Part 28: The Surface

Update 28: The Surface





Music: Sealed



Ryu begins the final battle in dragon form, on a circular walkway above where we fought Bosch. Chetyre hovers in the middle; for some reason the player begins facing her side-on.



It’s possible to travel all the way around the walkway, although there isn’t much point since Chetyre can attack you from any position.



Okay, full disclosure: this isn’t a real boss fight. Hybrid Bosch was the true final boss of Dragon Quarter. Chetyre is a heavily scripted encounter, more like an interactive cutscene than an actual battle. All of Ryu’s regular skills are locked out and unusable, as is the Cooldown command. You can’t attack, but you can’t leave Dragon mode either.



If you move far enough around the walkway you can run into Nina and Lin, but you can’t control them. For all intents and purposes they are part of the scenery.



Chetyre does have a couple of attacks, but you’ll only see them if you pass your turn. The first is an incredibly weak wing strike that’s lucky to break single digits.







The second is D-Breath, which deals about a hundred.

So, what’s the deal? How do you win? Well, if you look closely, you’ll discover one attack that hasn’t been locked out.



Do you remember when Ryu first gained the power of D-Dive and I said that we should never ever ever use D-Breath under any circumstances?



The time has come to break that rule.



Yes, you are seeing that right - Chetyre has 3,500 points of Absolute Defence. Awakened D-Constructs are not to be fucked with.





Keep holding down the ‘O’ Button. Don’t let up.



Even when your D-Counter rockets past the 90% mark, don’t stop using it. Keep your finger on the trigger.





This is a scripted battle. Chetyre’s Absolute Defence is scaled to how much D-Counter you have left and will always fail when you hit 100%.



Music: A Distant Call





Chetyre roars. Not to be outdone, she begins to focus energy into a D-Breath of her own.









Realising that Lin and Nina are in danger, Ryu runs around to the other side of the walkway.













Ryu is in trouble. He’s pushed the D-Counter to 100%, but Chetyre has no such limits. As things stand, victory seems impossible.









But if that’s the case…







We’ll just have to go beyond the impossible, and kick the D-Counter to the goddamn curb.





Seconds tick by, and Ryu’s D-Breath slowly starts to overpower Chetyre’s.





Finally, Ryu completely overwhelms Chetyre and his beam begins to propel her up the shaft.





Eventually her huge body slams into the exit.



The beam intensifies, and Chetyre vanishes in a flood of brilliant light.







Music: Ending





































































































































































: Ryu!





















































And on that note, the main plot of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter comes to a close. Odjn terminates his link before Ryu can succumb, and the party - and the rest of humanity - are free to inherit a pristine world. After slogging through the dirty confines of the shelter, seeing the lush green fields and pure blue sky is as much a reward for the player as it is for the characters.

Music: Castle Imitation





The credits roll after the ending cutscene, but don’t get up and leave just yet. We have our New Game+ run to look forward to, with extra story content and additional areas to explore. I’ll be taking a couple of weeks to prepare for the next playthrough, but feel free to discuss how Dragon Quarter unfolded / make comparisons to other games in the series in the meanwhile. Thanks for reading along, and I hope you’ll stick around until the very end.

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Bonus Art: Chetyre


Bonus Art: Odjn


Bonus Art: Surface World