Part 85: Idylls of the King - Artoria - Part 0.5

Idylls of the King - Artoria

So this isn't the *true* start of Artoria's Side Story, but that's only because Artoria is the secret character of this game and should get a special update to herself that doesn't count in her Side Story. I will say this now: there is absolutely no indication in the game at all as to how to unlock her. It's one of those things you have to read online or get really really lucky in finding out. It's a lot like how in the old days of video games, people would come up with insane rumors like how to fight Sheng Long in Street Fighter II, or how to find the Triforce in Ocarina of Time, or how to fight Reptile in Mortal Kombat I (ignoring, of course, you can fight Reptile in the first Mortal Kombat). If for that nostalgia alone, I'm okay with the method to unlock her.

Your only clues to finding and unlocking her is that in some main story chapters, like Orchid Words 2, have a Side Mission with a ? over a scrambled portrait. These are the correct stages and the only places you can fight her within the main story. Now, the correct thing to do in each is as follows.

First, obviously, you need to go to the correct stage. Then, you have to know the special Sector that makes things happen. In each stage, it's different, but the method to summon the King of Knights is the same. The correct stages are Flame Poem 4 (or 5. Whichever is the one with Jeanne / Iskandar as primary enemies), Orchid Words 2, Dawn Arc 5, and Golden Poem 3. Make sure you select the special Side Mission in each stage.



Go to the correct Sector, get at least 5 Yakisoba Breads to drop, eat no fewer than 5 breads, then you'll get special dialogue at the bottom of the screen indicating a new enemy is approaching. Said enemy is, of course, Artoria. After you've gotten the special dialogue, finish the Regime Matrix, defeat her, finish the stage, and congrats, you've unlocked her. If you're having trouble getting Yakisoba to drop, allow yourself to get hit a bunch, get low on health, then Yakisoba will drop more often. Of course, you can also use the Collector Install Skill (or, preferably, the Collector α skill), to increase the number of drops. It's not that complicated.



Now, there's no need to actually go into the main story menu and choose the actual missions as Nero, Tamamo, and Altera. You can go into Free Battle and use your character of choice to do it, but you do have to choose the correct stage for it. So, if you want to fight Artoria as seen in Flame Poem, you have to choose Jeanne d'Arc as your enemy on the floaty ruins stage, then make sure to select Artoria's sub mission, and away you go.

For the record, you only have to defeat her once to unlock her as a character. Defeating her four times will get you the recipe for a special Mystic Code, Artoria appearing on the final title screen instead of just Excalibur on the final title screen unlocked by completing the entire story, and, if it's your first time doing so, a trophy. Normally I wouldn't bother, but Artoria encounters do have special dialogue within the missions, so I'll be doing all four. Naturally I won't be recording four stages just for this purpose. That's just crazy. Well, with enough introduction, here we go.



Flame Poem's Artoria Sector is located at D. You're five Yakisoba Breads away from fighting her. Incidentally, on this stage, don't let Iskandar conquer 2 Sectors. If he takes one, he already powers up, but if he takes 2, he becomes a Super enemy. It is a massive pain in the ass to kill him after he's powered up twice.



Guess who says this line...

This mana... Be careful. A powerful Servant is approaching the battlefield!

Once the Regime Matrix finishes...



That's enough, both of you..! I will end this madness!

That Holy Sword...is that the real thing...?! Who would've guessed that she'd come?! You don't need to engage that Servant. There's still Ruler to fight.

I see you are the Son of Light of Ireland. Now, I challenge you to fair combat!

Those heavy-handed manners... You're a Knight of Britain?! All right, come on, let's fight!

Yeah, Artoria has special dialogue if you choose the right character on the right stage. I'm not sure about every combination possible, and god knows I'm not gonna find out. Ones I get other than the ones I record, well, that's something you all will have to find out for yourselves if you get the chance. I won't fight her as Nero, but Nero says something like "That face seems familiar...have we met before?", to which Artoria will respond "We definitely haven't met before. But now we fight!" or something akin to that. There's a fan theory that Nero and Artoria are very distant relations, but no in-series evidence to that effect, I believe.



This is what she says as she retreats. This is also different depending on the stage.

She retreated. I'm not sure who that Top Servant was, but she was formidable.



In Orchid Words 2, X marks the spot. This one can be tricky because it's a small stage and you'll almost certainly have to go through a Servant or two before you fight her. Karna says something similar to Nameless after you complete the secret objective to summon her.

If you continue to fight, I'll just have to strike you down!

That Servant...is she planning to go against us? She seems to be very skilled. I won't stop you from fighting her, but Archer's our priority. Don't forget that.

It should also be noted that while Artoria will try to take over the Sector she appears in, she won't chase you around. You'll have to fight on her turf, almost certainly while the stage boss comes after you. The only exception being Golden Poem's Artoria encounter, where you go through a portal to fight Altera.

Unfortunately, if Artoria has unique dialogue for Medusa, who I used for the Orchid Words encounter, she didn't use it here. When you've broken up the mini-FSN cast reunion...

It seems I've been injured... I have no other choice but to retreat here...

Somehow we were able to win. She's gone for now, but her aura still lingers... Who is she?

You know, in musou games or games where victory over a technically superior foe is possible, anything goes, but if we're strictly going by lore, Artoria would stomp a mudhole in Tamamo. No magic of her's could really affect Artoria at all, and she's terrible on offense whereas Artoria...is a legendary king with a sword forged by the planet. Wouldn't stand a chance.

For Dawn Arc...

This mana... She's coming. Brace yourself, Altera. She's a tough opponent.

It should be noted that Gilgamesh has never beat Artoria in-canon in a fight. In zero they encountered each other a few times, but their only hostile standoff was interrupted by a third party, she beat him in the Fate route, and they never fought in the UBW / Heaven's Feel routes. Skipping ahead...

I won't allow them to advance any further. I will stop the Forces of Destruction...

I see, it is obvious that you would be called. It's extremely unfortunate I'm not there... Altera, if you're going to stand against her, prepare yourself. She's not one that will to you easily.

But confronting her as the King of Heroes...

Gilgamesh...?! Wait, truly?! Why are you here?!

What do you mean, "Why am I here?" You're here. Why wouldn't I be?

Again, I'm sure she has unique dialogue for Altera, but if you've read my previous threads, you'll know I make it a point not to cover absolutely everything. Here, it would be just a waste of my time, and I do have other things to do. Also, fighting Cu and Artoria at the same time (another little reunion) is such a pain in the ass. By far the two fastest characters in the game, with plenty of reach on their weapons. If there's any time to bring out a Moon Drive / Crux, this is it.

Few days later update: embarrassingly, I forgot to identify the correct Sector on this stage at first. In the screenshot just now with Gilgamesh, that's the correct one.



That Holy Sword user... She retreated... I..don't want to...see that light ever again...

Even at the height of her warpath, Altera is quite scared of her. Painful memories, you see. And finally, Golden Poem...



This Sector, in the far east of the stage. The special dialogue this time...

I'll prevent further bloodshed by stopping you here!

Surprising... I didn't think she would show up. She seems intent on battling. Either hurry to Caster's place or fight. Your call.

I am the Servant Saber. As I have been summoned, so shall I destroy all in my path!

I wouldn't count on that, at least in this timeline. After defeat...

Not bad... I shall take my leave, then.

You're that Saber! One day I'll have to try that sword of yours.






Artoria 0.5

But now I'm going to be taking a test drive of Artoria. Artoria's main story is kinda weird and can't really bring out her full potential, so we're going back to Lu Bu's third stage. Let's see if she can handle it a bit better.

Well, I say Artoria, but I'm not sure who this person is...oh well, close enough. I'll just call this capped stranger Artoria, to save time.





Simply put, Artoria is a goddamn monster. There is absolutely no one in this game who handles crowds as well as she does. She suffers a bit in direct 1-1 combat, but entire crowds? She says "Bring 'em on". The heart of her offensive is her S S S T move. After a few slashes forward, she'll flip forward, then fire out three blasts of energy in a spreadshot. This attack can blow away armies as if they weren't even there. More importantly, you can spam this attack pretty well, to clear out an entire Sector of baddies in seconds.





Her S S T is a massive slash upwards, then back down. One of Artoria's only moves that specifically meant for Servant combat.



As if her S S S T isn't enough, she has T T T. The first two slashes, she releases compressed air from her sword to spin enemies around her (this is what she was doing against me in that Gilgamesh vs. Artoria fight in his story), and then on the third T, she'll throw out 5 tornadoes, covering an even wider area than her spreadshot move. As long as an enemy is in range, there's pretty much no escaping this. The trade-off is that this moves leaves you a bit more open to attack in-between slashes.





Also, it should be noted that Artoria is *ridiculously* fast. She might be even faster than Cu. Like Cu, she can easily continue special move combos by simply charging at an enemy that gets knocked away, and get them again before they recover. The second move I did is her S T move, where she'll charge forward, then deliver a massive slash to knock a target away.

I assure you she moves as stupidly fast in the video as she does all the time. The only Install Skills I'm using are Growth Period (raises EXP gain), Collector (item drops), and Bravery (power increases with number of KOs).

While an enemy is in Moon Drive mode, feel free to use S S S T a bunch to chip away at the enemy's HP while they rush at you. If you're committed to one direction, you have to remember to turn Artoria toward the enemy before she does her flip. After she flips, she'll fire in the direction she's facing. Takes a little getting used to.



Piece of cake. Next fight please.



Very rude of Iskandar to waste my time with all this blocking.



Very nice action shot. Well, I mean, naturally we're going to fight her. Now, as I mentioned, if Artoria does have one weakness, is she can't direct a ton of damage to a single target as much as some other units in this game can, which makes Super Altera a bit harder of a fight for her. Even so, I think we can manage something. Something actually surprised me here...

...You. No, that sword...!

You know of this sword...? Have the stories reached even your people, then? But...

Forget it. Very ancient history, that...



Moon Drive Artoria is just pure, unmitigated ass-kicking. It's pretty brutal to watch.



Between the above screenshot and this one, couldn't have been much longer than 30 seconds or so, I charged up another Moon Drive with how many goddamn enemies she kills. I think we need to bring out a little special something to deal with this quarry.





At the end of her S combo chain, she can fire out a mini-version of her Noble Phantasm. I'm *pretty* sure it hit Altera, as she was standing just behind me. The best way to handle an opponent like Super Altera is to start warming up an S S S T attack while they're far away, by slashing a few times in the opposite direction, then turn around and fire while they're coming at you. You'll probably still take a few licks every now and then, but Artoria generally recovers fast enough to dodge the worst of it.



Next fight please.



It's just beautiful.



Ah Karna. Buttering up his fox master.



Normally I kinda gloss over the entire part of a stage between defeating all of its Servants, but I'm having a lot of fun here. I should note, thanks to completing the "Use 3 Code Casts" missions, that there is another way to raise a Servant's bond level: using Code Casts. You have to use a certain number while controlling them, but they will register if you use them enough. Always nice to know.



Her final attack is a blast from Excalibur, much like Gil's Ea special attack. It's about as powerful, and you can steer it while active. Another thing that helps Artoria concentrate damage.



There's 10k gone. One of these days these guys will put up a challenge.





Using L1 + T will cause Artoria to dispel the Invisible Air around her sword. She uses Invisible Air normally because it conceals the length of her sword, not because it actually helps her that much. Excalibur can display more of its power without being cloaked.



I suppose it was a good enough fight. Good exercise.







It goes without saying Artoria is a ridiculously good match-up against Gilgamesh, since, as a character or a playable character in this game, he really doesn't deal well with people all up in his grill, and Artoria specializes in blistering amounts of pressure she can bring.



But there's only one way to handle this sort of ruffian...

















While we've seen Nameless' fascimile of it, this is the genuine article. In the Fate universe, Excalibur is the manifestation of peoples' hopes and prayers, and becomes a weapon not of this world, even if it was forged by the world in the first place. A manifestation of the concept of "glory", it's a weapon that etches its appearance into the heart of anyone who looks upon it, bringing sanity back to an insane Gilles de Rais and fond memories of Enkidu to Gilgamesh.

Artoria herself converts a lot of the mana in her body into energy for Excalibur, then unleashes a tremendous blast of energy that can destroy basically anything. She actually prefers to aim the slash upwards, so the raw destructive power of a full blast from Excalibur doesn't destroy a lot of shit she didn't want it to. While it's not something she can use a lot, since it uses up a lot of the strength in her body, if only momentarily, nothing can resist a full scale blast from it. Just ask Sephyr.



To compare this performance to Lu Bu's, Artoria killed only a little over 2000 less, but took 10 less minutes to do it. I guarantee you if you gave me 10 more minutes, I could make up that difference. Remember, this is a pretty hard stage that takes a long time no matter how you cut it if you're going for EX rank on Hard, and killing Super Altera. She's a beast. Her line for completing her Side Mission, since we won't see it otherwise...

Thank you for your hard work. Please rest as much as you need to.