Like Devil Survivor 1 the final battle takes place at 12:30PM. After doing the last bit of prep work (namely getting Hibiki up to Lv. 68 so that I could fuse the next Tyrant after Loki, Mot) we have the party reconvene at the new-and-improved Shinsekai Terminal Mk. 2. With everyone standing in a circle around the Terminal (there’s a conspicuous gap where Yamato should be) we go around the horn with each character giving their last few words of encouragement/excitement before Hibiki takes out his phone and activates the device. I beam of light shoots up and strikes the globe display hanging above, and the chamber’s giant gears start to move backwards as the place fills with light as we’re taken away from the material world.
The Terminal takes us to a strange, unearthly realm called the Akasha Stratum. The only solid ground is a large cracked and grooved disk (almost like a record, in fact) floating in the air, surrounded by an Alien Sky of pink and purple clouds through which ethereal sunlight is shown peaking through. It will certainly look familiar to players who’ve done poorly, as it’s the same view that’s shown on the game over screen. A voice says that we have overcome the trials and finally reached it, and a smaller disk at the center of the large one rises into the air, the floating bits beneath it revealing itself to the group as Polaris himself
◊, the Administrator of worlds who sits atop the Heavenly Throne. Thankfully everything we’ve heard so far has been true, for Polaris does indeed ask us what sort of world we wish to make now that we’ve come so far. So we say we want a world of peace and equality where humans are driven to help one another and what do you know, Polaris says that that the sort of world he desires as well!
Buuuuut there’s a catch. Before he can remake the world Polaris proclaims that he needs to...wait for it...test our strength to make sure that we can never be corrupted or something like that, and he summons a bunch of oddly-shaped objects to the field (one looks like a V, another sort of like a football, etc.). Like, I know that this is a video game and Violence is the Only Option, but come on, the whole test thing is getting seriously old by now; come up with a better justification, writers! Anyway Otome and Airi are kinda like “Really?!” at this development, but naturally Ronaldo’s a lot more passionate and fired up at the prospect of there being one more throw-down left. I guess it’s better to get it out of our systems now before the world’s rewritten to be without conflict. So, onward to the first part of the final battle!
Ronaldo Mission 10: Unseen Tomorrow
- Polaris must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
Final boss mission go! This map is a bit simpler in layout than the Mori Tower roof from the first game, but it does have some geography hangups of its own. As mentioned, there are indeed some cracks, grooves, and raised ledges built into the field that can’t be traversed without the appropriate Racial Skill, and since Team Hibiki starts at the edge and Polaris is at the center, there’s a lot of walking to be done, so you might want to have some Wilders or at least Genmas or Avians if you’re impatient. The objects that Polaris summoned to the field are called Guardians, and you’ll notice that they tend to revolve around a specific element: one focuses on Fire, another Ice, a third Physical, etc. There’s a reason for this, and in order to illustrate why we have to first take a look at Polaris’s stats:
Polaris (Lv. 75)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Almighty; Absorbs Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Reflects Physical; Nulls Curse
- Heaven Wrath - Deals multiple hits of Almighty damage to one target; number of hits are tied to the number of Guardians on the field.
- Mabufudyne - Deals heavy Ice damage to entire enemy party.
- Ziodyne - Deals heavy Elec damage to one target.
- Anti-Almighty - Grants resistance to Almighty attacks.
- Victory Cry - Recovers some HP/MP at the end of battle.
- + Poison - Normal Physical attacks may poison enemies.
- Polaris Proof - Has an infinite attack range.
Infinite attack range isn’t much of a surprise since Babel had it too and the last couple of Septentrione bosses have been building up to it. Polaris’s deal is that some of his attributes are directly tied to the Guardians that are on the field. There are seven different Guardians on the field in total, so that means that Heaven Wrath can hit one target seven times at most. That’s a very bad thing, because that’s more than the average demon will likely be able to handle and that’s the attack he’ll use the most, so while we’re trying to make our way toward Polaris we need to be taking out any Guardian that we can reach in order to reduce the number of hits. Fortunately Polaris is slow to attack, and his other two spells can be mitigated without too much trouble at this point. Still, the number of attacks can wear you down, so it is vital vital vital to have ways to restore MP or reduce spell cost, which makes it mandatory to have your main spellcasters have Tyrants on their teams and have the Magic Yang Auto Skill on at least one of them (Fumi in my case). Norn is a Megami I like using here, as not only can she heal really well as per the Megami standard, but she also comes with Mana Aid to give her some MP back at the end of every battle.
The other reason you need to take out the different Guardians is that they actually do affect Polaris’s stats. If you defeat one of the elemental Guardians, Polaris will lose one of his resistances. Beat the Fire Guardian, he’ll lose the ability to absorb Fire, and so on (beating the Physical one downgrades his ability to reflect Physical attacks to simply resisting them). Beating the Almighty one will remove his Anti-Almighty, while beating the one with Victory Cry removes his own Victory Cry, so you definitely want to get that one. And of course, make sure to crack those two skills as well. The Guardians themselves aren’t as threatening as some of the demon teams fought during the Alcor battle because they’re all alone in battle, but they do have a three-panel attack range which can be annoying. Polaris will eventually summon replacements for the Guardians that you beat and while that does make Heaven Wrath more deadly, he won’t recover the lost skills or affinities. Basically, by the time you actually reach Polaris and can fight him for real, if you’ve been diligent up until then he can be pretty manageable.
Once we get Polaris’s health down to about 30% the area will begin shaking and he’ll proclaim that what we’ve shown so far is not yet enough to bear the world and that it’s time to move on. All currently-defeated Guardians will reappear and he’ll merge with all of them, forming a vaguely-humanoid form
◊ and slightly changing the layout of the field to be more craggy while its color goes from pink to green and the sky and clouds to a burnt orange, as if the Akasha Stratum’s mysterious sun is beginning to set. With this, Polaris decrees that we must show him if we are worthy enough of a world of peace and equality, so to that end he summons a horde of demons...and a random man and woman who both have no idea what the hell’s going on and are scared out of their minds. The BGM changes from “Septentrione” to a more uplifting and atmospheric arrangement, and the mission resumes.
The second phase of the battle differs a bit depending on what route you’re on. Here we have to beat all the demons while protecting “the helpless”. As you can probably imagine the two civilians are built like marshmallow peeps and die in a single attack, while the demon teams are composed of species that either have good mobility (Ganeshas, Feng Huangs) or can constrict our own movements (Orochi, Grendels). There’s not too much strategy involves here other than staying as close to the civilians as possible and letting the demons trickle towards you. The only two teams you have to be proactive about is one led by a Vritra (penultimate Dragon, so it gets the extended attack range) and one with a Ganesha leader by the bottom of the map, as it’s positioned in a such a way so that if you don’t have your own team bodily blocking the way it will simply warp right over you to kill one of the civilians. Once all the demons are cleared out the two civilians thanks us and are warped out just as suddenly as they arrived.
On to the third and final phase of the fight. If the first phase was “day” and the second “twilight”, this one is “night” for now the scenery grows even darker and you can see stars, asteroids, and even Jupiter in the background now. Polaris assumes a third form
◊, which unfortunately I can only describe as looking like an overweight, winged marshmallow. Polaris now has three different targets to attack, his main body and the two wings, which are each named after the actual star’s two companions:
Polaris A (Lv. 75)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Nulls Curse
- Cepheid - Deals heavy Physical damage to entire enemy team.
- Megidolaon - Deals heavy Almighty damage to entire enemy team.
- Heavenly Gift - Restores Polaris B and Polaris Ab if they are defeated.
- Pierce - Physical attacks bypass Physical resistance, absorption, and nullification.
- + Forget - Physical attacks may make enemies forget.
- Heaven Throne - Has an attack range of 3 panels.
- Star Compression - Polaris charges in preparation for...
- Supernova - Polaris fires a two-panel-wide laser down the field that deals very heavy Almighty damage to all enemy parties within range.
Polaris B (Lv. 75)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Absorbs Physical; Reflects Ice and Elec; Nulls Curse
- Deathbound - Deals several random hits of heavy Physical damage to multiple targets; damage depends on user’s current HP.
- Piercing Hit - Deals moderate Physical damage to one target while ignoring Physical resistance, absorption, and nullification.
- Multi-Strike - Deals multiple Physicals hits to entire enemy party; number of hits dependent on user’s Agility.
- Ares Aid - Critical hit rate boosted by 50%.
- Avenge - High chance of countering Physical attacks.
- Attack All - Normal Physical attacks hit the entire enemy party.
- Heaven Spear - Has an infinite attack range; Polaris A deals more damage to team leaders.
Polaris Ab (Lv. 75)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Elec; Absorbs Force; Nulls Force and Curse
- Petra Eyes - Attempts to petrify the entire enemy party.
- Tetrakarn - Protects self with a barrier that reflects the next Physical attack.
- Mazandyne - Deals heavy Force damage to entire enemy team.
- Grimoire - Greater chance of inflicting ailments.
- Mana Aid - Recovers 20% max MP at the end of battle.
- Force Amp - Force attacks powered up by 50%.
- Heaven Shield - Damage dealt to Polaris A is lessened.
- Magnetite Conversion - Summons a demon team to the field.
Supernova is the second attack after Metatron’s Divine Wind that I’ve decided to designate as dealing “very heavy” damage. Like, I saw it completely one-shot Fumi despite her maxed out Magic stat (this is the first moment I’ve really seen the diluted stats that I talked about at the very beginning come into play since Hibiki survived the same attack despite having less Magic likely thanks to having a lot more Vitality). Now in later playthroughs, where our characters will be stronger and we might have Anti-Almighty spread around our demons, it will probably be possible to tank the attack without everyone being left in the red or just dead, but even so getting hit by that is something that you should avoid at all costs. The damage is lessened a bit if Polaris B is out of commission, but it still hurts a ton. Luckily Polaris telegraphs the move by using Star Compression on the previous turn, but the field is set up to trap people who’re closing in on the main body thanks to the approach being a two-panel-wide energy platform. So it’s best to wait until after he uses the attack for the first time before advancing towards him, and when he does use Star Compression just rush him with everything you have. He doesn’t resist anything noteworthy thankfully, and it is possible for him to get shocked or frozen by Elec and Ice attacks.
But in the end it’s not Supernova you really have to worry about, it’s actually Polaris B. Pardon my French, but Polaris B is a fucking piece of shit. It is ab-so-fucking-lutely brutal. An Ares Aid-boosted Deathbound or Multi-Strike (and unlike when Ronaldo used it, its Agility isn’t pitiful) from it can very, very easily wipe your team. It doesn’t have Pierce like the main body, thankfully, but there’s only so much Physical defense to go around, and most of the other tools that can help, like Tetrakarn and Shield All, are absolutely useless when you’re being attacked from range, and the wing can strike anyone from anywhere on the map! Polaris Ab, in comparison, can be safely ignored, as it doesn’t actively do anything other than summon one demon team to the field at a time.
Now, the two wings can be attacked, but the points from which you can are a bit out of the way. If you visualize the map as a U, Polaris’s main body is in the center of the empty space in the middle of the two lines while the wings are at each tip. Hibiki and co. start at the center of the trough roughly, so it’s much faster to just bumrush Polaris A. The wings don’t have a whole lot of HP compared to their boss (something like 1000 vs. 5000), and I suppose you can use a Behemoth’s Devil Flash to try zipping over, but it’s generally not worth it, unless you want to see the destabilized Polaris comically spin around once his wings are gone.
So I was burning through a lot of MP on this map in trying to keep my guys healed and/or alive, but the silver lining was that I finally got around to using the trigger effect of the Tyrants’ upgraded Racial Skill, Blood Treaty. Blood Treaty’s effect is that it triples the amount of HP and MP drained from enemies or recovered by allies, which basically means that their normal MP recovery passive is a full heal. Since I no longer had to be stingy it let me go all-out with the heavy equipment of Holy Dance, Prayer, and Samarecarm. When Polaris’s HP is finally depleted he’ll commend us and then fall apart, turning into a blue shooting star...
Following the spectacle of Polaris’s defeat the Akasha Stratum returns to the state it was in when the party first arrived, and Polaris reappears in his initial form, leading Ronaldo to exclaim that all along they were simply fighting a shadow. Polaris chides him for believing that the Administrator could ever be destroyed (uhh....) and says that he has seen beyond a shadow of a doubt that our desires are genuine, which here makes sense given all the healing and reviving that I had to do during that last phase. He says that he will grant our wish, but cannot understand why all humans can’t be like us, until Ronaldo speaks up again and says, drawing upon his character arc, that while humans do make bad decisions, they still have the power to correct themselves, just like he did. Polaris realizes that we wish not to enact a new world out of a desire to discipline, but to catalyze mankind into self-improvement. He says that that’s acceptable, but we will have to give up the power to summon demons as it was never our own, just a power borrowed from Alcor. Once we agree (and really, we’re not given a choice in the matter), the place begins to tremble and shake, and the screen whites out as the new world begins to spring into existence.
So we’re shown some scenes from each of the three cities displaying the immediate effects of the new world of egalitarianism. In Miyashita Park the SDF has set up a distribution center for food, and when they start running out of supplies the captain tells his men to start dipping into their own rations to make sure everyone gets something, then Joe and some JP’s personnel arrive with a supply truck to help distribute some of their own stockpiled food. In Osaka Otome’s leading an effort to locate and save people in Umeda who’re still injured or trapped by rubble, and in the Nagoya JP’s branch some SDF soldiers try recruiting some JP’s personnel to participate in a search-and-rescue mission, and when both sides fear that they won’t have enough manpower, Airi and some civilians arrive to help, willing to return to the danger zone despite having already been safely evacuated. The people are united in the spirit of selflessness and harmony.
The ending narration kicks in as we’re shown the sun rising over the Japan of the new world, and illustrations of happy, smiling people of all ages and the symbolic image of people holding hands. Thanks to the efforts of the party, the world did become the sort of utopia that had been long dreamed-of, not unlike the endgame in mind for the Devil Survivor 1 Law ending. Still, since I guess Atlus couldn’t help themselves, the narration slips in some speculation over whether or not man can maintain its drive to excel or not. Well, it’s open to interpretation, and I’ve presented both sides of the argument here, so it’s up to the individual to determine for themselves how they think things will work out. Regardless, the narration notes that things will rest in the hands of our heroes, and our final image is of Hibiki, Ronaldo, Otome, Airi, and Joe standing beneath the sun-bathed Nagoya cityscape.
Like the first game’s Metatron emails, after the credits roll we get one last message from Nicaea, though they’re a lot more brief and laconic. For completing Ronaldo’s route, we receive the following:
...Error.
Unable to access.
And that is that. Just like the first game your completion is tracked on the top screen of the save menu. Instead of character portraits getting filled in, this game shows a ruined skyline under the moon and stars and the silhouettes of the three towers the game’s revolved around. Completing Ronaldo’s ending has the Nagoya TV Tower get filled in, and once we save we can reload to start New Game+. So, in keeping with the format of the previous liveblog, the next update will focus on New Game+ features and the new set of bonus bosses that that entails while I work towards the decision point once more. Until then!
Compendium
- Anat
◊
- The sister/lover of Baal in ancient Semitic lore who was depicted as being so fierce that even her father, the great supreme god El, was fearful of her. The ancient Semites explained the annual changing of the seasons as a curse that she cast on the god of death, Mot, after he killed Baal and she had to go to the underworld to retrieve him, brutally defeating Mot in the process.
- Fenrir◊
- A massive wolf-beast from Norse mythology that was said to have fiery eyes and jaws so big they could devour the sky itself. The gods bound him with a dwarven chain known as Gleipnir, but during Ragnarok he is fated to break through it and kill Odin.
- Mot◊
- The ancient Semitic god of death whose throne is at the bottom of a pit in the land known as Mirey. Mot killed Baal after being implicitly threatened by the latter, but in retribution Mot was brutally slaughtered by Baal's sister Anat. However, he returned seven years later, though did not risk raising another confrontation.
- Barong◊
- A holy Balinese beast, depicted as either a lion, tiger, boar, or even dragon depending on which part of Bali you're in, that is locked in eternal struggle with the evil Rangda. Their struggle is dramatized as part of the Balinese dance that is held during festivals.
- Jarilo (NSFW)◊
- A Slavic god of spring and fertility, about whom not much was known about until the 20th century when scholars began to reconstruct his myths. He was the son of the supreme Slavic god Perun and his role in the changing of seasons was that he spent winter in the underworld tending to cattle and flora after being killed by his wife for infidelity. Once spring arrived he would be reborn into the world along with his wife, who would no longer hold a grudge.
- Tezcatlipoca◊
- One of the four sons of the Aztec god Ometeotl who created the earth by baiting the crocodile monster Cipactli with his foot and making the land out of her body. He is depicted as having a fierce rivalry with Quetzalcoatl, the two often battling one another and Tezcatlipoca destroying the sun several times, though the Aztecs factored this in as life's natural cycle of destruction and rebirth.
- Polaris
- Polaris is the brightest star of the Ursa Minor constellation, or "Little Dipper", and the star that serves as the North Star due to its extreme proximity to the northern celestial pole; time lapse exposure will show the rest of the sky appearing to rotate around it. As the pole star it has been a fixture of navigation and its many foreign names made reference to the fact. Today we know that Polaris is yellow supergiant variable star with two dwarf companions, one of which, Polaris Ab, can barely be detected thanks to its relative extreme proximity to Polaris. Polaris has not always been the pole star, nor will it always be thanks to the movement of the Earth's axis. Prior to Polaris becoming the pole star around 500 BC the star Kochab filled the role, and in a thousand years Errai will take Polaris's place, after which it will not regain its title for another twenty-five-thousand years.
Soundtrack
- Will of the Species
- Hands down easily my favorite track in the whole game. I mentioned during my Megaman Star Force blogs that I really enjoy this sort of ambient music for space-themed stuff and this definitely continues the trend.
- The Akashic Record
- The map music for the third phase. I've seen some claim that it's a Boss Remix of the the game's main theme, but I have to admit I can't really hear it. Perhaps I just don't have an ear trained for that kind of thing.
- The Administrator of the World
- And the boss battle music for that final phase. Generally you hear it as Polaris B is beating the crap out of you. It also serves as the credit music on Ronaldo's route.
- A New Order
- And the epilogue music for said route. Kind of an odd one to set to stuff talking about how the world's now a utopia, but I suppose it does fit as a sort of leitmotif for Ronaldo.
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