Part 66: Bonus Update – Shamans

We’ve had these Shaman people and their irate grandmother hanging around for quite some time. It’s about time we put their freeloading asses to work, which means venturing into the little side building jutting out from Township’s main HQ.



The chest in here contains a Defuse Orb. This item can cancel a fusion without the party having to return to Township.





Let’s listen to the old crone’s advice.









So basically there are six Shamans out there and we’ve currently managed to find three of them.







This is an important detail. There are many different fusion combinations, some of which will have unusual effects.



We are then thrown into the Fusion menu. It’s fairly self explanatory, but I’ll go over the options anyway.

Fuse = Initiate a new fusion. This is going to see a lot of use.
Index = A list of previously performed fusions and their effects on your characters.
Undo = Lets the player remove a character’s fusion.

Let’s experiment a bit.



Selecting ‘Fuse’ brings up a menu listing your current party members. Note that despite Ryu being on the menu, he cannot be fused with any of the Shamans. Doing so will simply cause the fusion to fail – his bloodline is just too strong. Similarly Deis cannot be fused either. Let’s see how Bosch does instead.



Selecting Bosch on the previous menu will then bring up a list of the available Shamans. Each Shaman provides a different kind of bonus when fused, which are as follows:

Sanamo = Strength +25%
Sesso = Wisdom +25%
Spoona = Vigour +25%

All the bonuses are based on your current stats. The bonuses will not update themselves when a fused character gains a level. It is therefore a good idea to re-fuse your characters every so often since they won’t be getting the most out of their Shamans if they level up too much.

Anyway, let’s see what happens when we fuse Bosch with Sanamo.









Hey, we did it! It is possible for certain combinations to fail.



This is important. Whilst this fusion was successful and gave Bosch a 25% Strength increase, certain combinations can make the base bonus bigger. I’ll use Nina to demonstrate.



Sesso and Spoona are the Shamans we want this time.









Both Shamans lend their power to Nina.



…Wait, what?





Nina’s sprite has changed colour, indicating a very successful fusion. In this state her Wisdom is increased by 22.5% and her Vigor is increased by a massive 52.5%. So this is all pretty cool, right? But it gets better. My next fusion trick will require the team’s resident jackass monkey.



Sten is going to fuse with Sanamo and Spoona.







So far it’s the same as Nina’s fusion.



…Huh?





I dunno about that, I mean, he still looks fairly similar to-





Sten has turned into a Super-Saiyan monkey made out of fire.



To explain further, some fusions are so effective they completely change the character’s looks and abilities. They also provide immense bonuses far beyond the sum of the Shamans used in the fusion – SSJ Sten gets Max AP +50%, Wisdom +30%, Strength +45%, Defence +12.5% and Vigour +55%. He loses the ability to stretch his arms, however, so if you do use him it’s best to keep the Defuse Orb handy in case you run across any places where it’s needed.



Those aren’t the only changes, though – Sten’s in-battle Unique Ability has also changed. His useless Pretend skill has been replaced with the more situational but more useful Switch ability. What does it do? Well…





It switches the current enemies on the screen for other encounters in the same area. It’s handy if you’re hunting for rare drops or if you’re getting your ass kicked by a strong opponent. Naturally it can’t be used in boss fights. Sten’s basic attack animation also changes – instead of knives he now throws blazing hot energy balls at the enemy.

A few things to note are that the transformations will be automatically undone if the fused party member is brought to critical health, outright knocked out or during certain plot sequences.



Unfortunately the remaining three Shamans we don’t yet have are absolutely vital to most of the transformative fusions and we won’t be seeing them for quite a while. Off the top of my head Aspara is the only other candidate for transformation right now, but his fusions are a little special so I’ll be waiting until I can properly show them off.

I tend not to use the Shaman system much since the boosts can get insane and I don't want to take away all the game's challenge, so if there's anything I've missed / got wrong feel free to point it out.