Part 27: Shanghai, part 5

Shanghai, part 5

A short update today where I take care of a couple optional tasks. First, I head to the back room in Zhen's bar.


And it's all thanks to you and your friends. He says he wants to use his powers again and he just won't listen! Watch out when you talk to him.

The hell...?



And then, I decided to use summoning powers! Now the pitfights are back! I'm not as strong as I was before, but I'm sure I could train you people.

Let me explain the pitfights. In a pitfight, you bet money on a fight with a monster. You fight the monsters that I summon. I'll reward you according to your number of wins!

Kick monsters, get money. Got it.





Who's going to fight?


Winning ten fights in a row with Yuri nets you a special item, as well as the money. Besides which, Yuri is really the only one at this point that can beat the pitfights.

Okay, let me take a shot at it!!


Most of the fights aren't challenging. A lot of them are against bosses that you've already beaten, though their stats may be changed a little bit. The first monsters that I faced were two Hellcats.




Four Ogre Flames. Yawn.




The Water Tiger and two Kappa from the sewers.




Remember how Wind Shears are the weakest monsters in the game? Well, Zhen has a couple of his own that can really mess you up. These are the only challenging fights in the arena, and the ones I lost to when I tried to do this before Kowloon. This one is a Custom Wind Shear, the stronger of the two Zhen has. It hits hard, and can also inflict Tight Ring, which halves your hit areas.


I still whup his butt.


Beast Dog. Poor, poor Tiny.




White Wolflings from the ship.




This is the other special Wind Shear, Prototype Wind Shear. It doesn't hit *quite* as hard as the other, and its special attack is Flaming Arm of Death, which doesn't hurt Yuri all that much when he's in his Inferno form. The only annoying thing is the spell also causes Silence.




Normal Wind Shears. Pffft.




Yamaraja: Earth. Not so tough when he doesn't have an entire village of animal spirit slaves.




And last of all, a group of Frog Gods. The last three battles were a breeze.



I'll give you a reward worth ten winnings.

You've received 5000 Cash.

Zhen doesn't care if the same person fights more than once. You can really rack up the cash here if you're low on funds and patient. I, however, am neither.

Wow! What an impressive string of victories!! It's as if we're watching "you-know-who"!!

Yuri must get pretty tired of Zhen comparing him to his dad all the time.

Who's "you-know-who" anyway...

...Or maybe not. It must be nice to be that blissfully stupid.

Colonel Hyuga! He used to rough it up in pit fights, too. That proves blood is thicker than water! He's got that same quality of excellence. Oh, I remember! Qiuhua, bring that thing to me.



That's right. THAT.

Just a moment!



...Well then, shall I tell you about that day? The morning we went to Kuihai Tower...

Seems appropriate, since we're going there ourselves right after this.


Shadow Hearts has taught me: flash-backs are GRAY.


No portrait for lil' Qiuhua like there was for lil' Yuri. I bet it would have been cute.

Don't look like that, I'll be back soon I say.

Qiuhua: Everyone, be careful, okay? Colonel Hyuga, Master Zhuzhen, father...please.

Hah hah hah. You can count on it! Don't worry about a thing. And you be a good girl, now.

Qiuhua: Yes.



Qiuhua: It's a lovely cross. I'll take good care of it!

Do so...

Is that all right? To give her such a treasured item...

It's fine. Looking at this child reminds me of my son. I never gave him anything...



Everything's going to be fine, Hyuga! Let's get this business taken care of so you can go home. Kill Dehuai, foil the Demon's Gate Invocation, and you're there in no time at all!

You're right Zhuzhen. All right, let's go!

Yeah!







Yuri. The colonel never forgot about you for a moment. He loved you and his wife with all his soul.

Qiuhua.

I took hold of this that day. Your mother gave it to Colonel Hyuga as a good luck charm. Now it's your turn to hold on to it.

The damn thing is cursed. You'll see.



You've received Anne's Cross.

Thank you. I never thought I would find a memento from my mother here...


And now, we're (finally) off to Kuihai Tower!

But first, there's something I did in Kuihai Tower that I may as well put at the end of this update so I don't break the flow of the last dungeon in the Asia section.

There's one thing in this game I've never done before. You see, I always clear my Malice before it hits red, or right when it hits red, so I've never beaten Fox Face when he shows up chasing Yuri in the "real world". I decided to try it this time. I saw this screen twice before I managed to beat him on the third try, mostly due to an incredible amount of luck:


The fight with Fox Face in the real world is HARD. He spams the !!! spell at you, often doing so multiple turns in a row, bringing you down to 1 HP each time and forcing you to waste a turn healing. When you manage to bring his health almost to zero, he'll fuse into Death Emperor, and then he'll almost always cast Dark Messenger, doing 999 points of damage like in the first scene with Fox Face, except Yuri doesn't get back up this time.


He taunts you when he first shows up, and he is right; running away is almost always successful.


He starts out the same way, by halving Yuri's SP. (Yuri fights him alone, by the way.) At this point, Yuri is a high enough level that he still has enough to fuse into Inferno.


I used the Third Key, hoping that I could kill him before it got to the point where Fox Face transformed, but I didn't time it quite right; I should have waited one more turn. At this point, I thought I would have to reload for a fourth try.


But I got extremely lucky. Instead of Dark Messenger, Fox Face cast Drain Wave, which only took away all my magic points.


And in my next turn, I was able to defeat him. Unfortunately, it's not permanent; he'll keep showing up while your Malice level is red.


And, although it's the hardest fight in the first half of the game, you get absolutely nothing but a sense of satisfaction from beating Fox Face. Total rip-off!!


Next time on Shadow Hearts: storming the tower!


Shanghai, part 5 on Viddler
Video 1 (pit fights)
Video 2
Video 3 (Fox Face)


NPC Scorecard