Part 15: Elevator Tower

Update 15: Elevator Tower






It's time to do what we've been avoiding since we came to the Sebucus Islands. Let's see if we can get anything accomplished in this town of Jeremi.





Music: Mist Covered Town


Noa, it's a Genesis Tree! I sense a Genesis Tree!

That means we can save this town if we revive that Genesis Tree!

I sense that the Genesis Tree is somewhere in town...somewhere high up.

How exciting! I want to go! I want to go to the high place!

Oh, brother.





Jeremi has a lot of Seru monster people wandering around, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be much going on. A few of the houses have treasure (although a lot of it's stuff that can wait until we free the town from the Mist so we can get it without generating more battles).









There are a few new enemies here, but nothing that can call itself a proper threat. Not that that's totally fair to say since I'm overleveled and overequipped, but I don't recall Jeremi's monsters being all that threatening even if we come straight here.





This is the only item I'd say is worth getting, hidden away in the Inn.. I gave it to Noa.







In case you didn't see it in the world map screenshot, Jeremi has an enormous tower in its center. This is the base, and to ascend it...







Music: Mist Infested Area

...we get to do an elevator maze! I've always been terrible at these. I managed to get through without much trouble, which means I probably missed some treasure or something, but honestly I don't plan on going back for any of it unless there's something super awesome there.





Nice lipstick.





I also ran into the Swordie Seru here, but sadly I didn't manage to learn his spell. I know an area in the future that will have them again, though, so I didn't worry myself over that too much.





Once you reach the top of the tower, the game decides to throw a hedge maze at you of all things. Thankfully, the path is actually really straightforward – it's not so much a hedge maze as much as a hedge zigzag path.







Equip this! Preferably on Noa, but anyone will like having it. It prevents a status effect that the boss really likes to use.





It's a Seru!

A Seru? I didn't know Seru could be this weird.

Have you forgotten? Seru themselves are blameless. It's all the Mist's fault. Long exposure to the Mist must have turned that Seru into such a horrible creature.

It's clinging to the Genesis Tree to absorb the energy that it emits.





A flash of light erupts, knocking Noa back. The Seru turns to face us...


Hey!

The only way to revive the Genesis Tree is to defeat him first! Let's go!







Music: Boss Fight


That is one funky looking creature.

As usual, Noa is the queen of damage dealing. With a combination of Frost Breath and Tempest Break, she can do a good thousand damage. None too shabby.











As I said, Orb is basically Vera All. Since its low level it doesn't have status healing properties, but it's nice for damage control.







Spore Gas is a huge pain. Not only can it do a good 500 or so damage, but it also inflicts a status effect. Noa's immune to it thanks to the Forest Charm, but the guys are not...





Rot.

Rot blocks off individual commands that you can put into the attack gauge. In this case, Vahn can no longer use left or right (or Arms and Ra-Seru, as they are now called). As you might imagine, this can really fuck up your damage output, since it prevents you from comboing effectively. Rot also sort of stacks on itself, so it's possible for all four commands to get sealed, making your character outright incapable of using physical attacks at all.

As status effect in games go, I'd say it's one of the more debilitating ones. Fortunately, Vera is high enough level (5+) to cure it.











Still, all things considered, the boss wasn't that hard. With Noa wrecking his shit, Gala on healing duty, and Vahn bouncing between the two, things were pretty manageable.


It was a horrifying monster, but no match for the Biron martial arts!

Hurry! Hurry! Vahn, we have to help the Genesis Tree!





He felt a gentle warmth in the palm of his hand.





She felt a quiet strength in the palm of her hand.





He felt pure joy in the palm of his hand.


Music: Reviving a Genesis Tree













Music: Revived Genesis Tree


Woman: Was I asleep...Or was I awake? Oh, the Mist came, then...Hey, look! The Genesis Tree is changing!

Man: Whoa! The Mist is disappearing, too! Something is happening!

Woman: They must have drove away the Mist! Oh, how wonderful!







Oh, ruin my fun.


Man: Oh, how wonderful! Tell me how you did it. Uh-huh, I see...Amazing...Incredible!...Just great! Magnificent! So reviving the Genesis Tree is what does it. I should get going, then! I'll hurry down ahead of you and tell the people of Jeremi about this miracle!

Woman: ...Some people never change...





I thought about heading back down, but I think I'll stop here for the moment. There's something else I'd like to try...





Let's fight Berserker the way we're supposed to! Straight out of the cave, no Vidna equipment, no extra levels, no Orb. This boss is a major showstopper for a lot of players, and is probably the first one that makes people simply stop playing the game. My last fight didn't really demonstrate why, so let's try this again.

I took the most direct path I could (barring one or two slip ups in the elevator maze) to save my resources as best I could, and...





Music: Boss Fight





Berserker opens by poisoning Noa with an attack I don't think he even used last time. This sets the town for the fight (which is to say, Berserker beating the shit out of Noa all the time).





As you can see, Noa's output is significantly lower, averaging around 650 vs. 1000 damage per turn. Everyone also has one less action command on account of the level difference.





I also forgot to give anyone the Forest Amulet, so I had to deal with some Rot moments. It was a relatively minor issue compared to the sheer damage I was taking, though.





I think there were four turns where I had to have all three characters use Vera to keep up with how much damage this guy was doing to me. It's difficult to balance offense and defense in this fight.

Eventually he got tired of my constant healing and decided to show me some real pain...









This is one of the nastier attacks in the game. Stone Circle can do about 200-250 damage to a Spiriting character and 400-500 damage to one who's not. Fortunately, only Vahn hadn't spirited this turn.





He went back to beating on Noa, and I thought I would go for broke and have everyone attack at once. It...sort of worked...





...at the expense of Noa. Ouch.





Gala's next attack managed to kill the beast, which was fortunate since it won the fight and unfortunate since Noa was still KOed at the time so she missed boss EXP. Which doesn't actually matter since I'm not continuing from this save.

So there you go. That's the real difficulty of Berserker. He's nasty, but more or less manageable if you know the good arts and can work around Rot.

So, join me next time as we explore the Mist-free Jeremi and maybe find the artifact we need to continue!