Part 16: The Dark Rangers

Update 16 - The Dark Rangers

Welcome back. Last time we were exploring the Industrial Sector when we ran into a room full of butchered Rangers.

Music: Industrial Sector





Every corpse gives this message when examined. But if the Rangers were waiting to ambush us…what killed them?









There are two exits to this room, one to the east and one to the west of the control room. Both are locked and demand a keycard we don’t have.



…Wait a minute. That guy wasn’t there before.





: I made sure the Rangers wouldn’t get in our way.





Talking to the creepy disfigured man triggers a boss battle.

Music: Formidable Foe



This battle is interesting for a number of reasons.



Our enemy, Tantra, is actually fairly fragile, at least on paper. He has less health than Zeno and lower base defence. He also shrieks in pain whenever you hit him, which is pretty disturbing. Most players who reach this point and see how quickly his health bar collapses will probably heave a sigh of relief and think Dragon Quarter has thrown them a bone here.







Players who think this will quickly get a slap in the face when Tantra gets a turn and busts out this attack. Forcacion is Tantra’s unique gimmick attack. It allows him to absorb the attributes of whoever he targets and gain their powers for three turns. If he absorbs Ryu’s stats his physical skills will power up and he’ll gain extra damage resistance. If he targets Lin he’ll take less damage from gun and piercing skills. If he takes a bite out of Nina his spell power and magic resistance will go up.



While the three turns are ticking down the target’s stats will be reduced to nearly nothing. The best thing to do is to keep them out of trouble until the effect wears off, since Tantra has access to Multi-Attack and has enough AP to act twice per turn, potentially allowing him to get off four attacks against a weakened character.





Aside from Forcacion Tantra likes to heal up the damage you deal to him with Drain spells.



He also has access to Sleep and, although he didn’t use them when I fought him, Depress and Hundredgears. So, he has the potential to be quite nasty if you don’t take him seriously.







With all that said, at the end of the day Tantra isn’t very durable and kicking / dragging him into overlaid trap runes will shred his HP pretty damn quickly. I’ve used Fireball here to show it off, but Fragballs work better since he’s vulnerable to being frozen.



He’s also not immune to having his stats and movement range lowered, so Lin’s language skills can hobble him if you use them right.





When his HP is depleted Tantra collapses and the battle ends, triggering a cutscene.

Music: Sorrowful Colour



: Did he kill the Rangers…?



: A special team of highly trained assassins…







Just in case anyone still wasn’t convinced of Sheldar’s shittiness - the Regents have their own personal black-ops death squad to murder and/or disappear anyone they see as a threat.



Downing Tantra lets us steal his ID Card, allowing us to progress through either of the locked doors. Both ultimately lead to the same destination, but there are significant differences that really need to be explored, so I’ll be using the SOL System to go through each one in turn.



We’ll begin with the western door. No matter which you choose you get a cutscene as soon as you leave.





The camera pans over Tantra’s corpse…



*Insert scare chord here*





The screen fades out, but another cutscene plays immediately afterwards.

Music: Controllers of the World







:…for mortals to handle after all.

The Regents are aware of Zeno’s failure, and they aren’t happy about it.



: The time has come…



: We will send…the Dark Rangers.





:…the worst humanity has to offer!

One of the Regents stands up angrily.



: Let us go and end this now.





The Regent with the glowing blue tron-lines remains silent. From their interactions it seems he is their leader, or at least first among equals.



:…to change what has begun.



It appears the Regents are divided on what to do now. Bad news for them, but good news for Ryu and company.







Every small elevator trip brings us that much closer to the surface.





There’s a catwalk in this room that leads back to an inaccessible area in the previous room, but for once there’s nothing back there and it exists only to waste your time.

Music: Imminent Crisis





The next room we enter is a Danger Room, but something’s odd. Where are all the enemies?





This Danger Room is special. There’s only one enemy, and it’s the boss for this little side area. You can pelt him with bombs and traps to soften him up a little, but he’s very fast and you’ll probably only get one shot off before the fight begins.



Our opponent is Deegon, another one of the Dark Rangers. Deegon has a number of attacks you need to watch out for, including two area of effect attacks that are hard to dodge in the cramped confines of the room.



The first is Fireblast, which we’re fairly familiar with by now. (The Afro is a piece of vendor trash and not an accessory, unfortunately)







The second, Pre-Primus, reduces your characters’ current HP by 25%. Not awful, but annoying if you’ve just healed everyone up.





Deegon will also counterattack any combos made against him with Sledgehammer, a very powerful attack with a deceptively long range. He also has a number of status attacks that can inflict Sleep and the dreaded Confusion, but thankfully he rarely uses them.





The best way to deal with Deegon is with magic, which he can’t counterattack, and Fragballs, since he’s weak to ice.



If you’re lucky you’ll freeze him, allowing Ryu and Lin to go to town without getting countered.



Deegon has more HP than Tantra, but if you keep the above in mind he’ll go down fairly quickly.

Music: Industrial Sector





After winning we get a cutscene. Something strange is happening to Deegon’s corpse…







The Dark Ranger’s body disintegrates into a trail of light, which zooms around the party before disappearing offscreen. Hmm…



Well, whatever. His death clears the Danger Room and causes the Treasure Key to materialise. Conveniently the Treasure Chest is in the same room.





‘Too Slow!!’ is a skill for Lin that boosts combo accuracy. Since lack of accuracy is her main problem this is a very useful skill.









There isn’t much of interest in the next area, aside from this cluster of crates by the exit. Most contain stat-boosting items, which is nice.



Crossing this threshold leads us to the room where the two paths join, so let’s rewind a little and see what the other one has to offer.



I’ll skip the cutscenes since they’re the same as before.





A winding corridor leads to the elevator.



Music: Imminent Crisis





Once again the first room we enter is a Danger Room, and once again there’s only one enemy here.



Unlike the other this one is slow enough that you can run him into a good number of Prox Bombs and Firebombs before you actually fight him.



Our enemy this time is Geegagis, a hulking behemoth of a man wearing the same type of armour that Armstrongs do.



It therefore should not come as a surprise that his defences are sky high. He’s also pretty resistant to Nina’s direct damage spells.



Unlike Deegon Geegagis is a purely physical attacker. He also has a tiny movement range, so while he’ll take longer to kill than Deegon he’s actually much less of a threat…or so you might think at first.



For every ten individual attacks Geegagis takes he’ll use his next turn to begin ‘gathering fury’. This is your cue to run as far away from him as possible.









On the next turn he’ll use Take That!, a powerful area of effect attack that deals more damage the closer you are when he uses it. If you’re standing right next to him it’s usually an instant kill, and given how cramped the area is it’s essentially impossible to avoid taking at least some damage.





The best way to deal with Geegagis is to employ the standard tactic for armoured enemies. Armour-piercing attacks like Fang and Take This! don’t do a lot of damage, but they bypass his insane defence.





Sucking him into overlapping Fragballs will also do the trick, since he has no resistance to traps.

Music: Industrial Sector







Like Deegon, Geegagis turns into a trail of light after death.







Spiritcharge does the same thing it did when the Cyclops used it against us way back at the beginning of the game. Its effects are delayed until the next turn, but you can do some nasty damage with it if you stock up a lot of AP on the turn you use it.







This section doesn’t have anything of value, not even some breakable crates like the other one did.



Stepping through this doorway leads to where the routes converge. The cutscene that follows varies depending on which route you took to get here.





A familiar scene greets our heroes.





Music: Maddening Heart



This point is where the cutscene splits. If you killed Deegon, this happens:



:…for killing my friend.







: We killed him!



: Now…become one with me!







Tantra uses Forcacion to absorb what’s left of Deegon.







If, however, you killed Geegagis, this happens:



:…for killing my friend. You have made me more powerful!

: It can’t be! We killed him!



: Now…become one with me!





The same sequence of events occurs, only this time Geegagis is the one getting Forcacion’d.



No matter which route you took the second battle with Tantra begins immediately.



How round two with Tantra goes depends on which of his friends you killed.





If you killed Deegon he’ll have access to Pre-Primus and use his Sledgehammer counterattack. He’ll also gain a significant HP boost, which totals to around 2,000 HP. You can steal the Brainquake skill from this version of Tantra, a Lv. 1 Skill for Ryu which reduces enemy magic power.



He’ll also have all of Deegon’s status skills, and unlike the former he has no problem slinging them all over the place.





If you killed Geegagis Tantra will gain his friend’s colossal resistance to physical attacks and his Take That! special attack. He gains less HP than if you killed Deegon, only around 1,600 or so, but the damage resistance more than makes up for it. You can steal the Blunt skill from this version of Tantra, but it’s a skill we already have so whatever.









In both cases Tantra also has all the tricks he used the first time - Forcacion, status effects and the AP-sapping Depress.

...

I know what question is on everyone’s minds right now. Scintilla, what happens if you kill Deegon, then double back and also kill Geegagis, or vice versa? Well…



Tantra gains both of their powers at once, as well as a few additional powerups.



His attack power goes through the roof, and he gains enough AP to act three times per turn. If he attacks someone whose stats have been lowered by Forcacion chances are he’ll kill them outright if their HP isn’t full.



He’ll also begin countering attacks with Drain instead of Sledgehammer, meaning you have to do even more work to overcome his enhanced defence. This is made even more difficult by the fact that absorbing both his friends grants him a massive 2,400 HP, more than any other boss we’ve fought so far.



There is one upside to fighting this version of Tantra, and that is that you can steal the Crimson Raid skill from him. This skill is unique, and I’ll go into why a bit later on.





The best way to fight Tantra regardless of version is to have Nina lay down three Fragballs and then kick him into them. This works better if he’s only absorbed one of his friends, since there’s a chance he’ll be frozen and lose his turn. If he’s absorbed both he gains immunity to being frozen but the damage makes it worth it anyway.







Be sure to bring plenty of healing items. This might sound fairly obvious, but with how long the Industrial Sector is it’s fairly easy to be running low by the time you get to this point. The last available vendors are all the way back in the Frozen Road, but it’s worth racking up an extra .30-40% on the D-Counter to go back and stock up.



Tantra is tough, particularly if you killed both Deegon and Geegagis. Thankfully, this is the last we’ll be seeing of him.

Music: Industrial Sector



I mean that literally, by the way. There’s no cutscene of him keeling over or anything like that. The game just dumps us back into the level, which seems slightly disappointing given how creepy and nominally important the Dark Rangers seemed to be.



Before we move on, let’s discuss Crimson Raid. It’s a Lv. 2 Skill for Ryu, and it’s special because it’s the only skill in the game that allows you to recover your HP. It doesn’t usually heal very much, but every little helps in this game.



Anyway, let’s get out of here. I’m sick of these brown hallways.



This door leads to a new area, but first, a brief cutscene.

Music: Omen







The camera pans to reveal Bosch and the scientist from BioCorp talking in one of the labs.



:…initial stages of the link. And even the first, a Chosen who had the highest D-Ratio, lost control of the link…



So, Bosch is making inquiries about how Ryu was able to link with Odjn. It seems the scientist doesn’t believe that linking with dragons is possible for anyone. To be fair he’s not entirely wrong - everything we’ve seen so far indicates that even a successful link is inherently destructive.





More importantly though we’ve finally managed to claw our way up to Sheldar’s next inhabited layer! But this update has dragged on a fair bit, so I’ll leave exploring it for next time. Until then.

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Bonus Art: Tantra


Bonus Art: Deegon


Bonus Art: Geegagis