Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE

Let's see, left side monitors... Yeah, go for the treasure rooms. The really good stuff is hidden in the right hand monitor corridors, however.

Also, you get the skill needed to break through those super walls you see all over dungeons towards the start of chapter 5. It's at that point that you can finally finish off the LCD room, since you enter it from a different point if you go through the right hand monitors. Until then, don't worry too much about getting everything.

So I should just forget about all that until later.

Ok. I can do that.

One more thing. I got another Master Seal. I'm wondering who to use it on.

I suppose I'll deal with it after I'm done with chapter 4. I hope I can teach Mamori Open Audition soon though. It'd be really useful.

Mamori mostly only gets to Session off of Itsuki, though, so she's only very rarely join in from the back.

I'm ok with that.

Alright. I'm about ready to fight the final boss. I'll take care of that some time tomorrow. I'm tired right now.

I ended up getting all the treasure in that place despite myself so now it time to beat up a dude with a 11 year old Axe wielder.

Disclaimer: Don't tell me if he's immune to axes or anything. I'll find out myself soon enough.

Edit: I almost forgot: Did you guys know you can session off of one of the item weapons (like a dart or a hand axe)?

So I can still start one even if the character I'm using doesn't use the right weapon or spell.

I love Sessions!

edited 23rd Oct '16 8:04:04 PM by HandsomeRob

Oh, I'll tell you this, the boss has more fun in store for you than you think he does at first. Of course, when you find out who the boss is supposed to be, it suddenly all makes sense.

Hopefully I'l get it since I don't actually play much Fire Emblem. The reference might sail completely over my head.

Did you play Awakening all the way through the main story? Then you'll likely get it. If not... Eh, just tell us after you win and one of us will explain who he is.

....

Yes. Yes I did.

That's interesting if it's who I think you're talking about.

Right.

So it was not who I thought it was.

But I figured it out once Taruchino struck a specific pose.

I actually died the first time fighting him, but I did better once I ignored Yashiro and focused on Excellus. I basically used Mamori's Phys nulling attack to avoid Yashiro's attacks, and then near the end used a few Magic mirrors against Excellus and he went down.

I've been taking a break since then to do other stuff (I really want to get back on Xenoblade Chronicles X). When I get back, I'll have some new Radiant Unities, new weapons, and a new member of the team to test out.

Just out of curiosity, just who did you think it was going to be?

And yeah, the non-obvious trick to that fight is that Excellus will heal Yashiro if he takes too much damage. Although this will take a turn, the amount of effort needed for Yashiro's health to get that low means you're not dealing enough damage to Excellus to win the fight on a first playthrough, or a New Game Plus with some of the reset options taken.

And in case you're wondering, the obvious trick was the whole element swapping thing.

Heh, I just realized that quite a few elements of that fight and chapter 4 as a whole reference Excellus' role and actions in Awakening.

I assumed it was Grima.

I literally forgot about Excellus until he made Taruchino do that pose, and then it just hit me like a damn brick to the face.

Though just before The Reveal, I did finally start paying attention to that strange Painted face that kept appearing over Taruchino's figure. I knew it was important (as in, it was a clue to who was doing the possessing). I just overshot how important said possessor was in the grand scheme of things.

Excellus's retake skill actually harms him for the amount of damage that he heals. So it's a good way of damaging him by bypassing his resistances. Also Yashiro has lower defence than Excy, so potentially it can deal more damage than attacking him directly. Also also, healing means one less turn getting pummelled by Excellus's magic.

tl;dr: attack Yashiro, good things happen. Plus it's cathartic.

Well I already beat Excellus by just attacking Excellus and ignoring Yashiro.

Plus, it was easier to figure out the weaknesses of the former, and I sometime lost count of when the latter used counter so I was afraid of attacking him.

I don't know if you realized yet, but the characters at minimum keep the weaknesses they would have under Fire Emblem mechanics.

Which means that offensively speaking, Tsubasa and Touma are good choices against Yashiro, Kiria and Ellie are "meh", and Mamori is at a disadvantage. Itsuki is also rather meh, and this was one of many times I wish I could swap him out.

Against Excllus... Itsuki, Kiria, Ellie, and, Mamori are good choices, for their elemental skills and spread. Problem is, Mamori is a Knight, and if you remember the two major weakness of heavy armor in FE Awakening, you can see the issue with sending her up against a major spellcaster.

Anyways, Rob, some advice on Yashiro, now that he's joined up. If I remember correctly, he learns the most Strike skills out of the playable characters. I think he might also learn a Slayer skill or two. He's also your secondary sword user, and as far as I can tell, he alone gets access to Counter. In short, he's got quite a few possible builds, but he'll mostly be physical damage.

I see.

I knew already that using Mamori in that battle would be a disadvantage due to Yashiro being a sword user, but she didn't know Open Audition, and her attack nullifying technique seemed like it'd be useful.

I wanted to be able to string long ass sessions together to do as much damage as possible and she and Tiki had their Duo art, so there was a chance I could really dish it out.

Once I decided on my strategy of ignoring Yashiro and focusing on Excellus, it was a good way to keep the former from doing much damage.

I don't think you need one of the performers in the active party to get a Duo Art involving that performer.

I do know that the odds of a Adlib or a Duo triggering is controlled by a character's stats; I think it's the luck stat in particular. Bad news is, Luck Incenses are rare even by the standards of Incenses. If you get rather lucky, or just cycle the Fortuna drink machine's selection enough, you might get Muscle Drink EX, which... Well, you know how food and drink will boost luck for a character or two? The Muscle Drink boosts everyone's luck. It might be worth it to wait to fight a boss until it's the active effect. (Also, it's the 11th drink you need for an achievement.)

I need to start going through more drinks....and maybe using my incenses as well. I've been holding off on those for a while now for the reasons that I usually do.

I'm always afraid I'm going to use the wrong thing on the wrong person.

Didn't realize she didn't need to be in the party for the sake of Duo Arts, but I still wanted her there for Session combos. Now that I can teach her open Audition though, I can give her a break.

edited 26th Oct '16 1:24:15 PM by HandsomeRob

Every time I look back at the YMMV page for this game and it just seems overly harsh for something that turned out to be a rather good game critically and by those who played it.

Yeah, I don't recall the page being that nice. Which is a shame, since the game was rather good. Although not perfect; my two biggest issues with it were the lack of a quest tracker and the lack of an English dub.

And when your two biggest issues are a quality of life complaint and one of the longest running internet arguments... well, you're not doing all that bad, honestly.

It got off to a really bad start.

What can you do? Maybe if they hadn't announced it before it was really started, said nothing for three years, and then revealed a game that was very different from what people were expecting.

The fact that it bombed in the home country didn't help either. I get the feeling they only bothered to release it because they'd already said it was coming.

Still i at least sold better in the West at least. One good grace.

The most frustrating thing is, I keep looking things up for the harder sequences, and I'm finding nothing of real use. Was the aging up of a few characters and not getting to see them in bikinis really so upsetting that no one could be bothered to write up a full FAQ for this game?

I mean, I know it didn't sell well, but this is like the first game I've played where I find basically nothing in the FA Qs.

That's not the only set of changes they made, remember. They also completely rewrote a chapter of the game.

Anyway, seeing nothing in the FAQs is quite common for games that are both not mainstream and lack a strong niche following. This game killed the former by being on Wii U along with its entire premise (the premise would have done well on Sony platforms, but that's a moot point given the Fire Emblem part of it). The niche following was killed by the word "censorship" appearing anywhere at all.

edited 5th Jan '17 2:26:49 PM by burnpsy

That all makes sense, but this is the first time the internet has failed me on a game.

And it wasn't really that big of a change. The chapter went from Tsubasa learning confidence as a model to — Tsubasa learning confidence as a model. The only major change was going from bikinis to "fashion clothes."

edited 5th Jan '17 4:55:36 PM by drac0blade