Part 115: Destruction 14 (FINAL)

Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)



Chapter 115: Destruction 14 (FINAL)

Since I last did Destruction, I found a useful guide on GameFAQs by a user called epiphenom that has explained many things I still didn’t understand. That guide has even helpfully been updated with the changes from the patch. That dude honestly kind of scares me, if I’m being real. He updated that guide with videos of him beating every stage on Intense in one continuous “run” without taking terminal or Sentinel damage, returning to previous stages to grind, or resetting his pilots’ conditions. And then he reuploaded new versions after the patch.

One thing that guide taught me is that city damage is fake, it can’t hurt you. Well, more precisely, it’s caused by kaiju specifically targeting city blocks with attacks, which is really just a factor of how long we’re leaving kaiju alive. If we’re killing them quickly, less city damage, duh. Simple. We can’t do much to control this, so it’s not really worth thinking about. Better to prevent terminal and Sentinel damage if we want S Ranks.

Another thing I learned is that in addition to being nerfed by about 33%, Sentry Guns have also taken a major penalty in number you can have active. Pre-patch, we could have eight Sentries active per Sentinel, a cap I remember hitting exactly once in the entire game. Now we can have six. Total. For the entire map. Ryoko still has her “place two Sentry Guns” Hyper Condenser, so she’ll hit that cap in three uses now. Not much of a point in even bringing Sentry Guns with another Gen 2 Sentinel if Ryoko is active. Though, not much of a point in bringing multiple Gen 2 Sentinels in the first place with the nerfs. Similarly, the cap on Interceptors was previously 50 per map (though if we had fewer than that we could spawn another group), and now it’s hard capped at 40 (so if we would go over that limit we can’t summon more at all).

But the really annoying thing I found out from this guide is something I had been wondering about. We have quite a few Mystery Points right now (upwards of thirty-five, actually) with nothing to spend them on. Based on my memories from my original playthrough, we were supposed to have unlocked the final locked Mystery File by now, which would convert all those Mystery Points into Meta-Chips, I believe about 10k per. But with the patch, they moved the required Mystery File. It’s now unlocked by the ending. So now, not only do I have all these Mystery Points with no way to actually use them, I need to do some serious grinding before the final battle to max out all the required armaments and boost some Sentinel parameters. Ugh. But that’s enough grousing, let’s just get into this.




Only 4 strike team members!? In this economy!?



Let’s upgrade Limiter Removal from +0 to +8 and slot it in to replace Jump Attack.



We’re going to upgrade Tomi’s Long-Range Missiles from +1 to +4 to unlock her second new armament, Super Long-Range Missiles. These are even longer-range missiles than Long-Range Missiles, and they’re best used to soften up a group that just dropped in from far away. We upgrade those Super Long-Range Missiles from +0 to +4, upgrading their Lock-on Range and Distance. We slot it in to replace her High-Performance Charger.



For Natsuno, we upgrade her Wide-Range Railgun to +4 (increasing its POW and decreasing its WT) and slot it in to replace her 6 Multi-Launching Rapid Cannons. We also upgrade those 6 Multi-Launching Rapid Cannons from +3 to +4 to unlock her Precision Machine Cannons (“Attacks kaiju within a thin area in front of the Sentinel with machine cannons. Ignores armor.”), which we upgrade to +4 (increasing number fired and POW) and slot in to replace Long-Range Missiles.



For Ryoko, we upgrade her Cyberattack Missiles from +3 to +4. You’ll notice that I’m upgrading a lot of the new armaments only to +4, and that’s because their upgrade costs are pretty exorbitant. The final upgrade from +7 to +8 costs sixteen thousand Meta-Chips for a new armament.



For Megumi, we upgrade her High-Energy Pulse Laser from +0 to +4 (increasing POW and number fired) and slot it in to replace Flare Torpedo. We also buy her Hyper Condenser and slot it in place of Shield Repair.



Finally, for Miura we upgrade Anti-Air Bombardment from +3 to +4 to unlock Wide-Range Bombardment, a skill that seems to do the same thing as its prerequisite, but does not seem to discriminate between aerial and ground kaiju. I dunno, I don’t think I ever got the chance to play around with it. We upgrade Wide-Range Bombardment from +0 to +4, increasing its area of effect and POW, and slot it in place of Miura’s weaker railgun, Main Battery Heavy Railgun.



Let’s roll.

Music: (THREONINE) (Rikako Watanabe)






I need to pilot perfectly to get in close. Even if it means I might not come back.



But… I’m the one who got everyone into this mess.



But you’re a real badass. More than these guys, anyway. You’re okay in my book… C’mon, follow my lead.
Ugh—Stick to the plan! Stay in formation!




Video: Destruction Wave 3-9

This was a pretty annoying wave, mostly just due to the party size requirement.






We can communicate with the command ship out of range. I'm realigning the three surveillance satellites to their relay positions. We should be connected soon. However, the satellites have to move outside their preset tracks. They'll enter the gravity well and plummet to Earth. Your connection will only last until they hit the surface. You'll barely have any time to do this. Am I clear? If you actually manage to pull this off… Then I expect you all to take responsibility.



Good luck, big brother…



Initiating communication.



I never imagined this kind of workaround…



The processing is almost done. I’m getting back to working on the mainframe. Even if you cover the next one, there’ll still be one terminal left. Activate Aegis for that one, and protect the terminal.





A fucking C Rank, ugh. Gonna need to redo that one later… Thankfully, I’ll at least be able to do it with six Sentinels.





These Mystery Points are just sitting there mocking me at this point.

Music: Voyage To Tomorrow (Hitoshi Sakimoto)



Next up, the final boss wave. Not the final boss, this game doesn’t actually have one of those, just the last wave that has a boss in it. Also not to be confused with the final wave.



We replace Leg Spike with Quad Leg Spikes in Yuki’s arsenal. We don’t upgrade it though, because spoiler alert, we’re not using Yuki in the next wave.



For Hijiyama, we just put Leap Attack back in his repertoire, replacing Composite Ceramic Armor. Composite Ceramic Armor isn’t actually that great, especially on Intense, because it only works on chip damage.



For Gouto, we upgrade his Leg Spike to +4, despite never having any intention of using it with him, to unlock the new armament EMP Spikes. As you can see, it has 100 POW, pierces armor (though it might as well not as a one-hit attack with 100 POW), and drops aerial kaiju. I’m not gonna mince words, this armament is fucking abysmal and I regret spending the Meta-Chips to unlock it.



We also upgrade his Gravity Missiles to +4 to unlock his other new armament, Teleportation Field, which lets him teleport allies in a target area to his side. Great, we have something totally worthless and something incredibly situational. I lied earlier when I said Juro was the new worst pilot in the game, that’s my bad for repeating information I heard secondhand. No, it’s easily Gouto. God, and you’re supposed to be the leader, my dude. Whatever, let’s just replace Multi-Lock Missiles in his active gear with Gravity Missiles and get out of here.



For Ei, we replace Rush Attack with Hurricane Rush, which we upgrade to +4 (increasing its POW and setup movement). We also upgrade EMP Surrounding from +5 to +8.



Yeah, I know I just said Gouto was poopy, but we’re actually going to bring him because we have to level him up. We’re not really going to get much use out of our fourth-generation pilots on this map anyway. Also, all three Gen 1 pilots and no Gen 2s. Why? You’ll… you’ll see.

Music: [DEOXYRIBOSE] (Yoshimi Kudo)









Is it related to those four-legged ones? But it’s massive!



…We’ve gotten too strong. They’re trying to restore the balance…



Wasn’t this system supposed to give us an advantage?
It's set to a level that makes sure they can compete with us, at least…
It could go either way. What actually happens is all up to you.
Guess they're throwing all they can at us…
All we have to do is take them down, right…? I'm on it.
Hijiyama-kun… Just remember: the mission is to protect the terminal.





Video: Destruction Wave 3-10 (Watch this)

Okay, so, this map is kind of infamous and pretty complicated. It’s something of a roadblock for players who might struggle with all the new gameplay and visual information that’s being thrown at them. To help make sense of this, I included a small preamble in the video for this one where I go over what this thing is capable of. Hopefully that helps. Don’t get too used to hearing my awful voice, though, because I hate it and so should you.





Man, there was a lotta shit popping off near the terminal at the end there.






…… I'm sorry… but it's not over yet.

Goddammit, there’s always a catch, isn’t there?





Natsuno’s Level 30 Pilot Skill is I Won’t Give Up, BJ. If everyone’s total HP is below 70%, her stats significantly increase. Unfortunately, 30% Sentinel damage means you’re almost certainly not getting an S Rank anymore, so we generally try to avoid this scenario.



Ei’s final Pilot Skill is You Okay, Iori? It increases his WT recovery speed whenever Iori’s HP decreases. Seems alright.








Dun dun dun…



And the final battle is unlocked. We’ll do some last-minute preparation and then it’s time for the end.





No documents on Ei, huh? You’d think Ida would have the most documents on him. Also, gross that you’re stalking the teenaged clone of your lover, weirdo!

But that’s the final “real” Destruction wave. Next update will cover the last-minute prep I have to do for the final battle, including leveling everyone up to 30 and getting the last two missing S Ranks. As for who I’ll bring, I’m still working out how exactly we’ll choose our party. Stay tuned for that, I guess.