Part 23: Update XXIII - Turning the light reflectors to make the laser change directions... It's like a puzzle game.
Update XXIII - Turning the light reflectors to make the laser change directions... It's like a puzzle game.Video: Meeting Botos
Music: Mysterious Enemy
Going up the elevator, we meet today's Chapter villain.
Why, that Ferham! She goes off and acts on her own, and then she doesn't even finish the job!His face is Just Like That, don't ask questions.
Ferham is not to blame. This just means that you will have the opportunity to take care of them yourself, Botos. We’re counting on you.And with him, all three of Epsilon's elites are here! By process of elimination, the big guy must be Scarface.
I'll show you, soon enough! Hahahahahaha...Music: Desert of Confusion
This is the final segment of the dungeon.
There are T-shaped hallways leading off from the elevator room, with a room in each corner.
If we succeed here, we might be able to stop the jammer.The top left room has a laser puzzle. The two crystals hold tokens.
The laser emitter is in the top right corner.
While the target is that yellow light in the bottom left.
The base has a few new enemies, like this Triclaw Killer. They're a straight upgrade from the Radar Killers back in Chapter 4. They don't even get a new move to play with.
This first puzzle only needs a single move to solve.
Every time you shift a mirror, you get a view of the entire area to see how it played out.
Every time.
This puzzle is solved, but there's bound to be more.
That device... It must be connected to the upper floor! Let's go take a look!
Before I do that, let's grab this token and take a look at what else is on this floor.
The bottom right door is locked.
Music: Irregular Battle II
But we do have some fancy Preons.
The Preon S (
The Preon S Botos, on the other hand, has a much smaller moveset. It can use Mega Fire, use Bit Shift to summon a more powerful Bigbit, or use Self-Destruct whenever it drops below 1/3 LE without a Bigbit on the field.
The Bigbit, for their part, bombards the party with status effects, having the full range of Stungun, Smokeout, Virus Attack, Cracking, Cryogenics, and Codebreaker.
Both Preons have shields, which gives them a chance to block any S-type attack.
Music: Desert of Confusion
Back on track, the top right door is locked.
Same with the bottom right.
But to the south, we have a Tank Energy 100 and a Gain Hyper.
As well as a familiar sight.
This leads us back into the desert! I guess Botos decided to unlock the door after we got in.
I also find this to be more evidence that the hallways from last update weren't originally part of this chapter. It doesn't make much sense to have the usual Tank Energy 100 and Gain Hyper by the exit of a dungeon, but it lines up much more nicely if this was originally the entrance.
With the other three corner rooms locked, there's nowhere else to go but up.
2F has the same hallway layout, but without a south path.
The minimap shows the top left door is open, while the top right door is locked.
By the top right door is a pair of tokens.
While the top left has, très surpris, another token.
Unlike 1F, the corner rooms are all part of the same map rather than being separate rooms. This one has a locked bit of equipment as well as a terminal.
But it looks like there are multiple jammers. Let’s check the other rooms.
The crystal is still locked, even after dealing with the jammer.
The bottom left door is also locked, with a token next to it.
Same story with the bottom right door. The solution to this mess?
With absolutely zero clues, our only option is to go back to 1F.
Breaking that jammer inexplicably opened the other three doors on this floor.
Three doors means three more beam puzzles to solve. The crystal holds a Tank Energy 50.
These puzzles have one panel with a Rebellion symbol on them. As you might imagine, directing a beam onto one of these will start a fight.
The emitter is at the far corner, with the end point right next to us.
The room also has a free Pararoid.
The easy solution to these types of puzzles is to start at the final tower and work your way back.
Some towers have no button, and are fixed in place.
Flipping the middle tower is all that's left.
Every single shift.
Two down.
Top right is up next.
The emitter is in the top right corner, goal is in the top left. The crystals hold tokens.
Flip the tower next to the goal.
Flipping the middle tower is al-heeeeeeeeeey, that's the same solution as last time, those lazy bastards!
That's three.
One more Treasure Token on the way to the bottom right room.
Emitter on one side, goal on the other. The crystal holds a Cyber Liquid.
This one only needs a single move to solve.
And that's all four done.
...wait, Cyber Liquid?
If you'll recall from last time, one of the treasure rooms had a Liquid Glob in need of Cyber Liquid. With it in hand, I now have to backtrack...
All...
The way...
Back...
To the blue door...
Get the Liquid Glob...
Then go...
All the fucking way...
Back...
To the elevator.
That's right, the game makes you backtrack halfway across the dungeon for a single thing!
Back up to 2F, the bottom left room has two locked crystals.
Now the jammer in West Block is down.
Top right has two locked blue crystals (which are almost certainly either Builds or tokens).
Well, that takes care of the device in East Block. 
And bottom right has one.
Now the South Block is A-OK.
X, how's that? Are you able to trans...
Very well... Let me show you to the top floor. Take the central elevator. I'll have a warm welcome waiting for you when you arrive! Nyaaah hah hah hah hah! That must be the boss for this area. Let’s go get him, X!Keep in mind that Botos knew we were here the entire time. He just let us waltz in and break the jammers! This guy is one of the best the Rebellion has to offer, and he couldn't even be bothered to project his base!
Even with all jammers disabled, the crystals on this floor are still locked.
3F may be open, but the solution to this puzzle is much, much stupider than you think. Back to 1F!
See, in each puzzle, there are blank panels that serve as neutral spots for the beam to end at.
In order to unlock those crystals, each one of those has to get hit by the beam.
And remember, each time you shift any tower, even if a beam isn't actively touching it, you have to sit through this.
I grabbed a stopwatch and timed it, the animation of the tower shifting, fading to this camera angle, then fading back to X and giving back control takes seven seconds.
Every fuuuuuuuuucking shift!
You get no notice or anything, but all crystals in the corresponding terminal room unlocks the second the last panel is hit.
Then you have to do the same thing on the top left room.
The top right room.
And finally the bottom left room.
Now, Tianna Camp had a similar setup with the Simon Says panels needing random combinations to unlock loot there, but Tianna had some ways to, you know, inform the damn player on what needed to be done! Right off the bat, the first set of panels stayed lit when you unlocked the door, as it had no loot to unlock. Therefore, when you unlock the next door and the panels went dark, it gave you an immediate tip-off that there was more to do. When you eventually figured out the combination, that set of panels stays lit, so now you know the tells for all the other rooms. And, most importantly, the game told you exactly when you got it right, giving you a small chime and cutting over to whatever unlocks.
Here, you just have to try everything and pray something eventually works, with the only way to confirm that it did anything is to trek back and forth between 1F and 2F, dealing with random encounters the whole time.
So, after all that bullshit, surely the rewards must be incredible, right?
We get a Force Metal that was added to the shop this very chapter, a new weapon for Marino that picks up the spread hit of Spider's Spades, +10 LE (when even Cinnamon has thousands at this point), +1 WE (when I have enough WE gain to completely ignore initial WE), and a pair of Sub Weapon that were first seen on fucking Silver Horn and drop from enemies in this dungeon! And on top of all that, they were rendered obsolete the second we got the Lagrano Key and could buy a Super Absorber!
Next time:
