Part 20: Update XX - ... With my body I can stop the weapon.

Update XX - ... With my body I can stop the weapon.

Music: A Comrade's Predicament


Zero's back from his hissy fit. This time for good, no more vanishing acts.

Spider, for his part, is only injured in Cutscene Land. Gameplay-wise, he's the same as ever. His damaged arm doesn't even show up in his combat model!



Zero also made sure to grab his old Heat Hazes, rather than leaving another two to gather dust.



B3F has the same basic layout as B2F. A north and south hallway with a few side rooms.



The first door has a Degraver.



Hmm, I wonder what this floor will involve?



The only other thing here is a set of Force Missiles.



Hopefully there's more past the other door.



We have a pair of tokens and another Degraver.





And an Ace of Hearts plus our own Degraver for the Deployment Center.



Every single miner in this place is just standing around throwing error messages. God, can the Rebellion do anything right?



The last thing in this room is a token and 1300z.



The elevator terminal for this floor has a Reploid blocking it.



I want to fix this device here but some mining Mechaniloids took off with the 「Electric Components」. I think the owner of this 「Red Pickaxe」 took it by mistake. Find him for me, would ya?

Obtained key item 「Red Pickaxe」.

Show this to the mining Mechaniloids. They’ll know if it’s theirs. Don't worry, just give it a try.

That's right, kids, its time for a ~trading chain~!



Thankfully, we've already seen a red Degraver.





This isn't who we need, but their text has changed and we now have the option to swap pickaxes. Making the wrong change just has him parrot the same lines but with a different element.



There we go.





Obtained key item 「Electric Components」.

I could stop now, this is all we need to open the next floor, but there's bound to be some form of reward for following this chain to the end.



The Degraver, for their part, also starts to actually mine.



I trade this guy's Blue for my Yellow. We haven't seen the Blue Degraver yet, the guy in the other room was Green.



While looking for Blue, we find this sparky fellow. The Plasma Glob is a palette swapped version of the Fire Glob from Ulfat. Mega/Giga/Ultra/Ultra Giga/Tera Thunder and Ultraplasma for attacks, but boosting it with Thunder attacks increases the FME payout instead of EXP.



It's not a long journey to find the Blue Degraver, the south hallway has two tokens and a locked door.



Been a while since we've seen another locked door like this. This will get put on the backburner until the key turns up from Deployments.





This Degraver, clearly the pinnacle of robotic minds, starts to mine the floor.



That leaves us with one final Degraver.

Take this in exchange...

Obtained key item 「Trade Sheet」.



That's the end of the trading chain, leaving this White Pickaxe in our inventory forever, resting beside Aile's ID.



Here we go! Alright, it’s fixed. Now I can teleport these materials. By the way, the central elevator should take you to 34F now. Feel free to use it if you’re planning on heading down. Hm? This is a 「Trade Sheet」! Where the heck did you find it?! I see, a Mechaniloid had it, then... Sorry to have caused you any trouble! This is something I found in the mining facility. Take it!

Obtained Force Metal 「Infinite Resist」.

With this 「Trade Sheet」, I can teleport the ores to the right locations. Thanks!

Yep, if you go through all the trouble of that chain of deals, you get an Infinite Resist.

The 25 cost Infinite Resist.

Which we already have, thanks to Deployments.

Which is also completely redundant, considering how barely any bosses use stat debuffs, and Hyper Mode negates all stat changes anyways.



Let's just head to the next floor and forget about all this, shall we?



To make up for that lackluster reward, we find a quintet of Build items! There's one of every type but Build LE.



A Tank Energy 100 and a Gain Hyper by this multicolored locked door, meaning this boss of this dungeon is on the other side.

This also makes the Gimialla Mines the shortest dungeon in the game. If you ignore getting treasure, you could just head to the Booster Parts room, open B2F, fight Shadow, do the one required trade, then unlock this door and you're done.



The Liquid Glob here is, surprisingly enough, entirely different from their Fire and Plasma counterparts! Offense-wise, it only has Giga Blizzard and Ultrastream for Water attacks, instead bringing Death Gravity, Virus Attack, and Coercion, which cancels the target's next move. Defense-wise, it has an innate barrier against all damage, but Water attacks on it will break the barrier while also inflicting Freeze.



On one side of the hall, we have a trio of Guard FMs.



On the other side, we have three doors.

You know what we don't have? Rocks. The devs really did just throw in a new gameplay element only to ditch it immediately after introducing it. If you don't care for treasure, you'd only need the Booster Parts for the two rocks blocking off the elevator terminal.



Back on topic, each one has a type of Glob at the end.





Which starts a fight with two of their type, and one of their weakness.



Finishing the fight makes one of the bars on the door shatter.







That's two.







And that's three. The door unlocks.



Massimo switches back to the Shock Lance for this next fight.



And while I'm getting ready, I might as well get a shot of a full party save icon.



Video: Battle with Incentas
Music: The Rebellion's Fate






I guess even with the Supra-Force Metal that the Commander gave him, he is, after all, just a Maverick Hunter who defected to our side.



Fools! You've fallen right into my trap. Behold! I am Incentas!

Jealous of Jentra's record of lowest screentime, Incentas here is introduced in the same scene he's fought.

A trap?

Yes! There isn't a scrap of Supra-Force Metal to be found here. It was all misinformation, designed to lure you Resistance cronies in!

But then why even mention Supra-Force Metal? Now if your plan fails we'll know about it and can start actually looking for it! Just bullshit up some non-existant macguffin so that even if the heroes escape, they're still no closer to your plan than they were before!



The door gets blocked off by energy beams.



No other Reploid has the ability to warp into this structure apart from yours truly.

Incentas, you really think we're going to lie down and surrender?



makes Shadow pale in comparison! Come forth and meet your destruction!





Get what's coming to you!

Music: Final Battle


Incentas is a barrier change boss, automatically swapping through elements at the start of his turn. He'll use Giga and Ultra versions of whatever element he's in. He'll go from Water...



To Thunder...



To Fire, then back to Water.



Infuriatingly, his idle animation in Water makes Water -> Thunder not link up, which would have made this so smooth



Regardless of form, Incentas will have access to his signature move Asura Knuckle, which deals 2 S-type hits to everyone.



When brought below half HP, each change is capped off with this Hyper! notification. This swaps out his party attacks for Ultra Giga elemental attacks.



And his single target moves with Scorching Blaze, Eternal Glacier, and Judgement Thunder, which all use the normal Mega animation, just with the scale jacked up.

Honestly, after Jentra having goons that pose a major threat, plus brand new utility options like Drain WE and the ability to get healed if you don't keep the adds under control, Incentas is kind of a let down. He has three possible attacks he could use every turn, and two of them hit everyone. If you aren't using Massimo or Cinnamon, then there's no real difference between an elemental and non-elemental party attack.

Now, you may be wondering why I'm breaking from my usual format of explaining attacks as they come up, and there's a perfectly good reason for that!



Because unlike Shadow's first phase, he has nothing special to steal.



So I wait for him to shift back into Water.



Nova Strike.



Thunder-element Berserk Charge.



Final Strike.



Done.



How could this be!?

Incentas wasn't lying, he really did make Shadow pale in comparison!

He needed three attacks to kill instead of two.

This may become a trend.

Music: Boss Victory Jingle + Trajectory of Battle II






Axl picks up Incentas' Asura Knuckle, giving him a non-elemental party attack to go alongside his Fire and Water flavored attacks.

This puts his count at one single-target attack, one status attack, and four party attacks. That's a full half of his combos!

Music: The Rebellion's Ambition


But you still have no chance!



His six arms start flailing at the screen.



Which starts an alarm.

This place is set to blow in 5 minutes!

So then why did you fight to begin with!? Pop the self-dectruct and leave, don't toy with them!



X starts shooting the barrier, but it does nothing.

The door won’t open so easily, fools! Four minutes left!



Farewell.





Music: Grief - Sympathy - Pity - Pain II


But the explosion from two 'roids ought to at least put a dent in it!

Spider, stop!



Sorry, this is it. I have to do this. The rest is up to you, X and Zero!

And Axl. And Marino. And Massimo. And Cinnamon.



Spider detonates one of his own cards.

RIP Incentas, he showed up, showed off, and died because of it.

RIP Spider, the devs are going off a checklist and needed to fill the 'tragic party member sacrifice' box.



If Spider hadn't sacrificed himself, we wouldn't have made it back here.

Listen. everyone. Spider... he saved me by giving his life, even though I acted like a jerk when I said I'd work alone. I want to return the favor- No, I must return the favor! Please, let me join you! Please!



we can defeat the Rebellion Army! For Spider!





Music: Memories of Gigantis


Next time: