Part 81: Episode LXXXI: Star Shape

Episode LXXXI: Star Shape


New Music: Star Shape (Go listen to this! Now these are some final dungeon tunes. That only ever play in this update on the dullest floor of the whole finale.)



Welcome to the second floor of the Neameto Float. Ignore the part where we're clearly on like the fourth floor given we've gone up multiple sets of stairs terminating on a new, higher level of the shrine. The Formors or whoever the heck crafted this joint had their own ideas of interior design regulations.



A new gameplay mechanic appears on this floor: a pink save glyph that allows the party to be swapped around. Meaning... they could have had this as a thing the entire game and instead opted to make the noted sex offender, Meiyuan, the primary means of switching the party configuration. What is your DEAL Sacnoth?!



We're going to be going through Soul Block's chamber quite a few times on this floor. Perhaps an annoying amount. Perhaps an annoying amount coupled with an unyieldingly high encounter rate to the point I equipped the accessory to halve random battle encounters and still was getting a bit frustrated with all the fights that occurred. This room is scattered with exits. But more importantly, there is some treasure. Most of it of the been there, seen that variety I won't go over. Other than this...



It's the finally Lottery Ticket in the game! We did it! We got 'em all! There's absolutely no reward other than a sense of satisfaction you'll forget about within minutes. It's not too different from the proper Achievements of today in that regard.



On the eastern half of the Soul Block party, we find a set of stairs and a green switch of some sorts that looks suspiciously like the teleportation aura effect from a previous dungeon minus the recolored save point glyph. Regardless, we've seen that color before on the force field just before the boss fight. What if...





Aha! We find Halley's err... second best weapon in the game. I didn't know William Tell got into a dark pursuit of more arcane and elaborate methods of shooting apples off children's heads as the years rolled on. It makes me wish there were full on Drakengard weapon history stories for some of these things.



Well, that was a bit pointless. But they did stick a number of second-best sets of armor or weapons for everyone in this dungeon and we've come too far to ignore them now. Anyway, about that staircase to the east...



Ah, a BLUE force field and a red switch that really doesn't look like any kind of proper switch. You had a giant wall switch downstairs, Float. What gives? Welp, gotta find somewhere that was blocked by a red force field now. Except...




Music: NDE - Near Death Experience



There are new random battles on Floor #2! There are only two new enemies on this floor. And to call this one new is a bit of a stretch. This a Keeper, a Wind elemental enemy with 750 HP that likes to cast Lightning. You may remember a sludge monster back in the Ancient Ruins called a Sweeper. Hey... this might just be that but they removed its legs. And by removed, I technically mean just obscured it from the model since it is clearly still doing a walking animation when it lumbers over to punch someone. I suppose deleting parts of an enemy model is a touch more effort than just a palette swap and calling it a day. So points for creativity. Even though I'm just now realizing Soul Block was just Yamaraja: Wind with its head merely removed and not actually replaced with a tentacle thing.



One of the few actually, for real new enemies present in the Float is this bug woman nightmare creature -- Arcmene. All they do is spam Nova or skitter over to stab a fool with their crotch pincers. Which is a phrase I don't like one bit. The Library entry for this is basically "God got real drunk one night and GEEZ... We don't let God drink anymore."


Music: Star Shape



Back to the pursuit of getting through this area. We've got two more sets of stairs north of the Soul Block rumpus room. Let's check out the stairs to the right first, eh?



Welp, we found the switch for the blue force field at least. The other two platforms offer a treasure chest with one of those Seal consumables that barely do anything and one with... absolutely nothing! I hit three random battles in this particular room and then put on that encounter halving accessory.





All the way back to the blue force field path and the room beyond! This is just that room Yuri got stuck in earlier rendered at a different angle with a new central vent model. But this time with treasure, so it was definitely worth the backtracking.



Here we come across Alice's second best armor. I don't know if black and purple are really going to go well with the teal and white color scheme of her outfit.



We also obtain Zhuzhen's second best weapon of which I was annoyed to have to run back and switch to Zhuzhen in order to inspect it. That Taoist Adept really blew it to stick his soul into a weapon for Zhuzhen. He'd have better luck getting used if he'd done it to any random fallen tree branch in a forest.



OK. One last path left. I told you we'd go through this room a lot.



This next alien corridor shooter hallway has an exit to the north and east. Spoiler: North goes to the boss. So let's head east to...



Well, at least they added more industrial crap to this re-render of the treasure room to make it look distinct. The chest on the right just has another pair of Monk Earrings, if you're wondering.



Here we have Margarete's second set of Nina Williams spy girl armor. And now we know why her ultimate armor was throwing shade at Rubber Armor.





OK. I don't like this floor, really good music aside. Let's get to the end of this area and fight... Err... What am I looking at...?




Music: Demon's Gig



Meet Hate -- a giant grub with appendages held together by a thin mucus layer. Oh god... Is that how Rayman works? Ugh. I don't think about that.



Hate is a Dark elemental affinity enemy with a reasonably high 7000 HP. It's secretly just a buffed Transformed Li Li with a bunch of the parts of its model deleted and rejiggered into an insect looking motif.



Yuri jumping straight into his Ken Doll Devilman mode and casting For Everyone is once again our opener. But we've got a second round of buffs this time.





It's been a hot minute since the last time we specifically went out of our way to exploit elemental weaknesses since the end game was near-universally Non-Elemental bosses. But this is a Dark element foe and Alice can dust off the old Holy Edge and give everyone a Light element affinity for their attacks.



This makes Yuri's physical attacks turn into 700+ HP of damage every turn without having to wait for an overly long attack animation and boy I'll take that at this point. Margarete ain't too shabby with pulling around 500+ HP ballpark damage every round herself.



Meanwhile, Alice can just nuke this thing with Advent over and over for a healthy 600+ HP of damage. We don't even need to worry about healing for this fight. Just pouring on the pain.





Hate does have a couple of attacks. Like Hate Storm. Not the most original thing for something literally named Hate to cast, but here we are... It hits everyone for a big whatever of around 100 HP of damage and would cause status ailments had we not written those off ages ago with the Power of the Lord.





It also has Black Fog which... again, like its predecessor, Soul Block, is just the same exact attack but with more flair. OK, it's Dark elemental so Alice takes like 30 HP additional damage. But beyond that, it's just two full party blasts for not nearly enough damage to concern ourselves.



Rounding it out with the token physical attack, Hate can squirm its way over to a single target and attempt to hit them with a status ailment inflicting strike. It'd really suck ass not have Crucifixes for this last stretch of boss battles since EVERYTHING wants to inflict a status effect and it'd just mean juggling the other eight items that ward them off.



In any event, three or four rounds of holy punishment on the hateful little shit and...







That's another one biting the dust. Three bosses remain!


Music: Results





And with that we are done with the c'mon we're easily on the sixth floor! Second Floor of Neameto Float. Tune in next time for the like sixth through ten or eleventh Third Floor as this dungeon just kinda keeps going as Shadow Hearts continues!






Video: Episode 81 Highlight Reel