Part 75: Song for One Who is Going Away

So... we sacrificed Araki and I guess it went as well as you can possibly expect it to, really.



The hall isn't actually empty, Li Hua is standing in her normal spot! We can, of course, talk to her.



















































And here is Marie, joining us.













And so, we are now in control of Conor...



...who is interrupted by Bachs.

But we cannot afford to relax just yet.
We have discovered another location that is home to a pilfered Sopia Core.
The Chosen and Candidate Conor shall travel there together.
Three seals remain. Pray, do not let down your guard...



Huh...



In any case, before we do anything else, let's just check the library quickly...



In this book, we can now find a brief info on Araki:

  ARAKI

Born into the world as the second son of the Hida family of the East, showin unusual capacity for combat and the arts. Became an officer of the national military at a young age and progressed steadily through the ranks. Slew his fiancé while fighting insurgents, then left his native land and never returned.

Makes his living fighting; took part in the Dazilian Strife, Marxan Civil War and the Atsul Campaign.

Sacrificed as a Pillar of the 1,685th Rite.

Somewhat interesting.



Still as Conor, we can return now to the main hall.





























More like cracking under pressure, really...





You are so brave, Marie!
Er, not really.
Oh, yes, you are! I mean, look at the way you went toe-to-toe with that Bachs fellow! I could never do that!
...
...You know, everyone has limits, Conor. Don't push yourself beyond them.

You and Marie are old friends, aren't you, Darwin?
W-well, yeah... We are...
That's fantastic! Old friends are great, aren't they? And you two seem so close!
...
Conor... You...















Should probably stop by Piu-Piu, as always...























I have absolutely no clue what that was supposed to be about...



However, we CAN get Conor a better weapon.



And this is where we are going today... to Conor's hometown!











As you can see, this time we will be traversing the entire dungeon.

Along the way, Conor will stop to reminisce in a couple of spots...





Or this one:



A bit later...



















Meanwhile, back in the main hall...



...Marie is observing what's going on through some kind of magical viewing thingy.

















So we should head to the library, but first...









































I actually make it a point to talk to Piu-Piu whenever I can... you miss out on a lot of these silly bits if you don't do that. But now...



...let's head to the library for real.



Huh?

The following short scene plays better with sound, so please watch the video below to see what happens in the library.

VIDEO: Song for One Who is Going Away (make sure to switch it to 720px HD for much better quality!)

Well, I thought that was nice. As you already know, I find Lessica to be a very likable character.

In any case, we now return to Conor and Darwin on their mission.









At some point we encounter what seems like another member of the Panda gang!



This one is "Panda Moll", notable because you can get a large amount of SP from it.



Hence, we will use this item to make it even better. This will help our equipped Sopia to advance in learning skills quite significantly.



And so.

Eventually, on a staircase...





















Can't believe he's run off again!



Luckily, he didn't go far!

















What's going on.

















Oh, hello. I'm going to take a guess that you're Famine?











































Welcome to another boss fight, agains the third Horseman of the Apocalypse...

Before we do anything else...





...we need to steal a very useful item from him!



The stolen item (Carnaval) is actually a new weapon (staff) for Marie, and as you can see it's a pretty massive upgrade over the next best one! Since Marie is still alive we're definitely going to be equipping this in the near future!

And now we can get going with the real boss fight. This guy has a few different attacks.



This one is not super dangerous--it just takes off 50% of your CURRENT MP. Magic is not extensively significant for winning this fight.



More dangerous is this one: it takes 50% of your CURRENT HP. Both of these attacks also change your element to Water, which can be dangerous...



...because he is able to cast a Wind elemental spell.

He also has another attack (Corpse Grip) which inflicts random statuses like poison or blind. If you get hit with this it's probably best to dispell it with an appropriate item, rather than letting it run its course.

However, this guy's big secret is...



...that he is massively weak to Fire element!

In the end, this battle can be very easy or very hard, depending on what you do. If you play defensively (no pair attacks, constant use of healing items) like we did so far with other Horsemen, this will generally end badly! A better strategy here is to simply go all out on him.



Either pair cast Cremate...



...or simply pair attack him when you have fire element on yourself!

You don't actually need to worry so much about healing, because you'll be taking enough damage for limit breaks to activate every few turns (certainly often enough for easy survival). And look what our friend Conor has in his limit break arsenal:



Yes. A free heal of 1000 HP for the entire party! The other skill (Poached Plums) actually restores a bit of MP for the entire party--like in the rest of the game, all HP healing is chocolate-based and all MP healing is plum-based.



With this in mind, if you go all out, it will only take a few turns for victory...



Also this, but we'll see it in action later.

If you want to see how easy this fight is if you do it the right way, please watch the video below:

VIDEO: Famine: Not Much of a Boss! (make sure to switch it to 720px HD for much better quality!)