Part 44: NG+ Update 16: Holy Heart

NG+ Update 16: Holy Heart

Music: The More We Dig



The first thing we’re doing this update is visiting the Fairy Colony again. For those of you who don’t like the colony, don’t worry, we’re nearly done with it.





The Nugget Stockhouse is the last new facility we can build. The way it works is fairly simple. You buy a baby Nugget, pump it full of growth hormones high quality feed until it’s big and juicy, then sell it off and hopefully make a tidy profit. Unfortunately raising Nuggets doesn’t bring in nearly as much money as buying and selling foreign currency, and making sure the Nugget gets fed correctly and that your Ant farmers all have high enough Taste to get the higher quality feed is frankly more hassle than it’s worth.



Stopping by the item shop reveals a new weapon for Nina is now in stock.



The Holy Heart is an extremely useful and important weapon that utterly demolishes undead enemies. Those of you with good memories will recall that the Old Trade Sector we’re about to enter is infested with zombies and other nasties, so let’s go ahead and give it a spin.







A single Kyrie will evaporate any undead within its area of effect.



This includes Zombies, Brokenhearts, Karons and anything else that runs on necrotic power. It’s an extremely powerful spell for areas like the Old Trade Sector and Power One.







There’s nothing new to see in the Old Trade Sector so I’m going to skip pretty much all of it and go straight to the Trinity Pit.

Music: Trinity Pit







Nina collapses and is placed in intensive care, giving Ryu time to explore the rebel base.







Ryu meets Mebeth, who congratulates him on bringing Nina to them. Ryu tells Mebeth he wants to take Nina to the surface, but Mebeth challenges the notion that the sky even exists. It’s worth going back and re-reading the full conversation, especially given our new contextual knowledge that Mebeth is following Elyon’s orders (and by inference most likely still being a Regent himself).

A brief SOL Scene plays after Ryu leaves.















Not much to say about this one, other than Mebeth’s use of the word ‘Chosen’, which I believe only Elyon has been referred to as before.



There isn’t much point in doing the Nina sidequest again. There are no D-Ratio Doors or SOL scenes in Old Trade Sector C, and we plundered all the regular treasure that’s down there on our first playthrough.





After settling down to rest Ryu and Lin have a chat about the meaning of life and death, until the conversation is cut short by Nina’s scream.







The fight with the Trinity operatives isn’t worth mentioning. The party stomps them effortlessly, even when reinforcements arrive.





In the aftermath the party confronts Mebeth. Lin is under the impression that the attack was a false flag in order to convince Ryu to remain with Trinity, but our SOL knowledge tells us this isn’t likely to be the case. It’s more probable that the attack was meant to convince Ryu not to remain with Trinity and to harden his resolve to press on towards the surface.





Mebeth hands over his key and urges the party to move on, since Nina is running out of time.

Music: Lifeline



Our next task is to make our way through the cramped and smoggy confines of Lifeline.





There are two D-Ratio Doors in the starting area of Lifeline. The first leads to a room with some item crates and four De-Vogues who seem to be coded to always drop stat enhancing items.





The second is more important since it leads to the second route through Lifeline I mentioned during the first playthrough.



The second route has a similar layout to the regular route, but contains more item crates full of useful goodies.







It’s also full of powerful enemies, including a group of three Trilizards that can chew through even a New Game+ team if you aren’t careful.





Halfway along the route is a room containing a Goo Crystal which drops a Treasure Key after death.



The chest is hidden away at the end of the route, and contains a rather, uh, interesting weapon.



Meet the Slapper, a joke weapon for Nina.







It only has one skill, a fairly mediocre physical attack called ‘Chop!’. It’s…honestly not that great, but Nina giggles like a lunatic whenever she uses it and seeing her slowly thwack an enemy to death with a giant fan is kind of funny.





At the end of Lifeline the party is confronted by Rebuilt Bosch. This is probably the first fight of a New Game+ run that’s actually challenging - Rebuilt Bosch is a monster irrespective of how many skills or items you have.





Unfortunately for him I really can’t be arsed to deal with his nonsense, so I’m just going to go ahead and press the ‘I Win’ button this time around.



The fight ends with Bosch falling into the abyss. But this time we get a little something extra afterwards.

Music: Controllers of the World











Vexacion shakes his head slowly.









Congratulations, Bosch! You finally made your dad proud. All it took was grafting a creepy monster hand to yourself and surrendering your humanity to an ancient dragon ghost. Then again, given Vexacion’s attitude so far he might very well approve of such things.