For our first go-around I’ve decided to showcase Amane’s ending path, so to that end we are to go and meet with her in front of the Shomonkai HQ in Shinagawa. Each of the delegates will give you a chance to think things over in case you want to choose another path, just in case you have second thoughts. Upon learning that we’ve agreed to lead humanity to God Remiel thanks us and goes on to explain that the first step will be to neutralize the demons so that they can no longer tempt and corrupt humanity. In other words, even though we’ve agreed to become the Messiah we still need to win the war for the Throne of Bel. Well, it couldn’t have been as easy as simply agreeing to the angel’s plan, could it?
After learning that Mari approaches the crew again, saying that she’s somehow found out about what we’re planning to do and has even brought along a COMP so that she can help out. This bit plays out pretty much the same no matter what route to take provided you didn’t try to discourage her earlier, and I think Yuzu’s is the only route in which she doesn’t join. Well, the more the merrier! Time to turn in and then face the first of our final days.
Final Day - Kingdom of Saints
The following morning the crew wakes up at their usual time and they’re once more approached by Remiel who says that he will guide us today. And what’s more, we don’t have to worry about the final option anymore! After reiterating the fact that we still need to become overlord by beating the Bels he says that our first opponent of the day will be Jezebel, the demon that’s inside Amane. Yuzu asks wouldn’t it be quicker if Remiel just beats her himself and the angel’s excuse is that he’s already occupied with keeping her from consuming Amane’s soul. Oh yeah, we’re going to have to find a way to get into her soul to fight the Bel, but Remiel’s confident that we can do it since we have our COMPs and Akira’s starting to awaken as “Abel”. Rather than explain what he means by that we’re sent off to the overworld map to go prepare for the battle.
A good chunk of the locations have been removed from the map. The final days, no matter which route you go with, are purely linear affairs. Only one event will be available at a time, and almost all of them happen to be missions. Save for one, the ending paths are chock full of bosses so we really need to take advantage of the available free battles. Mari’s joined at Lv. 48 with a stat emphasis on Magic and Vitality, allowing her to use certain elemental resistance skills and AOE spells like the Ma-dyne repertoire earlier than her fellow mages.
As Remiel said we really do need to prepare ourselves before doing anything else because Day 7 goes for the throat immediately; trying to take on Jezebel’s mission with the same team you just used on Belial is a venture that’s not going to end in anything but tears. The normal available free battle is pretty useless due to the level discrepancy, but the hard one at Tokyo Tower will do nicely. It actually is hard though: it’s full of Rangda leaders who try to use Diajama to curse your guys, while the new demons Yaksa and Agares (which starts out six levels higher than any of the crew) pack a punch with Deathbounds and Mazandynes. But if you can weather their assaults the humans’ levels will start to go up relatively quickly so we can get some fusing done. This is about the point in the game where a lot more new, Overclocked-exclusive demons start to show up. The original version had a bad problem of leaving too many races underpowered towards the end, like the strongest Fairy was only Lv. 45 and the Avian race went from a Lv. 34 member straight to a Lv. 71 member. So thankfully the demon list is a little more balanced now and we have more options to play with.
After doing the necessary grinding and fusing and whatnot it’s time to head back to Miyashita Park to speak with Remiel. Before we get started he begins to tell us what he meant earlier about Akira awakening as Abel. After quickly reiterating the tale of Cain and Abel from the Bible, he explains that since Abel was chosen specifically by God, after he died his essence scattered to the four winds and today lies dormant in many people, and since there has to be something special about him since he’s the Hero, Akira is one of them. Remiel explains that ever since we beat Beldr Abel’s essence has been “awakening” inside of him, thus he is the only human qualified to become King of Bel and, due to God playing favorites I guess, the Messiah at the same time.
I’ll leave you for a moment to realize that our entire involvement in this affair is predicated on a pun.
Back to the matter at hand. Remiel says that he’s going to send us all inside of Amane’s soul and tries to ensure the uneasy crew that if we’re able to keep our wits about us it will be no different from being in reality. A flash of light heralds the start of our fantastic metaphysical voyage, and when it fades away the crew find themselves in a verdant and flowering garden of otherworldly beauty. The place is identified on the screen as the Cartesian Gardens, a reference to the French philosopher Rene Descartes. After admiring the place and wondering what they’re supposed to do, the crew spot Amane standing next to a tree on the shore of a pond, seemingly asleep or in some sort of trance. But the peace doesn’t last long, for a voice wonders who could be so rude as to track mud in another person’s soul and suddenly the garden is consumed by flames, leaving behind a charred wasteland and a pit of lava where the pond used to be. At the foot of the now-withered tree is Jezebel, a plantlike demon, so it’s time to get to work. If we die here, we die in the real world too.
Amane Mission 1
- Jezebel must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Amane cannot die
This mission’s first gimmick is that big ol’ pool of lava that’s smack-dab in the middle of the map. You don’t want to be walking on that; each turn anyone without any way to neutralize Fire damage who’s standing in it will get hurt by it. The enemy demons have no issues - in fact they probably feel right at home. So instead we have to sneak around the “shore” of the lava lake in order to reach where Jezebel and Amane are. There are only three demon teams, and all of them are weaker than the ones in the current “hard” free battle so they’re not much of a threat. The Bel, however...
Jezebel (Lv. 59)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire; Reflects Ice and Elec; Nulls Mystic
- Judgement - A Mystic-based attack that halves the entire enemy party’s HP.
- Maragidyne - Deals heavy Fire damage to entire enemy party.
- Holy Dance - Deals several random hits of Almighty damage to multiple targets.
- Dragon Eye - Allows three actions per turn during battle.
- Mana Aid - Recovers 10% max MP at the end of battle.
- Ice Repel - Grants reflection of Ice attacks.
- Hot Flower - Has an attack range of 3 panels and does not move.
So yeah, Jezebel’s a tough cookie. No weaknesses to exploit, expanded attack range, Dragon Eye... Judgement is a spell that’s always nasty, whether it be on a boss or a mook. Being only one of two purely-offensive Mystic spells in the game (and in the original version it was the only one), I’ll be willing to bet that Mystic protection isn’t something that the average player’s done much to invest in. It doesn’t double in power if a team member’s weak to it (I think the damage increases from 50% to 75%), but unlike other percentage-based attacks it can kill you if your HP is too low. Nine times out of ten this’ll be the move that she’ll open with, and it’s more than enough to soften you up for her Maragidynes and Holy Dances. Better pack Fire protection, because like Belial you do not want her getting any extra turns, and she doesn’t have a handy-dandy weakness to remove them with.
This is about the part of the game where Atsuro really starts showing his worth. No weakness to hit? No problem! Deathbound is incredibly powerful against single enemies and with Marksman equipped to ensure all the hits land. As long as you mind his HP he will probably be one of the more potent damage-dealers from here on out as long as there’s no Physical reflection to be had. Some of the demons I have with me include Astaroth, the next strongest Tyrant above Hecate who’s got Anti-Most and Null Mystic to defend against whatever Jezebel can throw out, Norn, who learns Prayer (basically a Mediarahan that also cures status ailments, including Curse), a Laksmi that’s been ground up to know Samarecarm (revives a unit at full HP), and Huoniao, an Avian that’s immune to Fire.
I said that there was more than one gimmick to this battle, and here’s the next one: whenever we damage Jezebel Amane will lose some HP as well. The crew with react with alarm, but Remiel’s voice will urge us to press on, for once her HP gets low enough she’ll wake up. However, until we reach that point we still have to be very careful not to damage Jezebel too much, which’ll result in Amane’s death and the mission’s failure. Once she does wake up Amane will express her defiance to Jezebel, return the map to its verdant state, teleport to the opposite end of it and then fully heal herself. Unfortunately, that’ll be all she’ll be able to do as it’ll drain her MP.
And Jezebel won’t let her host go without a fight either. Once Amane’s escaped she’ll start summoning doppelgangers to go after and attack her called Mind Amanes. You can tell that they’re evil thanks to their sneering expressions and the fact that their outfits are unzipped, exposing a very generous amount of cleavage (well, these characters are drawn by Suzuhito Yasuda after all). The Mind Amanes respawn infinitely as they’re defeated (and they’re not too hard since their stats make them Masters Of None) so you can actually grind on them, but by this point it’s time for the final push to eliminate their master. Not an easy task, but certainly doable now that we don’t have to worry about accidentally killing Amane. Once defeated Jezebel screams that Belberith will be the true King of Bel and like the previous two Bels enters Akira’s body. Mission complete.
Completing the mission earns us 2300 EXP and 1500 macca.
Everyone returns to the real world following the battle where Amane thanks us for our help and says that Remiel is no longer inside of her now that his role seems to have come to an end. Man, it would’ve been nice if he’d at least said goodbye or something. Atsuro sarcastically says that that’s simply great but he’s told not to worry, for he disclosed the rest of his plan to Amane before he left. She admits that helping them would be going against the teachings of the Shomonkai and her father, but during the last week she’s come to realize that the Shomonkai’s way of overcoming the ordeal will only cause more suffering.
Moving on, she explains that what we seek is the King’s Gate, Babel itself - an entity formed by an especially-large fragment of the original Bel’s lost power. What’s more, it’s also the summoning server itself. Atsuro reacts with disbelief, and Amane elaborates by explaining that Belberith transferred the server to the demon world in order to use it as a medium through which to summon Babel, which ordinarily has no tangible form. But despite the fact that he’s currently sitting on the thing, Belberith must not be able to currently fight it, there still being two other Bels afoot, Akira and Belzaboul, so we’ve still got some time. What we’re going to have to do to get to Babel is to forge a connection between our world and the demon world, and that is what we’re going to be working on next.
Amane goes on to explain that the demon the Shomonkai defeated at Asakusa, Jikoku, was one of the Four Devas of Buddhism who maintain a mystical barrier that separates the demon world from the human one. With his defeat the barrier’s been weakened, and we have to defeat the other three to collapse it completely. The crew’s understandably uneasy when they hear what they must do, but Amane tells them that even if they do nothing, the balance between the worlds is already out of whack and destined to collapse soon anyway. So Amane officially joins the party (Lv. 50; she’s essentially a slightly slower but sturdier Yuzu with the best Magic stat in the game. Shares her three-panel movement range tho’) and we’re off to fight the first of the Devas at Eikokuji Temple in Ikebukuro.
Compendium
- Agares
◊
- The second demon of the Goetia, Agares is depicted as an old man astride a crocodile and with a hawk perched on his hand. He has the power to generate earthquakes and commands thirty-one demon armies.
- Yaksa◊
- A Hindu and Buddhist nature spirit with two personalities. One is a harmless and benign fairy, while the other is a ghost that eats lost travelers.
- Cerberus◊
- The famous three-headed dog who served as the guardian of the underworld in Greek myth. For the final of his famous twelve labors, Heracles was tasked with capturing the beast with his bare hands, which he accomplished after obtaining permission from Hades. When he presented Cerberus to King Eurystheus the man hid inside a giant vase out of fright.
- Ukano Mitama◊
- A Japanese rice spirit who is either the son of Izanagi or the hero Susano'o depending on what source you read. He is sometimes split into two deities: the masculine Uka no Mitama and the feminine Uga no Mitama no Kami.
- Astaroth◊
- The twenty-ninth demon of the Goetia. Astaroth has great power, but generally seeks to undo men through their own vices. Christianity holds that he's a fallen angel, which other sources claim that he is a demonification of either Ishtar or the Phoenician deity Astarte.
- Seiten Taisei◊
- The Japanese name for Son Wu Kong, the monkey hero from the epic Journey to the West. He is noted for being very incorrigible and crafty, and learned seventy-two types of magic from a sage named Bohdi. As a character he was likely inspired by the god Hanuman.
- Spriggan◊
- A large and especially ugly type of fairy from Cornwall, England. Their activities go beyond the usual fairy acts of mischief as they are known for summoning storms and kidnapping infants.
- Catoblepas◊
- A mythical creature from Africa who is quite sluggish and slow but can nevertheless petrify people by simply looking at or breathing on them.
- Norn◊
- A trio of female deities, Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld who govern fate in Norse mythology. In other Megami Tensei games it is traditionally created by fusing the Three Fates from Greek mythology together.
- Huoniao◊
- A "sun crow" from Chinese myth. Originally there were ten of these creatures that took turns flying in the sky, but one day all ten appeared at once, scorching the earth. An archer named Houyi saved the day by shooting down nine of them, leaving only one remaining.
- Jezebel◊
- The wife of King Ahab, who ruled Israel during the 9th century BC. She is famous for convincing her husband to abandon worshiping God in favor of the pagan deities Baal and Asherah. As retribution she was thrown out of a palace window by members of her own court and her body was devoured by stray dogs. Thus she became labeled a false prophet by the Bible and today her name is shorthand for a treacherous and conniving woman.
