7th Dragon III Code: VFD Part #31 - Update XXIX - Featuring: The Third True Dragon

Part 31: Update XXIX - Featuring: The Third True Dragon

Update XXIX - Featuring: The Third True Dragon

Music: Ladyin - Sacred Tranquility

That is where the Grand Star Crystal is held. And... where Nyala resides.

It's right ahead, then...!

I understand. However, this is as far as you two will go.

...What do you mean?

It's too dangerous. Once the door opens, I want you and Eigur to withdraw. I don't want to drag you into our battle with the True Dragon. You may lose your lives in there.

But we have come all this way... Opal...

You should join us, Ulania.

Opal doesn't give a shit about things like orders, as expected.

Yes... Thank you very much, Opal.

~

I don't want you to die.

Yes, I do not wish for that either, but...

Geez! Don't worry about anyone else's opinion at a time like this! It's all you, Ulania!

...! You are correct...

~~

Mr. Yoritomo, please let me participate in this final battle with Nyala. I have a duty to fulfill as the final remaining survivor of the Atlantis Royal Family.

*nods*

Please, old man! I'll protect Ulania! I've gotta keep my promise with Tallieri after all!

...Fine. But be sure not to push yourselves too hard.

Yeah, I promise. ...C'mon Unit 13, let's get going! We're gonna show this Nyala bastard who's boss around here!

*nods*

Aaaaaand Yuma has a D-Install malfunction right before a boss fight, right on cue.

Yuma...

What...!?

*nods*

...!? N-No...

I assume that the thousands of dragon genes within you are reacting as you near Nyala. You simply cannot handle it. It will be impossible for you to fight in such a state.

So, like, what exactly is the endgame for this artifical dragoner project? Yuma has been breaking down just from having Iod and Fomalhaut installed, and we're still four samples short of being able to fight VFD. The fact that he hasn't gone berserk like Takehaya did by now is nothing less than a miracle.

But I... I've come so far...!

You've done a great deal already. I will ensure you are not made redundant.

...Understood.

And here we are.

It took about four months.

But we're finally facing our first True Dragon.

This is actually a big moment for the series. Every time Nyala's appeared, even back in the very first game, he's always had one black wing.

This is the first time we get to see Nyala in his prime.

Music: Berg - Ultimate Sea Palace

I have enjoyed watching this pure kingdom perish at the hands of my beautiful flowers of death...

Unlike when it appeared in 2020, its right wing is fully intact... This must be its undamaged form.

I've been waiting to see you, Nyala... Your time's up!

Eigur... You cannot allow it to get to you.

I'm the one who's gonna kill you.

Wow, gold is so cliche.

For those of you who think that the script had some jokes added in during localization, it turns out that even in the original JP you get to mock Nyala to his face.

Really helps set the tone VFD is going for.

...

~~

Ha... Hahaha... Hahahaha!

Video: The 3rd True Dragon
Music: True Dragon - 1st Encount

Oh shiiiiiiiiiii-

Awwww...

Now, as this is the first True Dragon on our True Dragon Extermination Tour, I'll get a bit more in-depth on how Nyala ticks.

Back in 2020 he had:

LF: 30000 ATK: 224 DEF: 141 MAT: 224 MDF: 113 SPD: 76
True Dragon Breath: Non-elemental Breath attack to all party members. MAT-based. 1.25x damage. Cannot miss.
True Dragon Meteor 2020: Non-elemental Ranged attack to all party members. MAT-based. 3.75x damage. Cannot miss.
Black Blaze: Fire-elemental Ranged attack to all party members. MAT-based. 0.75x damage. Cannot miss. 50% chance to inflict Burn for 5 turns. The Burn ticks for 21 damage, multiplies ATK and MAT by 0.9x, and multiplies ATK and MAT damage taken by 1.05x.
True Dragon Fang: Non-elemental Fang attack to random party members. ATK-based. 1x damage. Hits 3 times. Cannot miss. 65% chance to inflict Bleed for 5 turns. The Bleed ticks for 27/31/32/32/32 damage.
Killer React: React skill. Places a buff on the user for 15 turns. If they successfully kill a party member, they will be granted an extra turn.
Nihil Gaze: Targets one party member. 75% chance to inflict Downer for 5 turns. 50% chance to inflict Sleep for 5 turns. 99% chance to inflict Freeze for 5 turns. The Freeze ticks for 21 damage, and multiplies SPD by 0.8x. 99% chance to inflict Poison for 5 turns. The Poison ticks for 28 damage.
Repair: Heals the user for 1032 LIFE.
Ruinous Omen: Telegraph skill.

Meanwhile, here in VFD he has:

LF: 5390 ATK: 125 DEF: 99 MAT: 125 MDF: 99 SPD: 55
True Dragon Breath: Non-elemental Breath attack to all party members. MAT-based. 1.25x damage. -100% Crit Chance. 0.75x speed.
True Dragon Meteor: Non-elemental Ranged attack to all party members. MAT-based. 5x damage. -100% Crit Chance. 0.75x speed.
Golden Flame: Fire-elemental Ranged attack to all party members. MAT-based. 0.75x damage. 50% chance to inflict Burn for 5 turns. The Burn ticks for 29 damage, and applies a 0.9x multiplier to the target's ATK, MAT, DEF, and MDF. -100% Crit Chance. 0.75x speed.
True Dragon Fang: Non-elemental Fang attack to random party members. ATK-based. 1x damage. Hits 3 times. 65% chance to inflict Bleed for 5 turns. The Bleed ticks for 30/36/37/37/37 damage. 0.75x speed.
Killing Act: Places a buff on the user that grants the user an extra turn if they kill a party member. Lasts for 9 turns. Buddy skills have a 60% chance to break this. 0.75x speed.
Chaos Gaze: Targets one party member. 75% chance to inflict Downer for 5 turns. 50% chance to inflict Sleep for 5 turns. 99% chance to inflict Freeze for 5 turns. The Freeze ticks for 20 damage, and multiplies SPD by 0.1x. 99% chance to inflict Poison for 5 turns. The Poison ticks for 20 damage. 0.75x speed.
Restoration: Heals the user for 512 LIFE. 0.75x speed.
Omen of Destruction: Buffs the user. Multiplies MAT by 1.5x for 3 turns. Display message: "Nyala is gathering the power of the universe!" If this buff is not broken within 2 turns, it will allow him to cast True Dragon Meteor on the 3rd turn of this buff. Buddy skills have a 40% chance to break this. 0.75x speed.
Nyala's Scorn: Telegraph skill. Display message: "Nyala waits calmly." 0.75x speed.

His stats have been lowered across the board, since this is still early game, but he's fairly the same compared to 2020! He's an actual final boss that we're facing in the first third of the game! His complete inability to crit (outside of True Dragon Fang) just means that he's working on 2020 rules.

He also has a bizarre 25% SPD cut on all his skills. A possible Watsonian explanation is that this is the very first time Nyala's faced actual resistance from his prey, so he's heavily sandbagging because he doesn't see a need to go all out ala Frieza. The Doylist explanation is that VFD is a very easy game.

Omen of Destruction is new, however, and adds in a new kink to breaking buffs. With just a 40% chance of being broken on any given Buddy skill, plus True Dragon Meteor getting buffed, plus a 50% MAT buff, (under VFD rules, at that!) and suddenly failing to break Omen and letting True Dragon Meteor come out is pretty much instant death.

The first turns are spent doing the same setup you know and love.

Nyala can put out some sizable damage.

But two turns with nothing but normal attacks is easy to handle.

This isn't luck-based either. While Nyala's skills are mostly the same in VFD, his AI got rather heavily weakened. In this case, he physically cannot use anything but normal attacks until turn 3.

Stacking Spinning Edge with a Burn from Yuno will cut his damage by a good chunk.

Speaking of turn 3, he'll always use Chaos Gaze and Golden Flame in that exact order.

Chaos Gaze in particular is our first encounter with Downer, doubling all of Opal's MN costs.

While Golden Flame is mostly the same as Black Blaze, but it is a nice touch that they renamed the skill to go with Nyala's undamaged wing.

A long fight like this, combined with Yuno having multiple 2 card options and the ability to draw 2 fire cards on demand makes X Burn really pick up.

Due to Nyala being so early, Chaos Gaze actually becomes a really nasty move. In 2020, you could just toss out a Somanel and clear everything at once, but at this point in the game I don't have access to those, so I'd have to spend two actions to clear the Freeze and Poison individually.

Hilariously enough, Detox would actually have a use case right here, as it would cure everything in one shot, but I never bothered to learn it.

So instead I just patch myself up and push through the ailments.

Aiden lands an EX-boosted Hack on Nyala, while also letting Valerie land her MDF debuff.

Which lets Yuno squeeze in some more damage with an EX-boosted ~~Summon: Fire II~~Garoozis.

The TROY hit also gets boosted.

Once Nyala dips below 80% LF, he switches into phase 2 and sets up Killing Act.

Killing Act works the same as before, letting Nyala heal himself and attack again if he manages to take someone out, but his AI on react turns has been tweaked.

In 2020, Nyala would target a random party member, giving a chance that he could kill someone else with low health. In VFD, all his normal attacks in phase 2 will always target whoever has the most LF, minimizing the odds of him killstreaking your entire party.

Also, you may have noticed something odd here:

Namely, that Opal hasn't used her item yet.

As it turns out, Freeze kills item priority.

Just items.

Skills and the like are entirely untouched.

Absolutely no one knew of this until I mentioned it to Araxxor.

Between the summon, the TROYs, and X Burn, Yuno just dealt over 1K damage in a single round.

Unfortunately, an EX-boosted Quartetto very nearly matches that, even with just 2 G-Depth.

Isn't it sad, Yuno?

Nyala's AI to go into phase 3 seven turns after using Killing Act. At that point, he'll use Oath of Destruction and then either use True Dragon Meteor if you fail to break it and wipe the party or go with True Dragon Breath if you do break it. He'll then go back into phase 2 and repeat the process.

As you might have guessed from how Nyala's already down to a quarter health at turn 5, we will not be seeing Oath of Destruction today.

However, if you're playing at home and your party isn't big on offense, there's actually a very easy way to get around Oath's 40% break chance:

Just leave Killing Act on. The game treats buff breaking as an all-or-nothing thing, and only checks the highest break chance out of all buffs currently active. If Killing Act is there, the game will use the 100% break chance it has for both it and Oath of Destruction, letting you deal with it instantly.

To add insult to injury, I throw on lostpower to add in another attack debuff.

It pays off immediately. 14 damage on Yuno, and Duelists are fairly squishy!

And then Hack's passive effect actually goes off and locks out his second move.

Gueeeeeeeeeeees who hasn't noticed that priority loss!

Good thing his AI is set to only use normal attacks on whoever has the most health in phase 2!

Both sides are almost dead.

But I can heal.

I just keep squeezing in damage...

Almost...

A single pixel of health left...

And after the two time final boss does literal chip damage to Opal.

Followed by single digit damage to Aiden.

Nyala, the 3rd True Dragon, dies to falling rocks.

Music: Finish Them Off

Music: None

...Wait, wasn't Ulania holding on to the Dragonslayer?

And so it ends.

Unit 13 severed Nyala's wing, giving Nyala his signiture injury that will force Unit 13 to go back in time in 14000 years to go get a sample from Nyala where they will then sever Nya-fucking time travel.

Music: Berg - Ultimate Sea Palace