7th Dragon III Code: VFD Part #78 - Update LXXV

Part 78: Update LXXV - Featuring: Darkness

Update LXXV - Featuring: Darkness

Music: UE77 Tokyo

Just like with Hypnos, the world map has been covered in ND's Dragonsbane.

Although the funny thing is, despite all the old dungeons being covered on the map, all dungeons we've already cleared out stay clean.

This wasn't possible in Eden because of the Noble Rosier in Kazan we couldn't fight until the Intermission, and Preloma had Hypnos herself.

UE 77 is boned, but what about the other time periods?

Music: Berg - Ultimate Sea Palace

Well Tallieri is just fine.

You know, Tallieri! The guy who helped out Ulania until we killed Nyala then stayed behind in a dead kingdom instead of helping his people in an entirely new world because ??????

Also he has, like, zero response to the fact that all of his people are dead.

Kazan is also fine.

However, based on what we know of how timeline changes work, they got about a day before ND exterminating all life on the planet catches up to them and wipes Eden from existance.

...Wait, doesn't that mean that the events of Chapters 4 and 5 could never happen which means we could never get two True Dragon samples so ND would never exterminate all life which means the events of Chapters 4 and 5 do happen whi-

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Let's just go deal with Yuma and ND before Eden vanishes. Worse case scenario: we become the 7th Dragon and devour all reality before we have to worry about paradoxes.

Music: Forfeit - The Dragon Inquires

Ahh, the National Diet. It feels like we were here just yesterday!

I accessed the facility mainframe and turned on the power, so the elevator should be working. The lights are all destroyed, though, so you'll have to move around in the dark. Just use the elevator, and look for the passage to Chidorigafuchi Park as quickly as possible. There are lots of dragon signals in there... so proceed with caution!

Unlike blue Dragonsbane, pink is purely a cosmetic change for us. No more damage tiles.

Damn, those tents are looking good for having been out for 70 years.

They even left the tanks!

Static blares for a few moments.

—3! Come in, Unit 13! What a relief! I was really worried there. I wonder why the connection's so weak... Hmm... I'm going to look into it for a bit. I'll let you know if I find out anything!

So, the Diet is dark as shit, if you couldn't already tell. This makes staring at the map the only reliable way of getting around.

So I'm going to go through the entire dungeon with both screens visible.

Up first is a trio of dragons. These Little Dragons are just stat boosted versions of the ones we fought at the Ladyin Ruins.

How the fuck was that an ambush?

Killhorns are upgraded Sumo Dragons. They keep the Dash Stance -> Great Horn trick of their predecessors, but for whatever reason the Killhorn's Great Horn is weaker than the Sumo's.

However, GEORGE! exists, so all this ambush can do is make them die faster.

Gee, I wonder if something important is in the old Murakumo briefing room.

Music: Battlefield - UE77

Normal enemies still exist and are even more irrelevant. I just want to point out that we're still using Battlefield - UE77.

Music: Forfeit - The Dragon Inquires

The entire top half of the lobby is blocked off.

Okay, this should lead to...

...thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat doesn't look like the Council Chamber?

While we're stumbling around in the dark, we may as well take a moment to talk about everything that's happened.

Namely: the sheer dissonance between the entire game and here.

Having a major threat shake up the status quo is a staple of many stories, sure, but the problem here is that Tokyo has been established as a completely safe place for pretty much the entire game. The ISDF contained the attack in the prologue with zero fuss at all, and even a full set of 7 High Dragons got mopped up in the time it took for us to climb the Ladyin Ruins. There's just zero build up before everything goes to hell.

There's also the fact that while Allie had a few suspicious moments, (remember when she said she didn't expect Emel to become a True Dragon just yet?) in-universe she's been perfectly friendly. Hell, you can sleep with her just a day before she does her big reveal! If you don't go around talking to NPCs at the start of Chapter 6, it is entirely possible to go from making a fancy multi-time period cocktail for her to having her casually kill off pretty much the entire supporting cast in the span of about half an hour.

This also really screws over the Eden cast, as they barely had any screentime or character development. Compare Ulania and Sailas: Ulania started out as a fatalist determined to sacrifice her entire kingdom because she honestly felt that was the only way to save Earth from Nyala's brood, and ended up one of the most optimistic characters in the cast just because Unit 13 showed her another way.

Sailas, meanwhile, started and ended as a generic research obsessed creepy scientist character, to the point where even his date scenes are one-note. And let's not get into Nagiri, who was an active character for all of half a dungeon before she got banished to Medical.

(Despite being called the Council Chamber we've somehow ended up on a Residential Floor.)

It really feels like they wanted to do a few more chapters to more naturally lead into this level of tragedy, but the sheer lack of time and money forced them to jump from 'happy light-hearted time travel adventures' to 'the end of the world' with zero setup.

I mentioned at the very start that I wasn't making this a narrative LP because of some late game plot points, and this is why. Trying to tie in a custom narrative that doesn't turn into an utter misery fest as everyone's friends/lovers get cut down before their very eyes and one of them is set to become the very thing they set out to destroy would have taken a herculean effort.

So on top of not being able to see, this is also a teleporter maze.

A simple one, sure, but a teleporter maze nonetheless.

As an aside, I don't really have a good way to say this, but-

I kiiiiiiiiiiiiinda forgot two civilians at some point and I have no idea when or where, and since everyone is dead I can't go back and get them.

The final reward for rescuing all 50 civilians is the Sheathed Wisdom, an accessory for single blade Samurai that lets them start in Sheathed Stance.

However, using it means not having instant access to Sheathed Stance's priority defense debuffs, so it's fairly eh in this game.

Also Carrion Dragons are Stab Dragons that traded in Rolling Claw and Roar for Burning Slash (single target attack with chance of Bleed and Burn) and Deadly Fang. (single target attack with 80% chance of Death) GEORGE!, die, etc.

I can't grab that Ozon-Aid All, by the way. Some items are just flagged to be undiscardable, so the only way to thin my inventory would be if I intentionally took an ailment and used them.

The Major Bracer gives 20% ailment resist.

I don't know what it is, but that's why you sometimes exit from a different spot than you entered. There seems to be some rule to it all, though. You should be able to keep moving if you figure it out.

The rule is simple, just head back into the entrance.

Then exit again.

And now you're back where you started. Going back in will lead right back to where we were before. There's zero one way paths, so this whole teleporter gimmick is just a way to turn a hub zone into a dungeon.