We’ve dealt with the demons in all of the myriad ways and defeated the Tower of Babel four times over, Japan’s creator, a super-powered Canaanite lightning god, and the Voice of God. Yet there is one more foe left that we have to dispatch before we’re done with Devil Survivor Overclocked. This is the final bonus boss, the one that has to be unlocked through the Survivor Awards. This fellow is on a whole other league from everything we’ve fought before, he’s what fans dub the “superboss” or “ultimate boss” of the game, and following Atlus tradition he’s very, very hard. He’s not Demi-Fiend-hard in that he won’t instantly kill you if you don’t follow a set of arbitrary guidelines, but even the character designer of the game has gone on record that he’s “completely unreasonable” and in this case, the hype is real.
So before we can challenge him there’s a significant amount of preparation that needs to be done. First off, grind everyone you intend to use, human and demon alike, all the way up to Lv. 99. This isn’t a case of being paranoid or anything, it’s a requirement. This guy is so strong that if you go up against him without Lv. 99 stats he’ll wipe you out with a fart, and even if you’re at Lv. 99 he can still kill you without much effort. I already did that with my demons on Naoya’s 8th day, so I just have to get my humans up there. The endgame demons currently available don’t offer as much EXP as the postgame 8th day ones do, but thankfully humans don’t need as much as demons to level up anyway.
Next, put Victory Cry on everything. We’re going to need all the healing we can get, so passive restoration of HP and MP is crucial, especially since Holy Dances are going to be the only thing that we can use to damage him most of the time. Using the compendium to constantly resummon Mitamas makes this really easy to do, while obviously the boss could be beaten in the original game without the compendium, I can’t image what I would do without it. Make sure your demons also all have Holy Dance (see above) and that as many of them have Elec protection as possible. Elec Drain and Null Elec preferably, not Repel Elec, and the reason for that will become clear (I had to retweak my Metatron so that he absorbed Elec rather than reflected it). Get some Prayers and Samarecarms in there too, and some defensive stuff on the humans like Shield All +, Barrier, or Debilitate. I’m using high-level demons: Astaroth, Metatron, Okuninushi, Susano’o, Asura, Amaterasu, Jahi, and Loki. All of them have the same general setup I just outlined: Holy Dance, Victory Cry, Anti-All, Prayer and Samarecarm scattered around, and either Elec Drain or Null Elec if I could swing it. Okuninushi and Susano’o aren’t nominally Magic-based demons, but they do have maxed-out Magic and Susano’o can use the Deity Racial Skill Awakening to further boost their magical power. These are my humans’ loadouts, if you’re curious:
- Akira: Recarmloss, Drain, Ice Dance, Extra Charge, Life Lift, Anti-Physical, Debilitate
- Atsuro: Recarm, Holy Strike, Deathbound, Elec Drain, Drain Hit, Physical Amp, Pierce +
- Amane: Prayer, Samarecarm, Holy Dance, Victory Cry, Anti-All, Physical Drain, Magic Yang
- Mari: Mediarahan, Megidolaon, Fire Dance, Anti-Most, Physical Repel, Mana Aid, Shield All +
Every team needs ways to heal and revive. Recarmloss is a spell that reduces the caster’s HP to One in exchange for fully healing and reviving its two allies, so it meshes well with one of the possible strategies for the upcoming battle.
With all the prep done it’s finally time to take this bad boy on. Once unlocked the battle becomes available at Nagata at 1:00PM on every Day 7 save Yuzu’s. At the hellish site of the ruined Diet Building Akira thinks that someone’s calling to him, and Amane tells the crew to be careful, as they’re about to face a being who is far beyond anything else they’ve ever faced. As the crew steps onto the map a massive, horned, six-winged humanoid demon appears before the Diet Building, none other than the principal enemy of God and the ruler of Hell himself, Lucifer. The former lightbringer complements us on defeating Belzaboul, who had been assisting Belberith on his orders, and says that while he himself has no interest in the Throne of Bel, he is interested in us. Calling himself “your true father” he declares his intention to see the innermost emotions of Abel’s soul, AKA fight us. This is the game’s final and ultimate challenge, a battle against the true king of demons.
Bonus Mission 5: Fallen Morning Star
- Lucifer must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
To start with, Lucifer is the only enemy on the field, and he’s so large that he takes up a 2 x 6 area of the field, so everyone can attack him at once. While his stat info doesn’t tell you this, like Babel, Belberith, and Metatron he too has an infinite attack range. However, he is nice enough to not start attacking until you initiate combat yourself, giving you enough time to get everyone lined up and ready. Of course, it’s the only mercy he’ll be affording us.
Lucifer (Lv. 99)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Physical, Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Nulls Mystic
- Maragidyne - Deals heavy Fire damage to entire enemy party.
- Mabufudyne - Deals heavy Ice damage to entire enemy party.
- Mighty Hit - Deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Attack All - Normal Physical attacks hit the entire enemy party.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Pierce - Physical attacks bypass Physical resistance, nullification, and absorption.
- Tyranny - Recovers some MP at the end of battle; enemy teams are pushed further back in the turn queue when attacked.
The reason you have to be at Lv. 99 to fight this guy is because Lucifer’s stats and HP are so high that otherwise we’d barely be able to scratch him. Even with maxed-out Magic stats, Holy Dance is only going to deliver something like 250 HP’s worth of damage per hit, only a little better than Scratch Damage. And Lucifer hits like a meteor; with only a mere normal attack he can take out like a third of a fully-healed unit’s HP, and thanks to Pierce the only way to defend against that is with reflection or Shield All, which every team obviously cannot have. This is why everyone having Victory Cry and Prayer is so important. MP restoration is an absolute must, since Holy Dance, not to mention Prayer or Samarecarm, is very expensive when you’re forced to constantly spam it. Defending against Lucifer’s magic spells is thankfully easier, but his AI seems to have a predilection for Physical. Oh, and after you first attack him he’ll summon four demon teams to the field, but since they’re led by Abaddons you can ignore them up to a certain point, and taking them out’s far easier than their boss.
It really shouldn’t be a surprise by now, but for this phase of the battle Atsuro rose to the occasion, as his beefed-up piercing Deathbounds still managed to inflict quite a number on the demon king, each hit dealing twice that of a since Holy Dance strike. Thanks to Okuninushi’s Double Up Racial Skill I was actually able to take Lucifer’s HP down into the red just between those two battles, something that I hadn't quite expected. However, once you knock off around 40% of his health Lucifer will declare that while God gave us blessings and light, he will provide hatred and flames and his HP will fully recover and his skills will change. Yep, another multi-phase battle. And he’ll also kick off the new round by immediately using a Field Skill called Megidoladyne, which deals heavy Almighty damage to all our teams.
Lucifer (Lv. 99)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Physical, Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Nulls Mystic
- Megidolaon - Deals heavy Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Mighty Hit - Deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Hassohappa - Deals heavy Physical damage to entire enemy party.
- Attack All - Normal Physical attacks hit the entire enemy party.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Dragon Eye - Allows three actions per turn during battle.
- Tyranny - Recovers some MP at the end of battle; enemy teams are pushed further back in the turn queue when attacked.
- Megidoladyne - Deals heavy Almighty damage to all enemy teams; power increases with each casting.
Now things start to ramp up. Lucifer no longer having Pierce is good, it means we can defend against most of his attacks, however the bad news is he’s replaced it with Dragon Eye. So now he can spam the impossible-to-defend-against Megidolaon multiple times per turn to inflict crippling damage. Physical defense is mandatory, you absolutely do not, under any circumstances at all, want him getting that extra turn and a total of six moves with which to attack you. Your team will not be walking away from that.
But his new Field Skill, Megidoladyne, is the real game-changer. He uses it roughly every other turn, and it really does get more powerful with each casting. Just to start with it’s strong enough to eliminate a third of a maxed Magic character’s HP (and can halve a character’s whose Magic stat is lower, like Atsuro), so it eventually turns the battle into a race against the clock as it’ll eventually get to the point where it’ll one-hit-kill everyone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
So that brings us to the two strategies people like to use on this guy, and as Lucifer got his first kill on Akira I can demonstrate both. The first is to use the Tyranny effect of delaying an enemy’s turn to constantly push him back in the queue so that he doesn’t get to move as much: Tyrant Locking, it’s called. The second is to suicide rush him so that the team leaders die and get revived, as a revived character gets to act immediately. By combining the two strategies you can succeed in pushing Lucifer’s turn back again and again to stave off Megidoladyne. Of course, then there’s the risk of him wiping out your Recarm/Samarecarm users, in which case you’re pretty much boned.
Once more though Atsuro and his team was able to rise to the occasion, dealing the most damage to Lucifer. Once we knock off about three-fourths of his HP Lucifer again recovers and changes his skills, but at least it’s the final phase.
Lucifer (Lv. 99)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire, Ice, and Force; Absorbs Elec; Reflects Physical; Nulls Mystic
- Megidolaon - Deals heavy Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Drain - An Almighty-based attack that absorbs some HP and MP from one target.
- Maziodyne - Deals Elec damage to entire enemy party.
- Attack All - Normal Physical attacks hit the entire enemy party.
- Elec Amp - Elec attacks powered up by 50%.
- Dragon Eye - Allows three actions per turn during battle.
- Tyranny - Recovers some MP at the end of battle; enemy teams are pushed further back in the turn queue when attacked.
- Megidoladyne - Deals heavy Almighty damage to all enemy teams; power increases with each casting.
It’s time for the final push. Of course, now that he reflects Physical I can’t try to semi-cheese him with Atsuro any more, so this phase is by far the longest and most drawn out. All that Elec Drain is huge here, robbing Lucifer of extra turns and providing badly-needed heals. This is around the time the demons Lucifer originally summoned started to catch up to where my guys were, so I took advantage of them to heal up even more and let Victory Cry restore some more MP, since in his hands Drain’s strong enough to wipe out a demon’s stores. Not much else to say at this point as it’s pretty much just a battle of attrition now as Lucifer’s HP bar slowly inches little by little towards zero.
When finally defeated Lucifer offers his praise, saying that Belzaboul was doomed in the face of our power and that no soul should possess our “wisdom, strength, and beauty”. He says to go forth and beat Belberith and then vanishes. We’ve done it. We’ve won.
Completing the mission earns us 10000 macca.
After Atsuro expresses some words of disbelief that turn to jubilation at their victory the final demon left in the game, Lucifer himself, is unlocked for fusion. He’s the ultimate Tyrant at Lv. 99 and is the third and final special fusion of the game, since he can only be fused from Metatron and Loki. He’s exceedingly powerful as you can imagine, especially since he seems to have a built-in resistance to Almighty, but since I waited until the last possible moment to fight him he’s pretty much just a Bragging Rights Reward as I can now only use him for one-and-a-half more battles. But hey, 100% Completion on the Demon Compendium is still 100% Completion! And on that note, for completion’s sake:
- Vanquisher - Completed Gin’s ending path. (60p)
- Star Destroyer - Defeated Lucifer. (200p)
- Demon Wrangler - Registered all demons in the compendium. (400p)
Okay, now we’re really done here.
And that, my readers, is the end of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked. I was only peripherally aware of the Megami Tensei franchise before I bought a used copy of the DS version on a whim, and it's certainly been an impulse buy that I've never regretted as they're some of my favorite games.
As for what's next, well in the comments at the start I said that I had originally hoped that by the time I'd gotten to this game Devil Survivor 2 Break Record would've either have been released or had a release date. It has one now, but as I highly doubt the English version will be out at the same like with Overclocked given all that Atlus USA's had on their plate recently I've decided to go ahead with the DS version of the game and then go back for the 3DS version when the time comes. So look for that soon. Until then.
Compendium
- Lucifer
◊
- The Devil, the Fallen Morning Star, Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Evil One. These are just a few of the many names for Lucifer, the chief enemy of God and the source of evil and temptation in Christian lore. His name means "Bringer of Light" as he was formerly a seraph that rebelled against God and was cast down into Hell along with his forces. He temps mankind and spreads lies in order to turn them against God, however he is destined to meet his ultimate defeat during the battle of Armageddon, after which the Earth will be completely cleansed of his influence and sin will be no more. Some Megami Tensei games distinguish between his pre-and-post-Fall personas; there's his demonic form seen in this game, and his angelic form, which in the English translation is differentiated by the name "Helel", his Hebrew name.
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