NIER Part #66 - Episode LXI: Rematch

Part 66: Episode LXI: Rematch

Episode LXI: Rematch

Music: Blu-bird

Time for a rematch with Gretel. It has been five years since we stole the magical grimoire he was guarding, murdered his brother, kicked his ass, severed one of his arms, and left him for dead. I think he is a tad bit pissed off at old Papa Nier by this point...

Despite being a rematch, they're not going the Mega Man route of re-fighting identical bosses. This Shade has been working out and gotten beefy in the half-decade interval since his defeat and learned a bunch of new tricks. In the early part of the fight, Gretel just hangs back and spits out homing fireballs at Nier. They're painful, but fairly easy to evade.

The main problem with the first leg of the battle is that Gretel has a whole huge posse of little critter pissant Shades backing him up. They're all extremely weak buggers and Nier can annihilate an entire mob of 'em with one swing. I guess Gretel just need some little bitches to give him a hand around the Shrine. Aha! Get it...? Cuz we chopped off his hand!

The helping hand Shades are in fact so weak that they will almost instantly burn away in the new sun roof Gretel created during his boss entrance. Nice work murdering your buddies, Righty. What were you even doing up there? Getting a tan? How did you even get up there?! You only have one arm and little stub legs!

Anyway, Nier needs to hang back a bit and smite Gretel with magic in-between volleys of fireballs. Moving too close to the shrine boss will just cause him to put up a magic shield like back when he was tag-teaming with Hansel.

After Gretel's health is reduced to 2/3 the legion of mini-Shades will cease (due to their untimely and gruesome demise mostly) and Gretel will just flip its shit and try to stab Nier repeatedly while roaring unconvincingly.

This works out about for him about as well as you'd expect.

Nier goes with the tried and true magically decking his foe, since obviously that Dark Lance pincushion method didn't pan out too well last battle.

Amazingly enough, Gretel manages to deflect the crimson right hook before getting his clock cleaned. Just once I'd like a Finisher on a boss with still a bit of its health bar remaining to actually kill the damn thing early...

Kainé is having none of this Just Defend crap out of this armored bozo and sword uppercuts the dopey looking thing into the stratosphere.

Or at least she would have if Nier didn't follow-up with a downward strike from mid-air to knock him down to the arena floor. Hey what the hell, Nier?! When did you start jumping 30 feet in the air when not utilizing oversized blood magic fists?! Why am I stuck with your bird flapping double jump?!

"Have you felled the beast?!"

Come on, Weiss... I thought you were supposed to be smart? The boss music is still playing and it still had a third of its health meter left. That's a silly question to ask.

I think we made him mad... On a related note, I never noticed his silly armor teeth until now. Those could really use a brushing. To be honest, he could really use a good scrubbing in general. Though I suppose that is a bit difficult when you've only got those little stump arms...

At this point Gretel goes into berserk mode and busts out a mild fireball bullet hell directed toward the party. This is a touch more difficult to evade.

In addition to that, the metal brute has a completely ridiculous spinning top technique where it will twirl like a whirlwind around the room and attempt to bash into the party. This attack is really difficult to evade because the attack itself is quite speedy and there is no pattern to how Gretel slams around. Also, it is rather easy to get hit once and juggled about losing half a health bar in the progress.

Strangely, it can be fairly easily blocked. If he spins into Nier more than once in quick succession, Nier might have his guard broken and be in trouble. But, that is fairly rare.

Lastly, Gretel also has a beefed up version of that rock shockwave attack from the first fight. It cannot be jumped over or blocked, but it is simple enough to roll past instead.

I am less than impressed with Gretel's showing. You just know the loser has been working out and training daily for its big rematch with the guy that busted in his house, offed his sibling, and stole his junk. Then the big day finally comes and...there's a Trophy for kicking the handicapped Shade in two and a half minutes. Sucks, bro.

Now then, on with the killing. Nier has such little faith in this thing he only goes with a single Dark Lance to finish him off. Remember to check for a pulse this time, mmm? And stab it repeatedly if there is one.

Nier lobs that sonuvabitch at Gretel and it tears the Shade's lance asunder. I guess that's one less arm to your name, eh?

This time Kainé follows up with a di-

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh...

........................................................................................whoopsie?

That uhh...that did not go as intended... At all...

Gretel just kind of shuffles around in a daze mumbling Shade nonsense or gargling blood or...

You know what? Who gives a shit? Fuck this lousy thing. Time to say goodnight.

Nier doesn't even bother with the magical business this time. He just puts on his best angry face and bum rushes the creature with intent on ramming that thing straight into squishy bits. You do not do cutscene stabbing to Nier's friends.

By the way, that's a pretty good angry face, Papa Nier. I mean, it's no Caim angry face. But it is not bad.

Now that was a good angry face. Good old Caim. I miss that kook. Oh yes...where were we?

Ah right. Stabbing things.

Nothing like a warm, refreshing Shade blood shower to wake you up in the morning.

Despite having just had a five foot slab of metal shoved down its throat, Gretel still tries to reach out and-

Oh wait...nevermind. He's dead. Nice try, buckethead. Now then we should....probably go see if Kainé is doing alright. That looked kind of serious...

"I fear there is little we can do."

"No! Kainé!"

Music: Cold Steel Coffin ~ Piano

"Get...get back..."

"What is that?"

"Kainé! Kainé!"

Kainé's entire body becomes covered with the black Shade glyphs. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that probably ain't good.

Music: Cold Steel Coffin ~ Battle