The Let's Play Archive

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2

by Dragonatrix

Part 101: Monday's Turmoil ~ The Chronos Trigger

Monday's Turmoil ~ The Chronos Trigger



Alright, so the start of Monday is when we unlock the ability to fuse things. Between this and the removed level limit, we can fuse some insane things already. Even without having unlocked every possible demon yet...



Yeah, like so. And there's actually more at this higher end range that you can't even see here because we don't have any possible ingredients in our stock yet.

We could easily make all of these right now. Just buy some low level trash from the auction, fuse them to make Elements and we can get most things. Only (real) issues are gaps where we need Fate demons we don't have available yet.

But that's boring, slow and not very exciting. It also makes a joke out of everything ever. Moreso than I want to do right now, I mean.



Like Sunday, and most days after this one for that matter, we'll just be truncating this down to the important stuff.



So, we'll skip waaaaaaaay ahead. We've already gone to Osaka, beaten Fumi and are now in the middle of trying to figure out that Keita's death clip takes place at Bigman.


[Music: Exploration]



Doing Daichi's Fate events here is actually kind of maybe vaguely important. And not just in a grinding Fate points sense.

Hey, Hibiki. I think it's fine here. There are some people left, after all.
All right... I bet I could ask some of them about the location in the death clip.
Let's go talk to them.
Welcome! Come on down, boys! First come, first served.
Um... Excuse me? I wanted to ask something... Hey!

A selection of bread, snacks, and drinks are available...

Oh, wow! There's a lot of stuff!



...Well, Hibiki? You think I need to buy something? You know, for asking...?
Maybe I'll get some juice... Huh?

[Music: A Moment of Rest]



Good lord. My stomach hurts just thinking about it...
Hey, Mister. That's the last one we have!
Seriously!? I actually kind of want it now... What should I do?
...All right, fine. I'm taking this one, Hibiki! Gotta live it up in Osaka!
Thanks! That'll be 3,000 yen!
Oh, okay. Let me just get... Three thousand...
Three... Thousand... Th-Th-Th...
Whaat!? THREE THOUSAND YEN!?
What a ripoff!

The street vendor glares at you...

What's your problem? You should be grateful I'm even offering to sell to you!
Oh crap... Is he pissed off? I-It's okay, Hibiki... No need to push our luck...
Well, what're you gonna do, kid? Make up your mind already.
Uh... Well... I don't have... 3,000 yen with me right now...



All right, all right, sorry!

You and Daichi run away...

[Music: Exploration]



*sigh* This is a scary time to be in such a scary place...
And we didn't even get to ask about the death clip... *sigh* What do we do...?

You and Daichi walk away...



Okay, so it might not seem it right now but there is more to this than meets the eye. After doing that scene, a new one with Daichi opens up and this is the one we're really after...



Ugh... Hey, Hibiki. Look, they're still at it.
Come on down! My prices can't be beat!
I can't beleive he can say that! That's totally false advertising!



Go for it, Daichi!
I'm just gonna...
wait for karma to get 'em.
I mean, shopkeepers in Osaka are scary! Tokyo guys like you and me should just walk away.

An angry woman begins berating the street vendor...

[Music: Heroes Have No Fear]



Oh, hey Hinako. Glad to get to see you being awesome pre-emptively this time.

Too bad. It's this crazy world we're living in.
"Too bad," my ass! What the hell are talking about, you moron!? (sic)
H-Huh...? Did you just call me a moron!?
It's because times are so tough that we have to help each other. Isn't that right!?
Sh-Shut up! I've got a business to run! I have a reputation--



You're taking advantage of people on hard times... Is that the reputation you want?
Uh...



WHAT!? 100 yen!? At least add in sales tax!
Who cares about little details like that? Don't be such a whiner. Well... See ya!
Hey...! Not the takoyaki spring water!

The woman hands the man 100 yen and walks away...

[Music: A Moment of Rest]



Forget what I said before. It's not Osakan shopkeepers, it's Osakan women who're scary!



...I actually feel kinda bad for the guy. Let's leave him alone.

Daichi gives the street vendor a look of sympathy...



Yeah, so from that we even got Daichi to Fate 2 already! This is in part due to Daichi's low number of Fate points needed to get to even Fate 3 never mind Fate 2.



So it would've been rather easy, and very easily doable, to double-crack Merak let alone Botis.



So Keita's alive and well now. We've also just seen parts of Japan that've had their shit wrecked by demons. No void yet at least! Let's celebrate by... hanging out with Daichi some more.


[Music: Elegy]



Oh... It's you, Hibiki. Sorry... Didn't mean to start a trend there...
Everyone's shaken.
Oh... A-Are they? I... ugess that doesn't surprise me. It's no laughing matter...
I mean... I said I'd look into it myself... but I didn't think this is what I'd find...
I keep thinking, this has to be some kind of prank...
It's a game.



This isn't normal... I mean, it's beyond anything we could have imagined.
It's worse than the stuff you see on TV about wars and terrorist attacks...
I can't imagine coming back from this. Or even what my old life was like anymore...
*sigh* I wonder what's going to happen from here on out. I can't picture it...

Daichi seems discouraged...

Io's with us.



Aren't you freaked out by all this, Hibiki? Look what's happened...
I must be the only one whining... How are you holding up?
I'm okay.



I can't do this... You might be able to, but me...!

A heavy silence falls...

Ughh... Dammit! What am I even talking about!?
You can talk to me.
Oh... Haha... You're right, come to think of it.



There world may be a mess, but I guess that hasn't changed.
...Now I'm feeling dumb for getting all depressed. Haha... Thanks, man.
...You mind going on ahead? Don't worry, I'll head back soon enough.

You say goodbye to Daichi and leave the area...



...Yeaaaah, Daichi racks up Fate levels REALLY fast. If we hadn't unlocked Hanuman at the very end of the previous runthrough, we'd have it available before Merak.

That's pretty nuts.



We never did the pre-Merak scenes with Io before. Let's do it now.




Oh... Hibiki. Um...
Hey, relax.
Oh...? Yeah... Thanks.
Things have gotten pretty scary... It's worse than I had imagined...
If all of Japan... or rather, the whole world is facing something similar...
Then... there's no hope at all for restoration or rescue...
Even as we speak, our friends and families might be in pain, waiting for help...
...Why did this happen...?
It brought us together.



Hey... What do you think about JP's, Hibiki?
It's a nice place.
I see... The world may be in ruins, but at least it's safe there...



I agree.
...Mmm-hmm. That's why I'm thinking about pitching in as much as I can.
......

Io seems to be waiting for your response...

Just think it through.
Y-Yeah... I'll make sure to give it some thought. Um... Thanks.



We may have no choice but to put our heads together and find the disaster's cuase...
I need to be alone for a while to sort some things out. Could you head back without me?

You say goodbye to Io and leave the area...

We hung out with Joe at this point before, so we'll now skip ahead...



To when we're fighting Merak. Just realised that I never let him Circumpolarity on the map before. So, let's do it now.



It is, indeed, a giant-ass Ice elemental laser.



It also DOES hurt the enemy teams as well as ours. Joe and Hinako here were just out of its range. Because I'm not a complete idiot.



In retrospect, having Null, Drain and Reflect kinda make it not worth it. Except for watching it blast a Tenong Cut on the enemy team.

That was worth it.



Titania drained Merak. Merak died and had 0 MP after one shot.

Expected and also a relief. It we couldn't do this, I'd be a tad worried.


...Because now we get a proper map. First let's fuse some things.



We'll start with an Elemental. This is sort of needed, since it helps us out more than anything else.



Two Fairies give us Aeros. Wind-oriented Element, nothing too fancy. We're not done yet though.



We'll make a second Aquans. We used one of these as an actual demon for a bit, so we've seen him at length, no less.

...But what if we do something weird? We know they rank up and rank down demons (except Fiends, Heroes and a few special other demons) but what if we fuse Aquans AND Aeros together?



This gives us a Mitama. Elements technically don't have ranks, in the traditional sense, because they're utility. We couldn't fuse Mitamas at all before this playthrough, since we had to buy the right to do so from the NG+ achievement store type thing.



Mitamas then are special demons within special demons. We'll fuse Kusi Mitama here with Titania. Top-screen left so we can see her stats right now.



And if we fuse her with Kusi Mitama, we get... Titania. But with 3 more Agility.

Wait, what? What's going on here then?

Mitamas are very special. They don't change the resulting demon; they're vessels to transfer skills around, but their main use is that each Mitama grants a guaranteed 3 points to a stat. Kusi Mitama grants points to Agility.

They do absolutely nothing else. Their sole use to grind out bonus stats. Best done with a demon at base values with no stat gains already though, since those don't necessarily carry across at a perfect 1:1 rate.

But the real question is: is this abusable? Oh you bet it is. We're not doing anything particularly insane with this just yet, but we will.

Oh dear God we will.



So, let's go see what this map is about. Father Time is the first New Game+ exclusive optional boss fight.

It counts solely as a Free Battle to not advance the in-game clock and make you miss something. It does NOT count as a Free Battle for the "no free battles" reward.


[Music: Countdown]



Convenient, because with them there is no need to ever do normal free battles anyway. They are REALLY good for grinding levels.

Yes, that is a Yama in the bottom right corner.


How unlucky of you to be so young... For your short life is almost over!
If you wish to subvert destiny, you must first defeat this old geezer...!

[Music: Desperate Situation]



Yeah, so we only need to beat the Sage of Time to win here. But this is a good time to rack up easily leve-

...Yes, that is a Pazuzu in the bottom left corner. Yes, he has Holy Dance and will probably use it on us.



We've already got everything crackable here though. This will be a trend for quite a while, even through these fights, because there's barely anything we don't have.



The Sage himself is only really a minor threat at most. Biggest issue here is that it's not
entirely possible to plan for him if you don't know he's coming. Lack of compendium being the largest issue there.

Oh, he has around 700HP and prefers to use Petra Eyes and Attack All +Stone kicks over Holy Dance or the like.



Let's thin some of these lesser demons out before hand. Naturally, the Sage has an attack range of 3. Because he's basically Ghost Q but easier.



This Abraxas/2x Basilisk thing is weirdly out of place on this map, to be honest. That's not really a problem though.



EXP, sadly, does not even scale upwards. Still gives us a little under 3k for a bunch of useless shit, though.

That's two levels for Hibiki right off the bat.



The Wendigos over here are also kind of well below the average of the rest.



We didn't even really need to do this, but Purple Mirror can destroy them effortlessly.



The Sage himself will also move. His attack range of 3 might be a mild issue with this but eh. We'll be fine.



Thankfully Yama was an idiot and attacked Hibiki. If he went for Io, he'd still die horribly mind you.



It just wouldn't quite be as embarassing or have the chance to happen from three different dudes.



Io's not had anything to fight yet. She'll get to whet her appetite on this Scathach.



Or rather Alilat will drop a single Agidyne on it. That was around 8 times her max HP.



Beginning to wrap up at this point, and Joe's gonna take out the other Wendigo.

Only thing he can reach unfortunately.



Bai Suzhen paralysed herself and Joe with Paralyze for what thats worth.



Okay, that's enough of that. Let's punch the shit out of this dude.


[Music: Shudder]



Due to his penchant for attacking everyone physically at once, I brought Wall since I remembered it existed for once.



It, um, proved to be completely unnecessary. Since Deathbound immediately obliterated it right off the bat. Kind of didn't mean for this one to happen!



3.1k EXP sounds pretty nice at this stage on paper, and it actually even IS, but... it only gave one level.



Still not too shabby to get 5 levels from 3 skirmishes, though.



If we actually had access to the compendium, or I bothered to rank these up further? This would've been pretty stupidly easy.



Due to the map's timing though, you either have to effortlessly obliterate it OR get obliterated by it.

I'm not sure there's a possible load-out to make this an interestingly fair fight.



And since it had the Free Battle tag, we don't get extra EXP just for winning this time around.

Ah well, we can milk these for super-easy EXP without it anyway. And we will. Oh dear god, we will.



Naturally, we can now fuse the Sage of Time himself if we want.



We don't. Dude fucking sucks even for a fiend. Since he's only available in New Game+ you'd think he'd be okay, right? Ahahaha. No. Nonononono. Fucking Billiken is better than Sage of Time.



The only Fiend worse is Ghost Q. Second-lowest ranked Fiend. New Game+ only. That is completely worthless.



Let's do something different and that I'm sure people won't enjoy long-term. Hanging out with Keita.


[Music: Exploration]



...Oh, it's you. What do you want?
Nice jab.
Like you know anything about it... Idiot.
Are you done talking? Then let me warn you...



Okay.
Yeah, that's right. Do whatever you want, just stay the hell outta my way.
I'm not in JP's to survive.
I joined JP's to make myself stronger.



That's all it is to me. JP's, you, and everybody else.
Got it? ...See ya.

Keita resumes beating on the sandbag...



Alright, that done we're finished up with Monday. Let's see what Tico has to say...

[Music: In the Devastated Town]



I kinda put together a rundown of the stuff you did today...
Well? Wanna hear it?
Let's hear it.
Ho-kay! Well then...!



And she told you about JP's starting to use the demon summoning app!
But you know that app we give people at Nicaea...?
Y'think those guys can rilly handle it?
After that, Daichi and Io went back to their houses!



It's like, what's the point of JP's helping, right?
And thennnnn... Oh! You worked with Mako-Mako to thwack those guys abusing the app!
Then again, how the summoning app is used depends on the one who got it!
If a good guy uses it, it'll be good. If a bad guy uses it, well, you get the picture.



Oh, and then you went to Osaka and saw Keita's death clip!
Oh, oh, and then there was the Festival Gate! You guys stopped by there too.
I remember you beating up the girl with her demons!
Hmm, should you have done that? Well, you were under attack, so I guess you had no choice?
But what if that girl was rilly doing the right thing? What would you do then?
After that, you met Hinako at Ebisu bridge, and went from there to save Keita.



After that, you went to JP's main branch and introduced Hinako to Yamato.
Hinako joined JP's! Yaaay! Or maybe not-yaaay? Hmmm!
Is JP's really the good guys?
Oh, and then! Have you ever seen anything as messed-up as the city of Osaka? Boy!
And Yamato told you a bunch of stuff about the world being in huge trouble...
Not only that, he showed you all the cities they heard from-- THEY were messed up too!
It was a rilly big downer. Daichi even ran off!



According to the girls, they're all named after the stars in the Big Dipper, right?
Soooo... does that mean the rest of them will show up eventually, too? Hmmm!
Well, I think that about sums it up!
Okay, then! Have a nice wheeee!









Huh, okay. So, we can get bonus emails from certain characters on some days. We've actually had one before now; these ones are based solely on having seen certain Fate scenes. I don't know the actual scenes necessary but its fine. There are some optional emails later that require Fate 5, having seen the right scenes AND being on the right routes too.

...Those're gonna be fun to get.




monsters

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