So now our only direction is Isabeau wondering if there’s some large population center we can find. We’ve already exhausted everywhere in Ueno, Chiyoda, and Jouhoku which was just a wasteland. We still can’t get into the Ring of Gaea’s territory via Tokyo Station. Fortunately though, the direction guy on the world map also tells you to how to get to one of Tokyo’s most well-known neighborhoods. Just north of him is another ferryman, and for the low, low price of 500 macca he’ll take you over to Shinjuku.
If Chiyoda’s the seat of Japan’s federal government than Shinjuku’s essentially the seat of Tokyo’s government but it’s certainly seen better days since a lot of it’s choked with poison, including right where the ferryman drops us off. Macabres are hanging around too, appropriate since they know both Blight and Pandemic Bomb. Hope you got Posumudi and a cache of Dis-Poisons on hand! Right near us is what appears to be the entrance to a subway station and examining it says that we can use it to travel to Ikebukuro but we’ll put that on the back burner. The area of the Shinjuku Region is actually pretty large and extends pretty far south into where the Meguro and Setagaya wards are located in real life, but what we want to do is hook south and then east once we’re past the poison since that’ll take us to the skyscrapers in the heart of Shinjuku. One of two entrances to Shinjuku National Park can be reached here and it’s a big looping area with a suspicious magic barrier of some sort at the very back. The two treasure chests here have some good loot though (a Balm of Rising and a Summon Stone, which fully revives a demon and pulls them right into the active party in one fell swoop) and there are some people we can talk to in a side area for some world building. Apparently the park is a food source for Tokyo since the Ashura-kai have established some farms here even though it’s tough to grow crops without any natural sunlight. Plus a lot of the demons you’ll encounter here get eaten too since they’re part of the new Food race (mostly consists of demons who’re normally UMAs).
More important is a giant set of scaffolding visible in the background. According to one of the NPCs it used to support a cocoon-like structure that appeared one day before the ceiling covered Tokyo and disappeared along with scores of children supposedly kidnapped by angels rescuing them from the “Filth”. Hmm, and when you consider that the people of Mikado had to come from somewhere /thinking emoji/…
Returning to the world map, just north of the park’s entrance nestled by some skyscrapers is the entrance to Shinjuku Station, the local underground district. When we reach the turnstiles that lead underground a scene starts up where the party encounters an odd sight: a high school girl, uniform blazer and skirt and all. The first thing she does is ask the apprentices where we’re from and upon answering “The surface.” she says that we must be the angels that everyone’s talking about. She then introduces herself as Hikaru after some prompting from Isabeau and announces that she’s “interested” in us all (prompting a...an arousal from within Walter given the look his portrait shifts to in the background). So interested she even knows of our hunt for the Black Samurai somehow, and suggests we visit a place in Ikebukuro called the Juraku Bookstore. She leaves with another declaration that she’s “interested” in us and leaves, with Isabeau grumbling that she can’t abide Hikaru’s sort. Jonathan wonders how the girl could’ve known about the literature aspect of their quest but just chalks it up to their growing infamy. Eh, it’s probably nothing.
So we’ve got some more explicit direction now but we still have to do things in Shinjuku before we can move on to Ikebukuro. The aboveground entrance area to the Shinjuku underground is actually somewhat big with some good loot tucked away like a Summon Stone and a 10-Point Card, and there’s also a side room behind some closed shutters with a woman behind who’ll issue a challenge quest we’ll get to in just a sec. Once you head down the stairs the underground here’s actually a bit smaller than Ueno’s but that’s largely due to the fact that one end of it’s sealed off by a large shutter. The Ashura-kai have more of a presence here, guarding both the big set of shutters and an exit leading to west Shinjuku. Due to an outbreak of “Corpses” however no one’s being let through the latter unless they’re taking on the quest to dispose of them, and the former at all.
The black market here sells the Catcher and Survival equipment sets (hockey gear and more combat vests) that aren’t really too remarkable in the scheme of things. In the realm of firearms it’s got the Virus Rounds that can sicken enemies as well as the next set of elemental bullets, the Salamander/Undine/Gnome/Sylph Rounds if you’re going Strength/Dexterity. The consumables’ shop has Tetraja Stones for sale which protect from instant death in case all the Mou-Ryo and their Mudos in the area make you nervous.
Now there’s a third set of shutters down here but it’s one that we can manually retract by pressing a button on the wall nearby. Past it is an elevator that serves as an alternate entrance from above ground and a Terminal. This time the Terminal Guardian approaches us in the guise of “Host-like man” and boasts that he’ll show us what someone our senior can do. This time he’s going for quality over quantity.
Ose
HP
- 897
- Resists Dark
- Fatal Sword - Deals moderate Physical damage to one enemy.
- Blight - Deals damage and may poison all enemies.
- Dekunda - Removes debuffs.
Yeah, and he wasn’t kidding. Ose is the Terminal Guardian’s toughest demon yet and actually stands a good chance of giving you a game over. Mainly through him being able to hit like a truck. You’ve got Fatal Sword, you’ve got the ever-annoying Blight, you’ve got a multi-hitting normal, and you’ve got Dekunda to thwart attempts to weaken him. Though it can be worth trying to debuff him anyway so that he’ll waste a press-turn canceling it. You need every advantage you can get with this one.
Winning earns us a Bead.
And now the Terminal network includes Shinjuku. Since we have to take on a challenge quest to progress, let’s take on a bunch of outstanding ones first. The hustle never ends!
Shinjuku Quest 1 - Quality Food
The client wants four Succulent Porks since he’s tired of having to scrounge up low-quality demon meat all the time. Succulent Pork is dropped from Katakirauwa and since they first showed up a while ago I’ve got a healthy supply of them. This is one of those quests that reward you with an assortment of relics.
Shinjuku Quest 2 - Shelter Inspection
This is the one that’s issued by the Hunter behind the aboveground shutter whose name is Kanae going by the name on the quest description. Her deal is that she’s writing up a report on the state of the Counter-Demon Force base at the behest of a man named Fujiwara and wants to get a photograph of the place to go with it. She’s heard from Nozomi that Flynn’s a “photographer-in-training” so she taps us for it. You just gotta go to the briefing room in the Kasumigaseki bunker to snap a picture of it, then return to Kanae with photo in hand for the Olive Camouflage helmet. Like most modern headgear in the game it raises Strength and Dexterity but does nothing for Magic, Agility, or Luck which I guess makes some sense.
Mikado Quest 12 - Relic Recovery: PC
This is the first of the Monastery’s requests for high-tech relics. These can be tricky because you basically have to farm relics from the storefronts of electronic shops and hope you get what you need from them. I personally find it easier to just do delivery challenge quests that hand out relics instead. Just seems more reliable to me. Delivering a Laptop PC earns us 2200 macca.
Mikado Quest 13 - Relic Recovery: Power Cable
Well in order to run an electronic device you do need some juice for it…never mind the fact that there’s nothing to plug the cable in to yet. This earns us another 2200 macca.
Mikado Quest 14 - Creating Fireproof Clothing
Q wants four Kaso’s Hides and we’ve got more than enough. 3450 macca is the first reward, the second is that we can buy the Fire Guard armor. This is the first armor to grant full-on immunity to something other than Dark, in this case Fire, but you gotta be careful since it’s weak not only to Ice, but to Light as well. Risky, but can be worth it.
Finally we’ve got some new quests that Burroughs has added to the list herself. These are VR training quests where Flynn has a preset team and moveset and you have to take out the opposition in a certain number of turns. You don’t get game overs if you’re killed in them and they do give out cash rewards, so why not?
VR Quest - Training Battle 1
We have to defeat an Ippon-Datara within five turns armed only with a Dzelarhons and a Pyro Jack. Problem is the only spell our demons know is Agilao, and Ippon-Dataras naturally null Fire. This one also knows Heat Wave and he’ll one-shot the party with it. Thus the solution is to have Flynn spam Tetrakarn every other turn. On the even numbered turns the Ippon-Datara will instead cast Maragi and everyone on Flynn’s side, himself included, naturally reflect it. Ippon-Datara will kill himself that way, earning us 1000 macca.
VR Quest - Training Battle 2
This one pits Flynn, a Kaso, and a Naga up against the three original Jack Brothers: Jack Frost, Pyro Jack, and Jack the Ripper - together for the first time since 1995’s Jack Bros. on the eye-searing Virtual Boy (also if you want a laugh, check out that game’s North American box art as it’s something else)! We have to beat them all in one turn and luckily Flynn’s team is perfectly equipped for that. Flynn himself takes out Jack the Ripper with Lunge, Pyro Jack falls to Naga’s Bufula, and then Kaso evaporates Jack Frost with Maragi, earning us another 1000 macca. As a side note, if you fail to beat them in a single turn you don’t lose by default; you’ll lose because they’ll nuke you with Great Logos, one of the few “severe”-level attacks in the game. Known as Big Bang back in Strange Journey it’s the strongest Almighty attack in terms of raw damage, but it’s not the best overall since there’s one more upgrade lurking out there…
Next time we’ll see about those “Corpses”.
Compendium
- Shikome
- A shortened form of Yomotsu Shikome, the hideous female demons of the Japanese underworld of Yomi. When Izanagi was chased out of Yomi after catching a glimpse of his wife Izanami\'s rotten face he was pursued by an army of Yomotsu Shikome and their male counterparts Yomotsu Ikusa. The Ikusa he shook off by throwing peach seeds, the Shikome he distracted with thrown grapes and combs.
- Tattooed Man
- This demon is inspired by the yakuza practice of covering oneself with large tattooed, usually on the back but sometimes over a larger area. These tattoos are very elaborate and signify the member\'s rank and status within the organization. In fact the yakuza are so well-known for this practice that body art has become stigmatized in modern Japanese culture.
- Jack Frost
- An English winter spirit personifying frost, ice, sleet, and similar bad winter weather. By the late 19th century his depiction in literature was gradually changing from an Old Man Winter figure to a mischievous sprite. Stepping away from mythology, Jack Frost is the mascot of both the Megami Tensei games and of Atlus itself and it comes in many different forms and permutations, all with the \"Hee-ho!\" Verbal Tic.
- Pyro Jack
- This Irish sprite is derived from the legend of the Jack O\'Lantern, a stingy farmer that wanders the land with a turnip for a head and a lantern in hand after being denied access to Heaven. In Megami Tensei lore he is brother to Jack Frost and shares his \"Hee-ho!\" Verbal Tic.
- Kikimora
- Kikimoras are Slavic house spirits. If a household is in order they will take it upon themselves to help out with housework and other chores, but if it isn\'t they\'ll make noise, break things, and make babies cry in order to make the neglectful homeowners miserable. It\'s in-game design is identical to an illustration drawn by Russian illustrator Ivan Bilibin.
- Mandrake
- The mandrake root is a plant that naturally grows in the Mediterranean area of Europe. It\'s a rather toxic plant whose alkaloids can cause hallucinogenic and hypnotic episodes among other unpleasant side effects. Its roots can be oddly human-shaped and old superstitions had it that the plant would scream when pulled from the earth, killing whoever heard it and condemning them to Hell.
- Okiku-Mushi
- This demon is derived from an old Japanese ghost story about a servant girl named Kiku who was pushed down a well to her death by a samurai who had fallen into a one-sided love with her. She became a vengeful ghost that took on a half-insect form in pop culture after Japan experienced an infestation of well-dwelling worms in the late 18th century.
- Chupacabra
- Chupacabra are reptile-like cryptids sighted in Puerto Rico feasting on the blood of goats and other livestock. In actuality Chupacabra are likely just sightings of normal mammals like dogs and coyotes who happen to be suffering from mange and similar conditions.
- Ippon-Datara
- Ippon-Datara is a one-legged creature, supposedly a blacksmith, who lives deep in the Japanese mountains. Its existence is apparently evidenced by a single, giant rogue footprint found in the snow of Mt. Kumano in Fukushima Prefecture.
- Nozuchi
- A fat snake-creature originally seen as a god of the plains and one of Izanami\'s children. Today it is more closely associated with the tsuchinoko cryptid.
- Caladrius
- In Roman mythology Caladrius is a white bird who lived in the homes of kings and could sense illness in others and actually take the sickness into itself and later disperse it after flying away. In the Middle Ages it was thought that if a Caladrius looked at a sick person the patient would live but if it averted its gaze the patient was a goner.
- Ose
- The fifty-seventh demon of the Goetia who appears in the form of a leopard. His name may come from os, the Latin word for \"mouth\", since he always speaks the truth concerning divine and secret knowledge and teaches men the arts of the liberal sciences. On the other hand he can also induce temporary insanity in men should he so choose with the victims being none the wiser.
- Parvati
- The wife of Shiva in Hindu mythology. Despite nominally being the goddess of love and fertility in some myths she is presented as having wild, demonic aspects, such as Durga, a ferocious fighting form, or Shakti, an embodiment of pure chaos. Other aspects are more benign, such as Akhilandeshwari, the goddess of water.
- Bai Suzhen
- Chinese for \"white lady\", Bai Suzhen was a snake spirit who fell in love with and married a young man named Xu Xian. A tortoise spirit becomes jealous of Xu Xian and attempts to kill him, then drive apart his marriage bey revealing his wife\'s true, inhuman nature. Eventually he succeeds in imprisoning her within a temple, but is later driven into hiding by their son, enabling the beloveds\' reunion.
- Pabilsag
- Also known as Pa Bil Sag, Pabilsag is a part man, part scorpion being who was revered by the ancient Babylonians as the one who guards the entrance to the demon world, fearsome enough to even frighten the hero Gilgamesh. He is thought to have become the model for the centaurs who appeared in Greek myth centuries later, and the archer depicted by the Sagittarius constellation is also thought to have been him.
- Dantalian
- The seventy-first demon of the Goetia. He is a demon with the faces of all men and women, and his role when summoned is to teach the summoner all of the secrets of art and science.
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