a track of other stats, but they look reasonable enough.
EDIT Again
Looked at the save file I made after winning fight 81, and the stats are up then.

author=Corfaisus
As I covered in my review, I don't think the player should be forced to use the Running Shoes as soon as they can for as long as possible just to make up for the game's poor sense of agility balance, as this eliminates the choice of changing equipment to serve other purposes such as elemental resistances and stat boosts.

This is what I've been having to do. Now that I have 4 pairs of running shoes I seem to have a reasonably balanced team as far as agility goes, but as Corfaisus says, it means I can't use other gear when I need to.