The Let's Play Archive

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

by Dragonatrix

Part 16: Sahasrara



Alright, yet again we're done with optional content so it's off to Sahasrara we go. The war is over, we won, let's see what this "Nirvana" thing is all about...

Sahasrara



If we try, they kill us. What the hell's going on?

...Is what I'd like to say, but apparently we have A Problem. Question, though, is obvious enough; is it true? Maybe that guy wasn't let in because we weren't around at the time.



Get out of my way.



...Okay, I guess they are going to attack us after all!

Big Battle
no this is not a boss fight i dont care what the game thinks



So, the Karma Temple Guards... are colossal pushovers. They have almost nothing interesting resistance wise except the usual death, expel and ailments. Which doesn't matter since Cocytus can still freeze them and then they die.



They do have their own little special attack but its nothing fancy.



Only big quirk with Impale is that, despite what you might think normally, its a Force elemental attack not Physical.

This matters in approximately no ways at all.

Speaking of which, they're immune to physicals normally so we just keep blasting them with spells. Yawn.


Spider's String



After kicking the guard's teeth in, we approach the temple proper. Before we can enter, this short scene triggers first.



Stand down.



Oh, and apparently the guards are... robots...? Well, I guess we can just file them under the Machine race and move on.

...What? If a mannequin counts as a Machine, these guys are overqualified for it.


One without code has been recognized as "Cyber Shaman."







However, you are not permitted to kill them under any circumstances.

Sahasrara



Since we've got the chance before chasing after Sera, let's see what some of our party thinks about this new problem.



Oh, and also there's this guy over to the side. He's important.

So, we're going to ignore the fuck outta him for the time being. Just... remember he exists.




These probably aren't orders from the Karma Temple. You saw what Sera was capable of...

Spider's String ~ The Second Movement
hey, you see this? click this. a lot of dds music is REAL good but this is one of the few that stand out as being above the rest



So, the Karma Temple... we've been here before, and I'm not going to insult your intelligence by presuming you don't know what karma is.



Much like before, there are a couple of guards standing in our way before we can proceed further.



These ones are identical to the pair outside, so we Taunt them and then hit them with Materadyne.



This almost-but-not-quite kills them.



The only other interesting thing these guys have beyond Impale is Marevert which... is not new. It's also just what you would expect; a spell that tries to revert the entire party to human.

The guards are immune to gun attacks but this also does not matter in the slightest.



Like before, after we send the guards to the scrapheap, we get a little scene of Sera. We're basically right behind her and she just walked into a dead end, so there's no need to hur-



Yeah, right. She makes a new walkway appear leading up to... the Dissemination Machine?



Which is actually a secret elevator that leads up to the top of the Karma Temple.

...That actually makes sense. Huh.



So, we follow right behind Sera and go up immediately after she was kind enough to send it back down.



Pfft, like it would really be that easy. Despite the elevator clearly going up after we boarded it, it actually sends us all the way down to the temple's basement area...


Silence



...and the basement just so happens to be the Sea Ocean of Milk. The fifth of seven oceans that surround Loka (the world, basically) and the one where Vishnu and Lakshmi live. The latter of which was actually produced by the Ocean when it was churned.

It also just happens to be what Amrita, the nectar of immortality, is made of. So, uh, we ended up somewhere preeeeetty important.




Stage 1 process of repurifying discarded information currenly in progress...



Well, I guess now we know where every other named character ended up after we beat THEM up originally. That they've all been eaten by now is pretty irrelevant.



Although, we only know they were Asuras because the game told us that in the fights and stuff. It's not something we'd know otherwise.




That explains the absence of children.





We can't let her do that!



Nothing else down here, and the elevator we just left will only take us back to that meeting room so we ned this one further in the back.

Big Battle ~ Prelude



Of course it's NEVER that easy! Just once...



That is the Cyber Shaman's will. Leave at once.



Well, okay, if you insist... Guess we've gotta murder the churning rope of the ocean of milk now.

Mini-Boss: Dragon Vasuki

Hunting ~ Comrades



Vasuki has a weakness. He is weak to fire. This is basically the sole reason I cannot, in good conscience, consider him an actual boss at this point. Also he has somewhere around 4750 HP (it's definitely sub-5000...). That's pretty sad!



His one big main attack gets irreversibly and totally shut down by Ice Drain. To the point where if you put it up, he's smart enough to not use it.

Not Ice Repel, though. He'll still use it then but only because he drains ice.



Whenever this happens, he switches to Maziodynes. So, I guess don't bring Gale?



And ailments, so I guess don't bring Cie-

wait shit this does not matter because vasuki is fuckin bad at making them stick



And... Megidola. Sure, whatever Vasuki.



Without buffs or debuffs this barely scratches high double digits and barely breaks 100.

So, I guess this just raises the question of "what DOES he do if you don't Ice Drain?"

...More of the same, mostly, to be honest. There is, however, one other skill he has access too:



Hima Alaya. Yes, like Himalaya. Haha very funny.



It's unique to Vasuki, so we will never ever get it. It deals middling damage but hits everyone once and has a VERY high freeze rate. It's just Cocytus but without the random number of hits basically.



Even with that, he's not overly threatening. He just abuses guaranteed crits if he can get it off but he never should so whatever.


End

Silence



With Vasuki beaten, we can take the elevator up an indeterminate amount and discover we are almost 500 feet below ground level.

...Well, let's get climbing then. This might take a while.


Hunting



As you would expect, the Karma Temple does bring with it some new enemies. First up to bat is Pazuzu who's... surprisingly non-threatening and weak to Force spells.



Rakshasas aren't really much better though, what with having three weaknesses. One of which is an ailment that shuts them right the fuck down, and another which means we can drop a Xanadu and straight up murder them.



Also, yes, Temple Guards technically have no race and are complete jokes once we enter the temple proper. Only thing that maybe gives them a small advantage is no weakness.



Reinforcements are pretty random here, but they're all really quite easy. 3 Rakshasas sounds like it might be a problem briefly.

Then you use Xanadu or Tentarafoo and suddenly it's not!


Silence



Alright, so we'll make our way up for real now. There's only one door here, but we can see a dead end to the upper-left and what is probably progress to the upper-right.



And wouldn't you know it? Right past the door is a fork in the road. We'll go west first, of course.



Since that lets us go around and pick up the HP Noise.

Doubling back and heading right next...



We can see a new split in the road ahead. This time, it's two opposite staircases and we don't really have any immediate way of telling which is which.



...But a little bit more to the west, we can see a golden node on the upper level. So, the left staircase it is then.



Which does indeed let us spin around and get the cell. So now we double back and take the right staircase instead.



This brings us to a new branch of two staircases. Right was, uh, right before so we'll take it again this time.



This time around, it's just a dead-end with 2 MP Noise in it. So, we'll double-back and take the left one then.


Spider's String ~ The Second Movement



That brings us back up to ground level, and lets music finally play again.



It also brings us to the second large terminal of the area. The first one being the one way back at the actual entrance so now we can warp out if we'd like.



Pfft, nah, let's keep going. There's nothing to the south once we advance further onwards, so let's just head further on in.


Hunting ~ Rare Devil



So, now that we've got the Magatama we can destroy Omoikanes. Like, all of them.



Even the ones in the Karma Temple. Admittedly, it only works out all that well when dealing with one of them. Still not quite
perfect for multiple ones but hey.



Whenever they turn up right now, they still give us at least a single level for the trouble. Sometimes two if we start close enough to a new level up.

225k Macca isn't too bad for something that we can one round consistently. Only problem is they're rarer than Saki Mitamas, take the same time to kill and give worse money.

Point is, Omoikanes are not very good to farm once you actually can!


Spider's String ~ The Second Movement



So, back on the main road, there's a very hard to miss door. It's wholly optional, so of course we're going to see what's past it.



It's just a pair of yellow walls, huh? Alright, so the one on the left first I guess.



Nothing too stellar back here now. Great Chakras aren't all that overtly useful most of the time now that we have the Chakra Elixir. Still have their uses, but in very limited spots.



On the way to the other wall, we hit a couple new demons. Suparna's, uh, easy but not particularly exciting. Likes to debuff and is only weak to Gun but gets ruined by a lot of things anyway so whatever.



Ganesha on the other hand is a bit more of a nuisance. Just stab him a lot and throw ailments out like mad and he drops pretty easy though. Ragnarok is a special attack that's almighty elemental and combines a decent hit-all attack AND drops defense too.

Ganesha sometimes comes with Girimehkala which is kind of annoying because there you can't just Auto and win.



Behind the second wall is a golden item container which contains our monster-in-a-box battle.



It's just the one Samael. This is very much not a threat at all, but oops I forgot to bring fatal Hunt skills.



Doesn't matter, though. Samaels main offense is entirely physical related. And Revelation is his Big Move. Like probably going to hurt way more than Bloodbath.



See, it's just a regular Physical (which means it CAN be reflected, resisted and everything else!) and even has an added chance to inflict Mute and deals a decent chunk of damage. Enough to kill Sam in this instance.

which is a problem because you get like basically no ap at all for killing one without eating it



That done, we spin back to the main path and... run right past the next door we come to.



This lets us run down to a dead-end where we can pick up another cell, before turning around and heading back to the door.



This brings us to the second of... many small karma terminals. Like, there's tons more of these things to come.



Room next to it is just a small area with the next lift to a higher level.



Next area is pretty linear, but there's one small detour down a bit to the left there. Skipping that because it has a... slightly different purpose.



New area is the first of a few where we get this little special bit.



These Sera afterimages change up the dungeon a bit, and in ways that you'd think would suck and be awful.



....I don't mind it that much in this case. I may in fact be completely insane.



So, those lights that take up part of the walkway are kind-of teleporters. They don't actually teleport you anywhere too unusual or weird. They just drag you to the path to your left, right or down. And it's usually really obvious where its going to send you.



From that first one, we just go up-down-up and we can get to a Soma Drop. The teleporter blocking this one drops us down a floor, to that small area we ran past before.



Actually making it through here is easy. Just go to this area on the far right of the room and... hold up.



Do that, and it spits you right out by the exit. Most of the "teleporter" mazes here are that simple.



...And immediately afterwards, we come to the third small terminal. This one's at least in the room with the next elevator.



Which, um, sends us shooting up almost 1500ft.



The next elevator is dead ahead on the main route, but of course there's a pseudo-teleporter dropped right in the way.



And this one sends us down a floor. So now we have to a pretty sort-of long run around just to get back here.



In our new area, we run into Catoblepas as regular encounters now. They're basically the same as the one from Ajna but much weaker.



From here, we'll just run to the north for a moment.



This brings us to a small area with a red wall in it.



There's also an item container with a couple Medical Kits in it that we'll never use. And a teleporter hiding over in the corner that... we'll never use.



Past the red wall, we get a short run to a tiny room with nothing in it but a Fusion Cell.



Doubling back now, we'll head up those stairs we saw before but ignored.



So, an optional area over here that we never have to come to. It does at least let us see where our main objective here is (those stairs to the far south). That door to the south-west from here, right around the corner, is how we enter/exit this part so we'll head back through it now.



After returning back to the main corridor, we can run past another door that obviously leads onwards. By doing this we can make it to...



An easily missed small terminal (that makes four) and another red wall. This one leads to the...


Karma Temple Field Hunt



This one is deceptively simple. Two rooms, one thats a small corridor and one that is a tiny room where a lot of stuff happens. It mostly is as easy as it sounds, but there is one part where you can fuck up big time; a singular orb spawning behind you in an easily missed corner. And since you have only 60 seconds and a dcent chunk to do in that time, not getting it immediately can cost you the hunt.



And we only get 3 Sakis for our trouble too! How... disappointing.



That's still a decent chunk of money and AP, don't get me wrong, but 3 of any mitama is not really the best way for it to go.


End



That particular field hunt is a good one to abuse for easy AP and money since it's right next to a small terminal. Well, y'know, if you can't handle Samaels and the like anyway. It's not that convenient in the grand scheme of things, what with only getting one fight every few minutes.



Following the main path, we come to another pseudo-fork. We won't head down the stairs here, so we'll just continue onwards.



Following the path onwards, we come to another room with a clear red wall at the far side of it.



And, of course, yet another small terminal in the middle of the room.



Past the red wall, we get a short run to a tiny room with nothing in it but a Fusion Layer Cell.



From there, we'll head up the staircase we could see from the terminal. Skipping past all the divergences in the path, we'll follow it further in.



No terminal here, but there's a red wall in the corner (look at the map) and another item container.

Which contains a Revival Gem. Completely unnecessary that.

Past the wall, we find...



...Huh. That shouldn't happen, but it does because Field Hunts work in a dumb way. See, the temple is the only one to have 2 field hunts so they clearly didn't program in anything for this. Doing one field hunt prevents you from doing the other until you fill out the five solar noise cycles first.



There is no way to know this is a thing other than in this one instance, because, again, this is the only time it comes up. It feels like some kind of glitch or something, really.


Karma Temple Field Hunt (2)



So, we just run around in the big room at the bottom again until it cycles enough for it to be doable.



And this hunt is marginally better than the other one. Four Sakis instead of three! A bit disappointingly easy for the last field hunt of the (first) game but hey.



At least its kind enough to give us almost half a million for winning in one round.


End



The path from opposite the red wall leads to the room we want to go next, but its not that easy (of course). There's a warp panel right in front of the stairs here that we can't use so we have to spin around to the doors on the south that bring us to the right part of the room.



And, yeah, from here's where the Ongyo-Kis can turn up. In obscenely rare cases.

still not worth it



So, there's a bunch of warp spots here. We want this one, though. Fortunately it's right ahead when you enter the room!

Yes, yet again the solution is "hold the up button."



Merely doing that brings us right to the elevator we were trying to get to originally.



This drops us off at another new dungeon mechanic. It's not quite easy to see here, but there's a transparent wall there by Sera.



Thankfully, this is where we get a third large terminal.

So, that hard to see wall from before? Probably a fake. Let's just run straight south and foll-



Yeah, so this gimmick is actually kinda annoying. Invisible walls that become not-invisible as you approach. And "real" walls that actually disappear as you approach exist too. Mostly these aren't a problem since their locations are obvious.



...Unfortunately, there's the occasional one which you can't predict that exists solely to make you run around more. Those ones also appear in seemingly arbitrary and stupid places just to annoy you.



Ah well, here's something nice. Isis turns up here now too. She's also running around in the Samsara Tunnels underneath Manipura which is probably the more convenient place to fight her though.



She's nice enough to give us MP Noise, you see. Granted, these probably won't be THAT useful but hey. Every little helps.



Progress here is through that path to Serph's right, but we'll just run straight ahead for now. We can actually get down there and around part of the corner.



...There's no real point to doing so, though. A Chakra Pot at this point is wholly unnecessary.



Moving on, we come to a pointless fork in the road. To the south...



Yet another small terminal. They're really giving these things out like candy at this point, huh?



Guess that means that progress is the path to the north, which means this wall isn't real.



And from there, we get to yet another fork in the path. We'll go left first.



This brings us to yet another dead-end with a terminal in it but with a twist. This one's a life terminal!



Oh there's also a Layer Cell here too.



So heading back to the main path next, then. We'll just head right from here, and follow that path around instead.



Because, of course, there's a wall right by the exit down here. We'd run right into that if we didn't come around here.



...Yet another small terminal now that we're done with that part. In case you haven't been counting this one is, uh, the seventh.

There's still plenty more to come too.



Moving on, this part is a lot simpler than it looks. There's all sorts of sidepaths and branches but... we just take the path to the north here and hold up. That's it.



From there, we come to another room that's more complex than it looks. Ther's actually two fake walls up here, and down the right one?



Another that exists solely to stop you getting an item. You can kinda see it on the left there, so we want the south-east path to get to this drop.



Back to the double-fake wall area, taking the left path from there we get... to an outside area for a bit. Huh. Also, two birds flying around out here a lot.



This part is really weird but simple. See, there's clearly no way to progress along the path here.



So, we have to flip a switch nearby. Seems reasonable enough, right? But this switch does not make this platform raise or the other drop or something.



No, it makes a giant column of light appear in the middle of this platform.



Which we then have to run into to make this part rise up. In doing so, it reveals a set of stairs that lead back down to where we just came from.



We have to do this a couple more times, which absolutely no variance whatsoever. And in doing so, we get the chance to take out a second Omoikane just for fun.



After the third pillar of light, we finally reach the end of this segment. We know we're done, because the camera lets us see a new door.

man it sure is convenient that those birds never atta-


Big Battle ~ Prelude



oh

Leave at once. I repeat, leave at once.

Boss: Aerial Jatayu

Big Battle



So, Jatayu does not have a lot of health. It's around 2200, which is... abysmal, quite frankly. So we'll just ruin his defence and slaughter him in no time.



Only, no, we won't. Jatayu will Dekunda and Dekaja at the slightest provocation. Oh well.



He'll also spam Mudoon with reckless abandon. Thankfully, he's not smart enough to care about things like immunity or reflection, so he'll do it with those around too.



He also likes to use Gate of Hell at times. This is basically just a regular attack but with a fancy twist...



It inflicts Stone. Catoblepas and Cerberus could both also do this, but they just... never wanted to. Oh well.



Since he gets three actions a turn, he sometimes uses them to do something semi-smart. He'll Taunt twice in a row.



And then follow it up by Dekajaing your 4x Tarukaja bonus. This is probably for the best because if he didn't, he'd be oneshottable.



Seriously, at base strength vs base defence, when you throw in a Power Charge he takes nearly 4 digit damage as is. Letting you buff or debuff would make things too dull.

So, instead, we just beat him in 3 hits and move o-


Boss: Aerial Garuda



...Well, there WERE two of these guys flying around out here. Only makes sense we fight both.



Leave immediately. Leave immediately.



Garuda is a little harder than Jatayu, in theory. He has more resistances (resists everything but physicals one way or another), more health (barely; somewhere in the region of 3000) and hits harder.

...On the other hand, he's more predictable and less inclined to Dekunda.

So, he dies in 3 hits too. 4 if you never bother to (de)buff. Oh well.



Attack-wise, he's much more limited than his cousin was. He likes doing the same attacks in basically the same order. Starts with Mabufudyne...



Then kicks someone for pretty meh damage. Remember, this 94 is with 2 Tarukajas still around.



Then he Mind Charges. This would normally be the end of it, but if Mabufudyne hits Heat or his attack Criticals...



He follows it up with a Zandyne.



And, man, it is pretty bad when a Mind Charged Zandyne cannot kill Argilla.

Bad for him, I mean. Mind Charge + Weakness should ruin her day, but it just means her magic is THAT good.



Ah wll, at least we get a decent chunk of Macca, a respectable amount of Karma and a Soma out of the deal.

Not much AP though, for a pair of bosses so late.


End

Spider's String ~ The Second Movement



Right after we enter, we get to the fourth large terminal of the area. It took long enough, but finally Anahata has been dethroned from having the most.

Of course, there's also an elevator here too.



This one shoots us up... over 8000 feet... higher.

Man, I knew the temple was tall but this is getting silly now.



And, of course, Sera has to turn up and put another wall in our way.



So we take the one teleporter here and drop down a couple hundred feet.



The teleporter here is what we want to take, but we'll ignore it for the time being. There's something else here to pick up first.



No, it's not a random Garuda.

Yes, Garuda and Jatayu have immediately become random mooks. Not even a minute after beating the crap out of them.

Garudas are what drop Quick Noises, by the way. I do believe that means we've now seen at least one of every enemy that can drop Noise.



Anyway, if we just run to the corner of the room, we can get... a bad camera angle... and 2 Dekaja Rocks.



Heading back to the teleporter I pointed out before, we can continue onwards and run down this hallway past the obvious fake wall.



If we turn left immediately afterwards, we can find an alcove with yet another small terminal in it.



Repeat that a little bit further along the corridor, we can find another redundant Chakra Pot.



The next alcove is a dead end with nothing in it, so we'll skip that one and continue onwards down the one after that.



Skip the stairs leading up from here, and head to a... part of the room where the map accidentally spoils that there's something ahead here.



It's just a Great Chakra, but that's better than what it could have been I guess.



So, now we just head west from near the door and follow that path around instead. This lets us find the real stairs leading onwards.



Both staircases seem to lead to the same point, but the one closer to the entrance had a warp point at the top of it. Because of course it did.



The door to the north here actually leads onwards, but there's a wall right there after you enter, so we come down here instead.



And run into a Jatayu along the way. This one has no Dekunda, and has an added weakness to Guns. Pretty easy to deal with this at this point, really.



Running around the corner down in the south-east, we get to a teleporter which sticks us past an invisible wall and lets us carry on.



This lets us reach an area that seems... very complicated but is actually pretty simple. First, we'll take the teleporter to the south here (Serph's left).



From here, we get to a spot with three teleporters in it but only one is the right one. Can you guess which one it is?

Think, what's the pattern been mostly so far?

That's right. Hold up!



From there, we can carry on to a room which looks similar but isn't quite the same thing.

Just need to go through the teleporter to the south here, again, and that mostly solves the room already. There's two more teleporters needed, but the first is a choice of two (the west one) and the second is... the only one there is.



That done, we can climb a little higher and things can start to get a bit more complicated now. We want to get the teleporters here, but of course there's an invisible wall in the way.



So we run around the outer edge and get to a room which seems convoluted but is pretty simple. You can't see it from this angle, but there's a teleporter to the east here. We'll take that one first.



This drops us off right in front of a wall, so we pull a 180 and are given a selection of three teleporters. The south one is right, so we take that and that puts us here. This teleporter is the only choice, so we take it...



And hold up. That puts us over in this corner, and lets us reach the door at the end here.



From here, we are very, very close to where we're trying to get back to. Alas, there's another wall in the way so we have yet another detour to make.



Progress here can be a little tricky, so I'll try to explain it simply. After coming through the door, we head left and this gives us a choice of two teleporters. The one to the right (east) is the one we take first.



This lets us go through the northern most door and from there, we follow the path around until we reach this teleporter. This sends us to the west through a pillar. From there, we hold up to get through the next one teleporter, but only the one.



After that, we want to head to the teleporter to the west. Taking the "hold up" option here actually screws you. Atlus finally changed tactics right at the end of the teleporter not-maze.



After that, it's a very straightforward path to the final teleporter which puts us back where we want to be.



And just think, all of these detours and mazes would not be necessary if Sera hadn't turned on us at the worst possible moment.



After the final elevator, we ascend almost another 10,000 feet up and come to a totally-not-ominous corridor. A small karma terminal AND a life terminal? Pfft, that's not weird at all.



Okay, fine. I guess there might be some reason why they're there then.


Big Battle ~ Prelude



I'm sorry, everyone. I remember everything, now. I want you all to stay here. Please, don't come any closer. Trust me, this is for the best. ...Goodbye. Thank you for everything you've done.
That is all. Leave immediately.
My answer is no.
Then you face immediate termination.

Boss: Dragon Ananta

Hunting ~ Comrades



So, Ananta... the king of all snakes and used as a bed by Vishnu. His name straight up means endless, so we're going to put a very easy end to him. Because he's a chump.



He really likes using ailments. Basically every turn, he will try throwing out sleep, panic and/or paralysis in one way or another. His entire first phase is just "(ailment then) regular piss-weak attack." So, Repel Phys for the moment.



He also inexplicably has Dia. Like, yes, regular Dia.



And it's not some kind of super-Dia either. Its absolutely worthless.



He also quite likes to use Dekaja under certain conditions. Namely if you buff a bit too much or he loses over 1500 HP.



Depending on what triggers it, he'll follow up with 4 Tarukajas. This is not really all that big a deal. He won't Tarukaja if you force his phase-change with the HP loss so that's easy to deal with.



His second phase is spent abusing the fuck out of Mudoon and Mudo to murder you. He won't ever throw it out if you have some kind of death shield up though! Ananta's a bit too "smart" for that.

And by smart, I mean exploitable.



Oh, and even with his attack buffed to max, he's lucky to deal 100 damage.



There is a third way he can switch to the second phase of the fight. But in this case it's semi-worth it...



Because Power Charge -> Taunt -> a decent attack, cuts off over 2000 of his health jeeez. Since he has 5500 that's a decent chunk to drop immediately.



...Problem is, any debuffs cause him to Dekunda and start up phase 2. Complete with the 4 Tarukajas and everything.



Since he does it once he loses 1500 HP, he's very predictable. Like, you can set up Void Death and this changes his actions predictable.



Now instead of Mudo(on), he just hits you with his completely worthless regular attack. Just Void Death every turn until he hits phase 3 and you'll cruise through here.

Oh, right. Phase 3 is just the same as phase 1 but with a twist. If you put up Phys Repel/Void/Drain there, he just throws out Mudo(on)s instead. But since he only does that when he's in critical HP, you can just smash him with your best (physical/ice/electric) attacks and watch him die horribly.



Appropriately, Ananta is disappointing for a boss from the Karma Temple. All three were terrible and barely deserved the title. Vasuki was the worst of the lot, but Ananta wasn't that far behind really.

And for the penultimate boss of the (main) game, that is TERRIBLE. Ananta should've been kind of a challenge.


Spider's String ~ The Second Movement



Ah, well. With Ananta down for the count, we get... a small terminal (number 12!) and can converse with everyone else one last time.



We can't leave her alone now!



Hold on, Sera. We'll catch up with you, no matter what happens.



C'mon, Serph.



If we continue, then we probably won't be able to turn back.



Alright, so, we're at the top of the Karma Temple. We're given a prompt before we dive through the final door and meet what lies within...

Let me think.
Is there something on your mind, or are you afraid? There's a reason we'd gotten this far, and received the help of so many others. Don't forget that.

That's a good point, so just need to make sure I'm fully healed, make sure I've got everyone's skills setup and now...

I'm rea-

















Pfffft,yeah right. We were just outside the final boss's door. Of course now a whole bunch of stuff just unlocked without any indication.



We have a whole SIX new optional bosses to deal with in five locations. We'll start with the Four Supernovas and that means Svadhisthana's first up to bat.










So, yeah, not too many new skills this time around. Debilitate and Revelation we've seen before. Null Expel, Null Death and Phys Resist are passives that do exactly what they say. MAX Critical is the Max noise equivalent to MIN Critical, and Life Gain increases HP by 20%. Sakura Rage is random moderate damage which can Charm. Demon Rage is random heavy damage based on your HP.

Executioner is arguably the best Physical attack in the game, though (or second if you prefer Ragnarok). It is the only physical that deals Mega-tier damage and so will ruin whatever it hits. It's also remarkably cheap for how good it is but the trade-off is that it can only hit 1 enemy and doesn't do anything else.