Part 49: Melfice addendum

Firstly, thanks to everyone's favorite Pesky Splinter for pointing out that destroying Melfice's sword does a lot more than destroying most boss parts - in addition to losing the bonus attack from his sword's action on the IP bar, he also loses Wailing Soul Slash and Demon Horde Slash. They are replaced by Evil Horn Attack, which in addition to having a terrible name, is a weaker version of Demon Horde that does damage in an area around Melfice, instead of hitting everyone.

The sword doesn't much care about physical damage but it takes a serious beating from spells, so certainly possible to destroy it before even a single Demon Horde comes out, giving an underleveled party a decent shot at beating Melfice.

As a tradeoff, his regular attack actually becomes a bit stronger without the sword, at least in the hard hack. You can see it and Evil Horn Attack here.

Secondly, I've apparently been operating under a bit of a misconception. For some reason, up until about ten minutes ago, I thought ATK buffs and debuffs didn't affect enemy special moves. Having proven myself thoroughly wrong on this one, Melfice can be made much easier by simply throwing out a couple of Strams, keeping his Demon Horde damage much more manageable and pretty much removing any chance that your party will be killed by it in one shot. I sort of wish I'd known that before, but hey, I guess I beat him on Double Hard Mode.

Thirdly, voice clips.




Heheheheh.
This is my ultimate attack...
...the Wailing Soul Slash!
...Demon Horde Slash!
You cannot even touch me!
I'll pound you to a pulp!
Crawl on the ground, you humans. (I remind you that at least half of our party is not.)
Ryudo! How about this?
I'll show you the dangers of your inexperience.
This is why you are no good.
So you think you can beat your big brother?
Ryudo... You are such an embarrassment.
Burn with the fire of light.
Feel my lightning judgment!
I'll spoil everything.

I'm fairly sure the ones after this don't actually play in-game. Let me know if I'm wrong, though.

No problem, you'll feel better now. (Disturbingly friendly)
At this rate, you'll never beat me.
Ryudo! The real battle starts now. (I don't think Melfice actually has a healing spell for these to correspond to.)
Was my faith misplaced? (Upon defeat, presumably. I've been informed that it plays in other versions.)

Not much of a post even for a side-update, but I figured I'd get it out of the way while it was still relevant. Regular update soonish.