Part 8: A True Warrior

It seems that we have finally managed to obtain our "proof of partnership" and are now on the way to our second and last fight in the arena. Also, we learned more of Escher's back story which for some reason has made Musiea somewhat distressed.



Of course, we will be fighting Eluca and Zhamo. But before that...



...let's visit the resident perv and get that out of the way. Anyway we need to buy next level equipment, so...



But that's why I'm here!
Just give me all your money and you'll almost surely (probably) walk out of here with something that'll help you win!



A new weapon for Musiea. Not buying one for Escher since we got a better sword in the dungeon last time.





And two sets of clothes. Looks like they ran out of imagination for equipment names here... BTW, lonsdaleite is a mineral, very similar to diamond just a bit less hard.





As always, two new gems for our accessory slot.

So, back to Eluca and Zhamo now that we are done shopping.







Escher, Musiea...
Zhamo... You look so different.
I guess boys really do grow up fast.
Maybe... But it didn't feel fast to me.
It felt like I've been waiting my whole life to get here...
We have to thank you, Escher.
Every time he saw you fight, his eyes would start to sparkle and he'd demand I explain your techniques to him.
Even though he never had a slightest interest in fighting up until now.
The way you fight is beautiful, Escher. Not a single unnecessary motion, yet flowing, natural and strong...
Of course, it still pales compared to Eluca.
Well, well, listen to the mouth on you now.
You must be pretty happy, eh, Eluca?
...Yes. I am.
Escher.
This may sound strange, but... I'm actually looking forward to fighting you.
I felt the first inklings of it during our fight with Ayuta and Mana, and now I am convinced.
We are at a point where we can fight wit everything we have and still not be assured of victory. But once you win, there is nothing sweeter.
Thanks to those kinds of battles, I now know I will reach a level I did not know was previously possible.
It has been my duty to fight ever since I was born. There was never a place for personal feelings...
I am... genuinely surprised I made it this far.
I feel the same as Eluca. I no longer feel plagued by doubt or fear.
And it's all because you are our opponent, Escher...
I feel the same way...
It's a pity only Agent is here to see this fight...
Especially since we are going to give him a show he'll never forget.
Ha ha, that sounds good.
(...)
(...Come on... You can't die yet... Keep it together, Escher...)
Whatever lies beyond this fight... I want to see it for myself.
This is a cruel and terrible place, but... if I hadn't come here I never would have met Ayuta, Mana, Musiea or you.
When I think about it this way, I wouldn't trade this for anything.

And once again, just before the fight, we actually get a friendly and relaxing conversation.



I guess.







Still looking as strange as ever with those blue tubes.











And the fight starts.

This one is definitely harder than Olgar and Vahti, mostly because Eluca and Zhamo have the potential do deal more damage. We are right now actually at a slight advantage because of those extra 6 levels that I gained from those two Billikens. In general, you don't want to use the pair attack while both of your opponents are alive--you want to have one person (Escher) attacking Zhamo and the other (Musiea) on support/healing to make sure both characters' HP is on a good level. If she has nothing else to do, she will also attack but solo, not in pair with Escher. Eluca and Zhamo both have somewhere around 10,000 HP each.

So let's see how this goes.



To start with, I remember that I have a few of these items. As you can see they deal damage equal to 15% of current HP--not bad at all. So we'll start by using two of those on Zhamo:





Not bad, that's more than a quarter of his HP down already!



We get hit by a multi-target fire spell! Even if you don't use pair attack, you may still get hit by a multi-target spell instead.



Also of note, Eluca has an ability that regenerates about 5% of her HP at the end of every turn. Hence why we start with eliminating Zhamo first.



Escher's first attack goes not too well.



But Musiea shines through with no less than a critical!



Eluca retaliates against Escher--here you can see how much damage she can deal. If we had done a pair attack, Musiea would now have been hit for something similar. As it is, she can simply heal Escher in next turn.



In this fight I got incredibly lucky with these Magical/Physical Block abilities. They seem to fire about every other turn, without exaggeration!



To keep the morale gauge on our side as much as possible I keep using Escher's Trompe l'œil skill as always in boss fights.

Unfortunately the fight is briefly interrupted.







I still have things I need to tell you!
Things you need to tell me?
When I was baptized I was given a new name!
...Why would you mention this now?
Don't you get it?
We DID have a reason why we were chosen as partners!
What?



I don't think there's anybody who DIDN'T see this coming, after what happened last time. Except Escher, that is.







We continue the battle in the same way...







And soon, Zhamo is down. Now we can focus on Eluca.



At this point, we can more or less go with pair attacks which are very effective.



Ayup.





And the fight is over.

Since this is a fight that nicely shows off the features of the battle system I am actually including a full video recording here. It also contains a cutscene in the middle so you can also get a taste of what the voice acting sounds like. I'll come back to this in next update, but for now I'll just mention that SquareEnix really went all out on this front--the game contains the exact opposite of "noname" cast; most actors have had quite a few well known roles in Anime and Japanese games (voice acting is in Japanese only, there are no versions in other languages). See if you can recognise Musiea's voice actress, for example.

** BATTLE VIDEO **











Japanese voiced dialogue actually contains an additional nuance here. All characters are just calling each other by first names, EXCEPT Zhamo who refers to Escher as "Escher-san". But in this one line, he finally calls him just "Escher" signifying that they are more equals now. And since I am already on the subject, I might as well mention that Zhamo is also the only one who refers to himself as 僕 (boku) while all the other male characters use 俺 (ore) thus putting Zhamo a bit "lower" on the "manliness" scale compared to the rest.



Don't say that. You truly did the best you could.
I really wanted... to make a country you would be proud of...
I'm sorry... Eluca.
You don't have to apologise for anything.
When my heart was at its bleakest, you filled it with reason and light.
I can ask for no greater gift.



















As always, we learn the opponents' skills. Probably the most important is the Recover HP skill, it gives you back 5% of your max HP at the end of the turn. Technically it belongs to Escher, but if we do a pair attack, then Musiea will also take benefit of it automatically. His other skill, Risk Breaker does an attack that uses your HP to deal damage to enemy. Musiea's two skills are Braveheart, which prevents you from being KO one time after you cast it and Boost Critical which... boosts critical damage (this is a passive skill).

Time to leave the arena.