We’ve put it off for as long as we can; it’s finally time for the final showdown with Yamato. The encounter is on his home turf: beneath the Tsuutenkaku in Osaka. He approaches Hibiki first, complementing him on defeating the Tokyo faction, adding that Daichi never stood a chance. If you have Hibiki get incensed at his friend being put down, the JP’s chief makes the rather astute observation that his personality must’ve been what drove us away, and after asking us to join him one more time says that he’ll be waiting for us at the Tsuutenkaku and leaves, presumably jogging about fifty feet away and then staring at us given that we’re already at the Tsuutenkaku. Ronaldo runs up to us to ask if we’re all right and says that this is a good opportunity to settle things once and for all in a straight, fair fight.
Once we switch to the map view Ronaldo shouts to Yamato that this time his justice will finally prevail only for the latter to cut his words down and accuse him of being the cancer that is corrupting Hibiki, dragging him down and wasting his talents. I think someone’s rather salty... He deflects the party’s objections and says that he only has one word for us: die.
Ronaldo Mission 5: Test of Might
- Yamato must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
After summoning a horde of demons Yamato asks us if we know the reason why he chose the Tsuutenkaku as his battleground. The answer: so that he can power himself up by drawing upon the Dragon Stream chi being channeled by the tower. What this manifests as is a massive boost to his unseen Speed stat. Remember how Naoya’s gimmick was that his natural Speed was 75 (compared to the standard base of 50)? Well, I’m pretty sure Yamato’s is even higher, for his turn comes up a lot. He will be breathing down your neck incredibly quickly, and there’s something else about the demons here too. They don’t simply wander in your general direction, they will actively position themselves in a phalanx around Yamato, giving you another obstacle to take care of before you can fight him. He won’t have any problems attack you through them, no siree.
Yamato (Lv. 62)
HP/MP
- 718/436
- Resists Curse and Almighty; Reflects Physical
- Prayer - Fully restores entire party’s HP and cures negative status ailments.
- Judgement - A Curse-based attack that halves the entire enemy party’s HP.
- Megido - Deals moderate Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Physical Repel - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Dragon Power - Allows two actions per turn during battle; grants a significant Speed boost.
- Race-O - Attacks deal heavier damage to enemies of the same race.
- Revive - Revives dead demons at the start of battle.
- Remiel, Arioch
Yamato is not screwing around. First off yes, he resists Almighty. No, the game does not tell you this. Dragon Power is really the kicker here. On top of it having the same effect in battle as Beast Eye, the buff to his Speed completely negates the cooldown penalty his Arioch should be giving him, so he basically gets an attack range of four panels with no caveats to speak of. Race-O effectively nullifies the normal defense boost party leaders get, and he loves using both his turns to dump Megido on you. Now, Remiel, I thought we were buds man! Remiel is support in that he’s got Samarecarm and his upgraded Divine Racial Skill, Angel Stigma, gives Yamato back enough MP to cast Prayer, making him something of a perpetual motion machine given his Auto Skill. What’s more, at least one of the demons already on the field can throw on additional healing, and several other teams have Rakshasas to keep you in place with Evil Bind so that Yamato can easily ream your guys. And speaking of motion, it gets worse. As the battle goes on Dragon Power will actually upgrade to True Dragon, which has Yamato’s turn come up even more quickly, leading to the very real possibility of him killing a team, then immediately moving to another and wiping it out too. True Dragon can actually upgrade further to Final Dragon, but I didn’t get to see if it did anything beyond boosting him to Ludicrous Speed because he finished off my last guy before I could check the description. And while this is going on one of the demons on the field is a Laksmi that can throw a Goddess Grace on him from afar, just because he didn’t have enough means of healing already.
So how on Earth can we beat Yamato? Well, the only real way I have to do this on a first time run-through that promises even a tiny speck of safety is the Evil Flow strategy I used on both Tokyo faction battles with Python. Python’s a little outdated by this point, but the one I’ve been using is better than the next Dragon in line, Culebre. A six-panel attack range does give us a safety margin, but you better focus on that Arioch so that when he attacks you next he doesn’t have the advantage of range, as his Remiel never seemed to use Samarecarm on his own teammates outside of battle. Since all of Yamato’s spells are rather expensive you can try stalling to make him waste more MP than he can recover at a time, but if you take that route be prepared to lose some guys first. At least he only has defenses against only two attacking elements rather than, say, five. Naturally he won’t be as hard on later playthroughs where we’ll have much stronger demons, but for now this is a mission where even if you go in knowing exactly what to expect you’re still highly likely to get a game over. This is definitely the most intense mission so far in the game.
Completing the mission earns us 4300 EXP and 10000 macca.
Though he’s in shock at his defeat, the crouching Yamato is at least enough of a sportsman to admit it, sort of. He’s still not done with his “the world’s been ruined by the weak” soapbox though, but before he can rant too much about it Ronaldo makes a rather salient point that everyone’s character has some kind of weakness, even his, and that they all have to accept that. Then he loses some of his brownie points by uttering the Narm-tastic line, “It’s time that you realized how grand the power of friendship and justice is!” But then he regains some by saying that equality must be shown to all, and asks the Chief to join him so that they can work as equals towards making a peaceful world. For all I know Yamato might be about to shoot himself on the inside, but he finally addresses Ronaldo by his full name, saying that he is indeed worthy of acknowledgment after all.
However, the universe apparently finds this entire sequence gag-inducing, for it cuts in with some earthquake tremors, and the observation deck on top of the Tsuutenkaku, weakened by the channeling, breaks off and falls towards the party. Before the party can be squashed flat Yamato blasts everyone away...but when the dust clears we see that he’s been pinned underneath the structure, his body crushed to a bloody pulp. Here’s the thing about this game: it’s actually impossible to make it through the story without losing a team member. No matter what, someone is going to die in the endgame. The dying chief says that this is the outcome of his gamble and that he looks forward to seeing what sort of world Hibiki and Ronaldo can create together. Ronaldo says that he understands the kind of man Yamato is as he dies, but now everyone is united, and they must move on to Benetnasch.
Indeed, for now it’s 6:30PM and that’s the last battle we have to do today. This mission takes place in the courtyard of the Akasaka Castle in Tokyo. After a pre-battle pep talk the party arrives on the map to see Benetnasch sitting before the doors of the guesthouse, with its buds already deployed lower down the map. Trumpeter appears as promised and blows his horn (the fanfare he toots is actually a snippet of the franchise’s classic Law Theme). This seems to cancel the jamming, and we’re warned once again that once the mission starts, we cannot summon new demons from our stock, so make sure the ones you do have out have decent skill selections and every team has some way to heal just in case. Time to take on Septentrione #7!
Ronaldo Mission 6: Seven Down
- Benetnasch must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Trumpeter cannot die
Yes, we’ll have to defend Trumpeter, but for now he can’t be harmed. Neither Benetnasch nor its two buds can move or reach him, and while the buds will continue to use Diastrophism he won’t be harmed because, of course, he flies. What you want to do first is to leave at least one person behind to hang around him, because once you either attack Benetnasch or destroy the two buds (which is what I did of course), Benetnasch will drop four more right next to him, close enough for them to strike with Dark Thunder. I prefer to leave Ronaldo behind because he has Jikokuten on his team. Thanks to the Deva’s Matchless, I can simply position him in between one of the two pairs and take them out in a single turn, with minimal harm to the Fiend.
Meanwhile, everyone else has to continue on up to Benetnasch, and the map is a little larger than it looks, so it takes a little bit. Benetnasch still has its large attack range, and while it starts out with the same list of skills it had before, upon summoning the four buds it changes them around:
Benetnasch (Lv. 60)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Weak to Fire and Elec; Resists Ice; Reflects Physical; Nulls Force and Curse
- Star Pressure - Deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Ruinous Wind - Deals heavy Force damage to entire enemy team and has a high chance of instantly killing petrified targets.
- Pacify Human - Grants immunity to all human-based attacks.
- Repel Physical - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Dragon Eye - Allows three actions per turn during battle.
- Alkaid Proof - Has an attack range of 7 panels.
Dragon Eye is trouble, transforming its attack pattern to “Star Pressure > Ruinous Wind > Star Pressure” and even though Ruinous Wind is just Mazandyne under another name now all that damage really adds up, so you can’t afford it getting that extra turn. Pacify Human cuts down greatly on your team’s potential damage output, but while they can’t attack the humans can utilize Auto Skills like Wall and Barrier to keep the damage down and get rid of those extra turns when Benetnasch isn't attacking from range. As long as they’re alive the buds will use Megrez’s Regenerate Field Skill to restore HP to their boss, but it’s not anything you can’t out-damage with Elec Dance and Fire Dance attacks.
Now once you beat the second wave of buds Benetnasch doesn’t bother replacing them, but when you get its HP down into the red it pulls out it’s last trick: splitting up into four different slices
◊, each one containing the powers of the Septentriones that came before it. These slices actually move, and each one has a decent movement range. They’ll all make a beeline for Trumpeter, and scatter Alioth’s poison all over the stage to flip you the bird as they pass by.
Benetnasch A (Lv. 60)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Weak to Physical; Reflects Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Nulls Curse
- Circumpolarity - Deals heavy Ice damage to entire enemy party.
- Mow Down - Deals Physical damage to entire enemy party.
- Elec Amp - Elec attacks powered up by 50%.
- Double Strike - Normal Physical attacks hit twice.
- Swift Step - Speed greatly increases during battle.
- Alkaid Spawn - Has Merak and Phecda’s powers.
- Dark Thunder - Deals heavy Elec damage to all enemies within a two-panel range.
Benetnasch B (Lv. 60)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Physical; Nulls Fire and Elec
- Binary Fire - Deals two hits of moderate Fire damage to one target.
- Ruinous Wind - Deals heavy Force damage to entire enemy team and has a high chance of instantly killing petrified targets.
- Force Amp - Force attacks powered up by 50%.
- Retaliate - Moderate chance of countering Physical attacks.
- Extra One - Guarantees the user one extra turn.
- Alkaid Spawn - Has Dubhe and Megrez’s powers.
- Regenerate - Restores some HP to Benetnasch D.
Benetnasch C (Lv. 60)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Physical; Absorbs Force; Nulls Elec and Curse
- Multi-Strike - Deals multiple Physicals hits to entire enemy party; number of hits dependent on user’s Agility.
- Marked Wing - Deals moderate Curse damage to entire enemy party and may paralyze.
- Ziodyne - Deals heavy Elec damage to one target.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Endure - Survive and otherwise lethal attack with 1 HP.
- Beast Eye - Allows two actions per turn during battle.
- Alkaid Spawn - Has Alioth and Mizar’s powers.
Benetnasch D (Lv. 60)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Weak to Elec; Resists Fire, Ice, and Force; Reflects Physical; Nulls Curse
- Alkaid - Deals heavy Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Pacify Human - Grants immunity to all human-based attacks.
- Repel Physical - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Alkaid Spawn - Has the original Benetnasch’s powers.
- Unheard Prayer - Curses one enemy team within a 7 panel range.
The good news is that only one of them has Pacify Human and none have that ridiculous attack range. The bad news is that they’ve all got some decent quirks. The C and D slices are probably the two most dangerous ones, given the former has Mizar’s Multi-Strike + Physical Amp combo with Alioth’s Beast Eye, while the latter has not-Megidolaon, still blocks anything tossed at it by a team leader, and can stop parties from healing. But the other part of the good news is that they only have about 1500 HP each, so laying on the weakness-hitting and Enlightenment-boosted Holy Dances should take most of them out in a single battle. I did discover that if you actually do let one of them down to the bottom of the map to attack Trumpeter...he can actually hold his own, dealing more damage to the slices (or maybe he just matched up favorably against the one that attacked, I didn’t really check) than he took. So Trumpeter dying really shouldn’t be an issue.
So there’s the final star of the Big Dipper. Fairly challenging, but in a much more fair manner than Yamato was. You’re liable to actually have an easier time once Benetnasch splits up, because then they can no longer snipe you from well outside of your own attack range.
Completing the mission earns us 4600 EXP and 10500 macca.
The party celebrates their victory, Hinako taking it as a sign that they never would’ve won if they were still divided up into opposing factions. Now that the seven Septentriones have been defeated the characters turn their sights on Polaris, but there’s no sort of visual indicator like the giant demon world portal from the first game to signify that the path is open. With perfect timing the Anguished One appears to relay the news that Polaris has apparently decreed that the promised time will be tomorrow; the whole “seven days” tagline stuff is a little misleading in this game since unlike the first one each path has eight days by default. So with that Ronaldo declares that the team’ll spend the rest of the day making their final preparations, and everyone departs the castle courtyard. We get a Nicaea notification that Trumpeter can now be fused; he’s the penultimate Fiend, and his special fusion combo happens to be Remiel and Tzitzimitl.
We’re turned loose to do whatever for the remainder of the day. I did some free battling first to crack some skills I missed during the day (how’s that for a dick move, the free battles don’t upgrade until after all of the day’s missions are over!) and then it’s time for the final Fate push. Basically, the end of the day is the deadline for Fate development. Once midnight rolls around, that’ll be it. Looking at who I still need to max, we’ll first go and visit Jungo in Aoyama Cemetery. The event’s name is called “Goodbye Jungo” but he won’t be dying or anything, he’s actually here to say goodbye to his cat, as he’s determined that Jungo will be safer here in a place where there aren’t many demons. He lays down another cup of chawanmushi to distract his cat and quickly leaves the graveyard, uttering a soft farewell. Once Jungo realizes that Jungo is gone he starts looking around for him and crying in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s had a pet cat of their own before. Hibiki’s only option is to follow Jungo out of the graveyard while his cat continues to futilely search for him. It’s a rather depressing scene if you’re an animal lover, but it does boot Jungo’s Fate up to Stage 5, unlocking the game’s ultimate Touki, Oumitsunu.
Next we’ll go back to Nagoya and see the conclusion of Joe’s subplot. He’s in high spirits because he found an apple tree that’s been spared the week’s devastation and he asks Hibiki if he wants a bite of an apple he’s plucked from it. Daichi barges in here, drooling over the apple, but when Joe offhandedly mentions that he intends to leave it for his girlfriend Daichi quickly backs down and apologizes for being insensitive. Joe says that that’s no big deal, since as we all know by now he’s never been one for ceremony, and that he’s really glad that he met all of us. Daichi bashfully says that he’s glad they all met too, and we close out this subplot with another Ho Yay joke from our laid back salaryman friend. No other way for it to end, really.
Since I just saw the conclusion to Joe’s story, might as well spend the next three events hitting up the other three members of our faction. Airi has decided to try out a bunch of different things in the hopes of finding a new dream (she’s currently trying to help Otome with her medical work, but her exaggerated anime clumsiness isn’t quite doing her any favors; and you can have Hibiki channel Nelson Muntz at the sight). Otome’s with Koharu, thanking Hibiki for his help with their familial troubles while expressing some disappointment at her daughter’s warped sense of what counts as a “cute” demon. Ronaldo’s scene, finally, shows him sparing the last JP’s personnel guy we’ll be seeing, later telling Hibiki that it’s not his plan to kill everyone who opposes him; if someone disagrees with him and wants to fight him, fine, he’ll fight, but he won’t lose himself again. This scene feels a little redundant if you ask me, but what the hey, Ronaldo’s Fate finally maxes out and the penultimate Kishin, Ometeotl, is unlocked.
Fumi needs two more events before her Fates maxes. The first has her at the Crystal Court where she says that it’s been so long since she had any free time she doesn’t know what to do with herself now that the experiment that she was subjecting Jungo to failed and all the data lost. Going back to that photo we had to find a few days ago, she says that now she understands what Charles, the patriarch of the host family shown there, meant when he once said that free time is very important, since man used it to create culture. After again admitting that she’s never been good with people Fumi immediately gets an idea for a new experiment, and you get the option to call her a mad scientist to her face (her response: “That’s redundant. You can’t be a scientist unless you’re a little bit mad.”). We can then go to JP’s Nagoya to find her preparing to run a new experiment on Jungo, but this time it’s an act of atonement as she’s repurposed the busted machine from before as a medical scanner. Still, I wouldn’t want to step into something that looks like an electric chair that’s being operated by a self-professed mad scientist, and good thing too, for it immediately shorts out once the switch is thrown. Well, the road to scientific progress is littered with burnt-out wreckage... Fate Stage 5 for her unlocks Agares.
As 11:00PM is the final free event of the night before we have to go to bed, I spent the last hour with Daichi. First I had to watch that “Concepts” scene in Miyashita Park that I mentioned on Day 6, so I guess it’s mandatory if you want to see all of his subplot. The game definitely expects you to do it before now, as when talking about editing the concept of the world the characters refer to Yamato as if he was still alive, or at least still going forward with his plan if you saw this after fighting him on routes where he doesn’t die. Unfortunately it looks like I didn’t see a specific scene earlier in the game dealing with Daichi’s Fate subplot, because the one with him that appears afterward is one I’ve never seen before, where he talks about how even after seeing demons walking the earth, people rioting, and the world literally disappearing under their feet, it’s the sight of Shibuya turned into a complete ghost town that frightens him the most. Well, even if it doesn’t cap off his Fate subplot, it’s still a good ending point for him in the story since it ends with him and Hibiki vowing to meet Polaris tomorrow and finally bring things to an end.
So, as it turns out on this playthrough that I managed to max out everyone’s Fates but the Anguished One’s, which generally you can’t except under special circumstances, Yamato’s, as we can’t really continue to bond with someone who’s currently dead, and...Daichi’s. His is supposed to be the easiest and earliest to max out, so uh, go me? It’s certainly an underlining of his Butt-Monkey status, I suppose. Still, ten out of thirteen’s pretty good for a blind run-through. When we go to bed at 11:30PM Tico is once again there to see us off, claiming that when s/he said that Nicaea was ending yesterday, they were just talking about the death clip stuff. Oh, and as a bit of personal trivia, the female Tico’s summation of the day holds the dubious honor of being the first time I saw the word “douchebag” used in a video game (seriously, I’d seen/heard “douche” before but not the whole compound).
The emails we get tonight are actually affected by what you did today; you’ll only get ones from your original faction teammates, and only if you saw the completion of their subplots like I did. I did that for completion’s sake, so as a result I didn’t watch the conclusions of some of the other characters’, like Io’s or Makoto’s. I’ll save those for their respective factions’ ending routes. Ronaldo’s email has him saying that he’s fired up for tomorrow and calls Hibiki a friend. According to Airi’s email she tried cooking next after being a medical intern apparently didn’t work out, but her concoctions didn’t even reach Jungo’s chawanmushi. She exclaims that Ronaldo claimed that her food reminded him of a certain restaurant (“Cafe Mountain” according to the game, but I’m betting that’s another Bland-Name Product) in Nagoya famous for making Cordon Bleugh Chef its bread-and-butter. Joe’s has him say that he was walking around thinking of his girl, and realizing that even though he lives in Tokyo he’s always been a Nagoyan at heart. He says tomorrow he’ll save the world by going “super nagoyan”. Finally, Otome’s email comes with an attached photo of a portrait of Hibiki that Koharu drew, looking very much like the kind of scribbly caricature you’d expect from kids her age.
The dawn of the final day comes...
Compendium
- Kartikeya
◊
- Kartikeya is the second son of Shiva and Parvati, often depicted as riding the peacock Paravani in his role as commander of the army of the gods. His iconography often shows him with six heads, representing the six siddhi, or spiritual qualities that can be attained through spiritual exercise such as meditation and yoga.
- Culebre◊
- A Spanish dragon that is said to be immortal, yet as it does not have eternal youth will eventually become old and decrepit. However, it loses its immortality on Midsummer's Eve, and one of the ways to kill one then is to sneak a red-hot stone or a bunch of needles into its food.
- Oumitsunu◊
- The giant grandson of Susano'o. He is famous for expanding ancient Izumo's landmass by physically dragging part of neighboring Silla, today Korea, cross the waters, leading to tales of Japan being assembled by giants in a process known as the Daidarabocchi.
- Ometeotl◊
- A dualistic deity claimed to be the Aztec creator-god. "Claimed" because it's speculated by scholars that Ometeotl was not worshiped himself, but was actually a linguistic conflation of the gods Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl. Whatever the case, Ometeotl's dualism is not unlike nature of the Holy Trinity, and despite being billed as the creator-god, most of the creation was actually carried out by his sons.
- 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.
- Purple Mirror◊
- This demons is derived from a Japanese urban legend involving a mirror that will lay a curse on young women who forget about its existence after they turn 20. According to online articles, the legend's real-world basis is the story of a girl who developed anorexia, smashed her purple-framed mirror when she resolved to turn things around for herself, and ended up getting hit by a car and killed not long after.
- 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.
- Yoshitsune◊
- Full name Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Yoshitsune was an actual historical figure from the 12th century. Yoshitsune was a famous general who fought in the Genpei War, which saw the Minamoto and Taira clans fighting for control of the imperial court. Though the Minamoto clan won the war, in the following years Yoshitsune was betrayed by the Fujiwara clan with whom he was allies, and he and his family committed seppuku in the early summer of 1189. Today he is enshrined in the city of Fujiwara of the Kanagawa prefecture.
- Loki◊
- The Norse trickster god, who happened to be part god and part Frost Giant, enemies of the gods. Odin considered Loki a blood-brother, but since Loki stirred up a lot of trouble for the gods and mortals with his escapades he was finally imprisoned after engineering the death of the god of light, Baldr, and during Ragnarok will lead the forces of darkness against Asgard. He actually happened to be the Big Bad of Digital Devil Story, the novel that served as the genesis of the Megami Tensei franchise.
