Part 112: Update CVIII: An Apprentice and the Neverland Overdrive

Welcome to the big leagues, ladies and gentlemen. March forward with resolve in your hearts, for five great battles are upon us. An entire game's preparation has led us to this moment. Will that all have been for naught? Let's hope not...



Makina Domain awaits us. With Mimi and Gino as backup, let us show them true human will.



Music: Pinakes



So this is the place you were telling me about... The atmosphere is totally different from anywhere I've ever seen before. This is gonna be interesting... All right, let's go!



Welcome to the gap between dimensions, or something like that. Thing is, there's a very important enemy in the first location of Makina. This little bugger on this first hill.



Upon fighting this guy, you'll spawn a fight between either four or five Gan Ceanns. The reason this is an important fight is because this fight is worth boatloads of experience and money. It's the single best grinding spot in the game, pretty much by far. Make sure to bring either Peacemakers or Meteors (I'd advise Meteors), and with the highest-tier of equipment, you can take out three or four in one round of attacking.



With very little effort on our part (no one in that group got an attack off), we walk away with nearly 9000 EXP and quite a bit of money. Thing is, these guys also drop equipment, which is good for selling. So, what you can do is spend couple weeks or so fighting these guys (just leave and re-enter Makina to make this group spawn again), and just fight them over and over. You'll hit level 99 for everyone in no time, and be much, much richer.

For the record, all of the other non-boss fights in Makina are basically just palette swaps of other enemies throughout the game, and give oddly little experience based on how hardy they are. Just ignore them and use this fight for grinding, trust me.



But you don't want me to spend an entire update fighting trash mobs, do ya? I don't think so. I came to Makina for the boss fights, and boss fights I shall have. Our first foe is a very special one indeed...



Hey...it's dark, but could it be...



...

Can't you even die right? Evil's Symphonic Poem - Tower's Devil





Music: Terminus -for Meruru-

I was pretty happy to have someone recommend Gino and Mimi for this first fight, as how appropriate was that, in retrospect? Anyway, Evil Face may be going by a different name, but I'd recognize that hat, and that song, anywhere. Oh, and the above song plays over any custom song you may have chosen from the atelier. I would not have it any other way. After Gino opened up our assault...



Yeah. Now the bosses are getting serious. Do note that he only does that counter attack once, as soon as someone lays a finger on him.



Mimi's an extremely helpful comrade simply because of one of her skills lowers an enemy's speed, a very important trait. She's definitely one of the better party members in the game, if only for that move.



These bosses sure love that triumvirate of status effects, hm?



Although Wing Slicer lets him recover HP, it's still one of his more merciful attacks, believe it or not.



Whoo boy...







Might be hard to see, but that attack did 999 damage to Gino. Unless that character shrugs off the KO altogether, The Fallen will almost certainly KO whomever its target was.



Unfortunately, a big problem with this fight is he's going to KO party members constantly, which means Meruru has to revive, which means you can't do team attacks with items. It gets old pretty fast.



I didn't even notice Mimi got two turns in a row here, after using Angel Horn against him. Thing is, right now I am in a very precarious position.



But this battle is far from over.



See, I acted impulsively here. I shouldn't have had Mimi guard. What would have happened if I didn't? One of two things: either Meruru's Heroic Medal would have shrugged off the KO, or ideally, Meruru would have been KO'd. Why would that have been a good thing? She has that Pocket Watch, remember? Since her turn was next, she would have been revived after The Fallen, and free to use either a Meteor or Peacemaker.

Unfortunately, I tend not to notice these things before it's too late. Also, I seemed to have made this mistake several times, as I just wasn't thinking ahead.



Gino survived The Fallen...honestly, not too sure how that happened.



Hmph. For both of us, this battle is not over yet.



After quite a few turns, I FINALLY use a team attack to great effect.



Whoopsie...heh, oh well. He only has one attack left on this cycle, and Meruru will get revived. Not a huge loss.



Honestly, it's not a bad idea at all to have everyone with Guts XXL Heroic Medals. Sure beats the pissant Gnardi Rings I'm using now.



Ouchy. That Spare Bolen did quite a number on him.



You seem him doing this? Congratulations on beating Tower's Devil. Unless you are completely spent, you've for all intents and purposes won the fight. I have no idea what Evolution does, aside from absolutely decimating his place in the turn order. I'm not exactly itching to find out, but basically everyone will get a 2-3 free turns before he moves.

Well, Mimi and Gino both have their Assist Guage all the way up, and Gino's super meter is full.



A Peacemaker barrage to soften the bastard up...



Behold! Due to odd decisions by the development staff, you shall now face the wrath of Gino, of all people.



Game over.



Maybe this time you'll stay dead.



I should mention that bosses respawn when you leave Makina. Which means, you have to take down all five bosses in a single gauntlet of challenges to call yourself a Makina Master. Fun.

Also fun is that I'm using five different teams for Makina. Gino and Mimi you just saw. Esty and Pamela are up next, Rufus and Lias take the all-important third fight, Sterk and Gio put aside their differences for round four, and the Alchemists of Arland tackle the final battle. Under Bonus Content, you get to see all of those matches, for every team!* But the above teams are the "official" ones that get covered in the update.

*When they get uploaded.



Well, it wouldn't be much of a domain for machines without gears, right? Also, our next nemesis, hidden among the oddly placed carrot patch. The Ghost and the Lady - Hammer Bunnies



Our cuddly foes are far easier to handle than Tower's Devil was. They all have much less HP, are vulnerable to status effects, and they don't hit nearly as hard. Underestimating what they can do, however, is a poor idea indeed.



Basic attack takes that much off. Yeah. Still, it was only against a single target.



Esty's a pretty good teammate to have in this fight, because almost all the time at least two rabbits will be close enough together for her basic attack to hit both of them. Even though it's her regular attack, it still is plenty potent.



Be very careful when using group attack items here. The main gimmick of this fight relies on what happens when an enemy gets killed. I'll just put it this way: it's much better to fight normally until all three rabbits are close to death, then launching a major assault. Also, don't use super attacks for any reason.

As you can probably see from the video, I don't follow my own advice too well.



Their one group attack is Destruction Aura. Eh, kinda powerful, but compared to Tower's Devil, it's pathetic.



Here's the weird thing with Pamela: sometimes after using Soul Siphon (her pretty much only useful attack), sometimes enemy attacks, no matter what the strength, will only do 1 damage. Even Tower's Devil is affected by this. Not sure what makes that happen.



Okay, yeah, here's the main gimmick with this fight. All Bunnies have to die in a single round of attacking. If they don't, what happens is the survivor calls in backup. This backup is endless, so the best strategy is to knock all of your foes to critically low HP, then take them out with something like the Peacemaker.

Of course, you can make things easier on yourself in general if you kill two Bunnies in one round of attacking. The survivor will only call in one buddy, and they'll be permanently down a hare. Still, though, it's easy to get bogged down if you're not careful, and that happens to be about the only danger in this fight.



I don't know what the deal with Pamela's super attack is. It is somehow very, very weak. I mean, Sterk can do 2-3x as much damage with one strike as Pamela can do with three. Maybe not a great comparison, but the point remains Pamela is pretty weak overall. Not really suited for Makina fighting.



This fight is becoming a Mobius Strip, even though they're permanently down a man. I think you get the idea I didn't fight this battle too well, but oh well. Let's just skip to the end, since you've seen pretty much all they can do.



Would you look at that result. See, normally, enemies spawned in don't count toward the EXP and Cole you get. But, the game evidently doesn't consider the rabbit reinforcements as "spawned in", even though for all intents and purposes they were. You could presumably use this fight to get ungodly amounts of EXP and money in a single go, but that's a bit more effort than I'm willing to invest at the moment.



Even more evidence. Still, like I said, Esty and Pamela is not a great team at all. Neither has the power of Sterk or Gio, the WT advantages of Rufus and Lias, or the good passives like Rorona or Totori. Still, we muddled through.



The kooky machinery and mechanics continue up here. Still, something...doesn't feel right about this next boss. Over to you, Rufus and Lias...



Are those...cauldrons? And those look like squirrels...but wait...









Brothers in Arms - Squirrona, Totorirrel, and Squirmerurrel



So, you think you're a real funny guy using items against bosses, eh? Well, see how much you like them being used against you. Turns out, I don't like it very much at all. I'd say this is the second hardest fight in Makina (as far as difficulty goes, with difficulty increasing as you go right on this chain, 2-1-4-3-5). These three are annoying as shit, lemme tell you. Not only are all three of them pretty fast, but they have an incredibly obnoxious array of attack and debuffing items from the entire trilogy, and any one of them can even throw out Elixirs when one of her buddies gets low on HP.

In spite of that, I'd advise taking down that damn pink squirrel last, as Meruru and Totori's squirrely dopplegangers throw out the more dangerous attack items. In order of attacking, I'd say Meruru is your first target, Totori second, and Rorona third. The reason for this order is because Totori is extremely vulnerable to Fire-based attacks, which the Peacemaker happens to be. Assuming you throw Level 3 Peacemakers regularly, Totori will have lost about a quarter of her HP when Meruru goes down. Take her down, and then Rorona will be simply unable to fight effectively.

As it happens, my original intention was to fight the previous battle with Rufus and Lias, and this one with Esty and Pamela. Try as I might, though, I simply couldn't do that. Esty and Pamela are a horrible team for this fight, and I simply, for all my might, could not win. Rufus and Lias, though...



Goddamn, I love Rufus' ability to give his allies a turn.



And Lias isn't far behind. Things are not going well for the squirrel trio.



Yeah, they've got some pretty strong items. As an aside, I decided to outfit everyone with Guts XXL Heroic Medals, so you'll see some pretty insane instances of my characters surviving attacks constantly thanks to those good odds.



Mega Crafts are pretty nasty, but there's not much need to guard Meruru for them, since the amount of damage it does is pretty stable.



Again with those status effects... As far as Dark Water goes, though, the damage is pretty pathetic.



Oh shi



Always a vanguard, Rufus.



They're playing for keeps. Unfortunately, for them, that makes three in a row they failed to win with.



Close one.



Goddamn Time Lithographs. Trust me, get rid of Slow as soon as possible. You'll be lucky to get any more turns with characters who have Slow on them. Trust me on this...

Luckily, there is a way around this. For Meruru's allies, just have them guard after a Lithograph. Choose a good place in the turn order, and just sit it out until Meruru can use an Elixir to clear the deck.



Meruru's other attack is to throw out Peacemakers. It plays by the same rules Rorona's Meteor does, so be prepared for them. However, the Peacemaker surprisingly isn't that powerful.



Meruru has very little HP right now, but that Peacemaker just wasn't enough to take it out. Damn.



Finally.



After a devastating last turn, with Rufus and Lias both using their super attacks, Totori lost about 60% of her HP. It's all snowballing from here, folks.



And that's two squrriels down. Them Rorona boys are in a heap of trouble now.



Especially since they're more concerned about healing than the unstoppable juggernaut bearing down on them.



As if Rufus hasn't done enough damage this round. Well, it all ends now. After that fight ends, you get a little scene.





This must be the second volume of that book I got from Hanna! I knew it had to exist! I never would have survived this horrible monster-infested place without that first book. I'm sure there aren't any crazy powerful monsters left around here. At least... I hope there aren't...

Wouldn't you like to know... Anyway, at each cauldron, there's a group of five already synthesized items. Feel free to boost 'em. They won't be missed.



A sneak preview of the fourth part of Makina has a chest on the other side of that rubble. How do you get to it, you ask?



You have to return all the way to where we fought the Hammer Bunnies, then circle around through the third area and onto the fourth, where you'll hit the chest from the other side. Inside contains Regentium, with the following traits...



Damn...that's not bad at all. Too bad it's a bit too late, but definitely an A for effort. Now then, Infinite Alchemy 2 contains the following recipes.







Of all these, the Infinity Meteor is by far the most useful. It is definitely the strongest attack item in the game. As you can guess, when you make it, it gives you infinite Meteor uses. No need to worry about usage counts, that's for sure.



I was lucky enough to already have all the ingredients for it in my possession already. However, I messed around with synthesis a bit to get this result.







As it happens, I also was very close to having all the materials for the Day-Night Ring. While not quite as potent as the Fire-Ice Ring, it's still pretty sweet, trust me.



Using a spare Warrior's Mask, which I no longer require, and the second of those Blessed Coins, I come up with this. As far as Effects go, Star Power raises Evasion, and interestingly, switches the MP and HP count of the user. For some characters, like Sterk, this is very bad, and for others, like Rorona, very good. Daytime Blessing grants the user substantial HP regen, and even a chance of recovering from KO. Not bad at all.

And just for your viewing pleasure, the second-to-last bulletin.



But that's all for now. Next time we'll be shooting for the stars.






Pinakes
Terminus -for Meruru-]


Pamela and Esty vs. Tower's Devil

Rufus and Lias vs. Tower's Devil
Rufus and Lias vs. Hammer Bunnies