Part 38: Extra Stage 5 (Baal)

”There is but one true strongest Overlord of all, and that is the legendary Tyrant Overlord Baal. It is said that no force in the universe can defeat him…”

Overlord Feinne on Makai Kingdom:
A few things happened in between Laharl’s map and this.











And that means I’m ready to give a shot to the big man himself. This wish can be done at any time by someone who is high enough level.



It’s high level and expensive, and chances are you won’t stand a chance if you’re just now hitting 300. Because we’re about to be fighting the big guy himself.

Video- “Fiercest Devil Intro”

Watch the Scene



Hyaaha! I get it! I’m so bad-ass that I came around full circle!
???: ………



???: ………
No way… This doesn’t feel like me at all!
…But, what’s it mean, then?

Video- “Fiercest Devil”

Watch the Showdown

What it means, Zetta, is that we’re in Makai Kingdom’s fight with Baal, and he’s using your body. Let’s take a look at our opposition.



Zetta’s stats are through the roof thanks to his level, massive aptitudes, and incredible equipment. He’s leagues ahead of any enemy we’ve faced before, and that means we need to think harder about how we want to face him. There are two real methods. I’ll detail the boring, lame one first because I don’t use it.

1) We could just level up eight characters enough to have the stats to seriously clobber Zetta in a normal Combo. The downside of this strategy is that doing so is quite time consuming, since he’s got almost a hundred thousand health and for most of the Combo we won’t even be able to hurt him. I don’t think my party quite has the juice for this even with mk5’s 25k attack. That leaves us with the much better strategy that I use.

2) We chain buffs from our main character to Zetta with a healing spell, allowing us to benefit from a huge Combo while also greatly increasing the attack stat of our best character. Since the first five characters in our Combo would be unlikely to harm Baal anyway, there’s really no reason not to do it this way.

Of course use a Castle, you can actually invite it right in range of Baal. Pop everyone out, making sure that you have the main attacker in position to do their attack so they can be buffed by the early parts of the Combo then attack. If you can manage to get more than one person in the buffs feel free to do so, but you shouldn’t need to rely on it if you can get numbers like I’ve got and a good single target attack like Rolling Thunder to unleash. Toss out the Combo and give it a whirl. If you don’t kill Baal, you need to spread everyone out because his Sword skills can hit wide areas. You want as many people left as possible, because as long as your main attacker is still alive you can probably try one more time to finish him off. I didn’t need to though, because he got neatly cut in half by my first Combo.

Video- “Fiercest Devil Outro”

Watch the Scene

That’s Overlord Baal.
What are you doing here!?
Overlord Baal… Eh, he’s an aggregate of evil souls. He’s a powerful existence, and can appear at any time, anywhere. If he loses a battle, eh he just finds another body and moves in.
…So he’s done for millions of years. That’s how he continues to exist.
Yeah, I’ve heard the legends… I just didn’t expect him to be real.
It seems that he found your body somewhere… Probably after you Confined into the Sacred Tome.
What!? You mean I’m supposed to fight against my own body!?
…How’d you know all that, anyway?
Hee hee… Mm, I know everything.
Okay, then… How do I defeat him?
What?
Well, I can’t be the strongest in the cosmos as long as he’s around, right?
The only choice I have is to destroy him. So, how do I do it?
………



I suppose he went to find another body to move into…
………
So what happens to my body?
I don’t think you should leave it there. Why not take it with you?
It’s a little morbid, but… I guess…
System Message: Zetta acquired his empty, lifeless husk of a body!
Overlord Baal, huh…? We’ll meet again…

So yeah, we got Zetta’s body for that. Let’s talk for a second about it.


Weapon Skills: Sword, Katana, Beam Saber, Dagger
Magic: None
Stat Boosts: HP+8!, SP+8!, ATK+8!, DEF+8!, INT+8!, RES+8!, TEC+8!, MOVE+15!, JUMP+15!
Mobility: Very High
Slots: 5
Unique Skill: Omega Drive (ATK)- Single target skill with the highest power in the game.
Zetta is very simply the best character in the game. He has massive stats, gets incredible benefit from his equipment, and his proficiencies allow him to be powerful against single targets, groups, and vehicles depending on what you need. If you level him up there’s nothing that can stand in your way. He’s also the motivation for doing Baal this early, because it lets you have some fun and actually use Zetta’s body instead of getting it so late it’s almost a hassle to level up.

Anyway, there is a small yet crucial mistake you can make before the fight that guarantees you get a Game Over no matter what happens, and that is to make Laharl your party leader. It gives you a unique intro and outro which I think will nicely explain matters.

Video- “Fiercest Devil Intro (Laharl Version)”

Watch the Scene



Hyaaha! I get it! I’m so bad-ass that I came around full circle!
???: ………
Hm… No… This aura’s totally different than mine!
???: ………
No way… This doesn’t feel like me at all!



I didn’t spend 200 game hours in the Item World to be defeated now… You’re going down!

The fight is totally the same, but things start to go badly for our ‘hero’ once we beat Baal.

Video- “Fiercest Devil Outro (Laharl Version)”

Watch the Scene

Great work, Prince. You finally avenged His Majesty.
Your father must be pleased.
…Isn’t Overlord Baal just a legend?
No, he’s an aggregate of evil souls. He can appear anywhere, any time… He’s a very powerful being!
He kept finding new bodies… …and became a menace to the universe!
What…? So now he’s got my body?
Hm, it makes sense. You did misplace your body, right? I assume he found it… That’s his thing.
After hundreds of millions of years he’s probably pretty good at it.
We’ve been after him for a long time… …even longer, in Japan. I think we’re about done, now.
I owe you an apology, Zetta. At first, I figured you for a class-A dumbass…
…But maybe I was wrong. This guy’s the real Overlord Baal!
Tch… So what now?
If we don’t kill his soul now, he’ll find another body and be reborn…



Whoa, hold up! That’s MY body!
Yeah, that kinda sucks, but what’re you gonna do? This has to end somewhere.
Time to die, Overlord Baal!!

Yep, and with that you go to a credit roll and then a GAME OVER. You don’t get Zetta’s body, you don’t even get to start a new cycle, you just go back to the title screen. Of course, if you could beat Baal once you can just as easily swap leaders and do it again, so as long as you didn’t do something dumb it’s really no thing. This is the only map in the game that gives us a straight Game Over for winning, there are of course several that will give us end of cycle Bad Endings, one of which we’ll see next time!