Part 22: Three

Update 20: Three


Well, I think we've built this fight up enough. Time to get this over with.





There's no one here!

Damn! Where could that slob be hidin'?





Where the fifth and final End Magnus is sealed. The other four are already in his possession.

Crap! We should have known these jerks would be here.


Aww, you JUST missed him! Well, at least we're still here to keep you company!

Heh, I didn't think you had the guts to go to the heart of the Empire. Maybe we could call it bravery...no...stupidity is more like it! Stupidity seems to be one of your strong points!


...no argument here.





So it was you who stole the Che End Magnus!

Hmph...Maybe so.


Thanks for the warm welcome. But we don't have time to play with you -goons- today. We're after the Emperor!


The characters start walking past, as if they're seriously going to try and just leave, but...


No way! This is my chance. Today's payback time!

Kalas! Time's running out...

Prepare to die, Giacomo! You can't slither out of this one. Not this time!

You talk a good game, bot. It shows courage...I like that.


...Are you buttering us up? Oh god please don't be about to


Kalas, I have a proposition. Would you like to join us?

What?!

Whoa! What's gotten into you, Giacomo?

Yeah! What the hell are you talking about?!

You two stay out of this. I have an idea...


No, I'm gonna have to agree with your underlings. This is a terrible idea on your part. Oh well, it's nice to see that the bad guys get to have stupid plans, too.





Join you? Why would I ever do that? You must be nuts, is that it? Or a comedian?

I'm dead serious. I have a plan. I need you in order to carry it out, Kalas.

Stop saying that! Why would I ever join you? You killed Gramps and Fee! You make me SICK!

Don't dwell on the past, or you'll miss out on what the future has to offer. You are the chosen one, Kalas...the Divine Child.

I don't know what you're talking about! My final answer is no, Giacomo! And you're not getting away this time.

You fool! So be it. I'll kill you, then use your corpse to learn the secret of the End Magnus.



Whoa, wait just a minute there. Back in the Trail of Souls, you were talking about how the Divine Child is with Kalas, but specified that it was not Kalas. Now you're saying it is Kalas. Is that correct? I think you need to learn how to explain your plot points correctly.


Anyway, let's move on.

Boss fight!



Music: Chaotic Dance

And for those who wanted to see Savyna, Gibari, or Xelha in action, here is an alternate boss video!





The Giacomo Trio is cited as one of the most difficult boss fights of the game. I would say that there are others that are harder, but they're more...shall we say, “workable” in that the circumstances surrounding the fight aren't so dickish.

Either way, this is by far the most difficult fight we have yet to come across.




Ayme is the speedster of the group. Her attacks come in flurries of six or seven hits, and she has crazy high agility to the point where she can even manage to outspeed Xelha sometimes.

On the other hand, her attack power is laughable. She does something like 200 damage if you don't guard any of her attacks. And since she attacks a whole lot of times in one round, that gives you plenty of opportunity to use defense magnus.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Ayme is almost beneficial to you in this fight. You see, the game has no real “discard” function, but you can use an enemy's turn to play random magnus you don't want (even if they aren't defense magnus). So you can use Ayme's attack to clear out some clutter her target has in their hand, and even if you don't use any defense magnus it doesn't really matter because she's so weak.







CRAZY RABBIT





Folon, meanwhile, is very fucking dangerous, for reasons I'll get to in a sec. As such, I strongly recommend you focus all of your attacks on him first.











I don't even remember the last time I got a Guardian Spirit attack. Needless to say, this was much appreciated. The extra damage on Folon is immensely useful.







Giacomo himself is kind of dangerous, but he's really more annoying than anything. Remember waaaaay back in Sadal Suud, when I was complaining about how long his attack rounds take because he has to jetpack over to you and all of his animations are slow? Well...yeah. That's still true, and unfortunately, he still gets to go twice per turn, so I have to watch him fly over, execute a string of attacks, fly back, fly over to someone else, execute another string of attacks, and fly back again.

Obviously, Giacomo is dangerous because he attacks twice per turn. His damage output is theoretically higher than Folon's because of this, but because he splits it between two characters (and he WILL always attack two different characters unless there's only one person standing), it's more manageable overall. Also, his attacks execute so slowly that you have ample time to figure out what you want to play/discard.





Folon, meanwhile, is the slowest, but is VERY powerful, and likes to boost his attack power before his turn.








378 damage. And that was with a good defense setup, while Giacomo only does 295 if I don't defend at all. Folon is also capable of inflicting Flames and I think paralysis, so we really need to get him out of this fight.





Fortunately, Mizuti joined with some excellent healing items and I still have some persimmons and stuff, so I can keep up with their damage output...for now. But once you run out of a good healing setup, or if your healing magnus are spread too thin, the Trio WILL eventually outdamage you, which is why I recommend being very aggressive at first to get rid of their primary source of damage.








Ow.




I posted this picture to show how close things got. Mizuti dropped below 500 HP at one point when the whole Trio decided to focus one one of my people. If I hadn't fed Mizuti all those powerups/grinded as much/used Level9Up, Mizuti might have died here.





Once Folon's down, things get much easier.





At this point, you should go after Ayme. Giacomo gets more dangerous as his HP falls, and if Ayme (and presumably Folon) are still up when he hits critical HP then she/they will heal and buff him.

However, I accidentally had Mizuti attack Giacomo. And then I thought “Hey, I could document what happens if you do it wrong!” So here you go.




When his HP drops, Giacomo will start sticking finishers onto his attack chains, thus notably hiking up his damage output (and remember he attacks twice, so he uses two finishers per round). He still has End Slasher from his first battle...









...And Imperial Force, which is new. As you can see, his damage output has risen.









This is the main reason to take out Ayme before Giacomo. That's a sizable heal, and with a def boost on top of it it can be hard to outdamage that healing, especially when you're trying to stay alive yourself.









Ayme can also freeze one character, but her attack power still sucks. She did this instead of healing/buffing Giacomo, which was annoying but still left him open to being finished off.




Kalas and his trusty fishing rod go in for the kill.





Now the fight is just down to Ayme.

Which is to say, I've won.





Music: World Panic


You lose, Giacomo!

No...This can't be! I never lose! Is it the Spirit within him? Or is it because...


We did it...We did it! Look, Legion! Gramps and Fee can finally rest in peace!





My grandfather's research?

Yes...Georg's research...He tapped into power from the Divine Child.

Power...from the Divine Child? You were supposed to inherit it? Why you?

Because Georg, whom you call Grandfather...is my father.

What? That can't be right!! You liar!





...What does that even mean? Are you saying you are Kalas' father? That Georg is not Kalas grandfather? God you suck at exposition.








Humph...You're going down with the ship, boy. My father designed this battleship. Think of it as a nice roomy coffin. I'm sure it'll keep you warm on your way to hell!






Hey, something to make Gibari's stats stop sucking and also a class up item for Xelha. Nice, nice.




Now we have five minutes to get out of here. The timer doesn't go down during fights and there's that save flower right near the beginning, so there's little worry about having the ship explode with you in it, but it's still a cute final fuck you to make the boss fight seem even worse.




The game tries to create tension by having this fall over and block the way but seriously I have plenty of time.

Also the characters won't fly over it. I guess it's a little more justified now that Lyude is here and he can't fly, but still, I bet they could climb or jump over that too.













And that's how the team escaped an exploding ship by driving a car off of it.




We'd better get going. Let's head to the Lava Caves! But what is this place?

The Lava Caves are just south of here. There's a small village on the way. Why don't we head there first?

...Azha?

Azha...is that the same Azha famous for its iron mines?

That's correct.

All right. Let's get going.

But Kalas...before we go...





You know, I hadn't really thought about it until now, but the game deliberately avoided telling us “Gramps” real name until that fight.


Yeah...why?

Georg is the name of the doctor you heard about in Mintaka. The genius who went crazy and died in a laboratory explosion...over a decade ago. Giacomo also said that his father...Dr. Georg had designed the Battleship Goldoba.

I just don't know...I don't know if that famed Imperial engineer is Gramps. I don't believe Giacomo, either. What he said about Gramps being his dad...

You said the doctor from Mintaka had been dead for over a decade, right?

Gramps died two years ago. He was killed by Giacomo's men in Mira.

Well, sittin' around talking isn't doing us any good right now. We'd better move on. Hey, Kalas! Don't think you can get all comfy now that Giacomo's out of the picture. Geldoblame's up next!

Yeah, I know. There's still something else...that I have to take care of, too...

...


Let's go.



The group starts walking off...











Welcome to Azha. It's kind of a shit hole. Lyude is going to say that it was better before, but it's a shit hole in Origins too, albeit for different reasons.


It used to be more lively.

Really? So what happened?

You heard about it in Mintaka, right? About Operation Sweep...Azha used to be well known for its mining of iron ore. They would mine form the Lava Caves and sell their goods to the capital. But about a year ago, the villagers reduced their shipments to the Empire a great deal. The reason being simple fatigue from working day after day in such harsh conditions. Before that, the people of Azha filed countless claims about the terrible working conditions, but the Empire always ignored them. Enraged at the villagers' defiance, the Emperor ordered his army to execute all dissidents as a warning. Kill the troublemakers to spark up a little motivation, was the order, if I recall...




But the mission, known as Operation Sweep, was carried out as planned. Now this village is...well, just look around.





Oh, so that's why she's so interested in Azha...she helped destroy it!


That means...Savyna! You were head of the Mad Wolf Unit?!


Some well-timed soldiers pop up with an absurdly topical conversation...





You mean, the one they used to call “killing machine”?

Yeah. You heard about it, too, right? The Emperor and his troops supposedly went to Anuenue to carry out part of some secret plan. Some of the troops apparently saw Lady Death out there.

Are you serious? It's been over two years since she disappeared. That must've been someone else.


Two years? But Operation Sweep was last year, right?


L...look over there!

Wha...It can't be! Let's get outta here!





“Lady Death” of the Mad Wolf Unit...is that who you are?

…

Hey, hold up a minute. Savyna, you told us you were not an Imperial soldier back in Anuenue.

Because I no longer am...that's all in the past. It's not something I'm proud of.

Huh?? What be wrong? Quarreling over secrets from the past?





-

Decision Time!

Kalas: I wanna hear more about Savyna's past!

->Yeah, tell us!

->Leave her alone.



Kalas: Legion, you're a pretty cool lady.

->Don't be such a dork.

->You're not too bad yourself.


-














































All of the End Magnus will be free...And the end of the world will begin...The great darkness will awaken, and chaos will ensue! Ha ha ha ha!!