Part 7: Awakening

Update 07: Awakening

Welcome back. Last time we finally made it out of the Waste Shaft. Now it’s time to see what lies beyond.

Music: Lowest Sector Borough







We emerge out of the filth and darkness into the marginally less filthy and slightly brighter climes of EndSector, Sheldar’s very lowest habitable layer.



: Home to scrap and Low-Ds.



EndSector is a gloomy, sparsely populated shanty town. It's obvious the few residents aren't here by choice.



:…the world didn’t have a ceiling. It had what they called a ‘sky’.



: I’m going to explode if I don’t find a bathroom soon!

I think you might be waiting a while, kid.



The settlement also faces out onto a giant chasm containing an equally giant ant, which thumps around in the background.







Despite these deficiencies EndSector does have a save point and all three vendors in one spot, which is a great relief considering all the sellable and unidentified crap cluttering our inventory.



:…good of you to come this deep!





Selling all our vendor trash nets us a good 2,000 zenny profit. Not bad, but there’s more to come.





Jaju is also here, so it’s time to identify the seven mystery items we picked up on the way here. They turn out to be:

-1x Victorious, a gun for Lin with increased range and base attack but a painful 10% accuracy penalty.

-2x Solid Shell+1, a shield for Ryu that reduces damage from physical and bullet attacks by 25%, but can’t equip any other defensive skills.

-2x Solid Ring +1, a shield for Nina that reduces damage from physical and bullet attacks by 25%, but can’t equip any other defensive skills.

-1x Bind Gear.

-1x Slave Clothes +1, a straight upgrade of Nina’s basic armour.



I take the opportunity to do a bit of switching around with regards to equipment. The Buster Sword+1 has better base attack than the Ranger Edge, and Ryu is already the slowest party member so the speed penalty doesn’t hurt him too badly. The Buster Sword also has the exact same skill slots as the Ranger Edge, which makes it easier to use. The Solid Shell+1 might come in handy in the future, but the inability to thread other skills means giving up the ability to Steal and that’s a pretty big downside for the time being.



I equip Nina with the Slave Clothes+1 and the Solid Ring. The Astral Ring isn’t a bad piece of equipment, but right now Nina needs the Solid Ring’s physical protection rather than the Astral Ring’s magic protection.



I give Lin the Victorious but choose not to equip it for now. It’s a powerful gun, but accuracy penalties are nasty for a character whose gimmick revolves around building up a successful combo.



Selling the duplicate and outdated equipment gives me a total of 4,507 zenny, which I immediately spend on 20 Heal Kits and 10 Aid Kits.



I also pull the JuJu we picked up several updates ago and feed it to Nina to boost her magic.



: Fresh from the junkpile!



Arma actually has some pretty decent equipment in stock, but at the moment it’s not worth buying from her. Right now our money is better spent on healing items.





I take the time to save and make sure to dump all my items in Jaju’s locker before moving on. There is a very good reason for this, which will become clear after this next sequence of events.





: Wonder when it will arrive…?



Alright then, time to leave this dump. Leaving EndSector triggers a long and very important scene.







Ryu, Nina and Lin walk down to the station. The platform is utterly deserted.





Suddenly a horn blares, and light floods the area as a lift train screeches into the station.

Music: Kind Friends











The train stops, and who should emerge but our old buddy Bosch.





Bosch ignores Ryu and keeps on walking.



: So, Trinity’s here too, huh?





: No mistake about it. Well done, Ryu…



Lin backs up, shielding Nina from Bosch.





: Tell me!



: That’s all you need to know.

Bosch begins to walk towards Nina, but Ryu understandably isn’t having any of it.



: No! Just tell me what’s going on! What cargo? Get rid of it how?!







Bosch sighs and relaxes slightly.



Then rams his Beast Blade into Ryu’s knee. The music cuts out abruptly.









: Bosch…! Why?!



Just to prove he hasn’t been slacking on his dickishness, Bosch twists the sword around a bit.



:…with something like this.





Bosch’s flunkies dash past while Ryu is incapacitated. Nina runs to Ryu’s side as Bosch wrenches his sword out of Ryu’s knee.

: Hmph. She’s awfully fond of you.



: Bosch…stop…!



Ryu’s been crippled, Lin is pinned down and Nina is all but defenceless. Things seem to have hit rock bottom. Even so, Ryu musters the strength to push Bosch’s sword away.







Suddenly, Bosch stabs Ryu right in the goddamn throat!



Okay, now things have hit rock bottom.



:…out of my way.





The screen blurs and fades out as Ryu’s life slips away.



*Heartbeat*





*Heartbeat*





*Heartbeat*





*Impossibly Loud Heartbeat*







: Whaa?!



Ryu grabs Bosch’s sword and messily rips it out of his throat.









The revived Ryu gives Bosch his best death glare, then the screen flares up and the battle is joined!

Music: Attack





The battle screen appears, but before anyone can move Ryu has some kind of seizure.









Ryu falls down, then all his skin burns off and aaaahh









Dragon power, activate!









Bosch unleashes his full power, but Dragon Ryu no-sells it effortlessly.













Unfortunately Lin has no such protection and is promptly shredded by Bosch’s flunkies.



Nina and Lin get their turns before Ryu, but I skip them because they aren’t relevant this time around. Dragon Ryu is the star here.

You’ll immediately notice several changes. The first is the number underneath the glowing blue cube in the upper right hand corner of the screen. This is the D-Counter, and it’s going to be incredibly important from this point on. Right now it’s at 1.00%, but it will go up. Oh boy, will it go up.

The second is that Ryu’s battle commands have been replaced with three special skills: Vortex, Hurricane and Twister. These are Dragon Ryu’s light, medium and heavy attacks. They cannot be comboed, but all three are so powerful there’s no need to.



Twister, for instance, triples Ryu’s base attack power and deals non-elemental damage to a single target.











It also hits twice and deals ludicrous amounts of knockback. Just one is enough to utterly obliterate Bosch.



Dragon Ryu has infinite movement range and can fly around without consuming AP. No one is safe from his wrath.



Vortex is less powerful than Twister, but still packs a wallop.







The only reason this didn’t oneshot the Battler Grunt is because of his shield, which has a 50% chance of halving direct physical damage.



It can only tank one hit from Dragon Ryu however, and a second Vortex crushes him.







The Gunner Grunt has no shield and is instantly annihilated.



Dragon Ryu roars in triumph, and we see that he is literally weeping lava.



The spoils of this battle are nice, especially that huge chunk of Party XP.





With no more enemies to fight, Ryu snaps back to his old self.







His blurred vision picks out a scene of devastation.





A worried Lin holds back an agitated Nina.







Ryu falls unconscious, overwhelmed by what just happened.









He awakens to find Nina and Lin close by.

: Unh…





Lin rushes over and grabs Ryu by the shoulders.



: You’re no normal Ranger! That power…!



Ryu angrily knocks Lin’s hands off him.

: Tell me! What does Trinity know?!



:…going to do with Nina?!

:…Even if you knew…what would you do?



Lin slams her hands back down on Ryu’s shoulders.

: What would that accomplish?





Ryu and Lin glower at one another. It’s clear that they are talking past each another and close to coming to blows.





Nina shakes her head, silently pleading with the pair to stop arguing.

: Nnnll…







Her plea works…at least, for the time being.



Music: Lift



: If you want to find out who she is…



: But what about you? You’re sure you can’t explain…?



:…that power came from, or why. But…



: A voice in my head! It was scary. Like somehow…







Aww.



: We may have lost them for now…



: They’ll come after us. We have to hurry.



:…LowSector to get to BioCorp. Let’s go.





The game gives us control here. I’ll be ending the update shortly, but there’s something I have to do first.



I open the menu…



Select ‘Give Up’…



Then choose ‘SOL Restore’.



I save over my primary file, bumping the ‘Retry’ value up to ‘1’.



And that’s it. There are a whole host of mechanics revolving around Ryu’s dragon form that I wasn’t able to explain, and doing this will allow me to replay the fight and go into a bit more detail about how it all works. It also gives me the chance to show off how the SOL System functions, so there’s that to look forward to as well. I’ll be dealing with all that and more in the next update.

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Bonus Art: Ryu and Early Dragon Mode Concept Art