Part 42: My true Rune of Punishment!!

The endgame is coming up, and for this episode I recommend watching all the videos.



After kicking Cray in the pants, it's back to Lazlo and the main party. Sadly, these guys don't get any interesting dialogue; the NPCs you pick for this section are solely there to kill shit for you.

This is where Graham Cray is... The man who decimated our village!

That's nice and all, but you're not coming because no one voted for you.



Lazlo enters the same way Elenor's group did. It was not very interesting the first time, and it is even less so the second time around. The encounter rate hasn't got any better, either.

I do like how we're actually visiting the locations we've been shown in the cutscenes with the Kooluk crew. The room with the big table they sat around is here and we can visit the hallway where Troy threw a knife at Ramada as well as the basement I showed off last time. It just isn't enough to actually make the dungeon interesting.



We have to make our way up the exact same way the previous party did...



...but Lazlo's group can advance further and search this room through the door on the right side, which allows them to progress to the second half of the dungeon.



Amusingly, you can catch a nap on one of the couches. (I've used Slash on everything I came across, so I haven't lost any HP. But I still took a nap, because I could.)



Here's an interesting thing. There's a door on the second floor, but all it does is tell you it can't be opened. There's nothing else to it. I imagine they might have had something planned at some point, but again, Suikoden IV Was Rushed.



Instead, we want this, across from the useless one.



In a nice attention to detail, they actually remove the lock when you open it!



This is the second half of the final dungeon. It's shit.



This may look creepy and atmospheric and all, but see this spiral staircase? The second half of the dungeon is a spiral staircase.



I told you about stairs. Well, "stair" at this for a couple of minutes and you'll get the authentic experience. Well, most of it; it's still interrupted by random encounters every few steps.



A million fucking stairs later, we finally reach the top. I assume we're, like, level with the clouds at this point. Fuck Kooluk, and fuck Kooluk architecture. Someone needs to plot laser this place out of existence.



Cray awaits us inside. (Highly recommended)



The Rune's memories... Among them... did you see a child?

He said... he wanted some bread...

Bread?
Hahahahaha! Wonderful!!



As most of us have probably figured out from Elenor's little story the previous night, Cray did once bear the Rune of Punishment. He inherited it from his son, who died in the incident that led to Cray and Elenor being thrown out of Scarlet Moon. Cray never attacked the Scarlet Moon nobles - in fact, they attacked his village, and it was his son who wiped them out. (They actually showed us part of this after using the Rune on the deserted island, but I can't blame you if you've forgotten about it by now.) Cray ended up taking the blame for it, as well as the Rune of Punishment.



In an act far too metal for a game this mediocre, Cray decided that destiny could go fuck itself and lopped off his left hand, eventually replacing it with the Megabuster he's seen sporting here. However, in time, he seems to have come to regret that decision.

Long ago, that Rune choose us. It didn't choose you!

Knowing what he knows about it, this seems rather suicidal.

This country must grow stronger. The islands... Your lives... You exist only to fulfill our destiny...

But Cray never came across as entirely sane anyway, so who can tell what he intends.

I'm going to for a moment here. Again, this is a lot of wasted potential. Cray is a pretty cool looking character, in a "holy fuck get it away from me" kind of way, but he never becomes more than that, and the plot dump comes too late to really make me care. He could have been more sympathetic if they made more of the part where he was blamed for a crime he did not commit. He's looking for the Rune because it contains the memory of his son, which is an understandable and human motive, but he just comes across as a dick when we find out he does this after he threw it away originally and is now starting a war to get it back. Cutting off your arm to spite destiny is an incredibly badass thing to do, but here it doesn't really work to his advantage.

I think Cray would actually have been a great protagonist with a few changes - the events in his backstory could easily have made for a tragic, sympathetic hero. I would play the fuck out of a game where you're this middle-aged man wrongly accused of committing a terrible crime, out to get revenge and retrieve the artefact that consumed his child.



But he's just the villain of Suikoden IV, so whatever.

When it comes to a battle of wills, I have no doubt that mine shall prevail against yours!

Bring it!



...wait, what? I thought you said battle of wills.



So yeah, Cray animated the giant tree, or maybe just woke it up or something, stop asking me how these things work.



Ladies and gentlemen, our final boss!



The most name of any final boss ever! (At least the music isn't too bad.)



The tree is sort of interesting from a mechanics point of view, I guess. It has several colour-coded phases and will advance through them as the fight goes on.



It uses different attacks in each phase, some of them inducing various ailments, while the two Seeds of Light attack for mostly minor damage and sometimes heal the tree a little. You can kill them, but it regenerates them after a while.



True Friends Attack is pretty cool.



The final phase is white, and when it reaches this stage it's in your best interest to use Rush. See, one property of the Rush command that has never been important before is that it doesn't cut between turns - it actually takes up a turn, even though the enemy side doesn't get to act.



If left alone in the white phase, the tree will blast the party with a very powerful attack which may kill weaker characters from full health (at least if you come here at normal endboss levels). Using Rush, it never gets a chance, and the white phase only lasts for a single round before it sinks back into a lower phase again. Should you not have Rush ready, the best bet is probably to just defend with the entire party. (Although at these levels, I'm pretty sure I could just tank the hit.)



Still, since I'm like 10-20 levels higher than I "should" be at this stage... it's not a threat.



Also it explodes when it dies because that's what endbosses do.


You were once cut off from this body. Now... you do not wish to return to it again?

No shit! You told it in no uncertain terms to fuck off. How is this a surprise?



Anyway rocks fall, etc etc



We're spared the trek down the stairs, thank fuck, and deposited just outside the door that leads in to them. From there, we just have to run downstairs and out, but there are still enemies around. Because staying here and fighting us is more important than running and escaping the crumbling castle, obviously.



Yeah, I think that might be a good idea!



However...



...it's not going to be that easy. Troy hasn't had enough, and challenges Lazlo to a duel!



Challenge... accepted.



Watch the final duel. As before, I try to make it a little less one-sided than "hit guy with sword until he falls over".



I gave Lazlo a lightning rune piece so his weapons glow purple instead of green now. It's exciting!



Anyway, Troy is kind of a pushover when he doesn't have his infinite HP hax turned on, and that makes fool number V to get their shit ruined by a mute teenage boy. (Or possibly a mute guy who just hit 20 or something, I dunno, don't take these things so seriously.)

(Good thing, too; dying here would have meant re-doing the final boss fight, too.)



Yes, it has. I remained true to myself until the end. I remained a warrior... You have my gratitude.



Troy has a brief flashback to that other time he met Lazlo.



I told you I'd make you regret looking down on me.



Troy was also a load bearing boss, and his ship sinks like a stone. Not very many people with names and faces left outside Lazlo's army!

Damn that idiot... Wasting his precious life...



...wait. You mean to tell me this fucker somehow managed to stay up here without getting flattened by a falling rock? There is no justice in the world.

What now?



You too? That's the least impressive final dungeon collapse ever!

What if... I didn't answer?



He starts to walk away, but a rock falls in front of him.

I have a good idea what it is you wish to ask me... but... I will not respond. I leave you to speculate, forever without answers. I can think of nothing that will harm you more.

You are such a child. Just admit you lost, already.

Humans are the fools of this world. And being a human, you are no exception... And neither am I...

Are you going to stand for that, Elenor?



No. No, she's not.

Looks like I'm going to have to train you all over again from scratch...



Hmmph...



Meanwhile, on the boat.

But... But Lady Elenor is still...

...



HOLY FUCK I take everything back! That's an amazing final dungeon collapse!



Well, correction: it would have been amazing if it were a little further away.



Lazlo!!

Nope, he still can't say it. It's just a grunt.



You know the drill by now. We're in danger... and the only way to get out of it is to use our horrible protagonist-munching death laser!



But it just so happens that I have a bone to pick with that place anyway. Eat burning plasma death, ye foul staircase of the damned!

...

To be concluded.