Despite the whole thing with the Brand of Death and Susano’o we still haven’t been given any specific direction like “go here, do this” yet so I’m just going to wander around until the next mandatory event. Let’s see...outside the Bugeikan Yuzu brings up the subject of summoning demons without the auction again and wonders if Naoya programmed some sort of function into the COMP to facilitate the process since after all, if all it took was a strong will how come so few have done so? Keisuke admits that he himself doesn’t quite know how he summoned Yama, so we ask Atsuro what his thoughts are. Going back to Naoya’s notes, he theorizes that in these instances the COMP is not drawing on the Internet for the emotional component, but rather from the summoner directly. Which means that once all the altered COMPs are collected and destroyed they’d no longer have to worry about people summoning demons on their own like Kaido and Keisuke have. Good to know.
After a quick scene back at Sunshine Boulevard where the crew reassures the woman from the purse-snatching incident that she has nothing to fear as long as she considers her actions in life, the next mandatory events is at 12:00 at Shiba Park, where we find a few Shomonkai members trying to get a group of tamers to surrender their COMPs. The two leaders of the group, a thug and a gangster, are marked with the Brand of Death and refuse to give up their devices. It quickly becomes apparent that they want to keep its power for themselves, and insist that it’s not their faults that they went a little wild in the lockdown, it’s the machines’! So, before we can work on trying to redeem these guys, we’re gonna have to bust some heads.
Amane Mission 9
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
This is another mission with a lot of enemies. The two allied Shomonkai members are little more than meat shields, but luckily their survivals aren’t stipulated in the mission objectives. There are a small handful of teams to watch out for for one reason or another: there are a couple Physical-based teams with Fafnirs that know Multi-Strike, so if you didn’t put on a few levels around the time I recommended you’ll be helpless before their crippling assault. Next, the gangster guy has Rage Soul, an Auto Skill that greatly buffs the team’s Strength at the cost of only being able to use basic physicals, but the damage is so high it doesn’t really matter. Finally, two other teams have new Auto Skills called Wall and Barrier, which act as an automatic casting of the physical and magical reflectors Tetrakarn and Makarakarn respectively.
It’s interesting to note that once you defeat one of the two guys from the pre-battle cutscene and take their COMPs away you can tell them that this is what the victims that they stole from and terrorized felt like, and they’ll realize their folly and stand down, feeling miserable over what they’ve done. Unsurprisingly the lazy angels were wrong, the branded can be redeemed.
Completing the mission earns us 2800 EXP and 2000 macca.
Once things settle down the two thugs reveal their Freudian Excuses to be that they were mugged when they were younger and decide to destroy their COMPs so that they can end the cycle of violence and crime that they’ve been a part of themselves. They snap the devices in two (the hinges always do seem to be the DS family’s Achilles heel, after all) and swear that they’ll live better lives from here on out. As they make this resolution their Brands of Death go from red to light blue and disappear, signifying their repentance. As if they were waiting for just such a moment, two angels appear and after a long silence broken by the two former thugs’ apologizes they state that their repentance is sincere and that they are to be judged by man’s laws, not God’s. So the two guys beat it, and the angels complement us on our performance. Score one for Team Messiah.
But the next intervention event is a little more complicated. Outside Tokyo Dome the crew witnesses one of those sneering evil policemen threatening a woman with his gun, and no amount of telling him to drop his weapon will get him to budge. Needless to say, he’s got the Brand of Death, and there are three options we can choose from to deal with this standoff. First, we can choose to judge him, which entails Akira summoning a small horde of Decarabias (I wish we could do that in-game) to protect the woman and then incinerate the crooked officer. Second, we can call the angels who do much the same. Finally, we can try to continue reasoning with the man...in which case the angels show up anyway to save the woman from his bullet and kill him, then basically go “I told you so” to us. Hmph.
Well, in better news we can check in with Haru now in Omotesando where she tells us that she’s been witnessing more and more acts of goodwill from the people she’s seen today, even from guys who would ordinarily be street punks and criminals. Then next during a Yuzu scene in Roppongi it’s revealed that it’s much harder to get COMPs now that the Shomonkai are collecting them and no longer distributing them, meaning that once a belligerent demon tamer is defeated and robbed of their device it’s much less likely that they’ll be able to get their hands on another one to continue their misdeeds.
Speaking of demon tamers, we’re now railroaded into a 2:00 battle at Sengakuji Temple against Honda. He’s at the shrine with Susano’o, and when confronted says that he’ll never give up. And what’s more he’s joined by a group of allied demon tamers who also want to get their COMPs out of the lockdown. Camaraderie’s nice, but not like this. And what’s more after they take up positions yet another disembodied voice speaks, saying that it will lend its aid to those who oppose the “winged ones of different skies” and a wind blows, powering up all of the tamers. Now what could that be about?
Amane Mission 10
- All demon tamers and Susano’o must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
There’s a reason why the map theme for this mission is “Coldheartedness” the standard Bel mission music rather than something like “Rival Battle”. Thanks to their mysterious benefactor all of the tamers have above average Speed so they’ll be move first. Their demon selection is pretty good too, being filled out with guys in the upper 60s and even a Lv. 70 demon here and there. You yourself need to have demons of comparable levels if you want to hold out and take advantage of buffing Auto Skills (speaking of, one of the tamers has a new one called Shield All +, which is an automatic casting of Shield All). Fortunately though the map is still small, and the two bosses don’t start moving from their position in front of the shrine right away.
Honda (Lv. 70)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire, Ice, Elec, Force, and Mystic
- Maziodyne - Deals heavy Elec damage to entire enemy party.
- Megido - Deals moderate Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Might Call - Guarantees each team member one critical hit.
- Elec Amp - Elec attacks powered up by 50%.
- Life Lift - Recovers 20% max HP at the end of battle.
- Anti-Most - Grants resistance to all elements other than Physical and Almighty.
- Revive - Revives any dead teammates at 50% max HP at the start of battle.
- Murmur, Amaterasu
Susano’o (Lv. 74)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Weak to Ice; Resists Elec; Absorbs Force; Reflects Physical; Nulls Mystic
- Piercing Hit - Deals moderate Physical damage to one target while ignoring Physical resistance, absorption, and nullification.
- Mazandyne - Deals heavy Force damage to entire enemy party.
- Hassohappa - Deals heavy Physical damage to entire enemy party.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Life Lift - Recovers 20% max HP at the end of battle.
- Beast Eye - Allows two actions per turn during battle.
- Ancient Mars - Can initiate battle twice in one turn and ignores obstacles when moving.
Susano’o’s normally a Deity in this game but as a boss he’s identified as the enemy-exclusive Fiend race. Ancient Mars is the exact same Racial Skill the Devas had when we fought them, just under a different name. He and Honda strike a fearsome pair, and they’re both quite durable. Susano’o has somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 HP, roughly what Babel had (though thankfully he’s much more susceptible to damage), with HP regeneration on top of that so you definitely need to take advantage of that weakness of his as much as you can. Honda continues his support theme and between Revive, Life Lift, and his Amaterasu’s Prayer he is excellent at stone-walling you. Again, this is a battle where I recommend using Drain (or its more powerful, MP-only cousin Dream Feast that just became available to crack) to prevent him from spamming Revive.
Completing the mission earns us 3400 EXP and 2850 macca.
Honda says that there’s nothing whatsoever left for him anymore and he flees the shrine after his defeat. Amane says that she sympathizes with his poor fortune, but they can’t afford to make any exceptions for demon tamers and that it’s impossible to find happiness through demons. That’s when the disembodied voice speaks up again, asking us if trampling over one’s love for their child is part of the “new order” we’re trying to create. Another mystic wind blows and the owner of the voice finally reveals himself as being none other than Japan’s creator-god, Okuninushi.
Okuninushi kindly explains what his beef with us is: he doesn’t like the idea of Japan falling into the hands of the King of Bel, and he refuses to recognize God’s sovereignty. He doesn’t think we’re up to the task of uniting the people either, but after some badgering he agrees to give us a chance to prove ourselves worthy of Japan. As a Messiah, what we have to do bring salvation to a certain person, who’s locked in an eternal punishment by God. And we have until 6:00PM to do it, otherwise Okuninushi will destroy the country and build something new. The god vanishes in a whirl of leaves and cherry blossom petals and the death clocks return, naturally reading 0.
Once Okuninushi is gone Atsuro and Midori start panicking but calm down some once Amane explains his role in Japanese mythology to them. And the person we’re tasked with saving? Well, looks like it’s none other than Naoya. Oh boy. Atsuro and Yuzu eventually decide that they do want to help Naoya, since even though it was thanks to him that they got involved in the lockdown in the first place, he also gave them means to survive through the COMPs, and let Akia make his own decision on how to deal with solving it. Uh, I wouldn’t go that far guys. Did you forget that the whole reason we fought him yesterday was because he was butthurt that we didn’t choose his path and help him grind his axe against God? Though it is something of a surprise to see a scene post-joining where Mari gets more than a token line.
Anway, with only four hours to go, we have to start looking for Naoya and figure out what to do about him. And also we can now fuse Susano’o, the penultimate Deity. Chop chop!
Compendium
- Ganesha
◊
- A Hindu god of wisdom, Ganesha is the son of Shiva and Parvati. While in some stories he always had an elephant's head, in one particular story he lost his original one in a duel with his father when he was tasked with guarding his mother's bath. Once he realized what he had done Shiva quickly gave Ganesha a replacement head - an elephant's happening to be the nearest one handy.
- Ananta◊
- One of the primal Hindu beings of creation, Ananta can hold all the worlds in the universe on the back of its many, many hoods, and at the end of each kalpa it will destroy all of creation. In more mundane roles, Vishnu uses the serpent as a bed.
- Troll◊
- Originating in Scandinavia, Trolls are generally depicted as large, strong, and dull-witted brutes that prey on humans at night and tend to lurk on or under bridges.
- Murmur◊
- The fifty-fourth demon of the Goetia. He practices necromancy and leads thirty armies of Hell as a Grand Duke from atop either a griffin or vulture.
- Amaterasu◊
- The Japanese sun goddess, whose full name is Amaterasu Sume Okami. The most famous story involving her is when she hid from Susano'o's rampaging, dimming the world until she was lured out from her hiding place by being enraptured by her own reflection. The mirror, the Yata no Kagami, is one of Japanese mythology's three sacred artifacts, alongside the Ame no Murakumo sword presented to her by Susano'o.
- Okuninushi◊
- The creator of Japan, though in a more metaphorical sense than what's presented in the game. Numerous attempts were made on his life by jealous suitors after the beautiful Princess Yagami fell in love with him, though each time he was killed he was brought back to life. Eventually he fled, and after some misadventures involving Susano'o he married his daughter Suseri-hime and arrived at the province of ancient Izumo where he became its ruler. When he eventually abdicated his throne he was made the ruler of spirits and magic, and the god of nation-building, business, and agriculture.
Comments
