Part 32: The Finale

Part 32 - The Finale










Harlequin speaks up as soon as we arrive.



This ain't a game.

Oh, but it is. On more than one level. Onward!

Oh, I get it.



The only noteworthy thing about this first room is that it houses the most useless air vent in existence.



It also has bugs coming out of the walls, but that's a regular feature 'round these parts. These two guys are a little sneaky in that they only come out after you're some ways into the room, potentially leaving people lagging behind in a bad spot.



A third one joins in a little after the initial two, further prolonging the delightful experience of having to fight and kill these things over and over again.







It's heartbreaking to see this kind of Ghost-on-ghost violence, but nature can sometimes be cruel like that.



The way forward is in the southeast corner. There are even more vents here, but none of them are especially useful.



People! Honest to goodness dies-to-ordinary-bullets-like-god-intended people!







Refreshing, like a cool spring breeze.



But our joy is short-lived, as another ugly jerk crawls out of the wall behind us. True Form Bombardiers are pretty much the artillery unit of Bug Nation, easy to kill but capable of dealing nasty area-wide damage if they do get to attack.



We make sure that doesn't happen.



And sadly it's back to wallbugs in the next room as well.



And again with the same "late third enemy" trick. At least they don't get to attack the same turn they appear, we're not in Thracia here.



please



go



away



A bridge this prominent can only mean we're about to reach the end. Surprisingly there's no ambush from both sides when we get to the middle or anything like that.



After crossing the bridge, we find a locked door in front of us and a small storeroom to the side, watched over by a couple of Brotherhood goons.



Amazon suffers the consequences of a misclick strategically tanks their Overwatch attacks with her nigh-indestructible body.





Despite being the last ordinary human enemies in the game, they aren't in any way different from all the other chumps we've mowed down on our way here.



Just in case it wasn't yet obvious that we're about to fight the final boss, the room contains no less than five items: A Phosphorous Grenade, two Premium Medkits, a Gold Trauma Kit and a Platinum Trauma kit which is inside a safe and requires 5 Decking (but no cyberdeck) to get.



The panel in the corner opens up the locked door outside, allowing us to progress.



At last, we've reached the heart of the hive. I was originally planning on ending the update here, until I realized how short and boring this'd end up if I did that. So screw it, let's go all the way and finish this thing for good.









A branching path? Nah, only the door ahead is openable. Also we're finally free from combat mode, though that's not going to last for very long.



Geez finally, we've been looking all over for you guys!



I don't know, you seem plenty disturbed already to me.

Your vessel is gone! This is over, Jessica!



But you'll be the mother of a dead world!

[Harlequin still sports a wry smile.] On the plus side, a billion creepy crawly children makes for one hell of a Mother's Day.

No! I will become a perfect being. Through me and through my sacrifice, a new age will begin!

You've played too many video games, lady.



We have three dialogue choices here which all amount to "Well guess we gotta shoot you now", but also a fourth which continues the conversation a little longer.

Sam had a hunger too, didn't he, Jessica?

[This seems to throw her off.] What?

You said it yourself, Sam had appetites. All that mattered to him was his next fix.

Vile appetites!

Appetites he couldn't control. And he died for them.

Because *I* willed it.

Yes, but why? There was more to it than just your mother.

[The hum of magical energy permeating the room seems to quiet. She's listening.]

You came under the thrall of these creatures long before you knew of your mother's death.

The Brotherhood... They... they were a family to me.

Yes, and they had already freed you from your old life. So why come back? Why kill Sam?

[She falters.] I... I had to. For what he did... what he had become.

You said Sam represented a sickness in the world. But I think he represented the sickness in you.

You're... trying to... confuse me.

You saw a wrongness in yourself, and you projected it onto Sam.

No, I... He...

He was your brother, Jessica. Your twin! Don't you see?

[She falls quiet and bows her head.] I... I'm sorry. But there's no turning back. I cannot undo what's been done. And I can't stop what's to come.

I don't like this bit much since it feels a little forced, like they had to include a part where you can try and talk down the final boss because that's just a thing you do in western RPGs. It doesn't even make any practical difference since you still have to do the fight, and you don't even get to pick what you say because there's only one choice each time!

Like so many other things, they do this better in the later games.



Had we picked one of the other three choices earlier, we would've jumped here directly. Commence the final showdown!




(It's the final boss theme, so if you're only gonna click one music link in this LP you should probably make it this one, especially if you've nostalgia for SNES Shadowrun music. This is the soundtrack version by the way, the in-game one is a shorter loop.)




Here we go. Right away Lynne jogs it to the center of this fairly large chamber, striking some kind of yoga pose on the altar there. She's going to be standing there for this entire fight and isn't actually even targetable.



Our actual target is Jessica who has taken some serious bug steroids, giving her several large trolls' worth of HP. There will also be a constant stream of bug monsters entering the fight, all of which need to be eliminted the usual annoying way.

Now there are two ways to go about this fight, the long and difficult way and the short and easy way. Let's start with the former.



You may have noticed this glowy spiky thing near Jessica. There are four of these Insect Pillars scattered around the room, with one being active and vulnerable to damage at any given time.



Jessica spends most of the fight running for these pillars, gaining the mysterious "Favor of the Queen" buff when she reaches an active one.



What this does is allow her to use the Insect Totem power, a room-wide buff which gives a major power-up to all living bugs in the area. Not only does this increase their movement speed but also allows them to attack twice per turn, something enemies aren't normally capable of doing. Needless to say, this is something you want to avoid.



Luckily that's only slightly easier said than done as the pillars aren't that tough. Once a pillar's HP is depleted it deals 15 damage to Jessica and all living bugs and removes Favor of the Queen. After that it shuts down and becomes invulnerable, causing one of the other three pillars to activate instead. There's no way to permanently destroy them, so dealing with these pillars is something you have to do throughout the entire fight.

On a side note, drones can go through the small holes on the walls here which is what that icon in the middle there is indicating, but it only seems to work about half the time.



The main difficulty of this fight comes from the fact that you have to spread your damage pretty thin. In addition to dealing with the pillars you have to kill the constantly spawning bugs...



...eradicate their spirits with Aegis...



...and also find the time to deal damage to Jessica who is running all around the room chasing after the pillars.



As if that wasn't enough, after a while these very tanky bastards make their first and only appearance, requiring quite a bit of time and effort to bring down as well.



All in all a prolonged fight where you try to fight everything can be quite the pain in the ass to deal with.

So, here's the easier way:



You just shoot Jessica in her dumb face repeatedly from the start, completely ignoring all the nonsense I've told you about. Yeah, 325 is a lot of HP, but with the whole group focusing on the same target we can easily deal over half that in a single turn.



As a result Jessica is defeated on turn 2, causing her to shout a bit and then run off. From here all we need to do is eliminate the remaining enemies in the room.



In this case "all remaining enemies" means "the only one that had time to spawn". And with one last gloopy splurt of Aegis, it's all over.

"But hold on now" I can hear you say. "I bet that's not it, and now Lynne's going to transform into the Queen which ends up being the real final boss, right?" Hey good thinking ace, that is how it looks like isn't it?

But no, that's it. We're done. Those two turns were the final boss fight in its entirety, no second forms or additional phases or any of that. Lynne? Never gonna see her again.



Instead we chase after and corner Jessica in some small room somewhere.



It's gone... My link to the... the Queen. She has... abandoned me... expelled me. Unworthy... Unworthy.

It had to be done. This nest would have overrun the city if we hadn't stopped you.



Eh, I'm sure it's all under control.

[Tears run down her face.] Oh God. What have I done? And Sam... I'm so sorry, Sam...

She only speaks that last line because we brought up Sam before the fight. Otherwise she doesn't give a damn about the guy.



But what's this? A pair of True Form Soldiers suddenly burst through the walls. Is there another fight after all?



Nah, they're more interested in making dinner out of Jessica. And it's us who get to choose her fate here: Either we let her get eaten as karmic justice for Sam, shoot her ourselves, or take her with us to be arrested.

It's a little tempting, but we were never really in this just for Sam himself and shooting someone who's surrendered and pleading for their life doesn't really feel right, so let's be magnanimous. It makes little real difference one way or another anyway.

Death would be too quick a punishment. You're going to pay for what you've done.

[She lowers her head in shame.] I understand.


And with one last completely useless reward of 5 karma, Amazon's and this LP's final mission has come to a close. All that's left now is to report back to James and to make a call to the law firm for our money.

Payday at last, and well-deserved!