Part 17: Screenshot Missions 8: The Conductor's Rifts 2/3
Screenshot Missions 8: The Conductor's Rifts 2Penultimate update of the Let's Play! Tonight we're powering through the grand majority of the Conductor's boss battles, and these are the longest and most arduous of the bunch.
First, we take the long, decidedly not-a-slide walk down Mam's throat to the jellyfish refight. And yes, the game says she swallowed this one too.
This is one of the easier fights this update, though Imperial likes doing Bolt from the Blue even more than I do.
This was the last fight before I finally switched Marcassin out again for Swaine.
The most trouble this boss gives me is the occasional bout of confusion, but it's not nearly as dread-inducing as being stunned in the Solosseum.
Hurts like a bastard though.
I'm liking how the slightly corrupted eyes look on this version in particular.
Astra makes the baby section more fun.
And Mornstar tops it all off nicely.
Sadly Mam does not shoot us out again, nor can we just crawl out this way. We have to head out the "back".
Next fight is inside the Hamelin palace. This is right after talking to the dead Xanaduvian guard, FYI.
Here the devs didn't even try to mask the Porco Rosso reference.
Like with most machines, zap the pig.
This fight is also not particularly difficult. It's based on the first version of the tank, so there's no junk-armoured second form, and it doesn't do too much damage.
I'll be showing off the things Swaine steals again.
One amusing thing did happen this fight. Since Tingle's golden glim attack does storm damage, I tried to switch to him before those two glims disappeared.
Five seconds of awkward character switching and they piss off before I can grab one. Go me.
At least this one she might not have even been able to see.
Next fight is in front of Skull Mountain, and right next to where you appear when you teleport there.
I haven't shown them, but Drippy has little tangents before you actually activate the black orbs. I haven't shown them because they're Drippy tangents.
This fight is the somewhat uncreatively-named golden version of Kublai's dragon. That's not a complaint; after all of the puns in this game, finally we get something that's just called what it is.
This fight maintains the not-hard-just-long status quo. All the dragon does is buff itself with Dragon Scales...
...then pitifully fail to hit me with its aerial fire attack
or its fire beam.
Even if one spell is technically better against a certain boss, I always just revert to Mornstar eventually.
And in the long tradition of anticlimactic kills, Tingle pokes the dragon to death.
Next boss is the Aapep clone.
Where Aapep is a reference to Apep, the Egyptian deity of chaos, Mehen is a more on-the-nose reference to the Egyptian god of serpents.
This is also a relatively easy fight, thanks in part to Mehen being weak to light attacks.
It helps that he's also weak to Burning Heart.
The one annoying thing he does is Death Rattle, which inflicts curse, but all that does is slow me down, and not in terms of magic casting.
Next we head all the way through Tombstone Trail AGAIN to fight the most annoying of the rift bosses.
At least he has a truly bizarre name.
The problem with this guy is all of his attacks are cinematic, which means that although he is also weak to light spells, he can easily disrupt the casting.
And I mean ALL
OF HIS
ATTACKS.
I sneak in Mornstars where I can, but as you can see, that can also leave me with too small of a window to defend against him.
I tend to fall back on Arrow of Light for this one.
MAN that guy was annoying.
Our next fight returns us to the isolated island where Kublai the 3rd rests. It's hidden on this little path to the right that I was certain had a purpose earlier in my recordings, and I was right!
This guy's the not-hard-just-long type, but he's a snappy as hell dresser.
And he's also weak to light!
This attack isn't so important to block. The less health he can get back from you, the better, but he doesn't do enough damage to seriously offset the damage you do to him.
It's this attack you need to watch out for.
Nothing like standing around like a jackass while your incompetent friends take on a boss they can't possibly kill.
Thankfully after a point, Esther starts casting her wake spell so that I don't have to wait much at all.
Another rare alchemy item.
Thanks for the golden glim after the fight, buddy.
Time for the easiest fight of the update (but not the easiest fight overall).
Still not a Cerberus, but okay.
He's not weak or resistant to any of my best spells, so I just stick with the standards. Yes I see what number it is, shut up.
And Gunther shows me up by doing a Haymaker that's even stronger than my Mornstar.
Cerborealis's Howling Blizzard isn't even that hard-hitting.
Most interesting thing that happens is right at the end of the fight, he stuns me with a Cold Boulder.
But I recover just in time to finish him off with an Arrow of Light.
Final fight off the update takes us back to Perdida. Previously, there was a man standing in front of the entrance to Miasma Marshes, and you couldn't go past him. The area was effectively closed off. But now, the Conductor is here instead.
"Cleared" my ass!
I'd be happier to be back here if it hadn't long been outranked as a good grinding spot. At the very least this means any chests you missed aren't permanently lost if you didn't get them first time around.
What's annoying is that there is no warp this time, so I have to head to the boss the long way. I make use of two old friends to make it easier.
I do come across a new golden enemy, though.
And Levitate wears off just in time for me to walk right through it.
But out true quarry waits for us in the toilet of death.
Shadar?!
Fuck.
Well at least Bileheart is a grosser name than Vileheart.
Sadly Barfliver isn't as colossally weak to Mornstar as the original. It'd be amazing if the devs kept that though.
Vomitcomet does a couple special attacks that I don't recall seeing in the first fight. Vilence is just a straight damage attack.
But it's a motherfucker. That's half of my health gone.
He also likes to spam Vile Breath.
Sometimes it works.
Amusingly he exhausts himself after a Viledriver.
I learn the benefits of Draw Poison in this fight. Yes, only for myself. Who do you think I am?
Another attack I don't recall from the original.
This one screenshot seems to perfectly encapsulate the entire combat dynamic between Oliver and the other two.
Hurlcommander was a tough fight, but ultimately Mornstar does him in yet again.
I use Vacate to head back to Perdida. Notice that the Conductor is gone again.
Also you can see the Xanaduvian guard is watching over her friend now. It's a match made in "Here in Heaven" by Sparks. Minus the suicide pact.
Is this truly the last of them?
Of course it fucking isn't.
That's a pretty obscure hint as to what we fight next. And no, it's not Shadar either.
But not to worry! We're nearly done with the entire LP, and I'll be putting up the very last update tomorrow!
Next time: Ni no Kuni concludes with the last of the Conductor fights!