With Hikawa's trap successful in wiping out the Mantra, we are able to briefly reunite with our friends before going separate ways. Chiaki seems to be doing fine for now, but Isamu left one prison to find himself in another, and this time the Warden means business...
We start off the video with the Hell Biker fight, which is easier than Daisoujou I have to say. If you have wind and fire protection across the team, you can deny him his turns and then you just have to beat him down. Overall, this demon is not very impressive and generally I only fuse him for collection purposes as he's probably the most worthless of the Fiends.
From there we enter Kabukicho to rescue Isamu and we run into some Mannikin friends who want us to find a fellow named Futomimi. The prison itself requires us to travel along the ceiling to bypass obstacles, unlock various gates, and then ascend to the top where we can face the ice elemental, Mizuchi. Normally, this guy isn't really that much of a problem, but he gets extremely lucky early that sets me back somewhat. However, we are able to claw our way back in and then we can bash him into oblivion.
This seems like another test map, but I do not know what they are testing. We are up against Nell who just rolls the dice really well, and it turns out the dice rolls are less significant when you have enough firepower to outright destroy her, hence Eagle. Her territory is carved up with a lot of waterways that prevent her units from supporting each other. Once you have control over the air, just systematically destroy everything going from one side to the other and you win.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60Zffh7sk0
If you have beaten Argres, you will be able to fight past where the bad ending stops. Ishmelga will be completely contained and unable to infect everyone around it. Then you will commence the real final boss fight, which is a 3 team battle. Make sure to scan everything here if you want the trophy.
Note that I have one more video to upload before just doing some random bits and pieces of the game. We have to set the stage for the coming game after all...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HPfO0-eYE
After the Red Constellation attack, a load of NPCs have been sent to the hospital and we spend this video going around and trying to find the status of everyone. We'll let Fran be the thumbnail for everyone on this one.
Additionally, on our way out, we get some clues about a mission, which is why there is a letter in the title. Some extra work is coming up...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjj8ZOPLMlo
This will be the last upload unless I go back and do the superbosses, so I am not dropping the final tag. Otherwise, I have been collecting the chest quotes throughout the game to make this video so you can read this little short story if you're inclined. I don't believe this is in the original game, but is a little yuri story penned by one of the translators. Your mileage will vary, but keep in mind that we cannot get messages off of the chests anymore, so the odds of ever seeing a third part is fairly slim.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJbC4vKCWAQ
I kind of overlevel while editing the prehistory stuff here, as you can get some levels from the clockwork automatons without counting toward your kill total. Sadly, a lot of grinding is necessary here if we want to get everything.
Now, there are two other characters who can join you here, only one of which can face the final boss as the other is optional. You can free the Prisoner early to join you for the secret bosses, but he will not be there at the end to save your pacifist run in doing so. He pops in very late here. The other is the Mimic Memett (I call him O-Robo) who will sink like a brick if you try to use him in the fish fight, which is apparently correcting a glitch/bug from the SNES version as he may not have been intended to help you there. It is fine to bring him to the Ryunosuke fight though. He is terrified by mice as you see near the end when he saves our pacifist run by taking out the guys guarding the door.
As for the bosses, since I don't get the kill EXP here and can't bring the Prisoner, I need to have a lot of power to deal with the fish. I went into the latter castle to retrieve Genji gear and a better sword so I could go toe-to-toe with him. With Suijin Tabi, we both heal off water, and I can convert water tiles to fire to deny healing. You can see that I was able to slug it out with the fish, but I ultimately got lucky with the instant kill taking place. Even without it, just using the move will still rip pieces off the boss. Worst case scenario, I could pop a healing item or two as you can shred the final bosses here with ease between Oboro and the Prisoner.
As for Majin Ryunosuke, you can fight him twice for two swords, but hopefully you can see they are not necessary. You can instantly kill him with the same move as the previous boss, so you can fish for that if inclined. If you do not want the pacifist run, you are free to bring O-Robo and the Prisoner and really gang up on him. Otherwise, I intend to poison him using Fuma Shurikens as the poison is pretty nasty. While that is going on, Oboro is smacking him with his strongest moves. Eventually he goes down, so you can see what the fight is like without the instant kill. Beating him a second time will be easier as you can use his sword against him.
As for the final bosses, I end up beating them without taking damage since the Prisoner can turn targets, allowing Oboro to attack with impunity. Basically, the former is holding them down while the latter beats them.
This is the beginning of a trend where a lot of the chapters will be single videos, so expect to fly through a lot of the game in the coming week.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2xwlCoUZHw
And this is where everything ends. Having to hop back to chapter 6, we must win over Sakamoto, who will help us with the final exorcism. The Departed realizes that its course of action makes it the same as those who killed them and shows mercy to prevent history from repeating itself and a new Departed from being created. We try to leave the restored girls alone, but with some effort, they are able to recall everything that happened and escape the curse.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g51NKCfAxFA
Sadly, one cannot simply walk into the Fairy Village. To make it through there, we have to deal with the rescue force assembled by the fairies to rescue the humans, which is why Fionn is where he is when he is. He hits hard, and the majority of his attacks are physical, so you will not have any demons immune to his attacks, meaning you can either bring resistant guys, or debuff him to the point it doesn't matter. I went with the latter.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCVBxxRn_-g
Both parts of chapter 14 are here since the second one is less than ten minutes long and has no player involvement. For the first part, we need to do the mental battle and chapter battle since they come swinging out the gate. At this stage, I am trying to use the mental battles to boost some of the characters I never used in anticipation of the "true" ending. When we get to the chapter battle, we just need to pick off the VIPs to end it.
As for the bosses here, they have a lot of status immunities, but not to everything. Put the correct status on the correct enemy, and you can basically shut them down. Sadly, for mages, they still pack a lot of physical strength, so make sure you bring healers. If you do this correctly, you can use the enemy fortifications against them, so be creative in how you want to bring them down.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy06DpJUgmk
As promised, here is the alternate route for chapter 3, where we go to Aesfrost instead of Hyzante. You would miss out on Corentin to get this, and I am increasingly convinced he is the best mage in the game, so I would still recommend Hyzante first. Here, we pick up Rudolph who can trap enemies like Jens, but is much more offensively oriented. Like Archibald and Hughette, he is a ranged fighter, and he gets his bonuses by standing still or getting kills.
Otherwise, we get to explore the city when it is not on fire here, and we can even dig through the archives where there is a reference to one of the harder to get characters there. We will be working on getting her, and once I get a little further in, we can see how close we were overall.
The chapter battle is featured here, which is a little annoying as there is no good position to anchor down at, especially if you are trying to keep Sycras alive. If you don't mind abandoning him, then by all means race to a better position. You should know they exist here as I exploited some of them in Roland Chapter 19.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vl_z4bPa0