So we’ve done the three endings that the game hands you. The next two endings are different, actually requiring the player to fulfill certain requirements to unlock. They’re essentially the two “third option” paths of the game.
So, throughout the whole game so far we’ve learned that despite being a Septentrione Alcor is 200% on humanity’s side but we’ve had to kill him ourselves on every single path in classic Shin Megami Tensei fashion. Luckily, there is a way that doesn’t involve us having to do that. If you see every single one of his events during the week and respond favorably to his suggestions that humanity wants true freedom (a process which will bring his Fate up to Stage 4), when you reach the decision point you’ll receive a message from Tico basically saying “hey, isn’t there another path you can choose, one that involves a less jerky Administrator?” and in addition to the three factions there will be a fourth event available to choose from at the Mori Tower, labeled “A New World”.
Here we encounter Alcor, who’s currently living up to his “Anguished One” epithet by angsting over how mankind’s potential is being curtailed by Polaris, and his role in bringing that about. Throughout this conversation we have to pick the proper dialogue options, the ones that reassure him that what he’s done is not wrong and then we get to the crux of the matter: Hibiki suggests that perhaps Polaris should be overthrown, and when Alcor expresses doubt at this, we suggest that perhaps he can control the Akashic Record instead, thereby freeing mankind from the Administrator’s rule and starting the world over again with a clean slate. If you at any time pick the wrong option, Alcor will depart and we’ll be locked out of this route, though it’s really just a simple matter of not picking the asshole options. It’s interesting too, despite this being Alcor’s route, he’s not actually the “leader” of the faction, it’s really Hibiki instead, living up to his own epithet of “Shining One”.
Convinced of helping us, Alcor departs to “strengthen [his] resolve” as he puts it and he recommends that we find a place to rest for the night away from the other factions. So instead of sleeping in a bed tonight, Hibiki instead has to camp out on the platform of the Ikebukuro subway station. No emails tonight, likely because as far as the other three factions are concerned Hibiki is technically “undeclared” at the moment.
7th Day - A Saturday Toward Reformation
As usual we’re woken early in the morning by our (lone) comrade. Alcor is here to relay an important piece of information, namely that despite the fact that he’s agreed to fight Polaris with us, he can’t actually physically “fight” Polaris, being her servant. Therefore we must still partake in Day 7’s battle royale gimmick to increase our numbers, and it’s suggested that, like the other paths, we should start with the Tokyo faction because they’re the ones likely to be the most sympathetic to our cause.
Here Alcor falls silent and then decides that since he’s part of our team now he needs a proper name. Since he’s not actually using his Septentrione name at this point he decides to start calling himself Al Saiduq. “Al Saiduq” is a mistranslation/corruption on the part of the localization team of al-sadak, which is Arabic for “the test”, referencing the bit of trivia I mentioned back in update #30 of the star Alcor being a test of eyesight for the Arab astronomers. I say it’s a mistranslation/corruption because in the Japanese version his name is pronounced correctly, and this won’t be the first instance in this route where the localizers have trouble with romanizing Arabic/Arabic-esque names.
Despite the fact that Al Saiduq does his usual “disappear into thin air” routine after that scene in the subway station he’s now available for deployment, our final playable character for quite a while. Like Yamato he also starts at Lv. 55 and his stats are a little deceptive. At first glance he looks like a rather balanced, Master of None character similar to Airi, but his base values, or IV’s if you wanna make the Pokemon analogy, seem to be a little higher than everyone else, so despite the fact that his stats look a little underwhelming his physical and magic attack power are both pretty potent and he’s surprisingly tanky with above-average base HP and MP (he’s the only character who can reach 999 HP without any Passive Skill buffs) and his innate Fire and Elec resistances and Curse immunity he got through his Fate. His Speed stat is also a little bit higher than normal, so he moves more often. In short, he’s a very good character to have. Like Black Frost in the previous game his race changes now that he’s a playable character, from Star like all the other Septentriones and Polaris (fun fact: in the Japanese version they all have unique race names taken from their namesake stars’ Chinese names, like “Gate Merak”, “Knowledge Megrez” and so forth) to simply “???”. Finally, he doesn’t walk around in battle, instead he elects to float from panel to panel (to quote him in the anime, walking can be surprising difficult).
Aside from the initial battle of the day there’s only one event available as we’re only a party of two right now, called “Cleared Doubts”, where Al Saiduq talks about his misgivings on mankind living according to Polaris’s will leading to him giving them the push to start civilization, only for his doubts to return once civilization caused mankind to grow complacent and stagnate. But now that Hibiki’s cleared away his doubts he’s looking forward to the next chapter in mankind’s history. More confirmation that he’s 200% behind humanity and doesn’t have any ulterior motives, unlike say, another character who has a similar role in the Shin Megami Tensei games...
Anyway, nothing else to do now but to get the first battle of the day underway. The duo of Hibiki and Al Saiduq arrive at the outskirts of the Tokyo Dome to confront Hinako, Jungo, and their group. Hinako...pretty much completely overreacts at hearing that Hibiki has a world of his own in mind, shooting down his offer for them to help him without a second thought and declaring that we’re just as bad as Yamato and Ronaldo if we’re willing to fight our friends. Since she won’t bother to hear us out Jungo gets dragged along into the mess and we’ve got no choice here but to fight anyway. Al Saiduq lampshades the contrivance of the situation but expresses the hope that it’ll lead to Defeat Means Friendship. Here we go for the fourth time...
Al Saiduq Mission 1: Vs. Tokyo
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
This mission’s something of a dick punch if you chose this route to be your first, since even though you can simply run away from Shiva when he appears that doesn’t change the fact that you must take out like six or seven guys with only two team members. Though I can just plow through them with my Lv. 90+ demons so it’s kinda moot by now.
Completing the mission earns us 3000 EXP and 8000 macca.
Hinako and Jungo are a lot more receptive to the idea of creating a new world once they learn that we don’t plan on exerting any sort of control over it. With a full party once again we can now move on to the second Tokyo faction battle. Daichi’s too freaked, thinking that we’re trying to invade Tokyo, so once more we’ve got no choice but to fight.
Al Saiduq Mission 2: Settling Up
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Really, by this point actually fighting the battles is the most time-consuming thing in the game.
Completing the mission earns us 3400 EXP and 8500 macca.
Daichi and Io take a little less convincing than Hinako did, then after whizzing through some miscellaneous scenes we have a date with good ol’ Benetnasch. Instead of giving us the detailed lowdown on its abilities, Al Saiduq is instead waffling over whether we should fight it or not and fretting over its power, but the other members of the former Tokyo faction believe it’s better to at least give it a shot. And there are some jokes involving Al Saiduq’s constant teleporting and Daichi getting freaked out by it.
Al Saiduq Mission 3: Unknown Threat
- Benetnasch must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Unfortunately Al Saiduq counts as a human too as far as his fellow Septentrione is concerned, so sadly we cannot simply use him to beat it via loophole before it whips out Revoke Demons.
Completing the mission earns us 3600 EXP and 9000 macca.
Al Saiduq handwaves his ineffectiveness against the Septentrione after the battle by claiming that Pacify Human also affects those who take human form. Daichi gasps in exasperation that he should’ve been specific as to what Benetnasch was capable of and the other’s reaction is puzzlement since he thought that commenting on its strength was enough. Putting his lack of social skills aside, once we hit the overworld again Al Saiduq starts to ponder the problem, and in the process explains how the summoning app works: apparently Nicaea sends a query into “space” upon which Magnetite is formed from dark matter, providing the proteins that build up the demon’s body. Interesting, though then he changes the subject, saying that for now we should focus on the other two factions. In fact, we’re forced now into duking it out with the Osaka faction outside of the Bugeikan.
Al Saiduq Mission 4: Vs. Osaka
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Since we’re on the “hard” route, the Osaka faction members have the same loadouts and levels as they did when we fought them on Ronaldo’s route, so Keita has his Attack All + Rage Soul combo and so forth. It’s still deadly, but most of my demons can reflect Physical attacks, so he usually ends up killing himself with that attack.
Completing the mission earns us 3900 EXP and 9500 macca.
Next we recruit Makoto and Fumi (Fumi practically invites herself back into the party once she learns of our new world plan, almost drooling at the prospect of everything that’s ever been known being replaced by the unknown) but before we can recruit back Keita we’re forced into the Nagoya faction battle at 2:00PM. The set up’s the same as it was during Daichi’s route with Airi trying to lure the group into the museum’s planetarium.
Al Saiduq Mission 5: Vs. Nagoya
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Same thing goes for Otome and Airi as goes for the guys in the previous mission. The ranged attacks are as annoying as ever.
Completing the mission earns us 4300 EXP and 10000 macca.
That’s actually the last of the faction battles for the day. While the characters do regurgitate the lines from the other routes wondering where Yamato/Ronaldo are they don’t show up so that Al Saiduq’s Day 7 has the same number of mandatory events/battles as all of the others. The final battles with Yamato and Ronaldo will instead be pushed back to tomorrow, replacing the two fights that he normally instigates. So we recruit back Keita, Airi, and Otome, do miscellaneous Fate stuff to kill time, then unseal Trumpeter (the sequence is mostly recycled straight from Daichi’s route, so Al Saiduq doesn’t get to take part in the shenanigans here) and finally head off to fight Benetnasch for real at the Akasaka Palace.
Al Saiduq Mission 6: Seven Down
- Benetnasch must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Trumpeter cannot die
Benetnasch is put back into its bier.
Completing the mission earns us 4600 EXP and 10500 macca.
~dramatic irony~ ensues as the group celebrates their takedown of the seventh and (supposedly) final Septentrione. Makoto expresses some concern about Yamato and Ronaldo still being out there, but Al Saiduq is unconcerned since they haven’t made a move yet. With that we’re dispersed back out onto the overworld for the remainder of the day and there are only two scenes left with our white-haired friend that we haven’t seen. Like many of the post-climax Fate events they’re pretty short and throwaway, the first involving Al Saiduq explaining his viewpoints to Daichi, and Daichi not understanding any of it, the second simply being Al Saiduq telling Hibiki that the road to Polaris was very long, but true freedom is finally just around the corner. That final event maxes out his Fate. The demon unlocked? It’s none other than the Prince of Darkness himself, Lucifer. Yep, compared to the first game, here the ultimate Tyrant is basically handed right to us on a silver platter. He’s just as strong as he was before, Lv. 99, naturally resists everything including Almighty, and still can only be fused by combining Metatron and Loki. Since his unlocking requirements are so much more lax now he’s no longer a mere Bragging Rights Reward!
That’s all that’s left of the day. No emails to read tonight, it’s directly on to the route’s finale!
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.
