The Let's Play Archive

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

by Dragonatrix

Part 28: Karma Society Tower (Part Two)

Tower of Reunion



Dey better not be as persistent as Bat, ja?

I don't think Cielo likes the Tribvhana, you guys.



Anyway, let's just carry on with this place since there's still a surprisingly large amount to go.



...Just, uh, just not this way. This tower is kind of a dud.

So the other one on the heliport it is then.


Battle for Survival



Now that we're in a pretty new part of the dungeon, we do get a fair few new enemies to accomodate that fact. They kinda ruin the "mostly angels" thing that was going on before, though.

Like Dis. She's kinda boring here. Hit her with Bufu and Ice Boost and she crumples. Not Bufula. Bufu.



Also there are now regular Atavakas running around here too. They were more threatening when they worked for Varin.



If you get 2, they CAN combo to use Vanity but that's about it as far as threatening things go.


Tower of Reunion



In the actual tower we want, there's an elevator immediately to the left of the entrance so we'll skip past that for the moment.



The other path loops around to the other tower where we get our first new bullet for a while.



So, the elevator we just skipped past we'll immediately go back for right now and that takes us up yet another 11 floors.

I wasn't kidding when I said this place was gigantic, huh? Just be glad we get to skip so much of it.



Anyway! Immediately get to go north or south and there's a room straight south so why not?



It has a couple Medical Tools in it. Nothing else here either, so we'll add them to the pile I s'pose.


Battle with Rare Devil



FINALLY!

Hey, so it's everyone's favourite Jack Frost and he's a little different here.


I hee know! I'll give you a quiz, ho! Don't be a jerk, give it a try. Every correct hee (answer) earns a well-deserved ho (reward)! Are you down, hee ho?
Yes.

Obviously, right?

If you wanna try and guess the answers, go right ahead. They'll be in the spoiler tags after each shot.



Aurora

So, yeah, it's a quiz minigame that takes place in very rare random battles. Kinda like Ragtime Mouse in Final Fantasy IX or, uh.... that's the only other example that comes immediately to mind thinking about it.

Point is, Jack has lots (and I mean LOTS) of questions for us and we want to get everything single one right. Some test your knowledge of things you might not even be aware you knew. Fortunately, for ones like this Feinne's helped the thread out by explaining them before.



Soma

Some of them are just straight up obvious. "Strange Objects" being the golden ones, of course.



I'm not going to list every single reward, but I will show the questions because there's a finite number of them even if they are random. And take a while to get through. But, needless to say, the rewards are also random and sometimes very worth it.



7/8 Noise

Some questions are kind of badly worded, but at least its clear enough to understand what it means. Solar Noise after it changes at MAX...



We find items.

Some questions also have very, very obvious wrong answers. I'm not sure how you'd get this one wrong without it being intentional.



"It's the only way..."

A few questions are actually a mite cruel. It's not hard to figure it out in this case, but voice clips in combat are absurdly rare. You're more likely to hear them from the start of a fight when you're massively overlevelled for the area but even then? Not gonna happen often.



Angel.

...Also some of the questions are about cutscenes. That there is no guarantee you will have seen yet. Like this one. One of the answers is a mild spoiler, but a spoiler all the same.

Wait, hang on what? Jack stop reading ahead in the script. That's cheating, you cheater.



Solar Eclipse

I don't know if its just me, but I find it great that you can answer Fat Freak here. Just perfect.



Cuvier Syndrome

Have you been paying attention to the plot at all?



Okay now this one is just mean. It's such a minute detail that you probably noticed but never actively noticed. Some of the tribe colour ones are obvious and memorable (Heat's being on the back of his cloak or Serph's being across his chest for example). Cielo's is not one of them.

It's on his waist; you probably looked that one up or looked at an older screenshot or something. I know you people.



Mantra

basic game mechanics goooo



Attack with almighty damage.



Dressed up as Sera.



Wicked Curse



Chief Director

There's actually only one way to know the answer to this at this point and that's to talk to one particular NPC.

Fortunately, we did that.



Timmy



Guardians of the World Gods

Did you talk to the right NPC(s) at the right time(s)? No? Well, too bad. Blindly guess. Or use GameFAQs.



Defense drops

None of these are technically right. When stunned your accuracy is in the shitter and you are more likely to get criticaled. Like a lot more likely.



8



50

Same as its cost... hope you got it by now in this game or ever cared to look at it in DDS1 though.



Pabilsag



So that's the first 20 questions done. Now that we got 20 right in a row, something different happens.


...80 questions left, ho... Later ho.

If we got any wrong, Jack would've left then instead. And, yes, there are 100 questions in total. We do get something worth our time for getting all of them right.

We'll deal with the remaining 80 in one go when it's relevant. Much, much later.


Tower of Reunion



Now that we've finally seen Jack Frost for the first time, we can continue on to... a classroom...

Well, that's absurdly appropriate in all sorts of weird and silly ways.

Also, there's a box in the back corner with 3 Dis-Stuns in it. You might not be able to see it too clearly but it's visible back there. By the potted plant.



Another fork in the road now, and the left is more likely to be progress so we'll go to the east first.



This one gives us the dungeon's demons in a box fight. Hopefully this one will be more interesting and difficult than things we can already fight in he-



...oh. So, yeah, box battles aren't as worthwhile this time around. Go figure.



Back on the main path again, and we finally get our second real Large Terminal. Just in time, too, since it's been like 20 floors since the first one.



Yet another branch in the path, but the turns have been a little more consistently progress so the room in front of us is first.

Also the "Bad" in the corner? Nothing major; Roland's Muted but I cured it pretty much instantly anyway. Some ailments don't wear off at the end of a fight, and the game is oddly merciful in letting you know that.



The room itself just contains a golden container, but it's a Daisy so I can't complain about that.



Back on the main path again, and after a little bit of a linear trek we make it up to the 32nd floor...


Battle for Survival



And a new floor means new enemies. Rakshasas are super easy here. Hit 'em with a Boosted Tera and they crumple like paper.



Very much worth it though, since they can drop Amaryllis fairly frequently.



Also get Beriths who are very much the same as Eligor or Rakshasa but with their secondary weakness being Force.

Same method works here too.



Occasionally there's some Titans running around as well now. But since there aren't four of them at once, they're less of a threat.


Tower of Reunion



Back on the dungeon crawl, and the start of the floor has yet another elevator for us. At least this time they put the progress immediately there so we could skip all this I guess.

...But this floor does have more to it so let's go see what that is first.



Once again, we get a straight away with a turn. But the door dead ahead is a mite further afield so we'll take the door off to the side.



And get another Magic Data. These are nice and people that actually use them would enjoy it alright, but I'm just gonna leave it in the pile for the time being.



The door at the far end of the corridor leads to... a room with a Life Terminal in it... and another exit around the corner...

...This looks like progress. Like a lot. So what's up with that elevator at the start of the floor?



It takes us all the way to the 44th floor which also looks like progress.



But we're here now so we'll look around a bit. There's only one large room here, with what look like beds and a couple item boxes.



The one that was just off-screen had a pretty nice Soma Drop, huh? I might remember to use this some time I guess.

The one that you could see before had a single Brave Ration in it. Less interesting.



And there's stairs leading further up from the only other exit on the floor.



...I know this looked like progress, but it actually isn't! I know, it's amazing. It leads us to a fairly nice ring all things considered.



Starting with 1 Tarukaja at the cost of 1 Rakunda is an interesting trade-off and one I don't mind making. It's not as big a deal as the Trick Ring and this is one I'd actually use sometime.

Once I get better gems to stick in it I mean.



Back on the 32nd floor, we'll run past the Life Terminal and carry on that way. This brings us to yet another small branch in the path and we'll see what lies past that door we can see.



Well hello there, sweet, sweet treasure.



...Is what I'd like to say. The left is just a Str+2 gem which we'll probably just sell instead. The right is 3 Dis-Curses.



And the other corner leads us to a small karma terminal directly opposite the door onwards. We'll take a stop here for a moment...



And unlock our second Secret Mantra.



Much like the one before, as soon as every node around it is mastered (across everyone in the party), we unlock it. Unlike the Esoteric 1 this one is auto-mastered upon doing so. Since these boost our stats automatically. And this is party-wide and permanent.

...You'd think these would need to be unlocked on a per character basis, huh? Nope. Just get every Mantra and everyone gets the stats. How generous.

So, what's past that door?


Well, That Was Fast

Epic Battle ~ Prelude





Hey there, Earth. You sure bounced back quick.

You guys again?
You bastards!





You jumped off on your own!



Boss: Tribvhana (Round 2)

Epic Battle



So, we get our rematch with the Tribvhana quicker than you may have been expecting. At least this time they're taking us seriously and starting the fight in their Avatars.

...On the other hand, they haven't gotten much stronger than before. We however... uh, look at Serph's skill list...



Yeah. They gave us just enough of a delay that we needed to start getting mid-tier spells.



They really shouldn't have done that, huh? For reference, yes, they have gotten a little tougher... but Ganga's HP is now only 1,000. Welp!

Cu Sith's is about 1025 at the absolute most, and Ubelluris' is the much more respectable 1800.



Their general skillsets haven't even changed since the last time we fought them either.



Ganga still remains the biggest threat by far, what with the Dynes and Ma-Dynes and all of course.



...Ubelluris keeps on bein' Ubelluris.



They still have dialogue when you drop one of them, of course.



The main difference being that their dialogue here is at the start of their turn instead.



Ubelluris is also I guess a bit more of a threat since he remembers to use MT attacks sometimes.



But all that aside, there IS one major change to the fight this time around. And it makes both Ganga and Cu Sith being hilariously easy to kill all the more depressing, really.


You're nothing but a program!
Don't underestimate humans!



Yeah, so they have a combo attack this time around.



Just the one though, and it requires all 3 of them.



It does actually hit fairly hard, but not hard enough to really justify costing all of their turns... and it's Elec elemental so it will ruin Gale outright. Really the biggest issue with it is that it has a VERY high chance to Stun.

...But they can't do it without all 3, and since it's very easy to drop Ganga or Cu Sith before their second turn...




What's up with these guys!?
You'll pay for this!



At least this time they run away without jumping off the building. So there's that I guess.



Like before, they all drop the same thing yada yada yada. Scarlet Pearl is ehhhh. It's the +3 Luck gem. Whatever.


End

Tower of Reunion



The Asura AI's really are killing machines, if you can take down the Society's elite that easily.

It's almost like the "elite" aren't that great or something.



Anyway, we've still got a little way to go before we're done so let's just keep on going.



Huh, this one also takes us to the 44th floor. I guess we'll get to go past that barrier behind the Rage Ring then.



We also get a very blatant miniature infirmary and another small terminal.



And that's right before the medical room, no less. It really was a little way after all.



...The room looks familiar, alright. This is definitely where Sera was before. Well, let's step on in...


The Medical Room

Silence



Ahh... not dis again --







End