Well with Gin’s and Black Frost’s battles out of the way we’re free to start whittling down the list of currently-available events, though it’s going to take a bit of resetting in order to see them all since time is tight right now. I’ll start off with a Gin event that serves to follow up on his last battle which takes place, of course, in Omotesando. He thanks us for our help earlier and then reminiscences about Aya for a bit before telling us that he’s accepted the fact that she’s gone. He says now that he’s 100% committed to doing away with all the demons and Atsuro fills him in on the nature of the summoning server. Upon learning that the Shomonkai were behind the server as well he says that they better go shake them down for info and promptly heads off to Shinagawa. Atsuro exclaims that we better follow him in case Azuma or someone else still has an axe to grind with him, so we head off to a new event outside Shomonkai HQ. There Gin’s talking with Amane, or rather Remiel. The angel says that he cannot divulge the location of the server and cites the same thing he told us, that getting to the server requires putting the world in mortal peril, and anyway, even if the server was stopped it wouldn’t do anything about the demons already in Tokyo.
That’s where we step in, with Naoya’s decrypted notes in hand. Atsuro explains that the sound file for the “dispel” operation was never completed, but if they managed to finish it and add the function to the server they could dismiss all the demons in Tokyo at once! Remiel remarks that we’ve truly thought this through and agrees to tell us how to get to the server...but only when we are absolutely certain that our plan will work. Stingy angel. Once he leaves Yuzu asks Atsuro how he plans to complete the dispelling melody and he says that they don’t have to - Haru can since the unfinished song inside the sequencer is likely what we’re looking for. Hearing this, Gin agrees to help us look for her, by which he means he’ll just sit things out until we actually find her.
Okay now, working our way up the event list takes us next to the Diet Building, where Izuna’s cornered another Shomonkai member and is trying to get more information on how Amane managed to defeat Jikoku without a COMP. The maiden herself arrives to relieve the captured woman and reveals that she did so by drawing upon the power of the demon sealed inside of her: none other than one of the Bels the Gigolo told us about, Belberith’s subordinate Jezebel. Upon learning this Izuna says that she has to die but Amane is completely unfazed by the threat, replying that even if she somehow killed her that would not destroy Jezebel, it would merely release the demon into the world. She leaves Izuna in a somewhat impotent snit, while the eavesdropping crew absorb the new information that not all of the demons involved in the battle for the Throne of Bel are necessarily fighting one another.
Next there are two events in Shibuya. The first has Kaido saying that he’s calling off the hunt for Keisuke because it’s getting to be too much of a pain (ignorant of course that he’s looking at the guy in front of him), while the second is with Atsuro. He talks about how he’s realized that if they’re going to rewrite the server to control all the demons (should we take that path of course), then we’ll need Naoya’s help, since no one else has the skills to do so but him. This event formally unlocks Atsuro’s ending path, but it’s a little trickier than some of the others since the game’s not as obvious about it.
Let’s get another battle in. This one involves a bunch of demon tamers fighting each other by the Tokyo Dome, one group of normal people, the other of yakuza thugs. Let’s step in to make it a three-way.
Mission 33
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
The belligerent tamers will mainly be busy beating each other into a pulp until we intervene and it doesn’t matter who defeats them as long as each and every one of them goes down somehow. We can just hold back and let them weaken each other before moving in ourselves, though the gangster faction will likely get the better of the civilian faction in short order. The last of the Ban Element Auto Skill series, Ban Fire, is available to be cracked off of two enemies, so we’ll have the complete set by the time the mission’s through.
Completing the mission earns us 1780 EXP and 1180 macca.
Yuzu wonders how people can fight with one another at a time like this when everything might end tomorrow and Atsuro says that that’s exactly it. People are getting more and more desperate to get out of the lockdown, especially those who can see the death clock. It won’t be long until they start seriously trying to fight the SDF, which we will be seeing for ourselves shortly.
All the other events on the map have temporarily disappeared save for a reappearance of the Gigolo at, you guessed it, Shinjuku. He starts off by comparing the length of the lockdown to the seven days it took God to create the world, and says that he’s here to pass on some information. There are five Bels remaining, he says, and the most powerful one currently is Belberith, with Jezebel and Belzaboul accompanying him. And here Akira once again demonstrates the crew’s annoying reoccurring blanking by acting like he’d never heard of Belzaboul before. The Gigolo describes him as “the right hand of darkness” who’s actually just as powerful as Belberith, though he doesn’t know why he’s helping the other demon. He says it’s a shame, the angels go on about this being the ordeal for man, but really we’re just being dragged into their war against the demons. Well, nothing new there, really, mankind is almost always a proxy for these Lawful and Chaotic wars.
All the other events return now, and a new free battle pops up by Miyashita Park that you can crack Deathbound from. Deathbound is a skill that’s absolutely crucial for Physical attacks. Like the various Dance skills it dishes out a random number of hits to random targets, but each hit is a lot more powerful, and the more HP the user has, the more oomph each blow deals. Combine it with Pierce, Drain Hit, Marksman to ensure all the hits land, and maybe either Physical Amp or Ares Aid and Atsuro’s damage-dealing potential becomes downright terrifying. So yeah, get this skill, thought there’s still one more later on that overshadows it...
Next up is the final Shoji events of the (original) game, but since time’s at a premium at the moment I’ll have to reset afterward to fit all the important stuff in. Here we can have the crew press her over why she left us the last time we saw her (if you don’t they just say hi and leave) and we learn that her mentor was actually the same person who tipped Atsuro’s friend 10BIT off as to the hidden purpose of the PSE Law. Learning this prompts Shoji to show a more darker side of herself by claiming that she’ll find a way to get revenge on the government for this, presumably by exposing the law’s secret and says that whatever, we need to make sure we survive.
Now for some important stuff. In Shiba Park we meet with Remiel again, who tells the whole crew that God’s will is that Akira become the Messiah to lead mankind. Remiel’s belief is that this ordeal is an opportunity - rather than simply sending away the demons for a return to normalcy, we can turn humanity to God. This declaration causes some confusion in the ranks, with Atsuro asking Remiel why it has to be Akira and Remiel replies that he’s the only one qualified since we’re part of the battle for the Throne of Bel. Yuzu’s distrusting of the angel, raising the possibility that he could really be Jezebel trying to deceive them, an idea he finds very offensive. He explains that he is using his power to subdue Jezebel so that Amane’s mind is not taken over, and tells us to speak with him again once we’ve made our decision.
So by seeing that scene we’ve guaranteed that Amane’s ending path will be unlocked as long as we don’t take a certain action in the upcoming mission. Another scene opens at Shiba Park now should you choose to revisit it, where a woman, presumably the same one who muttered that the government and Remiel were being too lenient earlier in the game thanks to a shared voice actor, approaches the party saying that she has a warning. Actually, she too is really an angel possessing a human, in this case one known as Sariel. Sariel is much less cordial than Remiel and his speech makes it abundantly clear that he doesn’t have a very high opinion of mankind as he’s quick to go on about how we’ve tainted ourselves with demonic power and that if it weren’t for God the angels would’ve gladly removed man’s freewill right away. Basically he’s just here to say that we really, really, really should take Remiel up on his offer. As I mentioned before when we first met him, Remiel’s essentially the odd duck of the angels as he’s the only one who truly wants to believe in humanity. Most of the others don’t have much confidence in us sticking to good if we send away or control the demons on our own. Thanks for the vote of confidence pal.
On the Chaotic side of the coin, we can speak with Naoya again outside of his Aoyama apartment building. Whereas Remiel’s idea was to become a Messiah, Naoya’s thinks we should skip that and become the King of Bel. With all demons under our control, he says that it’ll be easy to negotiate with the government and get the lockdown lifted. But he’s got more ambitious plans than that: to free mankind from its suffering by going all Nietzsche on God and kill Him. Naoya gets a bit worked up at this point (and he starts saying God’s name as if he’s putting them in those sarcastic air quotes), declaring that even if this ordeal is passed, it’ll be inevitable that God will simply hand down another one at some point in the future if we make even one misstep that displeases Him. Killing Him will supposedly grant mankind its eternal freedom.
Like Remiel’s Messiah proposition this causes a bit of confusion in the ranks and Naoya has to field questions. He explains that either way, Akira has to become King of Bel because if we don’t, one of the others will and once they control all demons they’ll release them from COMP control, leaving mankind helpless and the world a Hell on Earth. Also like Remiel, he tells us to think about it and then meet with him later. Atsuro and Yuzu grumble about how Naoya’s presenting this option like it’s a choice, yet is trying to force us into it anyway. Being the local Law Hero character Keisuke speaks up to state in no uncertain terms his objections to Naoya’s plan, under the belief that if God was dead and people knew there was no Big Guy up there in the sky to watch over them they’d fall into barbarism.
Curiously enough, you can also trigger this path by talking to Kaido at this point. If you do, he’ll reveal his plans to steal a bunch of COMPs from the Shomonkai and then break out of the lockdown and do typical Chaos Hero things once outside, believing that people shouldn’t bother hiding their true urges, and asks if we’re in. While it does seem like a separate ending path at first it actually folds right into Naoya’s, and I don’t know if it’s an alternate way to trigger it if you failed Naoya’s mission yesterday or not. Either way though, I’m already set on unlocking it so I don’t need to speak with him at the moment.
My next event is a battle at the Ueno barricade. It starts off by showing an SDF soldier being killed by a demon while Honda and a couple other guys skulk off to the side and decide that this’ll be their chance to escape. Unfortunately for them several Powers appear to back the barricade up (and they have pretty hilarious Voice Grunting clips - basically their normal one is to go “Ahhhhhh” as if they’re part of a choir) and smite several of the men for trying to escape. The demons gloat that that’ll really scar people who count on the angels to save them and basically we have three options here: defeat the demons, defeat the angels, or fight both. I’m going to side with the angels here, since by now we know that the integrity of the lockdown needs to hold, and choosing anything else locks us out of Amane’s ending path.
Mission 34
- All demons must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- All angels and no civilians can die
I glossed over it when I was talking about that unique free battle here yesterday, but this map is a vertical strip that’s dotted with sandbags and barbed wire coils that serve as obstacles. The crew and Honda and his one remaining civilian buddy start at the bottom, while the Powers and Decarabias are all the way at the top.
The three Power teams are thankfully more powerful than the usual specimens so that they can match up against their demonic adversaries, but as the Decarabias specialize in spamming Shield All they won’t be doing significant damage. Whenever one of the Decarabias is defeated, another will spawn at the opposite end of the map, and this continues until they max out at around six or seven. So it’s best to split the team up into two and have two members go and support the angels while leaving two behind to handle the demons as they spawn and keep them off of Honda’s and the man’s backs.
Speaking of Honda and his cohort, after a while they’ll try to use this opportunity to escape, prompting the angels to turn on them. An escape panel will be added way at the north end of the map, but there’s very little chance that they’ll actually get that far. The best way to protect them from angel and demon attacks is to engage them ourselves so that we can non-lethally beat them and take away their COMPs. You don’t have to do this: the stipulation is to beat all the demons, not tamers, but it’s probably the safest and quickest option. If you do:
Honda (Lv. 40)
HP/MP
- 324/130
- None
- Diarahan - Fully restores one party member’s HP.
- Mazio - Deals Elec damage to entire enemy party.
- Zandyne - Deals heavy Force damage to one target.
- Mana Surge - MP raised by 30%.
- Elec Amp - Elec attacks powered up by 50%.
- Force Amp - Force attacks powered up by 50%.
- Magic Yang - MP costs for both parties are halved.
- Hariti x2
Still took me a handful of tries, because Honda was a bull-headed idiot who charged straight at the Powers instead of going around them, leaving the fate of the mission in the hands of the RNG.
Completing the mission earns us 1880 EXP and 1260 macca.
If you do this mission early enough (which I didn’t) afterwards a new event appears that shows Honda and the Gigolo seemingly cooking up some sort of scheme or agreement. It’s a plot thread that the original game left hanging, but some of Overclocked’s new content does address it...
Time for one more event before the big battle. It’s a simple one at Miyashita Park where Yuzu speaks up, voicing the realization that tomorrow, whether good or bad, everything that they’ve done so far will come to an end. Instead of being apprehensive about what’s coming she apologizes for how she’s acted throughout the week and says that she wants to do things the right way. She says that her attitude was no different from that of the people who were sparking riots, and that she’s decided that however things end, she’ll be satisfied as long as they tried their hardest. It’s nice but, this happens to be a case of gameplay getting in the way of character development given what Yuzu’s ending path entails and how it’s unlocked (IE, it’s always available by default).
Still, the sentiment’s appreciated. Time for Belial, and destiny!
...but first, we actually could’ve gotten one of the game’s endings in this update, though it’s not a good one and rather brief. See, if you chose to fight the angels at the Ueno barricade, either just them or them and the demons, when Honda says that it’s time to make a break for it you can agree to go along with him. Thus when all the adversaries on the map are defeated Honda and the crew will indeed take the opportunity to escape the lockdown, with Atsuro going “Wait what, why are we doing this? This isn’t how it should be!” the whole time to let you know that you chose...poorly.
After everyone leaves the game shifts modes to its standard ending format of narration appearing against a background, and what it shows is a massive lightning storm hitting the lockdown. Apparently the angels had their own final option of sorts, and the narration notes that these lightning strikes killed everyone and everything inside the lockdown. Upon learning of that, the crew then sees a host of angels descending from Heaven to place mankind under the eternal dominion of God as has been threatened. With no hope for mankind’s freewill, we then go through the usual game over sequence, no credit roll or anything, just “MISSION FAILED.”
Now go back and do it right!
Compendium
- Aniel
◊
- One of the seven archangels in Jewish lore. Another way of reading his name is "Haniel", which is derived from the Hebrew word for joy and pleasure, hana'ah. As such he his sometimes called the angel of beauty and is associated with Venus.
- Seiryuu◊
- The Japanese name for Qing Long, one of the Si Xiang, or the Chinese Four Symbols, mythological beasts that represent the constellations. In Japan it is a guardian of cities, Kyoto in particular, and represents the element of wood. The Megami Tensei games often erroneously conflate it with Long, one of the four Chinese Ssu-Ling, or Benevolent Animals.
- Rangda◊
- A Balinese demon queen who is locked in eternal struggle with the holy beast Barong. Despite being a demon she is sometimes seen as a guardian spirit, and some of her iconography is the same as the Hindu figure Kali.
Soundtrack
- Deep Darkness
- Yep, the "you don' goofed/went evil, boi" theme. Do better next time!
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