|
Robindaybird posted:Now it's got brought up, what's the Spoiler Policy? If the thread hasn't seen it, no posting. I'd quote the OP but that's a pain on mobile even with Awful  e: oh hey new page AweStriker fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Nov 23, 2016 |
#
?
Nov 23, 2016 19:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 19:07 |
|
|
 Prayer Before we head on out, doin' the usual.  I didn't pay them much heed. I still don't get it, though... What's it doing in here...?  It's only a possibility, mind you... It might not work. But what choice do we have than to cross our fingers and fire it up? We have to do SOMETHING.  For a demon to be so friendly with a human... is its psychic makeup different than normal? Or... is it a more animalistic instinct? It's very interesting. I wish I could examine it more...  Oh well... No one's better than me when it comes to indoor combat in a wide arena. They say I can go back to the battlefield soon, so I'm ready to raise some hell! We'll talk to Irving and Chen in a bit, of course, but first we gotta know what this gives us.  Four new SubApps from the Stone Fragment. Enemy Begone is kinda ehhh but it has its uses I suppose. The default encounter rate isn't all that high, and this doesn't reduce it all that much either. HP Regen I restores the full team's HP by 1% every few steps. Not too awful so I'll be equipping that one just for convenience. Gambler increases odds of skill changes on level up. Might use that for something really silly later. Really silly.  Fracastoro is very useful and important. Size of 0 and prevents fusion accidents? No reason to remove this unless you are explicitly after something that can only be gotten via an accident.   Tsk, what'm I sayin'!? I musta gone loco for a minute there... Findin' forma buried outta the way in dark corners... That's where the romance is!  The mall is a copy of one on Earth, so are the products copies, too? Or... something worse? I'm a materials analyst, so I really get off on this stuff. This is the most of Carina we'll be seeing today. Gonna be spending the vast majority of time in Bootes still, just to finish it off.   Our awful location, lousy selection, and terrible customer service make us #1 in shopper mortality! I was only joking around, but... I'm sure that's the demon's plan. Never let your guard down. Dent doesn't have anything new to talk about, but asking about sidequests specifically...  There are two missions I was saving for you. Here's the first one... This request is from Mia. Well, now I have. It seems like the work of a demon, but something's strange about it. The crew refuses to use the head until it's sorted out. Could you do something about it? No.We'll be back to do this one later, for sure. Not doing it now because then we're locked into doing that and nothing else. Rather finish up some other stuff first! You won't take it...? What a shame. Well, talk to me if you change your mind about that. Oh, here's the mission I wanted you to do. This is a mission from Gekko. It's Gekko's job to collect that data. Could you give him a hand? You can get more details directly from him. Will you grant Gekko's request? Yes.  My name is Gekko. I belong to the monitor team. Can I bother you for a moment? I need somebody to talk to... It's about the data our Demonica suits are constantly accumulating. That data is streamed to the command unit, but there've been a few anomalies lately. My job is to collect that data from any destroyed Demonicas. If I succeed, what we learn may help us add more functions to the Demonica. I'll understand if you're not comfortable looting corpses, but I could really use the help. I'll do it. Really? You have no idea how helpful that'd be. There's a lot of anomalous data, but most of it has teh same contents. That's good, because there is only one piece of data per sector. Well, I wish you luck. We can't actually finish off the black box thing yet, but we have some business in Antlia anyway. Might as well do as much as we can for now. A Scorched Nation Mamedanuki is the only Enemy Search demon in Antlia that we haven't really seen. They appear 75% of the time and always come solo. Takeminakata is the other 25% and he also appears solo here.  Mamedanuki on paper is kind of clever and theoretically strong. He resists Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind but all are only 75% instead of the usual 50%. His only weakness is to Sleep specifically which has a 200% inflict rate. In terms of skills, he is the only demon to naturally have Sleepwalker and his source is the only one that gives it as well. Sleepwalker lets you dodge everything while asleep, you see (...something about that sounds familiar). He also has Getsu-Ei and Needle Rush.  Except, uh, Mamedanuki is kind of weak as poo poo and crumples if you look at it funny. He's also a bizarrely weird demon in that he does not have any Forma! His forma is technically that UMA Tissue we only get as part of a sidequest (and it sells for a whole 1 Macca anyway as a result). Oh, and as the portrait in the bottom screen tells you, the blue thing on top of it is not its head. It's just there for intimidation which is kind of adorable.  Anyway, I told you to remember where this dead body was. It's for Gekko's information thing.  We can choose to not read the report here if we really wanted. There's no bonus for choosing no, so...  My observations so far follow:  Crumpled buildings, smoky sky, that strange tower in the distance... It feels like an occupied city. The sector's main characteristic is the way it confronts you with death and destruction...  There is something else to do in Antlia, but for the sake of convenience we'll leave and go to Bootes for now. A Frivolous Nation We do need more than these two to finish the quest, so we'll be getting a report in Carina as well when we find it.  My observations so far follow:  It's a kind of tacky, rococo palace with clasing color schemes and terrible taste. Everything, from the large jars to the smoke to the torture devices, makes me think of decadence... That's all we can do with this for now. Back to Antlia we go... A Scorched Nation Let's deal with this one now. It's relatively lengthy...  Can I help you, SIR? Oh, him. Yeah, I'm practically his slave. That drat Karasu acts like he's the boss but he doesn't do a drat thing himself. I'm killin' time like this 'cause I can't take it no more. ...I don't want nothin' to do with that dumb Karasu anymore. Yeah, enough is enough. I'm through with that guy. Here y'go. That's what the stupid Karasu wanted to deliver to him. Well, eff that. Sorry about this, man, but could you give it to him? Thanks. A Frivolous Nation  Hey, what's this? Aren't you gonna tell me about... Huh...? This box... this is the thing I asked him to get... Don't tell me he's tryin' to cut ties with me! Tch... I always thought he was an obedient follower... Now that I think about it, I don't even know where the dude hangs... How can I call myself a leader if I don't know that?Antlia, back end of B1F and all over B2F. Pretty sure I mentioned that already. A braggart tengu... pretty funny stuff, huh? Sorry, man, but can I ask you another favor? Give this to Koppa. You'll do it, right?  And now we have to go back to Antlia. And wait for Koppa Tengu to turn up in a random encounter. And because I just got insanely unlucky, this took around 15 minutes. Augh. A Scorched Nation  Tch... why now, after all that bossin' me around? He can play nice all he wans, but I ain't changing my mind that easy. I'm gonna go off and do stuff for a while. But if I get bored of that... Well... maybe I'll think it over.> The demon left. And back to Bootes... A Frivolous Nation  Oh well. Guess I gotta wait. Sorry, man, I didn't mean to stick you with messenger duty. But yeah, it's just like you heard. It's between the two of us now. Seems like you got your own demon underlings... Make sure you don't get to be a slave driver like I did. And after doing all that back and forth all we get is the exact same amount of macca we get from selling either Chupacabra's skin or Takeminakata's horns. Even if you do this the moment you step foot into Bootes, it's still not worth it. Really just skip this one if you're not gunning for 100% completion or something. Palace of Pleasure Now, let's finish off feeding Hariti. We gotta find this bifuricated heterochromatic lady hanging out over in this dead-end on the part of the 5th floor that's worth your time. This is the entire reason this spot exists, yes.   I'm Persephone. What did you come for?> You explained the details...  Are you dense? These are hard to come by. I'm not going to simply hand it over. Well, why didn't you say so in the first place! She's a great friend of mine. Here you go. Oh, and can you pass along a message while you're at it? Make sure you ask her!All the way back to Hariti we go...   Th-Thank you! Whew... I came dreadfully close to breaking my fast on humans. Here, take this... it's a little memento of my appreciation. This is both way better than 3000 Macca and significantly less of a hassle to get.  It's basically the Dark Vest but without an Electric weakness. Very nice to have if you care about that at all.  Before doing the next couple things, gonna make a few demons. This Leanan Sidhe is just an intermediary step, so she doesn't get a Source.  Adding a Suparna to Leanan Sidhe to make Fortuna. Fortuna's pretty good but this time I used Power's Source to add the Rakukaja and Arrow Rain. In The Master's Name Well, that's new...  So is that. Good thing we just got someone new ourse--  ...Oh. A Frivolous Nation  This way, and quickly, if you don't want to die!  (2) Yeah! How petty can you get? W-Well, come on...(1) We need to figure out a way out of this jam. ...Still, it was touch and go when I saw you show up. Hey... you're Hitonari... (2) If this is her remembering us, I think I'd rather she forgot. ...Yes, there is someone here named Mike and someone else named Dawson. Couldn't make that one up if I tried. C'mon, let's just get outta here! The drat demons keep on coming. Why are there so many of them!? It's like an ant's nest! Save your breath, Dawson. We have to move, Hitonari, so I'll make the introductions quick.   I do like how even if the third person here was never named, and their names all said Strike Team still you'd be able to differentiate them from the way their standing and holding their rifle. I'd introduce you to the others, but we need to get to business. Our squad was part of the feint operation here in sector Bootes. We lured a bunch of demons out, just like we planned... Plus, we did our work a little too well. All teh demons we lured in cut off our escape route. Without any way back to the ship or to call for help... Figure we've probably been moved to KIA status by now. The worst thing is, this place is full of one-way roads. One false step and you're toast. So I have a favor to ask. Can you navigate this squad to safety? Your equipment works. Shouldn't be too hard for you. Are you up for it? Yes. Thanks.Well, there's only one way out at this point so there's no reason for us to be a dick about it. Holy...! In The Master's Name poo poo, they found us! Fall back! Fall back! We're not gonna die here! Can't run, can't kill 'em all... We're stuck! Game over, man!Dude, it's just one Legion. How can you not handle this?  Quit bitching! Are you on the strike team or aren't you!? Hey, Hitonari! Your automap still works, right? Which was do we go!? So, yeah, this is the reason I bothered to map this area out earlier. The only thing that might make this a little trick by doing that is that the answer is based on your perspective on the top-screen and not just simply on the map. Which is really, really obvious and there's no excuse for getting it wrong even without mapping it out properly. Our aim is to go away from this area and get out, so... The right door. Roger! A Frivolous Nation Geez, Dawson. Quit blanching like that. You really are a coward, huh? Can you blame me!? We're dealing with real live demons here! This is the kinda stuff our parents used to scare us with when we were kids. And now here they are! Dammit, I can't think straight... Sorry, Hitonari. You lead the way. Which way this time? The left door. Roger! Chaos Theme Wait! There's something strange about this. It can't be... Is that demon here!?  Your leader was very brave. He hadn't a prayer of defeat me alone, and still he fought. His cries as he died still ring in my ears... Ahhh... those sublime tones. I'm sure your screams will make an equally beautiful melody. My heart dances at the thought! A Frivolous Nation I don't believe this... I can't take it! That demon's nuts! We have to get out of here, NOW! That must've been the boss of those demons. If we have to go up against him, I'd say we're boned. So... a door in the front, and one in the back... Stop moaning for a second and make yourself useful! Sh-Shut up! I remember, I swear... Just give me a minute. ...I THINK the door in back leads further away from the demon horde. But that demon showing up makes me wonder... Ugh! Make up your mind, why don't you! If you think it's the rear one, just say so! We're not going to get anywhere if we cringe at every little thing! Hitonari! Which would you go for? The back door. Roger! *sigh* This is really bad on the heart, man. How much longer do we have to go through this?Just this corridor then we're home-free.  Man, I just want to get out of here already... I've had it... If one more thing happens, I'm gonna lose it...! Hold together! We're almost there. Remember, you were chosen to go into the Schwarzwelt. You're one of the best, same as us. On your feet, soldier! Hitonari... Any ideas where to go now? The right door. Roger! L-Let's keep moving before he comes back.Hm, this sounds like a good idea.  And I'm switching to the Iperitta now. Might help with something or other...  Chaos Theme  You've done quite well for yourselves, coming this far. All you need is to get past this door and your ship will be right before your eyes. You came this far in desperation, with only a faint glimmer of hope to cling to. I count myself entertained! I'm telling you this as a token of my gratitude. I enjoyed it greatly, especially when you struggled most... You don't plan to let us through either way, do you? Not the way you were talking before about wanting to hear us scream... You're one sick puppy. I'm glad you understand. This opera of despair is now in its final act. They're waiting for your curtain call in the land of the dead! Fiend David Vehement Rage Ah, David. You've heard of the Danse Macabre, I'm sure; David is based, at least design-wise, on the personification of death within that poem.  He might not be harder than Mitra, or even Morax for that matter, but he's also way more annoying. Also, as you probably gathered from switching guns (and how Moh Shuvuu has a Zionga cued up), he's weak to Electricity.  His normal physical attack isn't super-impressive, but his only spells are Staredown and maybe a variant of Mudo. He doesn't exactly have the longevity to try out anything else if so.  He's also dumb enough to use Blight when the entire party got hit by Staredown. You can inflict an ailment on something that is already affected by one. They don't stack or anything; the new replaces the old. So if Blight's poison procs (which it does on Moh Shuvuu AND Power) it clears the Fear automatically. Thanks, David!  Meh EXP, decentish Macca for a fight's reward and no actual drop. Moving swiftly on...  End A Frivolous Nation Alright, the demon horde's still a ways away. Let's make our escape! It's because of you that we were able to keep casualties to a minimum. This is for you. It's the forma the Captain gave his life to get. I'd say you deserve it more than anyone. W-We did it... we survived... So as soon as we're safe, you turn right back into a coward? Weak, man. Thanks, Hitonari. If it wasn't for you, we'd all be KIA for real. We're gonna go back to the Red Sprite now. See you later, Hitonari. Thanks again.> The strike team headed towards the Red Sprite. And we'll never see any of those guys ever again. As funny as it would be to presume they died on the way back to the Red Sprite, I like to be a smidge more optimistic than that.  Speaking of the Red Sprite, we'll head on over there for a moment to give Irving the Death Omen and check out our reward. It's an interesting one but it does let us make David and exactly nothing else right now. Every Fiend has to be unlocked before it can be made, so any and every combination will give David until then. Sadly, the usable version of David is loving terrible and doesn't even have the one thing that makes Fiend secretly the best race so we're going to ignore him entirely. Palace of Pleasure Not much left to do now, so it's back to Halphas we go. I sold the one UMA Tissue I got before so I've got nothing for Halphas. 1 Macca well earned, that.  Surely mine eeyes deceive me? Didst thou not hunt even one...? Thou hast lost. I shall give thee a gift shouldst thou best me in a second attempt. Speak to me when thou art prepared.Or a first, or a third or a hundredth... Anyway, yeah, not gonna mess around this time. Let's solve this easily and grab the reward.  And I will, don't you worry. Anyway, this is really simple as a result and can be beaten via good ol' trial and error. A Sport for GentlemenSince the Mamedanuki all spawn in the same spots, if you just follow this path (minus the extra detours) you'll win every single time.  The Mamedanuki ARE tougher than the normal Mamedanuki in Antlia but not by much.  You can effortlessly autobattle them to death and each fight took between like 9 and 12 seconds. Combine that with this being an event and so you're given the Tissue without needing to hope the RNG is being nice.  Oh, and I didn't mention it before but fighting Enemy Search demons DOES reset the encounter rate. It makes sense and means that aside from maybe once you'll never fight anything but Mamedanuki while doing this sidequest if you actually do it it. How nice.  Once the moon phase ticks back up to a Full Moon, we're done and have to walk back to Halphas. Fortunately, you'll be on the 7th floor and by the elevator at this point so...! End Let us tally the results... Halphas' result is random and can vary between like 4 and I think 8 at most? It's not like it matters, since that route guarantees a win because...  You get 9 Tissues. Even if you somehow gently caress up and don't get 9, so long as you get something that Halphas cannot have more than you'll win; Halphas decides to be a good sport and lets you win on a draw. So really, your goal isn't to win. It's simply to not lose. ...Thy tally exceeds mine own. It seems thou hath won. 'Twas not bad sport... I enjoyed that greatly. I've not been thus stimulated in some time. I present thee this as a reward. It's a Rare Forma. You can probably hazard a guess what SubApp we're going to get from this one.  Before we go see Irving though, we'll deal with Dent's other job. Well, good luck. You know where the restroom is, I'm sure. Malevolence and Benevolence  What is WITH that bathroom? I'm not using this one ever again! (♀) An evil spirit...!? A demon...? Or...?  You probably heard us shouting about it, but there might be something... alive in there. It doesn't seem to be ademon, either. It calls itself "God"... I highly, HIGHLY doubt that God would appear in a toilet... That has to be an evil spirit... It's just gotta be! What do you think, Hitonari? God can be in a toilet. What!? Why would God be in the bathroom!? Well... standing around here won't do anything. We'll just have to check it out.(♂) We're counting on you, Hitonari. Show us what the strike team's made of! Go! And, uh, good luck!> The crewmen pressured you into entering the restrooms... Silence > A bizarre figure leapt out of the toilet! In The Master's Name  (♀) Wh--aaaahhh! Something's there!  Young people these days don't even know how to use them! All I was doing was keeping those young folks who don't use this thig properly in their places. You seem like a law-abiding fella, but I can't just let this go. It's just your bad luck... you're the same as them! Have at you! Enigma Kanbari Vehement Rage Kanbari is a goofy Japanese god of toilets. He can bless 'em for a year, with a prayer at New Year's.  Oh and he's weak to Physical attacks. Yes, really. He counters this by casting Tetrakarn. This is clever and also kind of dangerous! See, I haven't mentioned it yet but Reflect here works in a simple way that makes it irritating to deal with and also broken as gently caress. It calculates damage as normal then reflects that onto the attacker instead of reflecting the attack itself. Why yes, I will be ignoring this mechanic almost entirely as a result. ...Kanbari resists Gun. Moh Shuvuu is pretty fast, in comparison to Power and Fortuna, so that's a wasted Tetrakarn as she takes about maybe 5 damage or so. Sorry, Kanbari. You tried!  Whenever he's not trying to be fancy, Kanbari uses Needle Assault which deals meh Gun damage on everyone.  That's basically it, honestly. He's not a big deal at all, and should go down VERY fast. End Silence You're pretty tough for a young'un. I'll let everyone go, for your sake. Just don't forget the importance of keeping the privy clean. The Ten Commandments, the Tao te Ching, I got nothin' against 'em... But the little things count too!> Kanbari left. An Honor Befitting That Name You really helped us out! Thanks!(♀) I knew the strike team would come in handy in a pinch! Like the boy on the football team I liked in high school... We weren't doing a very good job taking care of things. I think we should try harder about that. Some cultures believe that there's a god within everything. Well, nonetheless, the problem's solved thanks to you. That god left this behind... I think you should take it. Alright, let's set up a duty roster for cleaning the restrooms! Oh, Hitonari! Before I forget... You did just fight the god of the toilets. Strange Journey might take itself overly seriously most of the time, but it can have a sense of humor when it really wants to. It's just a shame it's not very often. Prayer The UMA Ball nets us the UMA Converter, of course...  And the Secret Report gets us access to Enigmas. Kanbari is the only Enigma we've seen so far and I genuinely don't expect either of these to see any use what-so-ever. Neither race is particularly flowing with good demons.  Buying them unlocks their respective races demons for fusion, which is something I guess.  I also made A LOT of demons while trying to get forma for Irving. Daphne is one that will definitely see some use, outside of Source grinding, so I'll include her here.  Dwarf is mostly just for that Taunt. -2 Def/+2 Atk to all enemy demons seems risky but uh... War Cry neutralises it and we can do fun things with that Attack increase.  Apis is a pit-stop to something that I'm going to use. As like an actual demon, and not just fusion fodder.  Combining Apis with a random Heqet I had in my compendium to make Gnome. Gnome is the first of the upper-tier Elements, so he can increase Rank by 2 in some cases. I'm exclusively after HIS source though, since it is the first one that has Ziodyne.  Also while spending about 3 hours in the Palace trying to get a goddamn AT Bootite II to appear again, I noticed that I missed this door.  It's just guarding 2 AC Bootite. The epitome of meh.  Eventually, I managed to find enough to make everything. An Athame Dagger is a ceremonial dagger that's like double-edged and is used in like Wiccan rituals and stuff. Here, it's used to hit a dude upto 3 times at once and that's it. It takes 2 AT Bootite II, 3 Nymph Swimsuits (Apsaras) and 9 UMA Skins (Chupacabra). It is not worth the effort in the slightest, honestly.  In terms of armor, the Green Vest might be nice for Mitra if you're scared of his Mabufudyne for some unfathomable reason. It's also much easier to get seeing as how it's only 2 DF Bootite II, 2 Fairy Pouches (Goblins) and a "mere" 5 UMA Skins.  Lastly, we have the Gazamazutsu which is a... thoroughly "eh" Gun. Especially in comparison to the much easier to make Desonberi. The Gazamazutsu requires 2 AT Bootite II, 3 Brute Fishbones (Azumi) and 7 Kishin Horns (Takeminakata). It's definitely a much better use of those horns to just sell them for 21,000 Macca. Everything else Irving has for sale, we ended up unlocking kind of by accident this time around. That won't be the case very often, and shortly in the future it won't happen. Like, at all. Ah well, next time we're going to a very different store. Carina's been kept waiting long enough, hasn't it? Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
Reflect abuse in SJ is the easiest way to take out a few of the game's most genuinely difficult bosses. I barely made use of it most of the time, but with a little effort it ends up being absolutely nuts.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2016 22:28
|
|
|
 Time for Carina. Whew boy... A Squandered Nation  Feels funny to waltz into a place like this in full combat gear. I did a little urban warfare training, but I never went through a killing house or anything. (B) You really need an answer to that question? C'mon, the demons prepared all this stuff. That you, Zelenin? Hey, tell me something. You ever max out your credit cards? All this fine-looking stuff does make you want to stop and take a closer look... No, I plan my purchases carefully. I'm not the type to shop on an empty stomach. Though from what I hear, some of our crewmen have looser wallets... People like that should take extra care in this sector, don't you think? ...Ooh, harshed. She told me. The monitor team will begin their investigation once you've secured a safe zone.Alright, so now we can look around Carina. We're not going to be going very far right now though...  There's an Apsaras right in front of the entrance after all.  Here in this shopping mall, we work hard to provide you with all the amenities for an easy life. We hope you enjoy shopping here until the Earth runs out of resources. In fact, there's a lot of folks to talk to and interact with in Carina right now. We'll mostly be doing that right now, since it's also a good way of tracking our bearings throughout this part of the mall. It's a relief to see stuff I remember from back home, but it IS a pretty strange sight... There's just too much stuff. Oh, yeah. You been putting that Demon Fusion function to good use? It's really cool. I'm so into it, I feel like I've been messing with the system for 20 years. If you're having any trouble with it, talk to me and I'll try to help.Note that if you DO talk to him again, he just repeats this so this nameless guy is full of poo poo.  Anyway, there's a lot of paths from the initial area that all lead to the far-right of the floor. Some of them are closed off for now, so we'll see where they lead later I guess.  There's also more stuff over here as is obvious from the gaps on the map. It's exactly like the brand I eat for breakfast. I see this box every single day.> The crewman opened the box... Blech! What is this, mud? Or is this what demons eat? ...Maybe it's an acquired taste. Meanwhile, wow, Kanbari REALLY quickly went from kind-of-miniboss to just a random schmuck. Garuda and Jatayu did that in Digital Devil Saga too, but they were also mandatory so this is kind of somehow weirder?? He's not even really any different here, except he has less HP. He does have one skill he might not have had before but I'll point that out if/when he survives long enough to use it.  Over the northern area of where we start, we can find some Knockout Gas which would probably be useful if I ever remembered to use it. The Fear of God So, let's look at some of Carina's actual demons now. Momunofu's something we've seen before and he's kind of tedious to fight. Unless you throw instant death at him. That works. I don't think I mentioned this before but he's also SUPER weak to almost every single ailment. 300% modifier to the lot. Except Sleep which is only 150%, and one other we haven't seen yet that's neutral. That's... a special one we'll get back to way, way later though.  Karasu Tengu's an old friend we've seen and utilised recently so there's nothing to say there. Inferno is a naked woman on fir so of course she's weak to Ice. She's "only" immune to Fire though, but also cannot ever be Paralysed. Every other ailment works fine though. ....Also her Source is the earliest way to get Agidyne. Gonna grab that when we can, then.  Macabre also turns up here as a regular ol' demon now. Unlike last time we saw him, he has basically no health AND is weak to Expel.  And finally, for now, we have these two. We've had Raiju before, and there's nothing strange or fancy about enemy ones. Inugami is weak to Wind, immune to Curse and his only ailment weakness is Mute which is a 300% modifier. His natural skillset includes Rakunda, but his source doesn't outside of being added as a Bonus Skill. A Squandered Nation That's it for normal enemies, we'll deal with Enemy Searches later, so back to the dungeon part.  Humans are so mysterious... Like, what do you eat? Each other? He'll snarf down anything! No one can beat him in an eating contest.Horkos, huh...? And he's titled as Master, so I think we know the ruler of Carina already. Though his name doesn't begin with an "M," so it's kind of a 50-50 shot right now.  Oh and new demons! Caladrius is a cool, tiny white bird with a mohawk and a stethoscope! He's mostly not super-exciting but his source gives Amrita which is cool and useful, and is one of the very few things that gives access to Recovery Boost as well. Also he's immune to ailments. Like all of them. It's pretty great! He's also not normally weak to Wind or anything; that's just on Karasu's source and Resist skills are honestly absurd so why not.  Mandrake isn't quite as excitingly good as Caladrius could be. By default, it IS weak to Fire so I just got rid of that to prevent extra damage I guess. Binding Cry is the multi-target Paralysis spell; it costs 13MP and has a base 45% chance of working. Not exactly stellar odds, that. Also Mandrake is immune to Paralysis, Poison and Stone. That's kind of cool I guess.  And last we have Myrmecolion who I don't like very much! He's kind of boring, and being a Vermin he's emphatically not that great in general. Shooting Spree is completely unique to him, bizarrely, and it is the ONLY skill you can get that can even potentially inflict Strain on enemy demons. And remember, Strain is MP poison. And the things you want to use it on have infinite MP. In case I haven't made this abundantly clear before: Strain is not very good, no. Shooting Spree has a 60% chance of proccing the Strain effect at least. Speaking of which, Myremecolion has a 300% weakness to Strain and Mute. Yes, he's weak to his own gimmick and the easiest way around it. Good job, Myrmecolion.  No more new demons, so let's get a new Forma! Miracle Cores can be used to make a few things but the most interesting and exciting ones are Soma Drops... and Beads. Yes, Beads!  Anyway, the middle-most path just leads to these stairs. We'll go up them later.  Gotta get this random Muscle Drink first to flip for easy Macca. Because it's a Muscle Drink and not very useful!  And the last "path" leads quickly to our Black Box for the sector. That was nice and easy.  My observations so far follow:  They go on for miles, with more and more luxurious stuff on display as you go... > The data is corrupted, preventing you from reading further.  Nothing left over on the left-side of the floor so let's head on over to the right at last.  He's going to clear out all our reserves in the basement. At this rate, the underground storage will be empty... Our production lines simply can't keep up.Hmm... Horkos is in the basement, huh? That might be pretty nearby, because we're on the first floor and all. In practice, I'm sure it's definitely not even close to being that simple. We're going to go up and around and all sorts. Just you watch!  There's also another locked door on this side too. I wouldn't be surprised if we had to get the Unlock upgrade to get through here to the first part of the basement or something.  ...Or maybe there'll be a basement entrance RIGHT THERE. Huh, okay then. This obviously isn't going to lead to Horkos quite so easily though.  Directly opposite, there are stairs leading up to the 2nd floor over here as well. So I guess the upper floors are split into segments based on where you enter as well or something.  Anyway, heading back on up we'll pass another door we can't open and find this Shan Xiao.  Huh? No, man, I ain't mean you. I'm talkin' about the smell of angels. Where's that reek comin' from? *sniff* *sniff*...That might still totally be me. My alignment is still Law right now. Alignment still doesn't matter at all for anything other than Co-Ops so I've not really got any reason to care about changing it yet.   Huh? What was it? I can't tell you. Trust me, though--it was incredible.Uh-huh... whatever you say, Knocker. There's a door just to the south there that I'm going to ignore for a moment longer.  There's a healing spot up here if you really need it, that has a good rate of giving Forma and Enemy Searches right in front of it too. This will be important and useful later. There's also an elevator right here which leads to the 4th floor only, huh...? There's not much we can do there right now unfortunately.  But we can grab the sector's first form Attack forma. That's still on the first floor, mind you.  Anyway, that door I skipped past like four times... ...You are a human from that iron ship, are you not? Law Theme  Hm? You are... You are doing good works, human. I have not seen you since the land of leisure... How have you been? Do you recognize me now as different from those demons? I trust you. I am gladdened to hear that. It is difficult to find those of like mind, after all. I have some time to spare, and this is a good opportunity... You surely know now that the demons who have been silent for so long have begun an invasion of Earth. What you may not know is the nature of this world. Unfortunately, it has long been occluded from human view, and there are no human words to describe it. Let us call it the hidden world of spirits, though that loses some of the nuance. I have come here to learn that truth... The actions of the demons mirror the actions of humans. It must have begun once Adam's spirit, the spirit of humanity, was defiled. ...It is cause for serious lament. Be assured that the Lord will not allow the world to fall into the hands of the demons. However, the power to prevent it must again come from humans. I have every intention of helping you overcome the trials of this world as much as I am able. But there is only so much I can do. It also falls to me to prepare for the demons' invasion of Earth... I intend to investigate this area thoroughly. If you need help, please seek me out. ...drat it, Mastema. Just use the word "woman," please? It sounds better and less like you have a chip on your shoulder! Ah... so she, too, is investigating this world. That cheers me. I am interested to see what she can discover of this world... I would like to meet her again. Now, let us fight together until the evil ones are no more. A Squandered Nation Okay, so meeting Mastema DOES somehow give us progress towards finding the Graviton Radio. That he's willing to help us out is something we're going to need to keep in mind, clearly. It's going to be relevant sometime in the future now.  Anyway, up the stairs by the entrance we have this... weird purple thing. I checked it out earlier, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was supposed to do. Maybe my Demonica doesn't have the right app yet? I did get some kinda weird reading off it, though... We can't get through this thing yet either. We do know that it can somehow manipulate space, though... that's weird but I'm interested.  Back down to the first floor, we go I guess. As we head back on over to the right-hand side of the floor, we luck into the first Defense forma of the sector as well. Handy!  So, we might as well check out the 4th floor while we're here. There's some new things we can find here at least... The Fear of God Like so. It's a Power. Hi Power! We've used you pretty thoroughly before, so we're going to gloss over your description beyond "is here, but not on the 1st floor."  Shan Xiao we've also used before, somewhat. He's somehow better in the players hands, than the AIs because he has Spring of Life then. Nozuchi is actually new. He resists Phys and Gun at the usual 50% rate, but in return he's weak to Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. Despite that, he's kind of a decent Phys demon but those weaknesses make him annoying to deal with because that's a lot of extra damage from almost everything.  Next up, we have Nekomata. Elemental-wise, Nekomata's weak only to Ice, but resists Fire, Elec and Curse. In terms of ailments, she's somewhat weak to Sleep (150%) and very weak to Charm (300%). Note that she DOES have Retaliate, so she has a higher chance to counter physical/gun skills than anything before. If you didn't get Mega Claw from Itsumade's source, she's the 2nd place to get it and she even starts with it. ...Just use Itsumade's source. It's much less hassle and Mega Claw is really good that early!  Somehow, I didn't quiiiite get Zhu Tun She or Sudama on the first floor. They're nothing new though, we've used both in the past. A Squandered Nation So, the fourth floor is where our first terminal is. That's it. There's a door here nearby, but we can't open it yet.  Back down to the first floor we go, then. There's this other staircase up to the 2nd floor here still, so we might as well see where this leads.  Stairs heading up to the 3rd floor immediately, huh...? That door to the right? Just leads to a dead-end, so we'll head up to the third floor.  Which is the same as the 2nd, but the door is on the left now...??  Oh and it has an actual door in the dead-end but we can't open it yet. This Gate Search really isn't helping us much, huh...  Mentioned it before, but Inferno is REALLY SECRET GOOD and her Source has the earliest and most convenient Agidyne so let's make one.  The 4th floor isn't just a tiny corridor this time. Well, like is IS but uh...  It has a bit of a purpose this time, and it's quick and easy to grab these Amrita Soda.  But now we've been everywhere we can get to, except the basement. I'm sure it's going to be lengthy and expansive because Horkos is down there somewhere and all. Malevolence and Benevolence ....So is the Elve, huh? I'm not sure I like where this going.  I will transmit the coordinates for you to verify on the automap. It oughtta be right in front of my nose, in... fact... Huh!? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. The actual bad thing... it's here... Careful, Tadano. You can't see jack in here. I'll feel my way ahead... you catch up!So, Jimenez is right over by the Elve. He's basically right on top of it and he's just now encountering dark rooms. A Squandered Nation gently caress you Jimenez, you goddamn liar! also yay dark rooms my least favourite smt dungeon aspect thanks carina at least they aren't as bad as they were in Megami Tensei Also, as you would expect, dark rooms are not mapped on the automap so I'll do that part manually (like here) where it's relevant courtesy of my magical ability to do that. The Fear of God Oh right, and dark rooms give a few new random demons as well. Myremecolion turns up here to pretend to be a threat but accomplish nothing and Dwarf is here to try and be terrifying with that there Taunt. Except it lets you kill him easier so whoops!  Oh boy, and we got Gnome's Source as well for good measure. I'm sure this mentioned this already but:  Hello Ziodyne. This is good, and very useful. It's still not the most "wait, you're giving me this NOW?!" skill out there, though. We won't be getting to that one for a little while sadly... A Squandered Nation Anyway, back in the basement, we can follow a the early (and mercifully easy) path around to this spot. This is kind of vaguely hard to miss, to be fair, and I can sort of understand why. No, it's not the AC Carite. That's more there to know this place exists in the first place.  It just gives you two Beads, straight up. How... worryingly nice.  Further up in the area, we have a fixed forma of 2 AT Carite. This also exists just to let you get here, sort of. It's not got any reason to do that than make it easier to map out the basement I guess. Also, yeah, terminal right there. I went there first for convenience.  There's, of course, more south of it so let's see where it leads. This is probably where Jimenez was when we learned about the Elve.  This dark room is at least a bit tricky, because it's so small and the path to the left is really easy to miss wholesale. It's not required, so that makes sense. That forma down there doesn't help as much as you'd think this time, even.  Naturally, then, we're heading over there first. This part is at least super-linear, which is nice.  Down here, there's... 2 Mental Drinks. Wow, lame. Fortunately, that's not why getting here is a bit of a potential pain.  No, this li'l cutie is why!  A hee-human? How rare, ho! This is my first time seeing one! My ame's Jack Frost, hee-ho! Nice to meet you, ho! To tell the truth, I've been down in the dumps, ho. This is a dog-eat-dog world. I know that, hee-ho.But the fourth Jack Brother isn't in this game??? But I can't just forget it. I'm gonna beat that demon, ho! If I had that, I could hee-come stronger, ho! In this crazy world, I need power to survive, hee-ho! Please, ho! Yes.Yes! Yes, I will do this sooner rather than later! Hee-ho! Thank you! I'm glad I asked, ho. I hee-know you can do it, ho!So, in a rare moment this IS a sidequest we're going to clear before we clear Carina! I know, I'm shocked too. The reward is super worth it, is the reason why. I want it. It's really good. Also it's a Jack Frost. I am obligated to help them out ASAP. It's the hee-ho law!  But first, we're already here so let's go to the Elve. Silence ...BUONO.  Buono could mean a lot of things. It's most likely the Italian word meaning "good" in this case, but this voice might be a really big obscure J-Pop fan, enjoy eating at one restaurant in Ginza or have a thing for a Pizzeria in San Francisco. In The Master's Name And the award for Biggest Understatement goes to... > The air flowing toward the Elve is speeding up...!   I AM HORKOS! GLUTTON OF HELL!Wow, how nice of Horkos to tell us outright that Carina is meant to be an analogue for gluttony. Mostly, yes, gluttony is the overconsumption of food or drink to excess. Sin because it wastes things best used for those that need them, etc. etc. but it functionally comes down to hoarding. Gluttony is just taking anything in excess quantities to the point of squandering it, and letting it go to waste. This is pretty obvious when it comes to food, but really anything can be gluttonous if not done in moderation. There is a reason that Proverbs explicitly says that "the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty," (23:21) after all. I EAT AND EAT, AND NEVER GET FULL! BUONO!   ...Jimenez? How did it take you so long to get here?! We managed to find Horkos first, somehow! ...Horkos!? A demon!? You're saying a demon absorbed the Elve!? ...Carina being gluttony, even without it being explicitly spelt out, is the most obvious one, yes. BLOOD! FLESH! LIFE! ENERGY! BUONO! BUONO! That's one strong mother... We can't get near him! Huh? Hey, wait a sec... Holy poo poo, how'd he manage that!? Our demons'll just bounce right off... or get sucked in! ...H-Hey! Bugaboo! What're you doing, guy!? Don't get near him, you moron! Gyah...! ......! Booo!   H-Hey! Bugaboo! Bugaboo! That Horkos... what the hell's he doin' to my buddy!? Argh... dammit! How'm I supposed to get my revenge!?We could leave, but we can also try and stick around. Maybe we'll be able to figure out to beat Horkos?  You wanna get eaten too? C'mon! Let's go already! That Horkos made a big mistake when he swallowed Bugaboo... Hope the li'l guy's okay.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2016 21:59
|
|
|
Definitely want to hee-help that Jack Frost, ho. One of the better rewards.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2016 22:14
|
|
|
Prayer Really quick before we move on, Horkos' room in the basement was the last area there. We've already mapped all of that floor out, which is not something we'll get to say overly often about Carina. ...You'll see.  Anyway, progress is made much easier by teleporting to the entrance of Carina so we'll take this chance to stop by Irving and see what he has to sell.  Boy isn't that convenient! Not only is this required for what is arguably the relative best sidequest reward, it's also just a drat good piece of armor in general. Bit of a shame about that Fire weakness in a place where we know there are Infernos and all, but beyond that it seems pretty solid. ...Making the Ice Vest requires Forma from a demon we didn't see last update, so I'll point out what that one is when we get there. Aside from that, it needs just the 1 DF Carite and 2 Enigma Clay (Kanbari).  I told ya you could just casually buy Beads now. And they're REALLY cheap too! Plus super easy to make (2 Miracle Core and 2 Recovery Core), and yet this fact has surprisingly little to do with how Insanely Easy this game is. Reflect abuse also has little to do with it; that just makes it Zero Effort Don't Even Have To Look easy ...No, I'm never going to buy the Muscle or Mental Drinks. Both need 1 Miracle Core but the Mental Drink also needs a Calm Core.  Oh, and Carina is where we get the other 2 basic elemental attacking stones. Still better for a Magical Demonica MC than us.  The Blaster isn't a bad Gun by any means. Mostly because Heat Shot inflicts Fear which is arguably one of the best ailments in your hands. I'm mainly going to get it just to have it for if I ever need it though. It's not like it's that hard to make. It's just 1 AT Carite, 1 Brute Boards (Momunofu) and 1 Snake Snout (Nozuchi).  Plasma Knife is a boring weapon that falls into the category we've seen a lot: deals a single bigger number and does absolutely nothing else. Yawn. It's even one of the hardest things to make in early Carina by sheer virtue of requiring 2 AT Carite. It also needs 1 Beast Seal (Inugami) and 1 Drake Stripes (Zhu Tun She). Anyway, for actual progress we need to go see a man about his offer to help. Law Theme I knew Horkos to be a glutton, but this ability to absorb energy is new and worrisome. Left as is, he could become a significant evil that threatens the Lord's world. We must stop him... We must not disappoint... our Lord... I have ways of vanquishing evil spirits, but for them to work on its mechanized body... Shall we try an experiment, Tadano? I will create a divine artifact abhorrent to Horkos with the power the Lord has given me... A crystal charged with energy. I can think of no other way to carry out the task. I shall need your help to make the crystal... Are you willing? Yes.We could say no, but that's stupid and we have to agree to progress anyway. Not like there's any other way to deal with Horkos. I thought you'd say that. To make the crystal abhorrent to Horkos, I need two demons.  With these two, I should be able to obtain the holy artifact that defeated the swine king. I will wait here. Return when you have gathered both demons... A Squandered Nation Well, this is easy. We just need a Wilder and a Megami, so of course we're going to grab Jueyuan and Hathor. Jueyan we'll just buy out of the compendium.  ...Turns out I somehow didn't have a Hathor before now. I just skipped right to Fortuna apparently. Oh well; Sandman and Angel aren't that expensive anyway and this might very well be cheaper than buying a Hathor if I had one anyway. Okay, we're done with this main mission now. Yes, really. Law Theme It... It's been less than half a minute. I'm sure he has been, but it's not going to have been that much unless his storage power is exponential. Did you bring the demons I asked? Yes.> You handed over Hathor. > You handed over Jueyuan. Then I shall take them both. But... Hmm? You are... Zelenin, the woman I met in the cell, correct? You are much livelier than the last time I saw you. You're worried about me. Why...? But yes, I've recovered very well after my rescue. Thank you. Of course, it's only thanks to my comrades that I can take these few cautious steps out of the ship... Do you not use demons, as Tadano does? I have the Demon Summoning Program, but only for show. Hmm... I see. Perhaps it has to do with your unique spiritual sense... ...Ahh, Tadano. Allow us to proceed with the ceremony. However... Sons of man may not see thei fire; it brings great calamity. Tadano... and you as well, Zelenin... Close your eyes when I tell you to, and do not open them again until I give the word. ...It sounds a bit scary, but I understand. Now then... Please close your eyes. ...It is done. You may now open your eyes.   The Shibboleth...? I've never heard of that before.I don't believe you, Zelenin. I'unno, I just get that impression for some reason. Yes, the Shibboleth... You pronounce it well, Zelenin. I shall leave this in your care, Tadano. Here, take it. Now it is your turn to display your power... the power of human technology. I look forward to it. And... Zelenin. ...Is there something you want from me? A gift for you. I believe he will provide excellent protection... This is... an angel? Perhaps you do not trust demons enough to fight alongside them, but what about my kind? Yes... I think I can use this. > Power became Zelenin's ally. Thank you for accepting my gift. May the Lord protect you. Until then... We'll make it home, won't we, Hitonari? And we'll wipe out all the demons... I'd best get back to my duties. There's more I need to investigate. Malevolence and Benevolence About the Shibboleth that Mastema made... I don't think we can just use it as is.Yes. Mastema already said as much. Repeatedly. But Irving at the lab might be able to make something from it. Why don't you go see him? That's really all I came to say. Well, back to my post.Zelenin's just gonna hang out in the room that Mastema was in. Sure, okay. En route back to the Red Sprite, we'll deal with something that we ignored before. An Honor Befitting That Name So, Carina has 4 Enemy Search demons! One of them is Kanbari so he doesn't count. He is very common though; 33% chance of appearing (18% chance solo; 15% with a Momunofu) and the fourth... is very, very rare (...as in only has a 2% chance of spawning). We'll deal with that one separately whenever it turns up. Tam Lin has a 32% chance of appearing and always appears solo. He's the weakest Genma here and is kind of cleverly designed, because he primarily uses Charm Strike right? He CAN also use Heat Wave. His third skill is Charmdi which sounds weird because he's always solo but he's immune to Charm. He's also got a 300% Paralysis modifier which is kind of painful. He also resists Phys and Gun. ....But none of this even matters.  Because he's weak to Curse. Oh well, at least he tried.  Kuda is just as common as Kanbari (33%) with the exact same breakdown. 18% solo and 15% with a Karasu Tengu. Kuda is really boring as an enemy demon. He's immune to Elec and weak to Wind. Neutral to all ailments and his only skills of note are Mazionga and Tetraja. Yawn.  Oh and enemy Kuda has Strainoma. It inflicts Strain. It does nothing else. That's it. Usable Kuda does not have Strainoma but he CAN use his passive skill. It's a special one called Preparedness which does nothing for enemy demons. It increases Co-Op damage. Also his source has Ziodyne which is cool. His Forma is the UMA Muzzle. We need 3 of these for the Ice Vest, and 2 per Mazio Stone. Prayer A demon with a plasma shield... Sounds like one tough varmint! Attackin' a plasma shield with a sword is like tryin' to cut up the sunlight. 'Bout the only thing I can think of that'd make a scratch in a plasma shield... Well, ya can probably guess what I'm gettin' at. Ya gotta fight plasma with plasma. But anyhoo... Lemme take a crack at that doohickey you got from the angel! > Irving started working... Hmmm... I ain't sure how to feel 'bout this. Well, comes a time in every fella's life whne he's gotta put up or shut up. Go git 'em! Horkos Buster is kind of a cool name, I'm not gonna lie.  And, of course, just for the sake of completion we can make Magaru Stones with Genma Spears too. How exciting. A Squandered Nation Since we're off back to the basement now, let's pay a visit to our adorable little friend here. Please, hee-ho! Let me hee-have it, ho! Yes. Thanks, hee-ho! Now I just need to make a few alterations, and... Burn! Frost Ace  Yesssssssssss!   I must beat the burden of avenging my family or letting demons live... hee-ho. That's a dark hee-ro's destiny, ho! Oh yeah, ho... I might be the dark hee-ro of this chaotic world, but... I'd be willing to hee-help you out in a pinch, ho. Call me using a special fusion, hee-ho! I'm looking forward to seeing you again, hee-ho.> Frost Ace ran off at tremendous speed. A Squandered Nation So long, dark hee-ro of a chaotic world...  ....So what's this about a cannon?  Yeah, so the Frost Cannon is sort of ridiculous. It just casually gives you the MC's equivalent to Bufudyne, Garudyne and... Mazionga all at once. Also it's way, WAY stronger than any gun we're getting for the foreseeable future, and even if it wasn't it'd be worth using for that elemental spread alone! In the Master's Name So, anyway, how 'bout that Horkos? THIS IRON SHIP WAS GOOD! IT WAS FILLED WITH HUMANS! IF I GET TO EARTH, I CAN EAT MORE! I CAN EAT HUMANS UNTIL I'M FULL! I'LL EAT YOU ALL. TO EARTH! TO EARTH! TO EARTH! BUOOOOOOONO! ......! Hey there, Tadano. Whatcha got there? HMM? MORE TASTY HUMANS ARE HERE... Heheheh...! ...Only 3-stars? He'll feed you plenty of his specialty dish... Chef Tadano! Why don't you serve our guest the main course?  BUOOOOOOOOOOONO! BUOOOOOOOOOOONO! I'M... LOSING... MY APPETITE... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Bingo! Eat to your heart's content, fat boy, and fall into a food coma! Silence Human technology is impressive indeed. Who said that!? Law Theme ...So you're the traveling preacher, huh? Quite a greeting. I don't believe we've met. What is your name? ...... Yours first. Hahaha... ...Does that satisfy you? ...I'm Jimenez. It's a pleasure to meet you, Jimenez. I think you and I can get along splendidly. ...rear end in a top hat. So, Tadano. It seems you have brought Horkos to heel with our Lord's protection. Now shoot Horkos once again to fill this land with the Holy Spirit. Our own weapons should be enough to take Horkos now. Hah! Hahaha... ...Show me, Jimenez! You sure run your mouth a lot, you shady seraph... ...... Open wide, fat boy!> Jimenez ran towards Horkos.  BUONO! BUONO! I WON'T LET HUMANS TAKE THIS USEFUL BODY AWAY! No way! ...Urgh!  ...It seems Horkos took the opporunity we gave him to escape. Are you all right, Jimenez? Here, take my hand. Keep your hand to yourself, man! I'll get up on my own... ...... We have driven it into a corner with the Horkos Buster. So long as humans follow the word of the Lord, nothing is beyond their grasp! ...Please, do your best. May the Lord's protection be with you... Silence> Mastema left.  I knew... I knew we had to use the Horkos Buster! If only... I was stronger... Tch...! Let's go after Horkos! Malevolence and Benevolence  Horkos has appeared here! Hurry to the floor above! I'm transmitting the location to your automap! Please hurry to those coordinates! He sure moves quick... Let's hustle, Tadano! A Squandered Nation Sure thing, but first let's make an Incubus for no real reason. He doesn't have any great skills, his source's best skill is Acid Breath (-2 Defence is pretty darn nice...) and his resistances are "eh" at best.  But he's all that we were missing from a Really Good Special Fusion that lets us get a dark hee-vil... in 7 levels. Let's just head right on back upstairs. Nothing else to do in the interim. In the Master's Name > But it isn't sucking in as much as it was...  NOT YOU AGAIN! I have the situation under control! Quickly, Hitonari, fire the Horkos Buster...! Tch...! I WON'T LET YOU! I WON'T LET YOU! Ugh...! Whoa...! ...Just you wait, you tub of lard. If you want more, oh, we'll give you more! Listen, Tadano. I'll act as a decoy... When he's not looking, blast him! Zelenin! Cover me! It's too dangerous! With my own power! Here goes...!> Jimenez approached Horkos.  There is something... unexpectedly nice about this. I dunno, Jimenez and Zelenin might not exactly be the most interesting or compelling or multi-faceted characters in the series (Devil Survivor 2 is thataway) but there's just enough there to make this scene work and not feel hamfistedly arbitrary and trite. I guess? > Horkos is distracted! > You fired the Horkos Buster. BUOOOOOONO! BUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONO! BUONO! BUONO!  ...And Jimenez echoes my sentiments exactly. God dammit Horkos! Hm...? Look at this... I think Horkos dropped it. He was definitely weakening. The Horkos Buster really works, yes? ...... While this is very nice, it's not exactly an earthshatteringly useful thing.  Same with this. This is an item that's appeared throughout the series with varying names but it always does the same thing. If Hitonari gets his by an Expel or Curse spell and would die, he's fine and this gets consumed instead. It's very situational but it's automatic so you never have to worry about it.  Gonna go give this to Irving though. It'll be useful in some way. Pattern recognition is kicking in big time. A rare forma, eh? Talk about casting pearls before swine... geez. Let's hurry, Hitonari. We should challenge Horkos while our luck holds! Malevolence and Benevolence Hmm... He might have gone somewhere we can't get to. Luckily for us that we happen to have a rare forma here... (sic) Maybe we'll get something useful if we take it to the lab.Let's find out. Once again, nothing else we CAN do right now...  Awright! The Demonica's gonna take one step further toward manhood with this baby!> Irving started working... > ...... Yep, just like I thought. Another win for the supply team! Yer Unlock function's been upgraded. Take it. Now we can open doors keyed to Unlock B. I'm sure there'll be plenty of these in Antlia, Bootes AND Carina... whew boy, okay let's see where this particular rabbithole leads.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2016 18:48
|
|
|
Jimenez' "three-stars chef" comment is likely a reference to the Michelin stars, given to exceptionally good restaurants and chefs. Three is actually the highest number of stars there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2016 19:30
|
|
|
God drat it Zelenin, why couldn't you have died on the Elve and left the Completely-not-even-trying-to-hide-it-law character thing to someone else? I'm sure there was someone else with more personality than you.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2016 00:54
|
|
|
Mastema's outfit is really wierd. In his conversation portraits, it looks like some large origami robe, but when we get a full body shot, it barely goes past his waist. Why does Zelenin find that guy's presence comforting when it looks like simply raising his arms would put an unreasonable amount of his grey skinny body on show?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2016 08:05
|
|
|
That's what the wings are for
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2016 18:03
|
|
|
Blaze Dragon posted:Jimenez' "three-stars chef" comment is likely a reference to the Michelin stars, given to exceptionally good restaurants and chefs. Three is actually the highest number of stars there. From Wikipedia on the Michelin Star System: quote:According to the Guide, one star signifies "a very good restaurant", two stars are "excellent cooking that is worth a detour", and three stars mean "exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey".
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 04:08
|
|
|
 We have Unlock B. This opens at least one door in every Sector we've been to. Let's open them all! A Scorched Nation The one in Antlia's pretty memorable, if only because it's been taunting us since our first excursion. It also leads to the only place in Antlia we couldn't get to before now.  The place where it leads is... interesting. This green pillar stands out by already looking different to its surroundings, but it looks different to almost everything we've seen. It seems similar to the Terminal in a way.  It does absolutely nothing right now though! Just remember that it's here. We'll be back to see what it does much, much later.  Behind the pillar there is a door we can't open. Swell.  Also behind the pillar is another door we can't open. This one is white so we need at least two more Unlock upgrades to get the rest of the first floor of Antlia mapped.  And south of the white door is... a hidden door we can't open yet. Fortunately, there IS something here that gives this purpose beyond being a gigantic cocktease! And, no, it's not the random demons. They're unchanged from the rest of the floor.   Long time no see. Has it been so long you don't recognize me? After we split, I got stronger and became a High Pixie....Evolution isn't in this game. She's just sort-of winkingly referencing Nocturne because there Pixie DOES evolve into High Pixie. What do you think of this place? Not bad, huh? I'd like to bring more faeries here and start a village. Could you help me out by bringing faeries here? Okay. Thanks. Most humans can't be trusted, but you can! I'm counting on you.This isn't a hard sidequest chain, but it has some really good rewards in it and secretly guards the best one of all. At points here and there, she'll ask for more Fairy race demons until she's asked for one of almost all of them. The ones she doesn't/won't ask for should be pretty obvious, really.  This is just a Goblin so we'll do it now, why not? Just buy one from the Compendium. After this, we'll deal with them whenever's most convenient - most likely between Sectors with other stuff or whenever we get an upgrade that lets us do more back here.  Not bad. You really are different from the other humans. Take this as thanks. Thanks to you, I'm one step closer to building a village of faeries. Naturally if we hadn't handed the High Pixie a Goblin before, this room would be empty.  I like it here. It's comfortable. I need to decide where my home's gonna be. But before I start digging... I want to take my time and pick the best spot. Hmm... just gonna file this away in the back of my head for now.  The village itself seems to have room for 7 Faeries, huh? High Pixie's accounted for that first chamber, and the Goblin's positioned already so that leaves 5 more to go. This won't be so bad at all. Prayer Anyway, we got a rare forma out of just giving away a Goblin so let's see what it gets us.  Enemy Lullaby is... kind of nice if you don't want random encounters for whatever reason, actually. You cannot stack Begone and Lullaby, whichever one you put in second auto-removed the first one, and that's fine. Lullaby is just a flat upgrade but also slightly bigger. Begone barely reduces the encounter rate. Lullaby almost entirely removes it. It's kind of insane, but makes it REALLY useful for Forma farming without having to care about pesky randoms all the time. I wouldn't use it otherwise, mind, but I'm the kind of person who would put on a SubApp that increases the encounter rate and not give a poo poo.  Anyway, Antlia was a lot of nothing and an easy sidequest. What about Bootes? A Frivolous Nation Bootes has a lot of Unlock B doors scattered all over the place. We'll deal with the two outside the Palace first, as is a sensible order to do things. Conveniently enough, one is north of the eastern Terminal and one is south of it.  The northern door is kind of a disappointing wet fart, really.  1 Bead and 1500 Macca? Really? This is what was so valuable it couldn't be gotten immediately?  The southern door is a bit more than that. It leads to another cross-shaped room wherein we find another demon to talk to...   You must have heard my name even in the human world. Do you know what god I'm of?I... think you got a couple words backwards there. Wine. That's right. You're quite knowledgeable, aren't you? But enough introductions. Let us move on to the meat of the matter. I would like to ask a favor of you. You humans have been lovers of wine for millennia... Why, then, do you not work for the god of wine's sake? Okay. Hohoho... a wise choice. Now, allow me to explain. Have you heard the tales of the poison wine? In other words, it's the feather that contains the deadly poison... And by mixing the feather into wine, it becomes a poisonous wine that can kill a man in one sip. As the god of wine, I must know how this wine tastes. I would have you obtain one of this Zhen's feathers. However... it cannot be plucked from a corpse. The scuffle would damage and dirty it, affecting the wine's bouquet. Hm? Why so quiet? You seem baffled. Do you have any questions? Are you going to drink it? Hohoho... A reasonable question. Allow me to answer. I am a god, you see, and the poison of a Zhen is no poison to me. Now then... What will this poison wine bring...? Smoothness, savoriness or dryness...? Hohoho.... I'm eager to find out. I look forward to hearing from you.Jeez, Dionysus talks a lot. So we have to find a Zhen, talk to it and then come back here. It's just like that one we did for Karasu Tengu but hopefully quicker and easier... except definitely not quicker. We can't even pretend to do this one yet. I mean, I haven't seen a Zhen anywhere so it's mandatory to make this one wait 'til later. Palace of Pleasure Inside the palace, we're going to open every door we can. Even the ones to the "cells" we were in before. There's no reason to do this one other than because you can. ......And I guess other than that it's mandatory if you care about getting 100% map completion.  Meanwhile, there's an actual thing that's genuinely new on the opposite side. It's directly north of where we met Bugaboo originally.  It just lets us get a Summon Stone, but that's pretty nice. It's a full revive of a single demon AND immediately summons it into the active party mid-fight all at once. Naturally, these things are pretty darn rare as a result.  But that room was the only thing left on the 4th floor so now we have that completley mapped out as well. Bootes' palace floors seem to all be secretly much smaller than they feel, huh...?  Oh well, 5th floor. There's the one door in the main path section that we glossed over somewhat. South of where we found Persephone and west of the stairs up to the 6th.  Stepping through the door leads to the most devious trap to date! God dammit, why?  The entire room (aside from like 3 squares) is COVERED IN DAMAGE TILES. It's so needlessly rude! At least we get a second Sacrifice out of it. These things are honestly pretty useful, so I'm not complaining about that.  The last two doors on this floor are the ones we have to go through the 6th to reach. The layout of this place is so needlessly complicated.  Each room has exactly one item in it, and they're both pretty useful.  Well, for a given definition of useful. The Bead Chain is legit, but the Agility Incense could go either way. It sure saves some time later at least.  On the bright side, hey, that's the 5th floor down as well for good measure! (The ES dot is Persephone's location.)  There is a door on the 6th floor, but we can't open this one yet either. This one is also red, so I imagine we'll get through this and at least one in Antlia at the same time.  And finally the doors on the 8th can be opened now too. So we could... take this shortcut(??) that doesn't need to be here and existed only to be an annoying bait and switch during the scene when we first met Mitra.  ...Let's just go back to Carina and see if we can find Horkos. A Squandered Nation So, we can open the doors down here now. That's nice, but not quite as helpful as it seems.  The fixed forma in this corridor is just 2 DF Carite. There isn't even any other paths in this corridor or anything.  It's just a quick path towards this part of the floor. We did need a path on the bottom after all.  Fixed forma over here is just a bunch of Recovery Core. Not very exciting, no.  Anyway, there's a terminal over here and also a cute li'l piggy to talk to.  Geez. He's clearing shelves left and right. The manufacturing department can't keep up. 'S what you call conspicuous consumption, am I right?It's a tiny bit more literal than normal, but yeah. It definitely works as an example of that.  This part of the floor is pretty big but we don't need to worry about much of that. We'll take a left here and follow that path around ignoring all branches off of it.  Your world is like this all over, right? Goodness... I think you humans deserve to have us annihilate you. But first, I need to put this on the shelf...It's not just for Katakirauwa, although she helps.  Nah, there's a just a lot of loot over here. Some Drops aren't quite as good here as they are in other games. Rather than a full heal for one person, it just heals 100HP and 100MP. As a number, not a percentage.  But it's by far the most useful and best item in this batch.  Given my opinion of most items, though, that's not setting a particularly high bar by any means.  Anyway, the other path just loops in on itself and leads to the stairs that take us up.  Once we climb these, we've fully mapped the 1st floor of Carina as well. There's an interesting dot in Mastema's room but that's not actually available yet. We'll get to that very soon, though.  This part of the second floor is a bit small and cramped. It's secrety linear, and has a healing spot in case you needed one I guess.  > You can hear loud noises from the wall next to you... ...And the path leads to a dead-end with nothing in it? Ummm... guess we need to look into that noi--  Oh, found it. That was easy. In the Master's Name > But its energy sucking abilities have become very weak... We found him! Man, he's every bit as fast as he is hungry. BUONO! BUONO! WHY ARE YOU GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY MEAL!? WHY DO YOU TRY TO HOG ALL THE FOOD!? BUOOOOOOOOOONO! I'LL GOBBLE UP THE FUTURE OF THOSE WHO WANT THE PLANET BACK HOW IT WAS! I'LL EAT UNTIL I'M FULL! EVEN IF I DISAPPEAR, I WON'T BE GONE FOREVER! Huh? Sounds like fat boy's gone a little loco... So whatcha gonna do, Tadano? BUOOOOOONO! B... B... BUOOOOOOOONO!> Horkos's bond with the Elve has grown even weaker!  BUONO! BUONO!> Horkos ran away... What!? Was that still not enough!? ......!> There's something on the floor.  Well now, this is something worth keeping a hold of for sure. Bead Chains are very nice indeed. Probably not gonna use it any time soon, mind...  This will gather dust and pretend to matter. Not because it's Vitality but because it's an Incense.   Listen up, guys, this is important. We've picked up a signal we believe to be the Elve's. It's coming from the center of Carina. I'll transmit the coordinates to your Demonicas. Watch yourself, Hitonari. You're right on top of it. The signal we picked up comes and goes in waves. We think the Elve might be in very unstable condition. So... that means Horkos is getting weaker? It seems our technology combined with the angel's protection is guiding us to victory. ...Perhaps it's time you stopped acting so tough and faced facts, Crewman Jimenez. ......! Now, Hitonari, go and check those coordinates!It's right next door, and there's nothing else to do right now so...  BUON... BUON... MY BODY IS HEAVY... I CAN'T FLY FAR... AT THIS RATE... THIS NICE BODY WILL ROT... BUT I'LL EAT... AND EAT... AND GET BETTER... I WILL NOT... LOSE TO HUMANS...! ...BUONO! Alright, we got him cornered! Now's your chance, Tadano! Give this fatso the coup de grace! BUOOOOOOOOO...! NO... I CAN'T... TAKE IT ANYMORE...! I MUST... ABANDON THIS BODY...! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT...! I LOST TO HUMANS IN A FIGHT! I LOST TO HUMANS IN GLUTTONY! CURSE YOU... CURSE YOU, CURSE YOU, CURSE YOU! BUOOOOONO! Woo-ha! We did it! Serves you right, fatass! Er... were you able to get the Rosetta from Horkos? The Elve's outer hull has been damaged. The inside may require inspection. Proceed to investigate. Our backup should be on the way. The investigation can wait until they get here... Man, though... he didn't look like much, but that was one scary pig... Malevolence and Benevolence  A lot of those guys were taken out and tortured like Zelenin... The lord of all creation doesn't seem to count for much here.> You can hear the voices of the crewmen searching the Elve...  We'll have to salvage what we can! What about that radio thingy we're looking for? We're ready to carry it out! Gotcha. Sit tight, I'm headed your way. ...Sucks that we couldn't get the Rosetta from Horkos. We'll have to chase his rear end down again. Right now, we'd better cross our fingers and hope this radio can get us a line back to Earth... Alright, you ready for some heavy lifting, Tadano?> You went inside the Elve...  Think this piece of junk'll get us anywhere? It better, man... Alright, Tadano. You take that... Wait... Is that...!? Sorry, Tadano! Hold on a sec!> Jimenez ran to a corner of the room...  Friggin' A! Hahahaha! Y'know, Bugaboo! He got sucked in by Horkos! He... became a rare forma...? There's nothing left but a Demon Source, but it's definitely him! It's Bugaboo! That is not a Source, and that is not at all how that works. Did... did you just forget to register him in your Compendium and you're too ashamed to admit it? Oh, geez... I'm gonna have to teach that dope how to talk again! Hahahaha...! Alright, Tadano! Let's hurry back... Oh yeah, the radio! Okay, so strap in. We got a loooong cutscene ahead of us now. And partially behind us. But mostly ahead. Whew boy...   Once the supply crew finishes the Graviton Radio, we will attempt to contact Earth. Until then, all hands should remain on standby. We should now be able to contact Earth. Mission "Graviton Radio Recovery" is confirmed complete. We'll get about 10 minutes' worth of charge at a time. We can recharge it once that's up, but it'll take several days worth of time and effort. Therefore, we must use the device sparingly and keep correspondences brief. Be careful. ...... ...... ... Silence Are we talking to the investigative team? This is the Red Sprite, calling Joint Project Headquarters. We have an estimated 10 minutes to exchange as much information as possible. You're alive! You survived! This is the bureau chief of the Joint Project speaking. I can hardly believe this...! Where are you!? What's going on!? Tell us your situation! Fear Of the four ships, we are the only one active on the mission.  That's terrible... it sounds like it's practically a miracle we're corresponding at all.That would be because it is. What's going on in there!? Have you had any positive results at all!? The Schwarzwelt is a discontinuous closed space. We are likely no longer in the world we know. As regards the conditions of the atmosphere, gravitational pressure, air quality, and so forth... These values are all in line with those reported by the drones. From what I'm hearing, it sounds like you're able to proceed... We have learned some things about the appearance and disposition of the Schwarzwelt. Though we dismissed the imagery retrieved by the drones as a malfunction... Everything we have seen so far in the Schwarzwelt is consistent with their transmissions. We have three space-time sectors thus far... Ira, luxuria, gula... Those pictures were real...!? Even with your report, I have a hard time believing that! The intelligent life forms theorized before we entered teh Schwarzwelt have been confirmed. We believe them to be "demons," creatures of folklore and myth.Well, they themselves admit to being demons and I'd imagine it's the other way around. They've been aroud longer than humanity, and so rather than being based on the stories, the stories are based on them.   Also, this confirms there is an exit. Excellent. Well not excellent-excellent, but it's good news for our predicament all the same. We don't know what they're after, but they're definitely here! So they've actually made it to Earth...!? There's more, too... The Schwarzwelt is continuing to expand. Can you receive pictures? We're transmitting some now. All Antarctic bases were overrun with demons. After that, they moved north. The southern regions of Africa, Australia, and South America are under attack. The Schwarzwelt... Has it grown that much already...? Ay Dios mio... Even if we make it out in one piece, the Earth is flooded with demons... Can you put together an escape plan and send in reinforcements!? ...... Unfortunately, neither of those things are possible. You already have our most advanced technology created on our theories on the Schwarzwelt. There's nothing we can do for you. So we get poo poo-all for help...!? We'll get nothing from Earth... But on the other hand... Yes... there are steps we may be able to take.  If the Red Sprite can catch it, your position in space-time should become clearer. We haven't abandoned you. We'll fire the graviton beam now. Put it to good use. Arthur, you should use the time we have left to transmit your observational data. Acknowledged. Transmitting data. Thank you, Arthur.  Best of luck to both of us, eh? This is the Joint Project, signing out... We work our asses off to get that Graviton Radio, finally get ahold of the folks on Earth... It does seem to be bad news on top of bad news, doesn't it? We, uh, but there's a... if demons can get out, so can we! But it's too soon yet to abandon all hope. Whatever, sister. I'm a realist, y'know? I play the cards I'm dealt. You'd rather fill my head with dreams, Miss First Lieutenant? ...You've gotten better at speaking my languge, y'know that?And apparently worse at speaking mine. Hell, I don't care if it's you or Zelenin, I just wish someone could pull me outta this funk. I must explain the importance of the space-time coordinates. Even if we could increase our movement capabilities, without a proper grasp of our position... With the graviton beam sent by the Joint Project, we can at last learn our present whereabouts. Eliminating the uncertain, eh? So far, we've been having a hard time navigating under a starless sky... ...Tadano, do you understand a word coming out of her mouth? With the support provided by the outside world, we will be able to determine our position. Hence, we will not be forced to proceed by being carried further in by the quantum tunnels... ......! You serious!? At present, we are simply moving from tunnel to tunnel based on data gleaned from ruling demons. If this works, we should be capable of reaching unknown space-time sectors. You should perform your duties with more hope now. Y'know, you may not be the greatest at comforting a guy... But if you say so, my hopes're up! C'mon, let's find that pig and get the next Rosetta! It seems there's still danger awaiting us even if we manage to return to Earth...Eh, they're only demons. We can take 'em! Even so, better than wandering around here, mm? Strike team, I suggest you use this time to rest. Silence Chaos Theme  My, my... this is a grand ship. Even the ark that withstod the flood couldn't compare. Hm...? Your name is known to them, Tadano Hitonari. ...Ha. I get it.  But I am only putting into words the destiny you've carried since you were created. There is no cause for concern. Yet you are still allowed a bit of power... Where do you belong? A steadfast soldier of the law, or an agent of chaos? Hm...? It seems you have guests again. I had hoped to sit and talk with you longer, but I am left with little choice. Excuse me, please.> The girl disappeared...  Abnormal conditions may result. All crewmen, be on alert! Crisis I've located the source! 3 o'clock! Turn on the cameras facing that direction. Oh, it's Horkos. Convenient! Also a little touch is that he's not speaking in all-caps any more because he's in his normal demon form, instead of that weird half-Elve hybrid thing. It's an incredibly strong energy signal! We think it's a demon, but we can't catch it...! Horkos will not relent! I attack, steal, and devour! The demon's heading this way! We can't get the plane shift going in time! I will eat again! The soul of the iron ship! Buono! Buono! I'll eat with gusto! I'll eat it in one gulp! Accessing the engine reactor directly... Contact in 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... Bu! On! A! Pe! Tito! 0. Activating armor. The enemy demon has been damaged! We drove it off!  It is a dangerous mission, but I must order the strike team to give chase. I didn't think it'd come after us... Talk about a fat pig! All available strike team members, please report to the deck. In the Master's Name It seems to have fled after being wounded. We realize the risks, but you must track and defeat it. Use this signature as your guide when tracking the demon.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2016 23:06
|
|
|
"BOUNO BOUNO!" is such a dopey thing to say and Horkos has such a generally goofy design that I can't help feeling a little sorry for him.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2016 01:56
|
|
|
Prayer Well, we just had a (relatively) big ol' plot dump in that last scene. Let's see how the crew are doing! What should we do now? Won't anything we do just show how powerless we really are? Anyway, all we can do is our best. Just what our "best" is... we'll have to go give serious thought to it. But... if we don't do what we came here for, how is that different from running away...? ...I'm sorry. I know the strike team is always serious about this stuff. Let's just take down Horkos... it's all we can do right now. Personally... I think we should go back, but I can't say that too loud. I mean... Commander Gore's body is resting here. I couldn't let him hear something like that. He'd say, "We can't run awa here! We're humanity's hope... we can't give up until the very end!" Yeah, something inspiring like that to give us all a push. Commander... why'd you have to go and die? We need you most now... That's why we gotta work harder'n ever now. All that nasty stuff's comin' outta here, after all. Right, Tadano? I think we should worry about ourselves before we can worry about the Earth.There is absolutely nothing new in the Lab this time, so we'll just move on outta here.  Oh, well... Even if he does, we've got more than enough bullets to feed him. If we pile it on, he'll quiet down eventually and spit out that Rosetta.Dent, as always, just talks about sidequests but has nothing so... to Carina! A Squandered Nation Thankfully, the instant we step outside of the first little room we see Horkos on the map. He's running towards those nearby stairs, huh?  He's by the stairs over there. Let's get after him, Tadano!We've literally just got here, so...  In The Master's Name I was careless... Trying to eat them raw...! I must go to the hideout and... Urgh! Urrrrrgh!> Something fell from Horkos's body... Quickly! Quickly! I must run! Buo! Buo! Buono! What're we gonna do, Tadano!? We can't follow him!> You searched the spot where Horkos dropped something.  What's that thing? Horkos dropped it, right? That fatass drops a lot of stuff, doesn't he? He get food poisoning or something? Food poisoning... Urp... ...... F... Forget that! Anyways, let's take that to the lab, see what they make of it. Time to pay Irving a visit!Sounds like a plan to me! Malevolence and Benevolence I can't tell if that porker's scary or just plumb stupid... Well, give it here. Mebbe I can make somethin' that'll track him down... Silence> Irving started working... ...... ... > A new function was added to your Demonica.  But listen to this. If there's one of them there "sanctums," this'll let the Demonica access it. I call it the Phase Shifter! Betcha this'll come in handy when yer chasin' down that porker! Take it! The End  Prayer Believe it or not, from a couple random Forma we can make a new gun! It's... kind of terrible! Snipe is thoroughly okay, because it can't miss ever and deals Medium damage. It's easy to get the Miracle Gun at least - AT Carite x1, Brute Boards x1 (Momunofu), Snake Snout x1 (Nozuchi) - and that it took this long was a little bit amazing. A Squandered Nation Back in Carina, let's try out this Phase Shifter! It has no use at all in Antlia or Bootes, that we've seen, so all we can do with this is chase Horkos.  This creates a whole new second map for part of the floor of Carina. Why yes, for the fully mapped record stuff you do need to get the entirety of the Phase Shift sanctums AND the base form all done before it counts. Sanctums, plural, because this is Phase Shifter A. There's obviously gonna be more than one.  Fork in the path immediately. We'll go right for now, since that could lead to the stairs at the bottom and give us our bearings.  Or it could just give us a Mental Drink and absolutely nothing else.  Going back and following the newest part just leads back to normal Carina rather quickly.  Pretty quickly come to a cross intersection but it's kind of irrelevant.  Left and up from there just lead into each other and back to the centre. Right is progress, so...  There's more to the 2nd floor, of course, but we could honestly finish Carina REALLY quickly if we wanted to.  ....Or maybe not. God dammit, Carina!  We'll start off by heading over here, then. It's one of like three places we CAN get to and there's a Forma here.  Granted, there is ONLY that one Forma here. But, hey, a fixed 2 DF Carite II isn't that bad. Hopefully.  The left-most door just leads to a single Strength Incense. This is kind of nice and useful because it's Strength. Alas, it's let down as far as things are going to go here by being an Incense.  Just leaves this one path down at the bottom, I guess. Well, let's see where this leads then.  ...Oh, a terminal? That's kind of useful, as always. Around the corner, we-- In The Master's Name  Hurry! Hurry! I must run! To my hiding place...! Buo! Buo! Buono!> You can't hear the voice anymore... A Squandered Nation This path is linear and comes to a dead-end. That we can already get through. What is the point of this...?  There's a turn in that linear path down here, don't worry. Ignoring that just leads to a bunch of Chakra Drops which is something, I guess.  Another hidden door that we can already open. Still don't know why this is here. It's redundant and pointless.  It gives us another Sanctum on the 3rd floor, which we can use.  Okay, going right last time we got this kind of break lead to a waste of time. So we'll go left!  Y'know, we have so many Beads. 2 more is nice but it's also just more for the pile. We'll head up at that break in the path and follow the old dark rooms around back to where we found the terminal before.  There's nothing here but a Magic Mirror which is a useful item except not in the least. Being an item it goes first, and sets up a Reflect barrier on the entire party that affects a Fire/Ice/Wind/Elec/Expel/Curse spell. It only lasts for 1 turn, it can easily be ignored and skipped past, it has no effect on ailments, anything you would want to use it on has a fixed internal counter for if you try and do it...  Fortunately, the path that used to lead to a fixed Forma doesn't do that now. It leads to a path and... a terminal in the exact same spot as before? Huh.  Also there's a one-way door here. Well, poo poo.  Well, while we're here we might as well take advantage of this and check out the right-hand path. A few more Miracle Cores are never a bad thing and they're this path's version of the Beads, appropriately enough.  There's also a door here and a path leading back down, huh? We'll check this out in a minute but it occurs to me now that I haven't said anything about the Sanctum's fights, have I? Yeah, it has a few new demons. The Fear of God For starters, Halphas turns up here sometimes. Hey Halphas, how's it goin'? Sadly, Halphas is kind of boring. He's weak to being shot with normal bullets, he resists Expel and Curse and can cast Tarukaja and Rakukaja. No ailment resistances or weaknesses and his Source paradoxically gives Gun Boost which is neat and useful and is a skill that I'm going to abuse in at least one case with something else later.  Silky is honestly even more boring than Halphas. Everything you can see here is all you need to know. Her Source does give Recovery Boost which boosts y'know Dia, Media, Diarama, Mediarama and nothing else. It's also completely irrelevant because items are flatout better because of priority.  Lastly, we have Doppelganger and his Mou-Ryo buddies. We sort of used the latter but without any mention or fanfare. Mou-Ryo is at least a bit interesting by sheer default of having Kamikaze, because that kills him dead and deals Almighty physical damage to a single target. Doppelganger is weird. He's both one of the worst and one of the best demons we'll ever see. He is the second, and final, Foul and his natural resistances are.. interesting. He Reflects Phys and Gun (remember this) and has a 300% weakness to Expel and Curse. No ailment weaknesses or resistances, but he comes with Makarakarn which if he gets off already makes him almost invincible. He'll be seeing a lot of use in non-canon sidestuff because he makes a really good base for Shenanigans but we won't be using him often in "real" fights. Also Ally Call is an enemy only skill that lets him spawn in like Mou-Ryo and Macabre. A Squandered Nation Anyway, where were we? Ah, right. That door just leads to 5 Detox Cores. Boring!  The other path leads to stairs up to the 4th floor and a door further south.  ...Alright, fine. More dark sooms it is, I guess!  Well, almost. Kind of. They're at least mercifully short and brief this time around.  Nothing else that-a-way so we'll head on over this way and see where this leads.  First we're gonna make a whole buncha new demons. Phoenix is pretty okay. That he's immune to instant-death is kind of clever and I like that. No ailment resistances, is internally weak to Fire so he drains extra damage and his source gives... Maragion? Really..? Man, Phoenix, Inferno does this better. Added Raijuu's source to give elemental coverage.  Making a Sylph just so I can get actual Garudyne out of this. She's pretty straight-froward and I just like Sylph in general. Not so much in this game specifically, but I can't complain.  And Virtue's gonna let us walk through the randoms that Mudoon doesn't help much with. Nothing super fancy here.  Anyway, this path leads around to a different set of stairs leading up and another path south.  This happens when we go up those stairs. Well, okay then. Time to head back down because this was just for putting the stairs on the map anyway.  Around the corner back on the 3F, we can find a single Summon Stone. Sure, okay, whatever.  We'll double-back briefly to the top stairs leading to the 4th floor and... wow. This just leads to a dead-end. Well, this was pointless. Figures.  Alright, fine. Back to the 2nd floor we go. There's a reason, yes.  The door by the stairs now leads to a Sanctum area. We'll be heading through this for a special reason.  It's only a small Sanctum area, but it has a Phase Shifter in it? We'll look at that in a moment. There's also a normal base Carina area over here.  It's not that exciting or anything but it does let us get a couple more things.  Namely this. Luck is the best stat for Hitonari, of course, so this one might just see some use. Might. Probably not though.  The other gap lets us grab these. Tetraja Stones are neat and useful for preventing Expel or Curse but I'll likely forget that I have them. Unlike the mirrors they don't just last for one turn either! Throw one up at the start of the fight and it lasts until its used.  Anyway, we passed a Phase Shifter on the way through this part of the floor. Let's see what that does for us.  It lets us get a VERY GOOD weapon for Hitonari.  Sure it's weaker than the Plasma Knife but it inflicts Fear. Fear is insanely good and broken and I love it. It's annoying in the enemy's hands, but it's arguably the best ailment in our hands! No really, it works on almost everything and it makes them skip their turns. What's not to like? .....and yes, this is something where I have to grit my teeth and admit that IV almost did it better. It had a Chainsaw weapon as well. It inflicted instant death. More useful for randoms but way less useful for bosses.  Oh and I somehow missed this hidden door on the 2nd floor earlier.  I'm not sure how, since it lets us get some hopefully useful new Forma.  It also gives us our first Soma. Full HP and MP on a single target? Don't mind if I do. Yes, a single target and not the full party. You may have noticed that Soma Drops were not this. SJ inexplicably downgrades what these do because reasons.  Anyway, the main goal part of the 4th floor!  It's not super-big or anything, but it has some stuff in it. Like this door over here. We can't get through it yet. Lame.  Both of the other paths up lead around to this terminal. We'll just duck out of Carina for a second... Prayer Just to see what we can get from Irving. We don't need anything new or anything, but we can sure see what we can get anyway. The Dynamic ring is +15 MP. That's loving awful. At least it's easy to get now since it's just AC Carite x1, Fallen Feather x1 (Halphas) and Jirae Seal x3 (Sudama) for some reason. And that's it. That's the only new thing we unlocked during our trip through Carina. Lame.  Oh well. I'm gonna take this out on Virtue and just throw him in the trash. His job is done, so he can get outta here!  ...So that we can make a whole new one just outside Horkos' room. Either Gnome or Inferno's sources are good for this one. Inferno is better because it gives Agidyne and Fire Boost but Gnome gives Ziodyne and Rakunda. I'm gonna go with Gnome for expediency. In The Master's Name Anyway, Horkos! Even beasts know their keep... You are less than they. And do not compare yourselves to we noble demons... You humans, who have forgotten your great debt to the earth, are fated to die. Devouring all your pointless goods is a sign of my love! You disagree? You dare claim humans, who covered the earth with products of their desire, can handle this matter? How will you deal with such excess? We'll learn to control it. So overconfident. Humans lack the means to control themselves. Finding joy in order... Only those foolish angels can do that! > You aimed the Horkos Buster.   What!? It's not working!? Your weapon cannot affect this body! Buono! But humans upset that rhythm and have joined the ranks of the eaten, the consumed. I, Horkos, am the proof! First, I will eat you! Then I will eat that iron ship! And for the finale, I will devour all the humans of the Earth! Tyrant Horkos Vehement Rage Horkos is a weird awful spelling of Orcus. Orcus is a Roman god of the dead and his name also means the land of the dead. In a way, he's basically the Roman equivalent to Hades or Hel.  Here, he's a fat pig man with 1800HP and a weakness to barbecue (Elec and Fire). He resists Phys and Gun, and of course is immune to Instant Death. He's also a weird paradox in that his boss form is immune to every ailment. And yet you can inflict him with any and every ailment (except maybe 3 at the absolute most) with 100% success. You'll see...  Skill-wise, he's all Physical so if you have one bringing Doppelganger isn't a bad idea by any means. Taunt Horkos and have Doppelganger contribute by existing. But that's boring, so I won't do that.  I will however just casually turn Beads into my go-to healing item. This is going to be a trend from now on. We have an infinite number (thanks Irving!) so there's no point in being frugal and it's just a flatout better Diarahan.  Oh and Horkos is clever. Bosses are finally learning. Don't debuff him to -4 in anything otherwise he'll wipe it. -3 is perfectly fine though.  Same with buffing yourself. +3 is fine; +4 is anathema.  Horkos does have a gimmick and it's a special one. He'll summon a mook!  It's always a Katakirauwa. She's levelled up a bunch for this fight but that's irrelevant.  She'll try and cast Mudo a lot and do basic attacks and just otherwise be there pretending to matter. I have to say "pretending" because, well...  Her resistances are completely and totally unchanged. This means she is susceptible to every ailment, yes.  Oh and Horkos has a couple more unique things. Hit him even a little bit and he'll start using Air Dive. It's...  It's something, I guess. It hits everyone, but deals less damage than Stun Claw and doesn't inflict ailments or anything. Also a non-SA friend of mine described this attack as him imagining Horkos just falling over and landing on everyone. I can't not picture that as well now.  He can also kind of try and heal while damaging you at the same time, I guess? Taking A Bite deals Phys damage and he heals half the damage dealt.  His main reasoning for summoning the Katakirauwa is to do the same thing to her. The difference here is that Binge Eating deals 100% her current HP and he then heals half of that.  Oh, and no. I wasn't kidding at all when I said she's susceptible to every ailment still.  ....But so is Horkos. Guaranteed. When Katakirauwa has an ailment and he eats her, he gets that ailment.  Paralysis? Works fine. That's a good one because it doesn't wear off and makes him take extra damage.  Fear? Sure, why not! This one DOES wear off but he can just sit there doing nothing for a while.  Poison is the obvious one and Jimenez told us to do it but uhh...  Poison is kind of super underwhelming. It actually deals calculated damage so it's not super-useful against bosses, tragically. But point here is, yes, you can use this to inflict say Mute and completely shut him down wholesale. The End Or you can just kill the gently caress outta him and not care. It's a clever mechanic and one the game actually hints at in advance, but it's not necessary at all. In fact, it might be actively detrimental to try and use it.  At least he gives decent EXP when he goes down. Less macca than we'd get from, say, Kanbari though. Attack Mirror is the Phys/Gun equivalent to the Magic Mirror. This is infinitely more useful, yes. End In The Master's Name  No... One day... flow... disappear... ......> A strange energy cluster is sitting where Horkos was!   Silence The energy mass you retrieved must be sent to analysis immediately. Proceed directly to the command room... Malevolence and Benevolence Uh, Arthur... you... I... no. This concludes the mission. Mission "Carina's Rosetta" is confirmed complete. We are now equipped to plane shift to the next sector. As I mentioned during our correspondence with the Joint Project... It's been easy enough to do that in the three sectors we've seen so far... I wonder if it will be as simple in this new sector. Alas, our scant data so far makes it difficult to verify a region through which we can escape. Let us hope we will learn something in the fourth sector.  "Vanishing Point"...? That's... We will need your help in this, First Lieutenant Zelenin, as well as the Joint Project's help. I look forward to the result of your work, First Lieutenant Zelenin. Thanks to the supply and comms teams, we expect to be able to contact the Joint Project again. Our course of action will become clear then. Please rest until we launch for the new sector... There's no one on the crew by that name... Started seein' things, eh? Wait...! Could it have been a demon...!? ...Nah. Other people would've seen it then, and it would've left some kind of trace behind. What about you, Bugaboo? Did you sense anything? Demo... Demon..? ...No... No... Hahah, that's a neg, he says. Man, I can't believe he's back! Irving was really surprised that we managed to revive him, too! And I was wondering how much longer he'd live when I saved him at Bootes... It's against regulations to summon demons unles absolutely necessary. And this isn't the first time I've seen you do it. You don't respect authority much, do you, Jimenez? Spending time together like this makes a difference when it comes time for actual combat, y'know. Besides, Bugaboo needs some rehab. He's been treated as a "thing" for all this time. That's a dangerous philosophy. Demons only obey humans because of the summoning program... Hitonari, you really must speak up when he does this. It's all to prevent any accidents from happening. Excuse me, please...> Zelenin left.  I don't think that woman's ever gonna come around on the whole demon thing. Sheesh, it's not like having such a hate on for 'em will make them go away. It's too bad... Preparations to plane shift into the new sector are complete! We'll begin the plane shift as soon as we get the okay from Ops! Guess we should get ready. Right? Hey, Tadano...? If--I mean, WHEN we get back to the surface... Ahhh, I ask like we'd get a choice. They'll just take it away along with our Demonicas. We're just grunts, after all... And then we plane shift ever onwards...  You're in, what, the fourth sector now...? We're all hoping to see an end to the investigation soon. The structure of the quantum tunnel was extrapolated from the theory of the Schwarzwelt. Our data thus far has confirmed this theory. You've probably forgotten but Zelenin DID mention this guy before we entered the Schwarzwelt forever ago. Correct, First Lieutenant Zelenin. Dr. Hammerschmidt predicted the presence of quantum tunnels within the Schwarzwelt. He also theorized the Vanishing Point at which the Schwarzwelt connects to our world. If this theory of the Vanishing Point is also correct... The monitor team is ready with their report on the atmospheric conditions. Bringing up environmental imagery on the main display... Silence Fear To think there'd be a world of waste in the Schwarzwelt like there is in our world... I mean, we had some idea from the drone photos, but... It's hard to believe, even seeing it with my own eyes. We have noted this tendency in the three previous sectors as well. True, true... The professor said the Schwarzwelt is a "spiegel," a mirror to our own world... I didn't realize this is what he meant by that. To look at it, you wouldn't think the Schwarzwelt was any different from Earth... To the human eye, perhaps not. It's a literal hell on Earth... I don't envy you having to go around and investigate the place. Psh, don't sweat it. Real work always takes a little elbow grease. I get a real big charge outta wondering what'll hit us next! Am I right, guys? Could you please tone down the sarcasm, Jimenez? They honestly are sorry to have to send us here. There's no need to antagonize the like that. Am I alone in sensing some sort of will at work here...? The Schwarzwelt is undoubtedly influenced by the human world. It shouldn't be long now before we understand how this influence works.  We're all depending on you succeeding in there. May God be with you. Sorry, IF we make it back. Let us resume the task at hand. The first order of business is to designate this sector. Ah right!  Delphinus the do--  Do you want to do my job now Zelenin? Go for it. In keeping with the mission objective as outlined by the Joint Project... We will proceed with our analysis of the Schwarzwelt's structure using the equipment on this ship. Monitor team... Please proceed to Delphinus and begin your search for the quantum tunnel's location. Understood, Arthur. I'm getting used to going into the field... I'm sure we'll be successful. Strike team... You are tasked with searching for the Rosetta. Please stay alert during your search of the sector. It now has a wider range and greater sensitivity. Use it well in your search for the Rosetta. Uh... what do you want us to do about the demon we find? Bring it home, introduce it to the family? ...I tell you, Tadano, some folks can't appreciate sarcasm. But look, you and me should come up with a plan for when we do find the big ugly. I am issuing a new official mission, designated "Delphinus's Rosetta." Alright, cool. So as per usual we'll put this on hold and head back to Ca-- Crisis An, um... i-important article has gone missing. I'd like to call for an inspection. Arthur, c-can I have backup from the s-strike team? Your request is acknolwedged.
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Mar 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 22:03
|
|
|
And with that, see y'all next year when I swear I will update more often and hopefully finish (at least the first run) before August! ...No promises though.  no this totally definitely isnt a filler post to help get to the next page quicker why would you think that
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 22:06
|
|
|
I'm sorry, I can't take Rosetta: Car seriously. I get that it came from using the first three letters and all but that's just silly.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2016 23:55
|
|
|
The overarching theme of this game might as well be "I know I'm supposed to, but I can't take this seriously."
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 00:44
|
|
|
Horkos is probably the silliest part of the game, all in all. But at least that makes Carina memorable. Delphinus is about the point where the sectors start to blur together in my memory and I'm no longer sure which plot developments happen in which. Maybe it is me, but I find the middle of the game to be a lot less cohesive than the beginning and end.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 06:29
|
|
|
This update sort of highlights an issue I have with the game's pacing. We had several good opportunities for a boss fight: 1) After Horkos is finally removed from the ship 2) When Horkos attacks our ship but is repelled 3) When we next confront Horkos and he drops his hoof 4) Finally when we battle him in his banquet basement It feels like a lot of padding. I remember thinking "Oh my god, we're still not fighting!?" several times back when I tried to play the game myself. Maybe it was just a problem I had personally, but I don't recall the game getting any better about this either.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 11:56
|
|
|
Yea - now it's coming back, the middle game really kind of falls apart when it comes to pacing - and having Jiminez bitch about it while amusing and reflect our thoughts kind of shows someone was aware the Horkos chase had issues but they didn't care enough to fix it. Throw in the other sectors had a lot of bullshit means of forcing you to take the most roundabout route to get anywhere and a good amount of backtracking even if you're skipping optional quests. I do think SJ's story would go better if it was aware of the absurdity of the situation instead of trying to play it 100% straight
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 19:55
|
|
|
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure Delphinus is where I decided I'd had enough of this game. Seeing the game in LP format like this conceals how tedious it can be to actually play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 20:24
|
|
|
I remember people yelling at me a few years ago for not liking Strange Journey because I was a "Pissbaby wuss who likes their hand held", no - it's not hard in the combat department, though some bosses have some bullshit tactics, but it's the sheer tedium. I somehow beat it, but it probably out of sheer spite. Dark Souls is hard, but it's a fun hard where it's learning how things tick and how to proceed, Strange Journey's hard in the navigation solely to make you waste time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 20:34
|
|
|
The game is very bad in the second half. Holy gently caress it's bad. The backtracking, the tedium, the existence of bullshit that the next few sectors will try your patience and ability to deal with bullshit. I still say SMT4's the better game, but people will probably ignore me anyways.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2017 06:37
|
|
|
I have to agree, I actually had fun for all the way in SMT4, the plot progression does need some serious work - but it didn't feel like a loving chore to get through.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2017 06:52
|
|
|
I liked Strange Journey to a point. Interesting dungeon themes can make me forgive a lot of sins; after all, I'll defend some of Persona Q's pretty glaring flaws since I thought the aesthetic theme of some of the dungeons (2 and 3 in particular) took a lot of the hassle out of exploring (also it had good music but that doesn't really have bearing here). I really liked Carina in Strange Journey in spite of how tedious it was. The visual design aspect of exploring a demon's idea of a human shopping mall was pretty cool, and Horkos was goofy enough to pull the game out of its dumb melodrama for a bit and make the plot a bit more bearable. That said, I despised Delphinus because it's ugly as hell and annoying to navigate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2017 07:16
|
|
|
Delphinus is one of my favorite areas of SJ to navigate so I'm excited to see how OP demolishes it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2017 01:39
|
|
|
Yeah, we'll probably start Delphinus on Monday. If not this Monday then the one after, at the latest. In the meantime, there is a bit to do before we get to that. Olé!
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 18:53
|
|
|
Prayer As always, a new sector means we get new dialogue from the crew! What's so important that we were keeping in sickbay? think you'd better get over there and take stock of the situation.I agree, but we'll skip over it for now and go right to the lab instead.  Mostly because, hey, we got a new Rare Forma from a boss which means new sub-apps. A lot of them, even!  HP Recover II is nice but only affects Hitonari so we're probably not gonna use it much. Edit: Whoops, turns out no I'm a moron and I remembered this wrong entirely. You can use 1 Recover and 1 Regen SubApp simultaneously if you have the space. In my defense, for everything else with this kind of overlap you cannot do that! MP Recover I is a downgrade to a thing we've had since entering Bootes. You're really not expected to fight Lorelei until later despite how easy she is.  Nurse would've been nice earli-- wait, "odds of status ailment?" Suddenly I'm feeling all sorts of trepidation about this Delphinus place.  Zealots are an annoying race of mostly "eh" demons that I've only ever used one of. The only way to get them is via a Fusion Accident and this description is confusing and misleading. It guarantees you get a Zealot if the fusion formula for calculating result is within 3 of the Zealot's level. If not, it's still completely random what you get from the valid list at that level. Fusion Accidents are stupid as hell. ...Oh, right. Fusion formula if you care is: code:The lowest level Zealot is level 24, for reference, so for this to work you need a Fusion Accident to happen on a result anywhere between 21 and 27. Accidents are rare inherently - 1/16 is the best chance given if it's a New/Full Moon AND you use a Source, and by default it's 1/64. Fishing for Accidents is misery so be glad you'll never have to do it. I know I am.  Anyway, the last set of 3 given by the Stomach Acid (yes it gives a lot) are interesting and useful in their own way. Friend Item/Macca are really useful for getting Forma and achievement grinding respectively, whereas Friend Heal is nice for obvious reasons. Normally when you have a demon and talk to that same demon in a random battle, what happens is randomised but this limits it to just the one you have equipped. Friend Item + Extra Item is probably how I'm going to Forma grind for Irving in the future because it's so efficient and prevents getting overlevelled.  They're all in a lather over in sickbay. You gotta go see what's got 'em so riled. What would they be safekeeping over in sickbay? Silence And then this guy immediately interrupts us if we try to go to to the deck. Jerk. Strike team, make sure you take care of the situation there before heading out.We don't exactly have a choice, so... Crisis I--but I swear--I kept it in the stasis capsule--but...! ...You're awfully flustered. Take it easy.  What!? Commander Gore's body is... gone!? OUR Commander...!? It's impossible... there was no reason for anyone to touch it, but then suddenly it was gone...  Are... are you sure no one moved it without your knowledge? No, nothing like that could be done without me signing off on it!Just because a bureaucratic process should be followed, doesn't mean it WILL be followed. ...Yes, okay, in this situation this probably is an actual requirement because only Zoe can open the stasis capsules or something but hey. Oh, poo poo... Have there been any signs of demons invading the ship? If that's what happened, we have a serious security breach! Whoa, let's not jump the gun there. You know how unlikely it is that a demon's wandering around, right? And there are't any demons who could escape from the summoning program, either. Sure, I summon Bugaboo sometimes for training, but he never leaves my sight the whole time. ...No, that's impossible. It was already too late to resuscitate him when we got him in here. Hmm... this is very weird. But we are in the Schwarzwelt. I guess nothing's that weird in this place... The disappearance of Commander Gore's body cannot be ignored. Investigation of this matter will be a high priority. However, it is likely that human error is the cause here. The Commander can't be at peace like this. He may just be a corpse, but I'd like to bury him on Earth. We have to find him. But... how...?I'm sure we'll think of something later. For now, we'll just do what we do best. Prayer Talk to Zoe now that we can! I think we should assume somebody took him. ...What? You think he might have disappeared on his own? ...I think you've seen too many horror movies. From a medical standpoint, this is just strange. And y'know... Yeah, I actually did feel a little uncomfortable, like there was a mysterious presence. ...Wait, I'm making it sound like the Commander came back to life. Wow, have I gotten so desperate to start hoping he'd come back to life in the middle of battle...? Oh, and of course this was kind of a big deal. So everyone else's dialogue has already updated again! Did someone steal it? Did it somehow get up and start walking around? Either way, there must be some explanation. We have to find out what it is... Arthur said it was due to human error, but how do you misplace a corpse? You should probably look into it when you have any spare time. ...What'm I supposed to think, that somethin' in the Schwarzwelt did it? Hmm... Mighty peculiar. This one's outta my league... But if the Commander getting up and walking out is in keeping with the natural law of this world... Maybe it's worth considering. Science is the explanation of superstition, after all. As per usual, this is as much of Delphinus as we're seeing right now. It kind of looks like an awful and miserable place anyway, so I don't think this is going to be a big loss.  "Rest In Peace." I even inscribed it on the Commander's stasis tank. And now someone's gone and disturbed his rest. Ridiculous... And for the first time in a while, we can actually get something out of Dent. He doesn't care about the plot as per usual, but his Talk option finally gives us something new. Want to help liven things up a bit again? I won't go easy on you this time! Well? Wanna? Yes. Good! Then let's go. Should I explain the rules? Yes. Okay, here's how to play 10 Rocks. You'll need these to play. You get 3 cards and 5 rocks. I get the same. Each of the cards has something written on it: Each of us chooses one card without the other seeing and puts it down. If you play "Add a rock," you add one rock to your total. If you play "Take two rocks," you take two of your opponent's rocks and add them to your total. However, if I had played the "Counter" card... You wouldn't get my rocks, and I'd get two of YOUR rocks. So there you go, the rules. Need me to go over them again? No. The Fear of God Then let's go! I'm sure there's some kind of top-tier optimal strat for "real" play but Dent does not require that kind of effort or care. He does the same stuff in the same order every time. So we add 1 rock.  He decides to try and Counter so we already have an edge.  This happens twice in a row, even.  He tries to flip that here, but we're a step ahead so...  We're at 9 and he's at 3.  Literally doesn't matter what he does here, because Adding 1 can't be stopped and gives us a win. Uugghhhh! You got me... You win. You're pretty good at this stuff, Hitonari... That was probably the most long-winded and difficult way to earn 2500 Macca in a while. You can instant kill Tam Lin for more than that consistently and effortlessly. That was a great way to kill time. Thanks a lot! Prayer We can talk to Dent normally again after beating him. I've been pretty busy lately. Still, every now and then I miss the games we used to play. Wanna play again? I think it's important to take five here and there. No. What? This is no time for games? Sheesh, when'd you get so strict? Alright, fine... I'll concentrate more on my duties.You can play again if you really, really want. There is absolutely no reason to do so and you get nothing more from it. This is all his Talk option will give for... a very, very long time, I'm pretty sure.  But sidequests? Like, real ones? Nah, those are fine. He's been preoccupied lately... Could you find out what it is and help him with it? Will you grant Anthony's request? Yes. ...You can tell this guy is going to be really important even within his own sidequest because has the Generic Srike Team Man sprite.  I'm Anthony, with the strike team. Nice to finally meet you. You know, I'm actually a pretty famous guy within the strike team. When I ask why, they just laugh... What's the deal with that? But thats beside the point right now, I guess... I also hear you're a pro when it comes to demon negotiation. Hell, you talk more to those demons than you do to your crewmates. C'mon, man, we're your buddies! Demons are fine and all, but you gotta pay attention to us every now and then too.Well, I DO pay attention to the people that are both worth it and that I can so... You get me, man? I get you. Heh, glad you're quick on the uptake. Not that I would have expected anything less. I'm talking about listening to my problems... See, I got a favor to ask. Okay. Hey, thanks! All right, I'm not gonna beat around the bush here... Silence  gently caress it, give me the trash pit. It'll be better than this. Prayer O-Oh... I get it... You think I'm joking, huh? No way, man. I'm deadly serious. Isn't it natural to fall for one? No. No, it isn't. Alright, alright... I understand. There's no accounting for taste... But anyways, let's get back to my problems. But here's the problem. Because of my current assignment, I can't move from this spot. So I can't even look for her, let alone talk to her. So here's the favor I need... If you run into that demon chick, tell her I'm looking for her. That's right. All I need you to do is talk with her. Easy, right? ....Well then. This might actually be funny. But I can describe her for you! Oh, I know who that is. I'm counting on you, bro! Before we get to see just how badly this blows up in that guy's face, let's make a few new demons. Baphomet's pretty okay but without adding a Source I've already given him more utility. Mamudo is good for randoms at least; Fog Breath is double Sukunda and thus doesn't count for anything. Nothing special resistance wise that you can't already see.  Also Dis. Her inheritance is only geared towards Wind and Ailments. This is... weird, for sure, but we can use that to make her really good at Wind at least. In hindsight, I should've kept Makakaja over either Recarm or Mediarama (healing skills do not matter at all on demons) but it's really not that big a deal.  So, let's just... ignore our current sidequest for a minute. There's one we want to start first that we'll finish last. It's gonna take a long while... A Squandered Nation In the room where we found Mastema, we can find this Dwarf now. He's been hanging out here since Horkos attacked the Red Sprite.  I'm Dwarf. I work as a blacksmith here. You came at just the right time, boy. I got a favor to ask you. This place has nearly all the materials I need. It's the perfect spot to make weapons. But it seems I'm missing some things here and there. I want you to go get 'em for me. Willya do it for me? Yes. Glad to hear it! You bring me all that and I'll forge you my best weapon. I'm countin' on you, boy. Well, that was so easy it tells us we're already done when we leave the room. ...We've been able to buy a Cursed Lance for a long, long while in case you forgot. It's that thing what's a Pixie Knife but way shitter.  Not bad, not bad! I'll make you the best weapon these hands know how! It'll take me some time. Mind waiting 'til I'm done?"Some time" is a giant understatement. It takes 10 full moon cycles before he finishes. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, gonna let that cycle in the background while we do everything else and still have to waste some time before he finishes.  So, Anthony's terrible, terrible life choices lead us to go into Bootes. A Frivolous Nation We're going to continue ignoring Anthony's thing for a moment longer. Melchom's still here and now that we've beaten Horkos has something new!  Care to take it on? Yes. I'm glad you know how to follow orders. All I ask is that you get results. As fortune would have it, we have exactly enough to complete this now. I think you can get a max of 3 by now somehow but I don't remember entirely - 1 from the Sandman sidequest in Antlia, 1 as a guaranteed drop from Mitra and 1 from another sidequest maybe?   I can't say I was planning on using them anytime soon anyway, and this gives us more than we'd get from selling them to Irving. How fortuitous. I look forward to working with you again....Well, now we need to kill time and we're in Bootes. Let's find that totally mysterious demon that Anthony wants us to talk to. Encounter  Uhhh... refresh my memory? I mean, yeah, sometimes I charm men, but... Hmm... Oh well. I wasn't that interested anyway. Tell that An-whatever guy, won't you? Tell him I don't remember him in the slightest. Besides, you look way more fun to talk to, handsome. If you want to chat sometime, I'm game. See you!...Let's just tell Anthony that, no, Leanan Sidhe is not interested in him unsurprisingly. Prayer > You reported to Anthony... O-Oh... okay... Alright. That's cool. I'm okay with that. Maybe I struck out this time but you did good, man. Thanks. Mechanically, sure this was simple and an easy way to get 2 Incenses. Honestly, I'm possibly more surprised Anthony is the only one to go this kind of weird.  ...And he's got another sidequest already. Hopefully it'll be different sort of thing now. He's been spacing out again, though I don't know why. Help the guy out. Will you grant Anthony's request? Y-Yes. Hey, we're both still alive, huh? ...Actually, there's something else I need from you. Are you up for it?Oh, it IS something else. Okay, cool. Yes. You're the man! I'll just cut right to the chase... Silence Prayer Aww... not more of this silent treatment, man. We've been through this once already, man. Don't act like this now. ...Anyways, back to business. Cute demon chick, wanna talk to her, can't move from here, yadda yadda. I need you to tell her that I gotta talk to her, man.   Oh, good. Anthony is one of Those People. This is going to end Super Badly, and we all know that so let's just get this over with. Encounter I honestly don't remember if I mentioned Moh Shuvuu's are around as randoms in Carina or not. I don't think I did because there's nothing remotely relevant about it until now. So yeah, she's here on the 2nd floor and higher.  Also, thankfully, this quest is not all that weird and mostly just exists to take the piss out of people who really do that whole "she looks 8 but she's a 1000 year old demon so it's totally okay" thing. > Moh Shuvuu has a complicated expression on her face...  ...Actually, I like sucking on humans' brains... But I don't think I want any of this Anthony guy's. I bet they taste disgusting, and they'll make me dumb! Hyahahaha! Failure as a human! Failure as a human!Let's just get this one completely over now. We've got something else special in Carina but it can wait a few minutes longer. It'll probably take an hour to do knowing my luck anyway. Prayer > You reported to Anthony... Wh-What...? That makes me sound like some kinda...! Dammit! She's hundreds of years old, right? Not at all how that works. Argh... forget it, okay!? This is grief I don't need! You too! Forget any of this ever happened! DOn't tell ANYONE, got it!? Okay!? If there's anything worthwhile to take from this, it's that the game does not play nicely with Anthony despite this being a fairly lengthy quest chain, all things considered.  We can at least make a bit of a dent now. ...No pun intended. He's been spacing out again, though I don't know why. Help the guy out. Will you grant Anthony's request? N-Yes... I guess I'm still sucking down air too somehow. ...Actually, I have another favor for you. You up for it? ....Yes. You're the man! I'll just cut right to the case... Silence Prayer Aaaaand... more silence. Well, get used to it, buddy! That REALLY would've been nice, yes. Well, too bad! This time, she's a real cool girl! But once I saw her, my freezing heart was on fire! I tried making a pass at her, but all that howling wind sorta drowned out my voice. And once the blizzard was over, I couldn't find her again... So there you have it. Think you can find her for me?  Not a big gaudy one like a geisha would have, something simpler.Well, that's... um... er... we haven't actually ran into anything matching that description, huh? Guess we're gonna have to leave this one for later or something. Oh how tragic.  So, let's head to Antlia instead for a minute. There's something here we can do now. A Scorched Nation She's good with household chores, so she'd keep the place clean. Could you bring Silky here? Pretty please? Yes. I knew you'd do it! I'm counting on you.I grabbed one off-screen earlier. They're not exactly rare in Carina and pretty easy to fuse as well, so...  Take this as thanks. Thanks to you, I'm one step closer to building a village of faeries. Wait 'til you see it when it's all finished! Goblin has nothing new to say right now.  This is a fairly large town... Which makes it all the more delightful!'Nother new rare forma, so let's go take this to Irving.  Enemy Challenge is... very specific in its use. It raises the encounter rate. It does it a lot. A lot. It varies somewhat by sector, but in some places this thing can give you a fight every 4 steps. I kinda like it. It makes it so much easier to grind Forma and just grind in general, if you're into that; I am but I'm not doing it here. Oh and now we're done with sidequests we can finish at the moment. Except that Dwarf, but he's working on that still. The Fear of God So, let's go to Carina to get that Forma we need. Yamawaro is in the dark rooms and in the Sanctums but he just... never turned up during the normal run through. I don't know, he's not even rare so I just got RNG trolled I guess. He's terrible. He's weak to Expel and Curse, and has a 300% weakness to Mute. He has no resistances. His default skills are Bobasma, Rampage and Garu. His source gives his normal moveset except it sensibly replaces Garu. It drops it for Magaru. Also he's a Strength demon but his inheritances are the same as Dis: Wind and Ailments. gently caress Yamawaro. But now that he's turned up, we can get every Forma in Carina. Except one. There's one special little guy that has yet to appear. I mentioned this before, but the Enemy Search here has a fight that has a 2% spawn rate.  This guy never appears as an Unknown. But, don't worry; I swear, by my sword and capote, that I will once again prove victorious! Fiend Matador An Honor Befitting That Name Okay, so Matador. Having had plenty of time to prepare for this guy, he's kind of defanged a lot at this point. But that's fine, he's still a Fiend and notably does have an Analyse gauge here. Which means that, yes, in this fight he is treated internally as a (mini)boss.  He's also Matador. So, of course he's all about dealing a lot of Phys damage in as little a time as possible.  He's weak to Elec, and nothing else, but uh... Hitonari has a Bufudyne gun and just got buffed by the enemy. Thanks, Matador. He resists Phys and Gun and all Matadors are immune to Curse. Enemy Search Matador is immune to Expel as well, but usable ones only resist it.  No Andalucia here, instead he just uses Deathbound. This is standard Moderate Phys damage on all foes. It could be better. His only other skill is a passive that doesn't do anything for an enemy Matador. The End He also doesn't have a lot of health here - 500 which is less than half of what David had. So he drops fairly quickly, yes. Incidentally, he's immune to all ailments in this fight, but when we get one he'll very heavily resist all of them except one, which we haven't seen yet. And by "heavily" I mean heavily. He has a 25% modifier.  Fiends are the only Enemy Search demons that give EXP. There is one Fiend in every Sector from Carina onwards and they all have a 2% chance of appearing. I could be wrong here, but I think they all guarantee all of their drops as well. The Forma and middle one are definitely guaranteed across the board at least, so if he wasn't so rare we could get infinite Soma Drops from Matador. End A Squandered Nation We'll get a Matador of our own as soon as we reach level 30, yes. For now, we'll just make a Doppelganger. Not for wacky Shenanigans (that comes later, and is more specialised than this).  No, just because he's an ingredient in making Horkos along with Momunofu and Macabre. Usable Horkos is... kind of okay, I guess. He can inherit a lot of things, Mana Drain is good for a Phys demon and good in general (until later when we get a better version) and his default skills are fairly solid. Really his Source and that he can beinstakilled are the biggest disappointments here. His Source is Life Surge (+30% max HP) and nothing else. This is kind of a mixed blessing in a way. On the one hand, yes, Life Surge is terrible and a waste of a slot on anything ever. On the other hand, it is REALLY good if a demon ever wants to skill change that thing.  But we'll get to that another day. For now, while I was midway through grinding Forma, this finally happened.  Here y'go. One of my best works, if I do say so myself. I might ask you to fetch some materials for me if I run out again, so don't fail me, boy.Translation: he'll have a new quest for us later.  The Hawthorn Spear is pretty okay. It's a decently strong weapon that can inflict Mute. It's good for shutting down some demons for sure, but I prefer the Chainsaw overall because Mute resistance is more ubiquitous. For now, we're done with everything except filling out the remainder of the Lab's stock so let's go see what Irving has for us. Prayer The Nihil is an... interesting weapon. It's a single, adequately strong attack on a target chosen entirely at random that has a decent chance of Paralyzing them. It's mostly okay for that Paralyze but not as useful for randoms because of the inability to target being a liability. It is super time-consuming to make, though: it takes AT Carite II x2, Genma Spear x6 (Tam Lin) and Enigma Clay x5 (Kanbari).  The Phozon Knife is super-boring and straight forward. It's not even that strong, but you're most likely expected to luck into getting this much, much earlier. Except it's worse than the Plasma Knife fundamentally (it's a whole 5 points of attack stronger), and you realistically get it later. It takes AT Carite II x2, Wilder Volt x3 (Raiju) and Divine Shield x2 (Power) to make.  I... know basically nothing about the Cat's Punch gun, to be honest. I've never used it because you probably won't get it in any reasonable timeframe. It hits 1 random target or it hits random targets for more damage. So what makes it hard to make? It takes AT Carite II x2, Beast Hairball x4 (Nekomata) and Red Capote x1.  In terms of armor, the Recycle Vest is inexplicably the "best" we can get. It's got the 2nd highest Defense out of the lot we can pick up and it resists Phys (and Gun)! ...Except it makes you weak to Fire, Ice, Elec AND Wind. Ouch. Yeah, I'll pass on that one thanks. Takes DF Carite II x2, Vermin Abdomen x2 (Myrmecolion) and Raptor Dress x2 (Moh Shuvuu).  The Gustible Vest is honestly even worse. It gives less downsides, but it's also really not that great. A Gun resistance isn't super-great, it's probably the least useful on average, and it's less defense than the Recycle Vest. Fortunately, it's a quick and easy thing to get. DF Carite x1, Wood Gourd x2 (Shan Xiao) and Spirit Blaze x1 (Inferno). Think I'll just go with the Ice Vest. Nullifies Ice and has the highest Defense stat to date? Don't mind if I do.  And lastly, the accessories. Oh god the accessories... The Stoic Ring is... actually not that good. It makes Hitonari immune to Charm, but if he gets Charmed that less of a big deal than it sounds. It just means he attacks dudes, with his sword. Most of his swords are kind of terrible so this doesn't matter too much. If you care about that for one reason or another - it IS the best alternative to the Yggdrasil Ring right now - then its AC Carite x2, Spirit Scythe x2 (Macabre) and Fairy Kerchief x2 (Silky) to make.  Stamina Ring is +15 HP and nothing else. Save your AC Carite x1, Jirae Tools x2 (Dwarf) and Brute Pelt x1 (Yamawaro) for literally anything else.  Might Ring is +4 Strength. That's kind of okay, I guess? Except, eh, not really. 4 stat points really do not make that big of a difference in practice. AC Carite x1, Wood Gourd x2, Drake Stripes x2 (Zhu Tun She) if you want it. We don't get any other +4 stat boost accessories here though.  Counter Ring is very niche and kind of maybe sometimes useful, but I'm not gonna bother with this one either. It's a 30% chance to counter any Phys/Gun attacks, just like the Counter skill if you care. AC Carite x3, Foul Clay x2 (Doppelganger) and Red Capote x1 to make it. That's sure why I wouldn't make it at least. Anyway, we've done everything we CAN do right now. Into what looks like a cesspit of misery and trash we go... Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 18:54
|
|
|
The only Fiend I bothered to fight more than once was the last one, which was an amazing way of grinding quickly at the end of the game. I really didn't do Enemy Search enough when I played SJ way back when. It probably would have helped.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Anthony's Questline is both hilarious and cringe inducing - I think Moh Shouyruu's reaction is probably the best one we get.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 19:50
|
|
|
What's wrong with Life Surge? If all of your demons die, you will probably lose the game. As such, having 30% more HP seems like it should be useful, as it makes your demons significantly less likely to kick the bucket.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 20:01
|
|
|
The way the game works for most of it, if your demons die by HP damage you have messed up and 30% extra HP will not save you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 09:57
|
|
|
And generally you'd want that slot for another attack skill for type coverage or a buff/debuff more than you need the extra HP
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 16:32
|
|
|
Just binged this LP in a day and now I'm itching to play again, especially since it's become apparent that I know nothing. I never used Enemy Search or the Sources so...uh...wow. Yeah.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 18:18
|
|
|
Strange Journey: Hua Po Grinding Simulator
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
Delphinus is apparently the sector of three things: misery, Conquest and almost assuredly causing this page to throttle the poo poo out of my internet (UK internet is superterrible and I hate it). Fortunately, Baldurk is a cool dude who lets us do a sensible thing:  Update 21. Sector Delphinus
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2017 21:31
|
|
|
Yeah, this page was already getting really heavy. Delphinus...it's...there? It's grim and grey and ugly, and all of that is precisely what it's supposed to be. That said, there are a few interesting things, especially the boss.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2017 22:49
|
|
|
Delphinus is one of two sectors I generally forget exist and when I remember them, I generally forget everything that happens in them. The other sector I at least usually remember a side quest, I don't ever even get that far with Delphinus.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2017 22:58
|
|
|
I'm helping this thread go to the next page. Will read update later.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2017 23:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 19:07 |
|
|
I missed that this was supposed to be despair rather than sloth. Good job nailing White Rider early. I see you like living on the edge and not healing status conditions.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 01:23
|
|