Part 40: The Fall of Luca Blight
This is by far the most important update in the entire LP.
Ridley gets returned to us safely, thank goodness. If you didn't recruit Kasumi, Chaco would be the one bringing him in.
Ridley doesn't know that “his” only refers to one person. Or perhaps the text is coded to only recognize Chaco, who knows.
It was totally your own fault
Magic
: Tonight... Luca Blight will lead a night raid. This will probably be our last chance. Deploy all the troops. Lay an ambush for Luca Blight and kill him.
or, all along, Jowy was trying to figure out how best to off him.
BEFORE we do anything we need to go do some training. The attack on Luca Blight is a three-part battle. Viktor and Flik head both of the other squads with us making up the last group. I would leave this to a vote but there's simply way too many characters to choose from. I'll be doing it myself.
Our team, the one that takes on Luca Blight last, will be composed of Shin, Rikimaru, Nanami, Luc, and Amada.
Flik's team will be Camus, Miklotov, Wakaba, Rina, and Tomo. I bring Wakaba along because I can put Camus in the back to use his personal Rage Rune.
And Viktor's team is as such. Kasumi and Mondo are here without Sasuke as Sasuke is not involved in their Unite and is therefore useless. Clive is there due to high Technique, making him hit multiple enemies very often.
Things are going to go very badly for you, Luca.
Those of you who have not played this game are about to witness how badass Luca is.
And the fact that his soldiers are well-trained to take arrows in the
Suikoden 2 Tunes – The Chase ~ Battle Against Luca (seriously must listen, fantastic battle theme)
The battles against Luca Blight are some of the toughest in the game. Luca takes half-damage from basically everything in the game aside from Lightning, which does normal damage. Each battle lasts as long as you do. There's a set amount of HP to knock off of Luca before the battle simply ends, or if he just runs through your party. Luca's also stupid fast, so watch out for that.
These battles typically catch a new Suikoden II player totally off-guard.
Luca attacks multiple times per round, and he is STRONG. Even with Fire Emblems to resist the Fire element attacks he has, you're still going to take up to 150 damage or more per round for your front line fighters.
But Explosion works well to take out his troops.
Tomo's here to do... whatever, I guess.
Luca primarily uses fire attacks. It's a good idea to equip Fire Emblems on whoever can equip them.
This is the Pretty Boy Unite, one of the coolest in the game. It's also the only one that flashes the character portraits of the characters involved. I think it should have been put into every Unite.
He takes whatever HP damage you've dealt to him into successive battles, even if you lose.
Round two begins... now. I hope you still have The Chase on repeat.
This is the Ninja Attack with Kasumi and Mondo. It combines their Shrike and Mayfly Runes.
And this is Bob transforming with his Rabid Fang Rune. He ended up being rather useless because Luca has an incredibly high dodge rate for physical attacks AND physical Runes, so Bob ended up missing every single attack (although he took little damage thanks to boosted defense).
Luca's more annoying attack is to attack the whole front line.
Tengaar retaliates with Earthquake, the final Earth Rune spell. It takes out all his lackeys.
: Azure, right here, right now. I'll separate your puny little head from your puny little body!!
Time to bombard him with flying demon ships.
And family bonding.
This is the Manly Attack, a 2x damaging Unite between Rikimaru and Amada.
I find it interesting that Luc has low LUC. Anyway, the final battle with Luca is made much easier if you won the previous two battles, since you have less HP to burn through.
: You little swine... who do you think you are!! Why!! Azure!! Why are you the winner!! Why must I lose!! Is that my fate!! I can't die until all of you swine are wiped off the face of the world!!
Okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Viktor and Flik force their way into our party as we cut through White Wolves to get to Luca.
: I... I can't die... here...
: Fear is a stupid emotion.
: And what's that light... huh? Is this a cover?
Of course, Luca STILL isn't dead yet.
Nice pincushions, bros.
Suikoden 2 Tunes – Mad Luca (must listen)
An incredibly easy duel, but an awesome one nonetheless.
And thus, Luca Blight was defeated.
: Azure... why do you fight!!! Why do you wish to destroy me!!!>>> …
: Does your very soul fill with hatred and loathing?!!! Even if you kill me and defeat Highland, you haven't won peace!!! You'll have a defeated country screaming for our vengeance!! Hooohahahahahahahaha!!! Hohohohehehehhahahahaha!!! Excellent!! Excellent!! The rumbling in my body!!! The thirst that scorched my flesh!!! It's disappearing!!!
A madman, once capable of slaughtering the entire world... now dead, his madness ended.
But the war is long from over.
Fireflies fly in the wake of Luca's death,
upwards into a chaotic cosmos.
The attack on Luca Blight is based on a famous battle in Chinese history (thanks to Rangpur): "Supposedly Sun Tzu's descendant Sun Pin once ambushed an enemy general by carving 'P'ang Chuan dies under this tree' into the bark. When P'ang Chuan arrived, he called for a lantern so he could read the text. Sun Pin had hidden a company of archers in the darkness and instructed them to loose their arrows at the first light they say."