Part 27: Nereid's Labyrinth

[YOUTUBE] (~29 minutes, plus 10 minutes dungeonchat)

We've gone through several optional dungeons and optional bosses already but are we done NNNNNNNOPE!

Introducing: Nereid's Labyrinth. The official optional superdungeon for Tales of Eternia. A randomly generated maze where you can only use a single character, and have to pick a new one for each floor. And we're doing this on Hardcore mode, baby!!

This officially marks the last bit of optional content. After beating this dungeon and its superboss, all that's left to do is finish the game.


Boss Time

Regulus is this game's entry into the "Optional Superboss" category. He's basically Nereid with better spells and Farah's martial arts training <-- whoa there's the scariest sentence ever written.

Regulus doesn't have as much HP as some of the other bonus bosses, but he does know how to make it count. His high evade stat makes it difficult to score clean hits against him but it's not impossible, so keep up the assault. As always, your casters can pin him down to do some damage. He's not anchored to the ground though so Cyclone isn't as powerful as it is against other bosses. Instead you can rely on Earth Shaker, Holy Lance and Shooting Stars to do a number on him. Distortion is also a good spell if you need a reprieve - even though you can't damage him while it's doing its thing, you can munch on some items while he's down.

Like Shizel, Regulus has an unhittable angry ghost floating above him. The spirit has all of the best spells, from Absolute to Explode to Distortion to Shooting Stars, and it can't be interrupted. You just have to deal. He starts with the smaller stuff, only busting out Shooting Stars and Eternity Swarm when his health gets lower. He is also a fan of Summon Pluto and uses it frequently.

Regulus proper is also a piece of work. His energy orb attack goes through your party members and inflicts poison onto people, so you're going to be forced to equip status protection in order to ward it off. He also possesses a pose which, when hit, will initiate his Mirage Chain counterattack (ending with the spell Explode because why not). When his health drops low enough he is able to occasionally summon a sword and strike everyone standing directly in front of him. The sword attack is preceded by a whistle, and it does an astronomical amount of damage should you fail to get out of the way quickly enough.

Defeating Regulus awards you with the Hyper Gauntlet from his throne after. This should be the last piece of equipment required for the Ishtar Effect. Equipping the Druaga Equipment (Excalibur, Blue Shield, Gold Armor, Gold Helm, Hyper Gauntlet, Jet Boots) grants Reid the following benefits:

- Attack and Defense increased (Not sure if the attack boost fully offsets downgrading to the Excalibur though)
- HP and TP regeneration, as if wearing the Holy Symbol and Mental Ring
- Immunity to status effects, as if wearing the Krona Symbol
- The ability to backstep with Down + Guard, as if wearing the Step Ring
- and of course the running speed boost and other benefits from the equipment you're actually wearing


Anyway, if you've gotten this far then stick with us for the conclusion to Tales of Eternia!