I’m going to get my inner Marxist on for the first go-around and go with Ronaldo’s faction. While the man himself has plenty of issues that need to be worked through, putting myself in our hero’s shoes if I had to choose between him and Yamato’s meritocracy I’d go for his ideal. I mean, anyone can just look at the daily news to see all the wrong that inequality perpetuates every single day all around the world, and I can emphasize with Airi on her hangup of being denied certain opportunities due to circumstances outside of one’s control. Plus I’ve heard enough bootstrap talk coming from the right in the past couple years to want to cram their own shoe leather down their throats. Finally, Joe and Otome are pretty good people who, as I said before, I can’t imagine standing for Ronaldo going on another revenge-crazed spree like he did an hour or so ago. Daichi’s team has good people on it too, but they don’t really have a plan, and right now that’s what the world needs.
So we head to Nagoya’s Electric Museum to meet with Ronaldo’s faction, and they’re all very happy to see that Hibiki decided to join up with them (like the first game you can back down if you wish to reconsider), Ronaldo saying that having Hibiki on their side is better than having one-hundred men. He repeats his desire to form a truly just world and says that since JP’s has withdrawn from the city JP’s Nagoya is now their home base. So that’s how we’ll be able to still have a bed to sleep on tonight. There Tico can give the usual summation, but they also add that Nicaea’s shutting down tonight, so we’re on our own now when it comes to fighting for the future. From a meta standpoint, it just means that there are no more death clips for the rest of the story. We only get two emails tonight, from both Daichi and Yamato, the other faction leaders. Daichi’s is just him being surprised that he and Hibiki are on opposite sides now, while Yamato’s puzzled that we didn’t just blindly follow him, but he says that this’ll be a good opportunity to show how right he is. That’s that, so it’s time for some shuteye before the gauntlet of battles that are coming our way tomorrow arrive.
7th Day - A Saturday Toward Equality
We get to sleep in a half-hour compared to yesterday as Saturday begins at seven o’clock with all the Nagoya faction members conferring in Hibiki’s room, presumably while he’s still half-asleep, to discuss the plan for the day. Otome reports that Yamato has recalled all other JP’s personnel to the organization’s headquarters in Osaka, so Daichi’s group has set up camp in the Tokyo branch. Ronaldo says that they should try winning over the Tokyo faction before Yamato can, and Joe reminds everyone that it’s not just the other factions they need to be worrying about, but also the next Septentrione since the way to Polaris hasn’t been opened yet, so off we disperse into the streets. Ronaldo’s now a part of the party at Lv. 52 and he’s built along similar lines as Jungo, thought not quite to the same bone-crushing extreme. He did skip leg day however, as his Agility is currently at only 7 so no Multi-Strike for him. Actually, I’m pretty sure his stat spread is just a slightly-tweaked Kaido.
On to the overworld, where we can see that Japan has eroded even further, there being basically nothing left of it save for the chunk of central Honshu where Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya lie. Osaka in particular is lucky to even be there at all, as the void appears to be literally at its doorstep. Right away we have the option to take on the Tokyo faction, but the game’s also nice enough to give us exactly enough time beforehand to seen an event for each Team Nagoya member. The first with Ronaldo in Osu has him comment that the city is falling into darkness, yet Hibiki managed to save him from it and how he knows that he’s not a sword to strike down evil, but a shield to protect the weak. That’s nice and all but, well, yesterday... It would’ve made a lot more sense if the writers had moved Makoto’s death clip forward a little bit, then locked out the event with Ronaldo saving the JP’s personnel at the train station until afterwards. It wouldn’t fully fix the problems with the “Ronaldo Rises” scene, but it would’ve helped his character arc be much more coherent.
Anyway moving on, Airi’s event again finds her looking at the concert hall, but now she says that she understands what Makoto told her about letting go of dreams that didn’t work out, and that she’ll find a new life dream to pursue. She becomes the second character to max out her Fate at Stage 5, unlocking the Vile Tao Tie. Otome’s event concerns her getting frantic over a disappeared Koharu, thinking that she might’ve run into a demon or the void, and us eventually finding her at the TV Tower. It turns out that she was just looking for that weird energy drink Jungo had on Day 3 to give her busy mother, but upon hearing that she was upset exhibits the sort of precociousness fictional children tend to have, thinking that Otome sees her as a burden because she’s not her real mother. Thankfully the reunion between parent and child dispels that notion, and Otome’s Fate maxes out as well, unlocking Amaterasu, the ultimate Megami. Like the Asura unlocked by the Anguished One’s Fate she’s Lv. 77, so I probably won’t be able to fuse her until next playthrough. Still though, good to tick another character off the Fate maxing list.
Joe’s event isn’t anywhere near as uplifting. Once more he’s staring at the hospital, but this time he says that his girlfriend died, finally succumbing to her Soap Opera Disease. He goes on to say that as it turns out she was hiding the true depths of her condition from him, wondering why someone in the hospital would have to look out for him and not the other way around. Once again he was late and tore his jacket, only now he says, he doesn’t have anyone to sew it back up for him. He wonders what he should do and slowly walks away, and I’m glad that his Fate didn’t level up here because that would be a bit mood-breaking, to say the least.
With that we’re forced into the first mission of the day at 9:00. I ground up a few levels beforehand and fused a few stronger demons and pulled one special one from the compendium: Python. Python is special because it’s the lynchpin of something crazy that I’m going to try, but even without that it’s a pretty good demon for three big reasons. The first is that it has naturally high Magic, and it’s pretty easy to give that stat a further boost by making it with high-Magic demons. The second is that aside from its Racial Skill its skillset is a complete blank slate, so you have a lot of freedom as to what moves you want on it. The third and final aspect that makes it great is said Racial Skill. Normally I don’t like using Dragons or Viles since I don’t think the added range is worth the extended cooldown time or loss of extra turns, but this is a specialized situation where it really, really comes in handy. You’ll see why.
Anyway, the first battle takes place at the Tokyo Dome exterior map, one of the few from the first game that we hadn’t yet revisited, and we see that we’re facing off against Hinako, Jungo, and an assortment of demon tamers that I suppose Hinako managed to talk into helping them. She does most of the talking, and she’s much too angry to listen to anything we have to say, claiming that we’re no better than Yamato. Everyone brandishes their phones and the battle is on.
Ronaldo Mission 1: Vs. Tokyo
- All demon tamers must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Geez, there are a lot of skills available to crack all of a sudden... I’m prioritizing the two new Auto Skills here, Ban Physical and Revive, as well as Deathbound. Attack All and the two ‘karn spells are three other notable skills, but I’m mainly concerned with the first three for now. The fourth crack can just be whatever. Once the mission starts but before the battle can begin though, the ground starts shaking and Shiva appears at the topmost part of the map. Yes, Shiva. Here to help Hinako. Here to crush us.
Shiva (Lv. 76)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Reflects Physical; Nulls Curse
- Mighty Hit - Deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Multi-Strike - Deals multiple Physicals hits to entire enemy party; number of hits dependent on user’s Agility.
- Life Drain - An Almighty-based attack that absorbs some HP from one target; the amount absorbed greatly increases if the user has low HP.
- Avenge - High chance of countering Physical attacks.
- Pierce - Physical attacks bypass Physical resistance, nullification, and absorption.
- Repel Physical - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Asura Destiny - High chance of starting battle with an extra turn; can earn a second extra turn.
Shiva. Just look at him. Resistant to everything in some way, completely immune to even piercing Physical attacks, high Magic that lets him tank magic hits, and can easily decimate parties with his piercing Multi-Strike. So, how do we deal with him? Well normally we can actually just safely ignore him, as the win conditions are “defeat all demon tamers” rather than “defeat the Lv. 76 badass that just unexpectedly showed up”. However, I’m going to try doing the crazy thing and beat him now instead of waiting for New Game+. How do I do it? Very carefully.
Here’s where Python comes in. The basic Dragon Racial Skill, Evil Wave, gives you an attack range of two panels. The upgraded form, Evil Flow, does the same...but it also gives you the option of expanding it by four more panels for one turn, giving us a boss-tier attack range for a pittance of MP. Shiva is slow, can only move three panels at a time, and only has an attack range of a single panel. Do the math.
However, since Shiva’s Magic stat is high enough to tank hits even from Otome, the most powerful mage on the team currently, and resists all four elements I need another key demon here if I want to defeat him before he reaches us (since once he does he’ll lay waste to the team): Mithra. Not only does Mithra reflect Physical just in case, but since he’s a Deity I can use his Racial Skill to boost the team’s magic power up to acceptable levels, though Otome will still be doing the heavy lifting with Holy Dance. Also the upgraded version of the skill, Enlightenment, automatically reduces the team’s MP costs by 25%, and that stacks with stuff like Magic Yang. Very, very nice. With this setup it is possible to take out Shiva on a first run-through without him being able to even touch you, and Shiva’s worth a fair bit of EXP too. With him down, rightfully impressed by our power, we can focus on the remaining humans.
Hinako (Lv. 52)
HP/MP
- 540/238
- Resists Fire, Ice, Elec, Force, and Curse
- Bufudyne - Deals heavy Ice damage to one target.
- Fire Dance - Deals several random hits of Fire damage to multiple targets.
- Judgement - A Curse-based attack the halves the entire enemy party’s HP.
- Ice Amp - Ice attacks powered up by 50%.
- Anti-Most - Grants resistance to all elements other than Physical and Almighty.
- Endure - Survive an otherwise lethal attack with 1 HP.
- Ban Physical - Nullifies each team’s first Physical attack.
- Badb Catha, Scathach
Jungo (Lv. 52)
HP/MP
- 655/152
- Nulls Physical
- Deathbound - Deals several random hits of heavy Physical damage to multiple targets; damage depends on user’s current HP.
- Mighty Hit - Deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Assassinate - Deals heavy Physical damage if used on enemy team leader and ignores defense bonus from allies.
- Ares Aid - Critical hit rate boosted by 50%.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Null Physical - Grants immunity to Physical attacks.
- Revive - Revives dead demons at the start of battle.
- Seiryuu, Zouchouten
Hinako isn’t too much of a threat, and I think she knows this because she doesn’t move from her starting position at the bottom of the map until she’s practically the last woman standing, instead spending her turns using her Scathach’s Goddess Grace to heal allies. I said back when she was introduced that her Magic was just high enough to not be crippled by spells, but it’s not high enough to make a spellcaster out of her, just a speedy Physical attacker with room for a support skill or two.
Jungo, on the other hand, holy shit. With both Ares Aid and Physical Amp on his side to boost his already-massive Physical attack power, he can easily crush foes in one shot and can take out leaders in a single hit with Assassinate, while his demons can let him attack two times per turn and remove our extra turns. The one saving grace here is that he can be easily outsped and can’t stand up to a constant magical assault. Work fast to get his HP down as much as possible before he throws out Deathbound!
Completing the mission earns us 3000 EXP and 8000 macca.
Airi and Joe feel bad about having to fight their friends in the aftermath of the battle, but luckily that leads into the post-battle gimmick: defeated characters can be recruited back into the party. It’s simple, all you have to do is watch the “Persuade X” events that pop up afterwards and just make sure to not pick the asshole dialogue option and they’ll rejoin, convinced by whatever case Hibiki puts forth. Oh, and they have to be at at least Fate Stage 4, otherwise they won’t rejoin and will sit the rest of the game out unless the plot comes calling.
So, Hinako and Jungo. One thing I do like is that while the writers could’ve easily have taken the easy way out and made these scenes generic, most of them do change, if only slightly, depending on what faction you decided to ally with. Like, convincing Hinako to rejoin in Omotesando is a matter of showing her that the new world we have in mind is one where individuality and free will will still exist, and on the character building front we learn that she used to hate dancing because her parents forced her into it, but over time she came to accept and enjoy it. Jungo’s recruitment scene outside the Diet Building is more generic and simple, likely ‘cause he’s a simpleminded guy, merely consisting of convincing him that we’re indeed just. And of course before I forget Shiva, the ultimate Omega, is added to the Cathedral of Shadows, joining Asura and Amaterasu in the “won’t use ‘til later” pile. As usual, his special fusion ingredients are Barong and Rangda.
That’s the basic gist of how most of the day’s going to go. Next time we set our sights on the other half of the Tokyo faction.
Compendium
- Tao Tie
◊
- A member of another quartet of Chinese mythological creatures, the Si-Xiong, or Four Fiends. Tao Tie represents greed and gluttony, and it's hinted that its head is actually from another creature, having lost its original body as punishment for its wickedness.
- 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.
- 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.
- Tzitzimitl◊
- The Tzitzimimeh were Aztec deities who were identified with stars that became visible during a solar eclipse, leading to them also being associated with the night, and human sacrifice was performed so that they would not devour the sun. Despite this fearsome role and their skeletal appearances, Tzitzimimeh were also seen as protectors of feminine qualities.
- Kangiten◊
- Kangiten, also known as Daishoten, Tenson, Zobiten, and others, is a Japanese Buddhist figure who represents affection and conjugal bonds. Its common depiction is of two elephants embracing, with one of them stepping on the other's foot. This bit of iconography represents the simultaneous duality and non-duality of love.
- Dzelarhons◊
- A frog princess appearing in the mythology of the Haida Native American tribe from the Pacific Northwest and figured in their migration across the Aleutian Islands. She's considered to be the ancestor of the Haida's Eagle Clan after saving its progenitor from a fire.
Comments
