Part 120: 9/25: Invaders Must Die

Part 113: 9/25: Invaders Must Die

Music: Life Will Change (Instrumental Version)



And we’re off to take the Treasure. While I’m here, I’m sure some of you who know the fight ahead will wonder why I’m not switching out Ryuji for Yusuke and Makoto for Morgana. Well, they are marginally useful in the coming battle, but I have my reasons, which I’ll go into at the appropriate time. Also, I’ve kind of made it a point by now not to switch out Makoto. Makot-owns, more like.



Using the good ol’ safe room warps, we can head right back to Weapon Production.



Around here is where I have the brilliant idea to swap out everyone’s accessories. Who needs that pesky SP regen, right? Spoiler alert: I will come to regret this.




Is that… the frisbee Skull mentioned before? That’s what they’re making here!?

Suck it, Wham-O corporation, your trademark is a genericized term now. No money for you!

The SS Utopia will soon enter its launch sequence from the shipbuilding dock. After retrieval of the main core, the launch sequence will commence.
The SS Utopia!?
Project: Escape to Utopia… So this is what that was about.
Father did say he was going to ascend into the political world…
So even this company is a stepping stone for him… He will discard this place for his “utopia”…
Wait up… If he gets outta here, we’re not gonna be able to make him tell us about the shutdowns!

Or, you know, change his heart.

You’re right… We gotta hurry! I think we can go further in now!




Sirens begin blaring.



Certain areas may be shut off or destroyed. I repeat, emergency launch sequence will soon be activated. All personnel is [sic] advised to evacuate immediately to a safe area of the facility.



The Treasure is lifted into the air.



You can all stand and watch in despair as you go down along with this base! Your destruction is imminent! Hahahahahahaha!

The Treasure is taken aboard the ship.






Let’s hurry! We need to stop him for certain!
We’re not gonna let him escape!



So, we have ten minutes to get aboard the SS Utopia.



There are enemies in the path, as you might imagine. However, this is by no means difficult.



I get it, Futaba. I can run.



Even with this dick who randomly (it’s actually scripted) pops up in the middle of the hallway to surprise us, it’s no big deal. There’s three fights and all of them are pretty much cake.



We get there with almost five minutes to spare even at a rather leisurely pace. Also, that chest just contains a piece of armor we slap on Haru, it’s nothing that important. Anyway, from here we enter the ship.

Music: Desire










Father…
Haru, you were always so agreeable. Whether it was in school or after, you only ever did as I said. You’ve become so admirable…

Music: Suspicion

What’s gotten into him…?

Oh, you morons can’t possibly fall for this, can you?

Ah yes. Do you remember, Haru…? You cried your eyes out when my work kept me from attending your first sports day.

Is that like field day in elementary school, which was always rad because we didn’t have normal class and just got to run around outside and shit? ...Now that I think about that as an “adult,” I think I’d rather just go to class. That sounds exhausting.

It was then that you stopped talking back to me. Honestly… you had me worried. Still, you stood up against me and became an independent young woman… Nothing could make a father happier than seeing that!
You still remember something that happened so long ago…? Back then, you poured your heart into making delicious food. You wanted to bring joy to others… Why did you change…?
F-Forgive me, Haru… But I would never last if my Treasure was stolen! Please don’t do it, I’m begging you…!



Let’s… Let’s end it here…

Ah jeez.

Ah… Haru…

Music: Blood of Villain





What!?

Goddammit, we’re so stupid.



The cold reality of kicking people down is part of business! Virtues and sentiments are for losers.

Is this guy a person or an episode of South Park?

What happiness can be found in acting with justice but losing the battle?
What happiness can be found through profit gained by crushing the hearts of others!?
Better that than fail! I’d much rather destroy others than wallow in the misery of debt! Regardless, I shall soon set sail into the political realm. To the upper echelons of the world! To utopia! My name shall be etched in the annals of history! Make your decision, Haru. If you cast them away, I’ll let you join me on this ship. Stay, and you will be incinerated along with this entire base. Now then, what is your choice!?



Noir!



It’s kinda hard to see but he’s pointing a gun at them.

(to Morgana) What about you there? Don’t you want to get out of here alive? Want to board my ship?

“Hey I’m going to space. Yo random cat, wanna come with?”

You’re fighting against the others, are you not?
Hmph. So you were spying on us.
You’ll gain nothing by staying with them… That’s what you believe, isn’t it? You are absolutely right. Sell them out! Cut them off for your own personal gain! I’ll even give you the switch once we take off. So, do we have a deal? I’ll give you ten seconds. Time is money, after all.

Morgana’s Moment (You can click on this if you want, I guess)



Music: Regret

Don’t take me for such a fool… Everything’s gains and losses for you, isn’t it? I pity you, Mr. CEO. You lived with Haru for seventeen years and you still haven’t realized? In this world, there are tons of things that money and fame can’t buy! What point would there be in only saving myself!? Nobody could replace these guys, period!

Music: Blooming Villain











All right, chill. It wasn’t that cool, guys.



Father…
So much for the negotiation…



Very well then.
Bring it!



Oh yeah, offscreen a floating chair dropped in out of nowhere and he sat in it.



Boss: Kunikazu Mammon Okumura



This is Kunikazu “Mammon” Okumura, and he won’t be our boss for this evening. How so? Well, you’ll see.

For the record, Mammon is the demon associated with the deadly sin of greed. Actually, not just the demon, but the sin personified as a deity and included as one of the seven princes of hell. So, Mammon isn’t just a demon, but greed itself, the god of material things.



Give up…? Try saying that after you’ve taken down my company’s elite soldiers!




Go, my employees! Be the foundation upon which my victory is built…!

I’m nothing without my stunt team workforce.



So, as you can see (or actually, can’t see in this picture, thanks Futaba), we have thirty minutes to defeat Okumura. That’s about twice as much time as we’ll realistically need even if we’re taking our time, so don’t worry about it. Its real purpose here is just to make it super obvious when I use footage from a different take.

I should also mention that these enemies are the same ones we encountered as minibosses throughout the Palace, weaknesses and all. In fact, these are the only times during a “boss” that we can hit a weakness or get a critical hit, and likewise the only opportunity in a “boss fight” we’ll have to Baton Pass. Why not bring Yusuke instead of Ryuji, then? Well, even with Yusuke’s slightly higher Physical stat, Ryuji just has better skills for this situation. Swift Strike hits everything 3-4 times, and if he gets a critical hit, then every hit on that enemy also crits. Also, Yusuke’s Baton Pass skills only hit one enemy at a time, and we’re going to spend this phase of the fight dealing with groups that we want to take out as swiftly as possible, meaning party attacks are vital. We could switch out Haru, especially because of her lack of Baton Pass, but she’s also got some good skills for this, like Mapsio and Triple Down, and I’d feel bad missing her dialogue with her father.

Despite the ability to knock enemies here down, we cannot get All-out Attacks, either.

This first round of enemies goes down without getting an action. They also say really fucked-up shit like “I CAN FINALLY REST...” when they die, holy crap!



This is Mammon’s cue to summon more with Work Order. For most of this phase, leaving an open enemy slot at the end of your party’s round will cause him to summon more to replace them.



And again.



And again.



AND AGAIN.

I’m not even going to bother going into the weaknesses of these enemies because while some of them are weak to Psy or Fire or Wind or Nuke, we already know most of this from the dungeon, and we’re going to be spending most of our turns spamming Physical and occasionally their weaknesses if they’re weak to Psy for Haru. Other than that, it’s Swift Strike, Swift Strike, Mafreila, Triple Down, with the occasional Mediarama from Makoto. I’m also not really going to go into what they actually do, because unless you’re really doing poorly it should take a few rounds before anyone gets an action. Most of the time an enemy did end up getting a turn here, it was “dazed” and unable to act.



One group proves too much for us to completely take down in a single turn. It also uses a move that inflicts Hunger on Haru. Hunger is pretty common in this fight. It’s an enemy-exclusive status effect, as I have explained earlier, that reduces the afflicted party member’s outgoing damage (but not healing, crucially) to about 30% or so, based on my observation. We could have brought in Morgana instead of Makoto to heal it with Me Patra, but I have my reasons for not wanting to do that.




If an enemy has been alive for longer than a turn, Mammon may use Sacrifice Order (and later, double Sacrifice Orders to affect two different enemies).




The enemy with the red plume of smoke above its head will, you guessed it, explode on its next turn.




It does a lot of damage, but not so much as to be totally devastating. I eat a few of these over the course of this fight because he picks enemies with full health when I needed to heal, and it’s fine.



Hahaha! My workers will obey any order I give to them! Don’t you think their loyalty is incredible!?
I can’t believe this…!



We’re clearly on the last wave, because he’s summoned only one enemy. We take them down (mainly by eating sacrifices) and move on.



Executive Director! Come to me!




Now then fulfill your duty as my right-hand man! For the eternal prosperity of Okumura Foods!

The Executive Director has more health than the other enemies, but still a lot less than a normal boss would, which makes sense. He can apparently be knocked down, but I only managed to do this once on a lucky crit and it was also the attack that killed him, so maybe it’s just really rare.



He also doesn’t have that many moves in his arsenal. He’ll use Executive Punch to deal a lot of damage (almost always to Haru, weirdly), but for this phase that’s all I saw.



Mammon will also use Famine’s Breath to attempt to inflict Hunger on a party member. He’ll later also use Famine’s Scream to attempt to inflict it on the entire party. Besides that, he can use Tarunda and Rakunda to reduce a party member’s Attack or Defense, and Dekaja to remove party buffs.



Work harder! Contribute more! The fate of my company rests upon how hard you work!

After getting it down to 70% or so, this will happen, and the Executive Director will change tactics.





FOR THE ETERNAL PROSPERITY OF MY COMPANY.

The Executive Director will charge up for his next attack.



I’LL MAKE YOU INTO A HUMAN BURGER!



Delicious!

What happens if you don’t block? Well...




That happens.



So we guard next time.



Still does a lot, but manageable.



Now, the Executive Director can also use Makarakarn to reflect one magic attack.




The main reason I don’t really worry about Hunger in this fight is due to a little quirk with the Big Bang Challenge attack.



See how Makoto was actually healed to full by the attack? Well, she was hungry. That’s the joke. Any party members with Hunger don’t need to block and can take the attack safely, leaving them free to attack (for reduced damage) or heal. The attack also heals the Hunger effect, naturally.

Now, this can all be ruined if Ryuji’s Harisen Recovery activates and heals the status effect before the attack hits, but it’s usually fine.

Also you may notice I’m about to run out of SP! I should not have switched my accessories!



You carry the Okumura Foods company name! Kill those thieves, even if it costs you your life!

At this point (around 25%), I believe the Executive Director will begin just using Big Bang Order/Big Bang Challenge over and over until it dies. Probably.




Grr, someone! Is there anyone here!?






Wh-Why isn’t anyone coming!?
Father… You’ve been forsaken even by your own employees… Let’s end this, Joker!



Makoto can take him down in a single Mafreila.





And that’s the fight.

Music: Victory



Ryuji learns Mazionga to replace Mazio. Some might suggest that he keep Mazio because he’s just using it to hit weaknesses, but we’re not using his magic attacks enough for it to make a real difference.




Makoto could have learned Nuke Break, but it’s garbage so she doesn’t.



And Haru learns Psy Boost, which gives her a 25% boost to Psy skills.