Part 18: Final Chapter: "If you take on the mantle of the Demon King..."
If you're playing the game yourself, and you're very close to this point (at least at the start of The Imagination), then now's a good place to put this LP down and finish it yourself. Try the final battle at least once, then come back. I do my best to get the experience across here, but the entire final sequence is damn good and it's best experienced first-hand.If you're still here, or you've come back, then let's continue!
Final Chapter: "If you take on the mantle of the Demon King..."
(The Three Heroes and The Demon King, Ares and Harold 8, Epilogue)
Welcome back.
I picked up Slap on the back on a whim. Then I go to pick up a couple of treasures I've missed:
Well, I'm not sure "missed" is the word here, since the vines hadn't grown in to get them. But I've got them now.
The Zenith Tears gives Skill +50 and Critical Damage x1.3. They're the largest Skill boost in the game and the critical damage booster is nice gravy, but Randolf doesn't have the room for them; the Varnished Bird Wing, Black Ladybug and Delusion Cocoon are all better. Will might use it at some point, though.
When I said Aaron Aaron stole the chimney from this house a while back, I was not kidding. What the fuck, man? Why a chimney?
Slap on the back is incredibly cheap to use.
I don't even know how I walked past this. It's right on the path.
The Expensive Stone and Chimney supply the three items I'm missing in the "unmapped area," and I'm not trying the Stone again yet. The two items I'm missing from The Imagination are the sword I didn't buy (I'm pretty sure, anyway) and one item I'll grab in a moment.
Then I head back to the fifth flower.
You walk down a long, linear corridor with books on either side. Eventually, the screen changes and the books go away, but you remain on a linear corridor.
If you look very closely, you'll notice that one yellow speck on the side of the second corridor doesn't move with the other stars.
The Dream Wings is probably the most ridiculously hidden item in the game.
+10 Attack, +30 HP, +15 SP, +10 Defense, immunity to the Stagger (stun, lose your action for a variable amount of turns, usually 1 or 2) status. It's a good defensive item.
Final party status:
Camil is, bar none, the most important character here. You'll notice that despite getting Destiny's Defeat, I haven't really used it. The final battle more than makes up for that lack--there's a lot of statuses going around, and some of them are incredibly deadly. When she's not healing statuses, Camil will be attacking. Her critical rate is a little lower than I like it, but at least there's very little risk of her dying as she is. Her ridiculous magic defense should help with that, as should the ~14% evasion rate she's sporting.
Why the Rat Slayer? Why not the Rat Slayer? Because I lose 70 points of attack, you say? Look, who's driving this LP, my hypothetical mouthy critic or me? ...me either way, I guess.
Comic routine aside, Randolf is the same as he ever was, but now he can use Defend to get some of that SP back. That's particularly useful in this fight, for Reasons. Between the 18% chance of evasion from the Varnished Bird Wing and his defense from his FOUR ARMOR set-up (he must be suffocating in there), Randolf is going to be very hard to kill. That's a good thing here.
Will is going to be healing. When he doesn't need to heal, he'll defend. If I'd remembered that the weapon in The Imagination cost gold then I would have bought it instead of the Expensive Stone, because it'd have been really useful here, but... Oh well. I'll deal.
It's time for one of my most favorite boss fights of all time.
(Listen to this music.)
I defend the first round. The Demon King Chronicle isn't what we're here to defeat.
The Tower Demon is the first round. It's a status-heavy enemy, and like all the bosses here, it's very durable.
Blaze-Eater does moderate damage (about 70 to Camil or Will) and poisons. Notably, Will's Healing Magic has one property that's not immediately obvious:
It cures poison.
It also has Nightmare (attempts to inflict Sleep on all allies; like Stagger, you're forced to defend, but it has a longer timer and wears off when attacked), Demon's Song (inflicts Denial, which lowers your damage but forces you to attack an ally no matter what command is entered)...
...Puragatory (inflicts moderate magical damage to everyone), Tell me what you desire (inflicts Stagger) and I'll make it come true (follows the turn after after Tell me what you desire, summons four Greeds or Loves).
The Greed enemies are pretty dangerous--she summons about four of them every time, and while they don't do a lot of damage, you'll notice what just about every ability the Tower Demon has stops you from taking actions. And every time she uses I'll Make It Come True, she summons more.
Alternatively, she can also summon Love enemies. They'll use Unconditional Love each and every turn, healing everyone on the field for about 25-30 HP. This includes themselves. They are equally aggravating.
If the Tower Demon summons, you need to blow them up as soon as you can--if she summons several times in a row, she can flood you, especially since Camil is very unlikely to be set-up for magic.
(She never got to summon either in the real fight, so the above screenshot is from a second pass. I remembered this and blew her up as soon as I could.)
The Chronicle supports in every fight, and it's invincible from beginning to end. It uses four attacks, and three of them set Flag statuses it can activate later with Foreshadowing Collection. Death Foreshadowing and Betrayal Foreshadowing are its most common attacks. Death is what it sounds like, and Betrayal is Denial without the penalty to damage.
(
For those not in the know, a "flag" is a game variable that changes based on what you've done--game progress, for example. It's been more widely adopted in Japanese slang to mean "obvious foreshadowing"--a death flag, for instance, might be a villain saying, "What? Impossible! I AM INVINCIBLE!", or a side character mentioning their impending retirement or their impending marriage to their sweetheart after they go back home.)Slap on the back cures Poison, Staggered, Sleep, Denial and Betrayal and also sets the Spirit status, giving you 5% more strength and critical in addition to doubling your max SP.
(Click on each of the pictures that have cut-ins to see the original, larger art.)
Destiny's Defeat cures Flag statuses; nothing else can. In this case, "bends fate" means "undoes foreshadowing."
That is the absolute most powerful ability to give a main character in a story about stories.
The Tower Demon goes down. Randolf and Will restore their SP, Camil waits.
The White Whale is the second stage. Compared to the Tower Demon, it's much more direct.
It pretty much just beats the hell out of you. I've never seen it use any offense other than this attack sequence. Admittedly, it's a good attack sequence; it hit with one critical every single time.
The Chronicle uses Death Foreshadowing on Camil, so she uses Destiny's Defeat again.
The heal on it is fairly decent for a bonus effect, probably because of Camil's surprisingly high Skill.
And that's why I use the Varnished Bird Wing.
Oh come on!
Three party members, however, means that Will can Energy Restore and Randolf can Stamina Restore. The Chronicle inflicts Randolf with Betrayal Foreshadowing, and Camil heals it.
This prompts some quick back-of-the-napkin math. Abilities that require a portion of HP also do the check just before the character's turn. If Healing Magic heals no more than 50 HP, Shout will work; if it heals 51, it'll fizzle and she'll have wasted her turn. I don't think I've seen him heal that much, though.
Excellent.
Lightning cherry-taps for the down.
ZellGaizer does have the Geyser ability of the Geyser Gazer, letting it massively buff its defenses, but it didn't use it here. Much like the Tower Demon, you want it dead quickly, because if the fight goes wrong it can go very wrong.
During the intermission round, Will uses an Energy Restore and Camil uses Slap on the back on Randolf, doubling his max SP right before he defends. SP regen when defending works off of max SP, so that also doubles the gain from it.
(By the way, Slap on the back always does 1 or 2 damage to the targeted character when you use it.
That is the best random detail.)
(Don't mind the different status between the first/second and third screenshots--missed the actual "Chapter 3" shot on my first fight here.)
The Dragon is harder than the white whale but weaker than the demon.
Statuses all get crammed together when they apply. Sometimes this results in band names, like "YellDeath."
Throw and War Cry can be problematic. Both Stagger, with Throw also doing damage, and a poorly-timed stun can be very dangerous.
It also uses Crush, which is single-target, and I'm fairly sure it has an attack-all breath attack, but it was strangely reluctant to use it.
This screenshot is to point out two things. One, damn, Camil. Second... that Energy Restore was on Randolf. Notice his Death status? That's Death Flag.
Energy Restores cure statuses, but they don't cure Flag statuses. Only Camil can do that. The Chronicle doesn't always follow through immediately, but Foreshadowing Collection always inflicts the status for any flag it triggers.
Camil slays the dragon and slaps Randolf on the back again. Randolf Stamina Restores himself, and Will uses an Energy Restore on Camil. I'm at 12 of each Restore--that's a good amount.
The rest was warm-up. It's time for the real fight now.
(Music goes silent)
And now's the promised time: The Final Battle As Planned activates here.
(Listen to this too.)
And Camil pulls the ultimate technique: The Thread Title Drop.
Wait, did I say Camil?
I meant Sera.
Randolf's wielding the sword of his father, the sword that slayed the White Dragon. The Dragon Slayer has a mighty +90 base Attack, +30 Skill, +3 Critical, 16 Range, and SP regeneration when defending. As an All-Purpose, it'd instead be +40 Attack, +30 Skill, +2 Defense, and -2 to incoming magic damage, also with SP regeneration when defending. It maintains its levels from the Rat Slayer, so right now it's a +144 Attack, +42 Skill, +6 Critical weapon. It is very much worth it to enter this fight with the Rat Slayer equipped.
(Sadly, there's no corresponding effect for Ares's Clothes.)
And Aeritz--excuse me, Ritzea--is finally wearing his proper face and showing his full bag of tricks. He now has the old Healing Magic and a new (about 2/3 strength) multi-target version of Healing Magic, along with the final miracle we've been missing, Resurrection Magic. It doesn't restore to full HP, but it heals about 20 HP more than Healing Magic, leaving it the only form of revival better than 25% healing. It's pretty amazing.
Oh, and note the massive increases to Skill and SP (+70 and +80, respectively). What's the point in getting shiny new toys if you can't use them? Additionally, Star Fall Magic has been subtly improved--it now requires a 50% HP threshold instead of a 40% one.
A sidenote: The name display was bugged in the original localization--all three characters had their names blanked out instead of changing properly. HenryEx's localization fix patch handles that, though! One more thing to be thankful to him for.
If you don't buy The Final Battle as Planned, then Camil's part is skipped and your party stays as is--no name change, no shift in the Rat Slayer, "Will" remains nameless and faceless and doesn't gain the other half of his move list. This makes the fight considerably harder, because Ritzea/Aeritz is a lot stronger than our faceless friend Will and the Dragon Slayer is pretty damn good.
The Demon King Hades starts things off by using Enhanced Aura, healing himself by about 250 and granting the Enhanced Aura status, which significantly increases his Attack and Skill.
Shadow Viper hits two allies, does low damage and poisons. Unfortunately, Healing Magic multi-target doesn't heal poison.
The Demon King Chronicle started using its final two attacks during this phase--it can do so earlier, but didn't. Postscript Setting applies Heart status--short for, apparently, "Congenital Heart Disease"--which deals damage every turn, decreases attack by 20%, and decreases defense by 40%.
Alternatively, Postscript Setting can apply Blindness, which works as you'd expect. If they heal over time, they do so very slowly, and death doesn't remove them either. Destiny's Defeat does, though.
(So apparently Harold was progressively growing blind as he finished chapter 3, at which point he died of his heart condition. Wow, that's awful.)
Skip status, set by Eternal Turn, is essentially a two-turn Stagger--you lose two actions, three if you're slower than him. Stagger immunity doesn't affect it, and there's no source of Skip immunity. The Demon King Hades keeps on attacking during this time, and that makes Skip extremely dangerous. It can miss, thankfully, and like Stagger, it forces you to defend, so at least you're taking half damage.
Star Blade is essentially Shadow Viper, except it trades the Poison for a Defense Down effect. It's a bit more of a pain, though:
Destiny's Defeat may cure Heart, but it doesn't cure Defense Down. It does heal Poison, though, and Healing Magic single-target retains its own anti-poison effect.
The Demon King Hades can also just smack you in the face for a million damage. Randolf did have a defense penalty, but that just brings him down to the same amount as everyone else. And it did that much through Guard. Ow.
Remember how I said poison takes effect before a turn? Sera uses an Energy Restore, because Ritzea is dead as soon as his turn ticks on.
Just being resurrected means that Randolf is in prime position to use Hero Supplement.
Thankfully, Eternal Turn only hits Ritzea. This is what I mean when I said it's dangerous: Randolf is in a really good position! ...if he can move. If he can't he's screwed.
Goodbye Foreshadowing is its own terrifying kind of fuckery. When it hits, Foreshadowing Collection will exile a character with the granted status. It can't be cured, and it takes about eight turns to wear off. Goodbye Foreshadowing is a drop-everything-and-heal situation, and if you don't have Destiny's Defeat, this fight gets incredibly random.
And yes, if Eternal Turn had hit Sera, the Demon King Chronicle may well have banished Ritzea without me being able to stop it. Eternal Turn is bullshit, and this entire fight revolves around readying yourself to lose two turns at any time. In one post-win run (the "no Final Battle as Planned" one), I had the Demon King use Eternal Turn, Eternal Turn, End Mark, and then Eternal Turn again. He can do that!
Another notable attack that he was (mercifully) reluctant to use here: Dark Force. It's an instant death spell. Finally, it has two different attack-all spells, Chaos Flare and End Mark. Neither is very worrying.
Randolf heals himself, Sera saves Ritzea from certain doom. Then the Demon King punches him in the face and he dies.
Hero Randolf does good damage.
DEMON KING HADES/CHRONICLE
I only got one attack in Hero status thanks to this.Then the Demon King kills Ritzea again. I survive through Skip and revive him. Hero status has expired, because fuck you. Ritzea dies again. I swear.
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the fight. This rate of potion use is not good.
That said, once you get going, the Demon King Hades doesn't have TOO much HP. I just need things to not go horribly wrong.
Nothing goes horribly wrong in the next few turns.
Sera healed him up afterward, since Randolf is doing more consistent damage than she is.
(All of the final crystal room abilities get a cut-in here, counting Resurrection Magic but not counting multi-target Healing Magic.)
That may change now, if she doesn't die. It's been a few turns since the last Eternal Fuck You.
Ritzea defends instead of using Healing Magic on everyone, which may be a horrible mistake.
Okay whew it wasn't, even if Sera had to use a turn to heal Betrayal Foreshadowing.
Eternal Turn may seem overpowering, and it is--depending on what goes down, it can be a near-certain loss. But it also lends the fight a sense of very real tension, and it does it by playing into the way the combat's always been: be careful, be cautious, don't overextend.
The second turn into the next Eternal Turn. Sera's been critting like a monster, doing 300 each time, and Randolf's Light Axes are doing just as much. The Demon King Hades is on his last legs.
As Sera lands the last blow, the screen goes dark and the music stops... And it picks up from where Ares and Harold's conversation left off, back in the seventh story.
(This section still has no music.)
Are you sure you want to know?
Sure. Alright, I'll tell you. The final chapter is... It's the story of the heroes of the previous chapters (beat) fighting a very strong enemy. Sounds like my kind of story! So it's like a compilation of everything up until now? I am actually your final enemy: the Demon King.
(
) So including me, the 3 heroes will fight you, huh? Just the thought gets me excited.
This real body of mine might be at its end... but in my fantasy world, you guys don't stand a chance. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, look forward to it. ...... ......
Which means...
Yeah, it will.
Oh, that's right. In about 10 days...
Yeah, do whatever you want. Wait... what do you mean when you say "adrift?"
That's all.
(
) What's going to happen to the book? No idea. It might sink at some point.
Yeah... That's actually interesting. I like not knowing what'll happen. Looks like you like the idea. Well then, see you in 10 days. Yeah... I'm looking forward to the ending. Alright. Oh, one more thing. About the story's ending... who wins in the end? You want to know? I'd love to. The winner in the end is...
I guess you got me there. Well, looking forward to kicking butt in the last chapter. Do your best. Don't lose too easily.
You better finish it. Of course.
Alrighty. I'm looking forward to the finale! Sure. See ya. Yeah... Oh, that's right
Oh... I actually haven't decided yet. I figured... Since you're here, you decide. What? This is a pretty important role. Hmmmm... You don't need to think so hard about it. Just pick something at random. Something random... Yeah. Well... How's this? 
Time returns to just before Sera landed the final blow. One last button press...
...and then the long battle is over.
It's not meant to cheer up the disillusioned masses.
It's not meant to give courage to some unknown hero.
It just exists.
However...
It will still find its way into someone's heart,
and that will give rise to a new story.
(Music stops)
With Ares's last request complete and Harold's lingering regrets dispelled, the new Demon King Chronicle is sent the way of the old: Camil throws it in the river. Who knows where it'll end up?
(Camil has an epilogue picture to match the ones for Nana, Kumo and Randolf, but it's in the art pack on Playism. Go give the game makers a buck or two! With Aeritz's face revealed, you've seen everything spoilery.)
This has been Demon King Chronicle! I hope you've enjoyed reading (and/or playing, if you joined along) as much as I've enjoyed presenting it for you all.
Annihilation Count:
Annihilation count:30 (Final Main Game total)
No new entries.
Contest results:
Winner: Cake Attack (26)
Second Place: Feldherren (35)
Third Place: Like Clockwork (43)
Battle Record:
2014/04/13/ 23:15:19
Demon King Chronicle
■Battle results
Playtime:18:28:10
Save count:183
Steps taken:89605
Battle count:1041
Max damage:633
Max damage taken:605
Items:74 Types 147 Items
Turns to defeat Last Boss：53(Best Record53)
■Treasure Chests
The Nest: 8/8
Demon King's Castle: 26/26
The Hamlet: 31/31
The Snow Fields: 20/20
The Dragon Mountain: 6/6
Sands of Remembrance: 26/26
The Tower: 11/11
The Seashore: 12/12
The Mirage: 10/10
Leviathan Depths: 5/5
The Disease: 20/20
The Imagination: 31/32
Unmapped area: 7/10
■Sera(36)
HP:169
SP:74
Attack:290
Defense:83
Range:32
Critical:39
Skill:107
Agility:90
・Praying Mantis Axe(3)
・Mask of Determination(3)
・Holy Sword that Cuts the Dark(3)
・Zara Sword(3)
・Aegis(2)
■Randolf(35)
HP:118
SP:89
Attack:271
Defense:139
Range:16
Critical:20
Skill:214
Agility:69
・Dragon Slayer(3)
・Splendid Leviathan(3)
・Delusion Cocoon(1)
・Varnished Bird Wing(3)
・Black Ladybug(3)
■Ritzea(27)
HP:130
SP:138
Attack:186
Defense:80
Range:64
Critical:11
Skill:91
Agility:53
・Speckcinder(0)
・Black Dress(0)
・Zara Mantle (2)
・Daybreak Club(2)
・Dream Wings(0)
■Top 10 defeats
Green Mud Man(178)
Rat(160)
Toothy Piranha(157)
Mermaid(143)
Abominable Snow Monkey(97)
Wake-Eater(89)
Deformity(89)
Merman(84)
Monkey(83)
Mutt(80)
Glossary:
(Unlocked by defeating Demon King Hades)
■Harold Diester
He carried a blue Will Stone on his back.
Harold died before finishing the
"Demon King Chronicles."
but his memories and stored
in the blue Will Stone.
He cannot rest in peace until the
story reaches its conclusion.