3rd Day - Tuesday’s Disquiet
Once again we rise and shine at seven in the morning with Makoto coming to greet us, apparently coming into Hibiki’s room while he’s still getting dressed or something, because one of the dialogue options is to call her a pervert to expected results. She admits to being a little socially-inept thanks to hr time with JP’s (which is pretty much a basket case of Bunny Eared Lawyers, really) and breaks the news that they’ve lost contact with the Nagoya branch and by extension Daichi. Though she doesn’t want us to get involved any further, she requests that he, Io, and Joe meet her at Shinbashi in an hour so that we can head west to see what’s going on there with our own eyes. Naturally we accept, and afterward we get an email saying that the Demon Compendium feature is now available. Sweet.
So for the time being we’re left to our devices, and we can see that Hibiki’s currently the only one of the group who’s currently available for battle. We can fill the time talking to our friends or engaging in a rather unique battle, which I’ll get to in just a sec. There’s a scene with Joe lost in thought at Shiba Park and once again he tries to be all evasive concerning what’s on his mind, but when he hears about the Nagoya trip he reveals that the reason he was so reluctant to go there yesterday was because that’s where his girlfriend is, and “stuff” happened between them. However, he promises that he’ll be at the station at the designated time. We can also meet with Makoto in front of the Mori Tower. In a scene that builds off the Yamato one from yesterday, it concerns her planning to head off to back up some JP’s personnel in a demon battle when a woman comes up to her, pleading for help for an injured friend. Makoto merely redirects her to where the SDF is stationed, causing the woman to storm off in a huff and for Makoto to tell Hibiki that as a JP’s member she has to keep her priorities in order. Still though, you can tell it’s eating at her.
Now about that “unique” battle...it’s actually a bonus mission but not like the ones on New Game+. It’s not plot-important but it will eat up time, so if you choose to do it you’ll be unable to see one of the three character events currently available before departure time (so, sorry Joe). Hibiki will be passing by Hibiya Park when he’ll hear a strange voice, and upon entering the concert venue we’ll see the eccentric, big-mouthed demon Ghost Q up on the stage. No treasure hunt this time, when he sees us he’ll declare that he’ll duke it out with us in a fair, one-on-one fight.
So he summons a bunch of demons to the field. Once again, my face
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Mission 10: Vs. Q
- All demons must be defeated
- Hibiki cannot die
Oh boy, this really does force you to use just Hibiki. If you tried to use dialogue options to force Joe or Io into the party (dick moves both, especially in Io’s case as we’ll see afterward) and deploy them Ghost Q will simply beat it ‘cause we’ve broken his arbitrary rules and you won’t get the reward for beating him. There are about six enemy teams, Ghost Q included, and taking them all down alone this early in the game’s a tall order. The game probably wants you to wait for New Game+ to do this, but it is doable now, as I am about to demonstrate, though you really have to know what you’re doing and have more than a bit of luck.
This is the first battle in both games where I’ve really had to take advantage of the mechanic of dismissing and summoning demons from the stock. I did some fusing around, so to start with I’m equipping Hibiki with a Sarasvati and a Waira. The Sarasvati knows the upgraded version of Dia, Diarama for healing and thanks to fusion knows Force Dance. The Waira I’m using for its Devil Speed Racial Skill so that I can get up onto the stage to confront Ghost Q ASAP. While the mission objectives do stipulate beating everyone, if you beat all the demons before Ghost Q he’ll split for an escape panel, and will almost certainly make it before you can reach him, again depriving you of the reward for beating him. Once you do reach the stage...
Ghost Q (Lv. 26)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Ice and Elec; Nulls Curse
- Berserk - Deals several random hits of Physical damage to multiple targets.
- Nigayomogi - Attempts to poison the entire enemy party.
- Anger Hit - A low-accuracy attack that deals a critical Physical hit to one target.
- Anti-Curse - Grants resistance to Curse attacks.
- + Poison - Physical attacks may poison enemies.
- Beast Eye - Allows two actions per turn during battle.
- Uncanny Form - Sacrifices some MP to immediately act again.
His setup’s not too different from what it was in the previous game. I had to change Hibiki’s load-out around a bit in order to deal with this little bugger. I gave him Amrita to deal with the poison, Agi because some of the other demons are weak to Fire, and left an open spot for a Force Dance cracked mid-mission off an Abraxas. Passively he got Dodge, which boosts Physical evasion rate, and Anti-Curse to ward off Nigayomogi. Sarasvati naturally nulls Curse, so that’s another good reason to have her aboard so that Ghost Q will lose extra turns, as four actions at this stage in the game can wreck you. Like the first game you want to hope that he tries using Anger Hit more often than Berserk due to it’s general inaccuracy.
Aside from that, Ghost Q also happens to have a three-panel attack range, so he can still strike you with impunity. And while he’s doing that, the demon teams left over will be catching up, and once they start ganging up on you your fate’s in the hands of the RNG. If you can’t beat them your turn will keep getting pushed further and further back until there’s pretty much nothing you can do but get wailed on until you reset to your last suspend. The one mercy you get here is that Ghost Q does not use his Racial Skill, otherwise you’d really be up Shit Creek. MP will start to run low pretty quickly, so make sure you have a reserve stock of fresh demons to call upon. Aside from Sarasvati, I primarily used a Lilim and a Nekomata for the latter stages of the battle. The latter knew Multi-Hit, the little brother of Multi-Strike that hits only one target, so that came in handy, especially when combined with the critical hit rate-boosting Hero Aid. It takes skill and a lot of luck, but I made it through after a couple of attempts.
Completing the mission earns us 250 EXP and 1400 macca.
For completing that annoying, annoying mission we’re sent an email saying that Ghost Q has been unlocked for fusion, though he’s a little above our level at the moment. He’s the first Fiend of the game (they’re another one of the game’s new playable races) and he’s a special fusion, created by fusing together Jack Frost and Ogun. Then I guess Hibiki just looks at the camera, silently shrugs, and then goes on his way.
Well, on to much more serious matters. The next event takes place at a subway station in Ikebukuro and it’s not the rather ominous title of “Fading Wish”. We can see that the place has been converted into a makeshift hospital for victims, or rather, field morgue is more like it since the platforms are lined with body bags. This is where we find Io volunteering as part of her promise to chip in however she can, but after exchanging a few words on how horrible things are she quickly tells Hibiki to wait for a sec when we start mentioning the Nagoya trip. Some JP’s members are bringing in another injured victim on a gurney, and as they pass the two teens Io as she recognizes the victim as being her mother. One of the gurney-bearers tells her to come with them into the medical tent, which is never a good sign.
So Hibiki waits outside the tent, and after a little bit Io emerges and says quietly that her mother died, and that she learned that her father is dead too. Faced with this one-two punch and questioning why this happened to her, she’s obviously in no condition to talk about the new mission with, so the correct response is to give her some space to grieve, and she thanks Hibiki for that on his way out. This event boosts her Fate up to Stage 2, and thankfully the rank-up sound effect is a lot less mood-breaking than the corresponding giant KA-CHING! SHAAAA.... sound that Social Links have.
So, with that tragic discovery hanging over our heads, it’s time to meet Makoto in the secret station platform to board the train to Nagoya. Once we’re there Joe and Io show up to rejoin the party (Io insisting that she’s okay now) and then finally Makoto arrives to inform the group that she’s sent word ahead to the Nagoya JP’s branch of our arrival, though she doesn’t know if anyone will be there to greet us. We arrive at the Nagoya platform at about 9:30, and sure enough there’s no JP’s detachment or anyone else around to receive us. Joe also notes that their phones are no longer getting signals, wondering if perhaps the JP’s branch was destroyed. He cracks that they should go back to Tokyo now that they know what’s going on but Io reminds him that they still need to find and save Daichi.
It’s time to hit the streets for some info. But first, let’s see how Io’s really holding up. She’s at Yamada Park in the Sakae district, reminiscing on when her family came here to attend the 2005 World’s Fair. She thinks she’s troubling Hibiki by talking about all this and tries to power through her sadness by insisting that she isn’t the only one in such a spot, but we’ll see about that, we’ll see...
At 10:00 we’re thrust into a story mission at Nagoya Station, where just as Joe is commenting that so far things don’t appear too bad the group hears a voice shouting “Take that, JP’s goons!” and see a bunch of belligerent demon tamers gathered in the station’s concourse. A red-haired, tempermental girl appears on the concourse’s upper level shouting that she’s going to beat them all, and upon learning who we are calls down that her name’s Airi Ban, and she’s from the Nagoya JP’s branch. These guys apparently stole some food from JP’s, and she demands our help in taking them down. Well, so much for Nagoya being not too bad off.
Mission 11: Girl in Pursuit
- All rioters must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Airi cannot die
Like the first mission on Day 2, it’s not the end of the mission if the guy carrying the box of food makes it up the map’s escalator and to the escape panel on the upper level. And just like that mission that’s a good thing, because since he doesn’t fight unless engaged he’ll get to move more often, and another tamer will immediately head up the escalator to head Airi off so she won’t be able to get to him quickly.
I however, want to get that guy because he’s packing Mow Down, and I didn’t crack it off of Merak yesterday. Catching up to him is a bit of a pain due to how the map is laid out; the starting panels are all the way at the bottom-most part of it, and between us and the tamers are several circular planters, including a clock, that take a while to do around. So I gave Joe Moh Shuvuu and Waira so that I could combine their Racial Skills in order to bypass the obstacles as much as I could and I did manage to beat the guy when he was only a few panels away from escaping, which was nice. Another tamer also has Tailwind to crack, making it only our second Auto Skill of the game. The rest of the tamers are about two-to-three levels below my guys, and Airi doesn’t need much help since she won’t see all that much action up on the upper level and has a Sarasvati anyway, so she won’t be lacking in damage and support.
Completing the mission earns us 600 EXP and 1600 macca.
Airi explains what’s been happening in Nagoya. After the disaster food and other supplies are starting to run low, and the citizens of the city have been whipped up into a frenzy by a man named Ronaldo Kuriki, who’s accused JP’s of hoarding the relief aid. The local branch has been overrun by the rioters, and she’s been separated from someone she’d been working with, a young man named Jungo Torii. So that’s the problem that we’re going to work on next, and Airi runs off somewhere after we agree to go help look for everyone instead of doing the smart thing and sticking with us. Time for a break while I shuffle my team around and do some fusing.
Compendium
- Sarasvati
◊
- The Hindu goddess of knowledge and fine arts. She is one of the Tridevi, the three consorts of the gods Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu.
- Lilim◊
- Lilim are night spirits said to be the children of Lilith as fathered by the angel of death. They are generally very similar to succubi, though mothers feared them especially thanks to their tendency to kidnap children from their beds.
- Nekomata◊
- A cat yokai spirit that comes in two types: those that live in the mountains, and those that were originally domesticated cats that lived to a great age. The latter type can usually be identified by their split tails.
- Abraxas◊
- Abraxas is a term from a certain branch of Gnosticism which originally referred to an ultimate god, far stronger than the Christian God and Devil, a harmony of opposites. Its iconography is that of a chimera-like figure with the head of a rooster, torso of a man, and serpents for legs, and stones with this image carved on them are known as Abrasax stones.
- Ghost Q◊
- Ghost Q seems to be inspired by a Japanese urban legend of a ghost that sneaks into homes and devours twenty-five bowls' worth of food, forcing families to spend more on food with the result of them falling into debt. Aside from that the only reference I can find for its name comes from a 70s children's manga, Q-taro the Ghost.
- Gozuki◊
- A Chinese demon (known in that language as Niu Tou, or "Ox-Head") that guards the entrance to the underworld to prevent spirits from escaping before their penance/punishments are completed. It is almost always partnered with Mezuki.
Soundtrack
- Shudder
- The human bosses had their turn, now it's time for the demon bosses to get their own hard-rockin' battle theme.
