The Let's Play Archive

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight

by Ragnar Homsar, Dr. Fetus

Part 133: Bonus: Treasures Untold Part 1

Bonus: Treasures Untold Part 1





Okay, let's get this started.

Ah, yeh're takin' the one specifically for yeh, then...? What? Ain't that what it said? Guild only. See? Whaddaya mean, it didn't say that? Look here. Says that if anyone besides yeh took it, it'd end in some... big... mess... Haw haw haw! Guess it doesn't say that. I must'a dozed off while I was writin' the posting! Well, no harm done, since yeh lot picked it up anyhow! Haw haw haw! So here's the deal. This one came straight from the Palace, specifically for yeh lot to take. Yeh know the 25th floor yeh reached? They some kinda weird device in some kinda room near the end of the floor. What kinda device? Well, that's the thing. Nobody knows. And they wanna send someone who they know can handle it. Haw haw haw! Big payout for takin' more dangerous quests... bein' an explorer must be pretty rough! Anyhow, the contraption in question is 'round this area.



I think yeh oughta be fine, no matter what happens. G'luck!

Before we head out, let's take a look at the party.













I've farmed up Dragonbanes and Gold Belts for the party, as I want to increase everyone's stats as much as possible. Make sure to bring a lot of supplies for this quest, as it will be very resource intensive.





In the corner of this room, you find multiple box-shaped objects, placed as if to surround someone.

Could this be the device that the people from the Grand Duchy discovered?
Hmm... Yeah, just looking at this thing, I have no idea what it's supposed to do. It just looks like... boxes. That doesn't seem all that dangerous...

As determined by the terms of your request, you step forward to begin your investigation.



At your approach, a sudden high-pitched sound echoes from somewhere, and the boxes begin making bizarre noises! As if to complicate things further, you notice letters scrolling across the glass before you!

Amazing...! But I can't read these letters.
Looks related to the script High Lagaard uses, but it's older. A lot older...
I can probably manage to read--tch, dammit, it's going by too fast!

The flow of letters stops at once, as if taking Bertrand's grumbling as suggestion.

Huh!? I-Is this thing listening to what we're saying?
My, how polite! Thank you very much.
...Um, Sir Bertrand. Can you read what's written there?
Uh. Give me a sec. I'm not positive, but I think it's something like... battle... test... pro-gram?
Seems like it's asking us if we want some kind of combat exam.



May as well.

When you confirm the curious inquiry, the surrounding boxes start up a low hum that sounds almost like growling!

...I-I'm getting a bad feeling about this...
Aah!?









Anyone know what's going on here!?
No idea! That thing's coming at us, though--we don't have time for a discussion!



Well, there's a familiar looking face.



Each party member has their own thing to say about this fight when it's their turn.







Right, so Fenrir...

Fenrir
Level: 90
HP: 14000
STR: 70
TEC: 65
VIT: 64
AGI: 70
LUC: 51
Exp: 180000
Attack Type: Cut
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 125% 0% 100%
Disable resistances:
25% 100% 25% 50% 25% 25% 25%
0% 0% 10%
0% 25% 25%
Description: The leader of the pack, with snow-white fur and bloodthirsty fangs... The ultimate hunter.

Fenrir was the boss of the 1st Stratum in EO1 and EOU. He was a Sabre-toothed Tiger in the first game, despite being described as king of the wolves. The remake changed him to look more like a wolf. He was a very tough enemy to fight and take down, and was probably the main factor in turning a majority of the playerbase to the darkness and evils of Immunize. (Assuming the Ragelope wasn't already responsible for that.)

The remake was not so kind to him. Fenrir pretty much got degraded to a tutorial boss. In both EO1 and EOU, Fenrir had a pack of Skolls waiting outside the fight, that would join in once you start battling Fenrir. There was no way to deal with that in EO1. But EOU introduced a few items, the Flash Bombs, which stunned FOEs outside the fight to prevent them from joining in on battles, and Sonic Bombs, which disrupted charge moves. A character had to be dedicated to throwing Flash Bombs to prevent the Skolls from joining in. Fenrir could also charge up to use Howl, a move that would summon a Forest Wolf, which was not affected by Flash Bombs. You had to use a Sonic Bomb to prevent Fenrir from doing that. Unfortunately, Fenrir wasn't nearly as tough as his EO1 counterpart, and both Flash and Sonic Bombs were rarely used outside that fight.

If you were lucky, Fenrir had a chance of dropping the Wolf Grimoire, which came with the ability Wolf Pack. It boosted the entire party's damage output by 40% for one turn.

In this game, Fenrir is mostly the same as in EOU, but he lacks the ability to summon wolves here. And speaking of wolves...

Skoll
Level: 90
HP: 6500
STR: 60
TEC: 60
VIT: 52
AGI: 63
LUC: 48
Exp: 10000
Attack Type: Cut
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 150% 50% 100%
Disable resistances:
50% 50% 100% 50% 50% 50% 50%
0% 0% 50%
50% 50% 50%
Description: Fenrir's packmate and companion, with an azure-hued coat. Do not be cornered by this duo!

Unlike in EOU, Fenrir starts out the fight with his lackeys. They're not particularly threatening, but Binding Howl is very annoying to be hit by. Unless you're trying to fill out your codex, ignore them and go straight for Fenrir. Killing him will end the fight. Though if you kill off a Skoll, they're gone for good, as Fenrir has no way of resummoning them.







The only real threatening part of this fight are the ice attacks from both Fenrir and the Skolls. Ice Wall helps mitigate that.



Gonna try to lock down Fenrir, though I don't expect it to work.



And standard setup stuff.





Binding Howl doesn't hit hard, but the stun is really annoying if it kicks in. Which it didn't here, thankfully.



Eh. Would've been nice if the paralysis landed, but it's not a dealbreaker if it doesn't.



Fenrir's only attack is Cold Fangs. He does have Horrific Roar, but honestly, he's not much of a threat.



He does have a decent chunk of HP, and this party isn't the best at offense.







Though Knight himself is pretty much the best in that department.





Even if a Wave won't deal much damage when there are multiple targets, it's a good way to get Delayed Chase to hit everything at once.





And Fenrir is now a sitting duck. Though it's a little late for that.









A quick and easy fight.





With the fight concluded, you notice that you are standing in the same place as you were before the battle. The monster you just defeated is nowhere to be seen, and there is nothing around you aside from the curious boxes.

That... wasn't a dream, right?
Nah. Hurts too much to be a dream. Nnh...
Still, I've got no idea what all that was about...
Hey. The smell hasn't changed. I didn't smell a monster or any grass at all.
Huh? Really?
I had not even considered the smell...
But if there weren't any smells...
...What's that even supposed to mean, Chloe?
Dunno.
All I know is that I only smelled you four. No monsters. That's all.

What could Chloe mean about the lack of other smells...? Glancing at each other in confusion, you notice that the letters on the glass seem to have changed slightly. It now displays: “Continuing battle program. Before you have a moment to process the danger in that sentence, you hear the boxes start up their low growling!

Oh come on! Aren't we done yet!?
Whoa!?





You're kidding me! Seriously, what is this!? Is that box calling out these monsters!?
Knight, let's hurry up and put these guys down!



Okay, so here's the actual gimmick of this DLC quest. You're put into a boss rush with several of the major bosses from EOU, the Seven Kings. There are 7 separate fights to go through, and you don't get any breaks in between, and their stats are scaled up for a level 99 party. And honestly, this has got to be one of the laziest DLC quests in the game. For the most part, all their AI routines are the same as they were in EOU, though some of them are adjusted slightly to account for the fact that enemies cannot be summoned in battle.

The problem with this? It's pretty clear that the devs didn't test this much, because the damage output on the bosses are completely overtuned. One wrong move is pretty much an instant game over. And while that's true for most of the bosses in this game, keep in mind that they follow attack patterns down to the letter, so through trial and error, you could at least find a good way to take them down. This is not the case with EOU's bosses, which just had the bosses attack randomly, but follow specific behaviors. And in EOU, their damage outputs were far lower than the bosses' damage outputs in EO2U, as that would make the fights complete dice rolls. Which this entire DLC is. Use Front Guard when the boss decided to cast a party wide Ice attack instead? Too bad, you lose!

Oh, and your party has to survive 7 fights, all of which are gonna need entirely different strategies to deal with. And for some reason, this piece of DLC was one of the ones that wasn't free when it first came out in the US. Even the Original Sin got that treatment. Anyways, let's take a look at our opponents.

Cernunnos
Level: 91
HP: 20000
STR: 94
TEC: 58
VIT: 70
AGI: 45
LUC: 47
Exp: 200000
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 50% 100% 125%
Disable resistances:
50% 100% 25% 0% 25% 25% 25%
0% 0% 10%
50% 25% 0%
Description: The king of beasts, with a human body and the head of a terrible monster.

Cernunnos was the boss of the 2nd Stratum in EO1 and EOU. He was a pretty heavy hitter, but what made him especially more deadly was the ability to summon Healing Rollers (Known as Curollers in EO1.) Those little guys would heal Cernunnos and place a defense buff on everyone (physical in EO1, elemental in EOU), making it hard to take them out. Cernunnos also had access to a single target instant death attack in EO1, which he would start using once both of his Curollers were dead. It had a fairly low hit rate, and was one of his least threatening skills, as most of his other attacks could hit more than one person.

In the remake, the instant death skill was changed to be a party wide head bind. Cernunnos used his counter skill randomly in EO1, but in EOU, he uses it every 5 turns instead.

Cernunnos had a chance of dropping the Bull Grimoire, which came with the ability Forest Guardian. It reduced all the damage the party takes by 35% for the current turn.

In this game, Cernunnos no longer has the ability to summon Healing Rollers. Instead, he starts the fight with them. Silent Stare is always used on the first turn. But a change this game made to his AI (aside from getting rid of his ability to summon Healing Rollers) was that he uses Cross Counter every 4 turns instead of every 5 turns now. That's about it. He attacks randomly aside from that.

Healing Roller
Level: 91
HP: 6000
STR: 59
TEC: 65
VIT: 65
AGI: 48
LUC: 58
Exp: 15000
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
75% 75% 75% 100% 100% 100%
Disable resistances:
50% 50% 50% 50% 100% 50% 50%
10% 10% 50%
50% 50% 50%
Description: Summoned by Cernunnos, these creatures pose no threat alone, but there is strength in numbers.

You know how I said you could ignore the Skolls in the fight with Fenrir if you wanted to? Yeah this is not the case here. If you don't take them down first, they will slow down the fight and undo all the damage you do to Cernunnos. They're the biggest priority in this fight. They're also much more beefy than they were in EO1 and EOU since they can't be resummoned in this version of the fight.



Oh, and no. You're not healed up between fights. The state your party was in at the end of a fight will be the state they will be in at the start of the next fight.



I'll use Barrier to block Silent Stare.





And just setting up with everyone else. I wanna ensure that one of the Healing Rollers is locked down for a good while, so I'll have Flavio Paralyze one.



Okay, that's one nuisance I won't have to worry about for a while.



After this point, I really can't predict what Cernunnos will do next. Though his attacks are all physical, so I'll just have Bertrand spam Front Guard.



Oh just my luck. The other Healing Roller used Holy Veil.





My first priority? Get rid of those rollers!



Cernunnos' main form of offense is punching us in the face. Spamming Front Guard helps deal with that, but even his AOE moves hits the back row pretty hard.



At the very least, I can purge off Holy Veil on my intended targets, which are the Healing Rollers for now.



With both Healing Rollers Paralyzed, I could just ignore them and go straight for Cernunnos. But that depends on the Paralysis lasting for the entire fight, and I don't think I can take him down that fast.



Even with Front Guard, Cernunnos hits hard.



Though Ailing Slash + Vampire is a nice full heal to the front row.



That pose means that Cernunnos is using Cross Counter. As long as you don't hit him with a physical attack, you have nothing to worry about.





Finally got rid of one of them.





Yeah, don't bother with Cernunnos until you've gotten rid of both Healing Rollers. They healed for much less in EO1 and EOU. (100 in EO1, 180ish in EOU.) Really the main reason to kill them in those games was because of their defensive buffs, not the heal.







Hopefully I can take out that Healing Roller while dealing significant damage to Cernunnos.





Bah, both of those Healing Rollers just had to be in the back row.



Gonna use Blade Recoil on Cernunnos. I'm aware that he will use Cross Counter on this turn. However...











Cross Counter doesn't have priority. Now I can just focus down Cernunnos.



I'd love to finish off Cernunnos now, but he's really low on HP at this point, and I want Knight to have full Force for the next fight. So I'm just gonna stall out the fight for a bit.







...Okay, maybe that wasn't a good idea.





But it's nothing I can't recover from.





Oh screw you too, Cernunnos.



Okay this does not look good here, umm...





The good news is that this is a Cross Counter turn, so Cernunnos will not be punching my party in the face.



And after getting my party back up and running, I finally take him down.



That fight really took a toll on my party. I ended up burining a ton of supplies way earlier than I intended.

Oh, and none of the bosses or flunkies drop any items in this boss rush, so don't worry about that.





The stained glass surface before you still displays the same words: “Continuing battle program.”

Still continuing...





Oh boy. Fortunately, this is the last fight in this boss rush that has adds.

Queen Ant
Level: 92
HP: 17000
STR: 85
TEC: 68
VIT: 68
AGI: 52
LUC: 53
Exp: 220000
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 50% 125% 100%
Disable resistances:
25% 50% 25% 25% 50% 25% 25%
0% 0% 10%
25% 0% 75%
Description: She commands a host of giant ants, constructing vast nests which obstruct adventurers.

Queen Ant (known as Royalant in EO1) was the 1st boss of the 3rd Stratum. You encountered her on the 12th floor, where her colony of ants was obstructing a mapping mission. In the original game, she actually had a weakness to Volt, which was changed to Ice in the remake. When you fought with Royalant, Blood Ants (known as Deathants in EO1) would spawn in the room and attempt to join the fight. There was nothing you could do about that. The Deathants would place an agility debuff on everyone, making Royalant hard to hit when combined with Duster, which had a decent chance of inflicting Blind and lowered everyone's accuracy. She could also heal herself for 275 HP. She would only use this if someone in your party used a skill on the last turn, her HP was below 50%, and if she was the last one left alive in the battle.

In the remake, her self heal was replaced with a skill that inflicted Panic on a single target instead. She uses it on the first turn, and on every 5th turn. Her boss room was reworked to have a puzzle in it. Queen Ant would lay some eggs around the room, which would spawn Blood Ants and Servitor Ants after a few turns. You could destroy those eggs, and if you solved the puzzle, get a preemptive attack on Queen Ant before she had a chance to lay anymore.

Queen Ant had a chance to drop the Queen Grimoire, which came with the ability Queen's Mark. It decreased everyone's priority for the current turn, resulting in everyone to move last. Yes, it's as useless as it sounds.

She hasn't really changed at all in this game aside from stats. She hits pretty hard and loves to lower your party's accuracy. Which is much easier to deal with in this game, since you can purge that with Unihorns. It was a lot harder to deal with in EOU, especially if you were playing Story mode, since the Story party there had no way to dispel debuffs.

Blood Ant
Level: 92
HP: 6000
STR: 80
TEC: 63
VIT: 60
AGI: 50
LUC: 52
Exp: 20000
Attack Type: Cut
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 75% 100% 50% 150% 100%
Disable resistances:
50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50%
10% 10% 50%
0% 0% 0%
Description: These giant members of the colony will protect their queen, no matter the cost...

In EO1, Deathants decreased your party's agility. In EOU, they increase one row's physical attack power instead.

Binds won't work on them in this game, but they're not really a threat. In fact, feel free to ignore them. Though you can take them out pretty easily if you want to. The attack buff is probably something to be concerned about, though you can purge it off with Ad Nihilo or Metopons pretty easily.

Servitor Ant
Level: 92
HP: 7000
STR: 65
TEC: 63
VIT: 75
AGI: 50
LUC: 52
Exp: 24000
Attack Type: Cut
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 75% 100% 50% 150% 100%
Disable resistances:
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
10% 10% 10%
50% 50% 50%
Description: These giant members of the colony are known to line up in formation, and repel assailants.

The Servitor Ants are pretty much the opposite of Blood Ants. Instead of increasing a row's attack power, they increase their physical defense instead. You can't lock them down with ailments, only binds will work. Take them out if you want, though they can prolong the fight.



Since Queen Ant always opens up the fight with Ruler's Eye, I'm gonna have Chloe put a stop to that.



Gonna try to lock down Queen Ant if I can.



Unfortunately, Barrier spamming is what Chloe tends to be limited to in the post-game. It really is overpowered, but necessary due to how many bosses love to make use of ailments here.



Looks like the Paralysis was a no go.



Oh well.





I still have Knight.



May as well clear out the ants if I cant.







And there's some decent damage.



Finishing up the combo, yadda yadda yadda.







Without an ailment, Chloe really can't do too much.





And now Queen Ant is completely helpless.







Everyone is starting to run low on TP, so I'm gonna have Arianna use her Force Break. Yes, I'm aware this is only the 3rd fight. But I really don't see many places where I would get much use out of her Force Boost.











Wiped out a few ants during Knight's rampage.



Oh geez, talk about lucky. And more damage and Knight would have started out the next fight with an empty Force Boost.





No respect.



Queen Ant isn't all that tough. She's just annoying. However, the next fight is where things get dicey.





The stained glass surface before you still displays the same words: “Continuing battle program.”

Sheesh, still more!?





Corotrangul
Level: 94
HP: 33000
STR: 95
TEC: 80
VIT: 62
AGI: 57
LUC: 52
Exp: 240000
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 150% 0% 75%
Disable resistances:
0% 50% 0% 25% 0% 50% 25%
0% 0% 10%
25% 50% 0%
Description: A guardian beast of the forest folk, its name means "one from the sea" in a forgotten tongue.

Corotrangul (known as Cotrangl in EO1) was the 2nd boss of the 3rd Stratum in EO1 and EOU. Yeah it had 2 Stratum bosses, kind of like how the 5th Stratum in this game had Juggernaut and Overlord as bosses. Anyways, as your party was going deeper into the Labyrinth, they ran into a girl named Kupala. She lived in the Labyrinth, and didn't want anyone getting into the 4th Stratum. As the adventurers was about to enter it, she summoned Corotrangul to drive them away. It didn't work.

Cotrangl didn't have any special gimmicks in EO1. All he really did was hit your party really really hard. He had 2 difference Ice attacks, one of which could put you to sleep, and was capable of disabling the party. He could also get rid of his weakness to fire attacks, and debuff your party's attack power.

In the remake, not much has changed. Corotrangul's ability to lower the party's offenses was replaced with the ability to increase his own offenses for a few turns. Corotrangul always uses Ice Breath on the first turn, and uses Freeze Aura on every 5th turn. When his HP got low enough, he starts making use of Coiling Tail, Flood, and Aqua Veil. If Corotrangul did not have the Aqua Veil buff for any reason, he would just reapply whenever he could. Sometimes he casted his skills in this sequence: Freeze Aura → Aqua Veil → Flood → Ice Breath. Though that wasn't always the case.

Corotrangul had a chance to drop the Sea Grimoire, which came with the ability Abyssal Prayer. It lowered the TP cost for all allies by 10 for the current turn. Not particularly useful.

Corotrangul is where this DLC really starts getting terrible. Both Ice Breath and Flood hit really hard, so you think spamming Ice Wall would be the best way to go about this fight. Well, it is. The problem is that Corotrangul also has access to Coiling Tail and Tackle. And if Coiling tail lands an arm bind on your Ice Wall user, or Tackle kills them, pray that Corotrangul doesn't use Ice Breath or Flood on the next turn, as that means you'll be seeing the game over screen shortly. This is kind of where the strategy of these boss fights start to boil down to “get lucky” and it sucks.



I'll have Bertrand block Ice Breath.



Oh by the way, take a closer look at Corotrangul's ailment resistances. Everything Flavio can inflict? Yeah, he can't inflict any of his ailments on Corotrangul. And it's only those ailments he's immune to! So Flavio's relegated to ranged attacker for this fight.



Unfortunately, the fact that Flavio can't inflict anything on Corotrangul means that Ailing Slash hits for middling damage.



There's Ice Breath in action.





Now I'm gonna try for a head bind to see if I can give myself some breathing room. Chloe has about a 47% chance of pulling this off.



I have no idea what Corotrangul is gonna do next, so I'm guess he's either going for a buff, or using a physical attack. Corotrangul can't use Flood yet with how his AI works.





Oh, that was lucky!



...Even more so. Okay, so Corotrangul actually tried to use Ice Breath here. Which would have wiped out my party since I had Bertrand use Front Guard. This is what I mean by the fights coming down to luck. One wrong move like that, and it's all over. I happened to be very lucky that I had Chloe land the head bind when she did.







At any rate, it's time for Knight to start wrecking faces.



Now that Corotrangul is head bound, I'm just gonna spend the rest of Chloe's turns using Ailing Slash.





Ooh, nice. 9% of Corotrangul's HP right there.







And with help from Arianna, Knight took off over 25% of his max HP right there.



Oh and here's a really annoying change EO2U made to Corotrangul's AI. Every time he gets hit with a fire attack, he uses Aqua Veil if he doesn't have the buff up. And this does not use up his turn, like in EOU.





While I was going to have Chloe just use Ailing Slash again, I really have no idea what Corotrangul is going to do, so I'm gonna play it safe and use Barrier. Just in case it decides to use Coiling Tail on Bertrand, because that is essentially an instant game over if that happens.



This was also when I decided that Corotrangul using a physical was not as deadly as him freezing my party to death.



And for Knight to even deal any more damage, I'm gonna purge off that buff.









Oh hey, Corotrangul has started to make use of Flood. How swell.





Corotrangul's HP is starting to get low, and an Accelerate combo would finish him off, which is not what I want. I really want Knight to start off the next fight with a full Force Gauge.







Not much left to the fight.



Unlike in EOU, Corotrangul uses Freeze Aura every 6 turns instead of every 5 turns. It also got changed to be an end of turn action.





After a few more turns of smacking the manta ray around, Corotrangul finally goes down.



if you had trouble with that fight, trust me when I say that you are not going to like the next one.