Part 41: A new demon of darkness

*: Back to the Tower, it's time to teach Isamu a lesson.

Boss battle: Taking Noah to school in the car of pain

*: The one thing that usually forces you to play by Noah's gimmick is his huge resistance to Almighty damage. He of course reflects physical damage so Pierce alone doesn't help, but combined with Freikugel, both resistance and reflection are bypassed entirely.

Alright, next up is Chiaki of course. Along the way, Shiva and Vishnu learn their final skills, Phys Drain and Phys Repel respectively. Yup.

Aaaand Chiaki goes down. Nothing unexpected happens here either. We couldn't beat her before she summoned the Hallel, but that's really no great problem. She did attempt to use Bael's Curse a couple times, though it was always on Beelzebub so that was good for a giggle. We have the three treasures at last, but there are still a couple things I want to do before the final battles. We head for a Terminal, and return to the Fifth Kalpa.

On the floor with the lady demons, we take the eastern ladder, and find the golden door that talked about us being a true demon.



Ooooh, these hallways were empty before, but there's a Cube here now.



And chests in the corners too! I don't think we'll need any of the stuff in here but it won't hurt to check it out. Lessee... Four Jades, twenty-five Lucky Tickets (!!!), three Deathstones, 150000 Macca, and three chunks of Magic Incense. Not bad!

As we leave the room, Beelzebub learns its final skill, Elec Boost.



*: To nobody's surprise...











*: Beelzebub leaps from level 86 all the way to level 95, making his true final skills accessible: Death Flies and Victory Cry. I doubt he'll have time to learn either, but we'll still put him to good use. And one such good use is very close by.



*: This is of course the door only Beelzebub can open.



Two Chests, one with 10 Balms of Rising, and one with 10 Soma. This is just a hunch, but I think the game wants us to be prepared for the final battle.

Of course, we really are prepared by now. It's been long enough, in so many ways. Let's head for the fight to end all fights. We have an infinite genocide engine to stop, and no one in heaven or hell can keep us from putting an end to its wretched cycle.















Cutscenes and boss battles: Light and Darkness

: Well that was a whole lot of Debilitating Lucifer's crotch.


*: A wrinkle that's easy to miss for the final battle is the Kagutsuchi phase: DEAD. This is of course because Kagutsuchi has just been killed. It's mostly for flavor, but it does have the side-effect of ensuring that neither Bright Might nor Dark Might can activate.

Anyway, Devil Lucifer! He's level 99, with 40 in all stats, as well as 65535 HP and 65535 MP. He has boss immunities, on top of a 75% resistance to physical, magic, and Almighty damage. Essentially, anything that's not a Pierce-enabled physical skill will barely scratch him. Deathbound/Vitality builds and Freikugel/Strength builds work fine, but if you've got a Magic build relying on Boosted elemental damage, you pretty much have to let your squad take care of the offense.

Lucifer's resistances are why Dante's not so great for this fight. He's literally the only recruitable demon in the game who can't learn Pierce. Apart from Holy Star and Provoke, he has no support abilities; Lucifer doesn't use -nda effects and you definitely don't want to increase his attack power. The demon hunter can't do anything worth doing.

Lucifer knows Dekaja, Dekunda, Diarama (kind of a joke, really), Prominence, Glacial Blast, Mabufudyne, Megidola, and Megidolaon. Apart from Dekaja and Dekunda, seeing him use any of those skills is something of a relief, because that means he's not using one of this three signature moves. Evil Gleam, the one we haven't seen, is a group-targeting Charm attempt with a base 60% hit rate. High King is a powerful group-targeting Almighty attack with a 100% chance to Bind (though it only worked once because of our allies' ailment resistances). And Root of Evil has a random effect on every party member: it may cut current HP by 50%, 75% or 90%, or more rarely inflict Mute, Poison or Stun instead. I think even High King doesn't quite match Infinite Light in terms of raw face-melting power, but it doesn't take two whole turns to cast, and Lucifer still generally hits hard enough that you want to keep up stacks of Debilitate and Rakukaja to make sure that you can survive him following up on a worst-case-scenario Root of Evil.

Okay. So. What's next?

Cutscene: The time has come

: Wait. Wait wait wait. Don't leave us hanging here, lady!
: My apologies. That is as far as I can see.
: What!? Come on! Just a little more! We gotta see who wins!
: Dude, this is fairly non-trivial. You're asking her to look past the death of time.
: That does present something of an unsurmountable difficulty. If it wasn't for the strength of this young man's spirit, we could not have seen even as little as we have.
: Gah. Aw cripes. Sorry man, I guess this was a waste of your time after all.
: It... it really wasn't.
: Eh? I wanted you to see how you would've ended up, and-
: I appreciate the sentiment, but... That wasn't me. I didn't make those decisions. All I saw was... someone who looked like me, and who did things I'm glad I didn't do.
: No regrets, then?
: Ha, are you kidding? Nah, I'm... I'm glad things turned out the way they did.
: I for one am certainly happy to have been brought back!
: The death of a world... Sure would have been a hell of a thing to carry on your shoulders, huh?
: There's still the death of infinite billions of worlds out there, though.
: All of them with their own copy of the Scriptures of Miroku, all of them with a Demi-fiend calling the shots, and all of them with the potential to be reborn like this one was. It's not your responsibility.
: I know. I... I know. And in any case, I'm relieved I didn't turn into... into that creature.
: Creature? Well that's a little rude, isn't it?
: ...what the-
: Wait, what is he doing here?
: This is impossible!
: Death's vastness holds no peace. I come at the end of the long road. Neither human, nor devil... all bends to my will!
: Huh?
: Just looking for honest opinion from the only person I can trust. I'm whupping a bunch of cannibals and I figure I might try that line on them for effect.
: Cannibals?
: Long story. Anyway, you dig it?
: Ehhh... A little overdramatic.
: Yeah, thought so. Maybe I could write it down somewhere. That kinda stuff always reads better in your head than said out loud, doesn't it?
: Oh yeah, absolutely.
: Hey, uh... How's Pixie doing?
: She's kicking ass, no worries. I'll tell her you said hi.
: Much obliged.
: Man, you have no idea. Aight then, I'm hopping back out before someone misses me. Smell ya later, chumpos.
: ...
: ...
: ...
: ...how many rules did you break to make this happen, again?
: Damn, multiverses are weird.

*: Well hey, speaking of long roads ending, it looks like this sucker's just about wrapped up! Man, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. What a trip. A million thanks to everyone who walked this path with me on the Brontoforums and Something Awful alike, to all who might walk it in the future, to all who've commented and discussed, to all who've read and to all who've allowed me into their minds ever so slightly and gave me the chance to showcase this masterpiece of a game. And of course, much gratitude goes to Atlus, for crafting it in the first place, and for having the brass gonads to release it outside of Japan in such a faithful form!
: And hey, uh, I'm not sure how this works, but, thanks everyone for giving me my world back.
*: Now go out there, keep your eyes wide open, find your own Reasons, and once you got 'em, hold on tight. Don't worry, it's not like the world can get any rounder, right?
: That's it? That's what you're ending on?
*: Yeah, pretty much.
: You gotta kill your darlings, that's basic.
: I guess you're safe, then.
: Man I get no respect.
*: Awwww, come on. Get over here. Group hug!
: Bah, fine.
: Ha, no complaints!
: Hey, this is almost not awkward at all.
: Nice!
: Wait. Which one of you is getting excited?
: I... don't... What... what the-
: Ack!
: I LOVE YOOOOOOOOOU~~~~
*: I guess I was wrong. This is what I'm ending on.
: Oh for the love of-