Part 77: Final Sidequest Interlude: Part Two

Sidequest Interlude Part II

The Final Catalyst



: “There's fonon interference going on.”

: “So this is one of the planetary arte catalysts, too?”

: “It's at Yulia's grave. Might it have some relation to her?”

: “Yulia was a Scorer after all... this may be the staff she used.”

: “I hate to disturb her rest, but let's take it with us.”

: “Tear's her descendant, right? I'm sure she'll understand.”

: “Yulia... please forgive us.”



: “That map... it was of Mt. Roneal, right?”

: “I am worried that we still lack information on the planetary arte, but perhaps we should go...”

: “I'm so excited!”

: “I wonder what kind of arte it is...”



: “I don't know... I just suddenly got worried...”

: “Don't worry. If worse comes to worst, I'll protect you.”



: “What...?”

: “Uh...”

: “I-I didn't mean it like that...”

: “...Well fine, I didn't take it like that.”



So yeah, the final piece of this sidequest is hidden behind all of the same requirements you needed to hit Yulia's grave. You also have to leave the final dungeon two steps before the final boss to go do it. Naturally.

Sick of contemplating in front of peoples' graves? Too bad! Smash cut to Yulia City:

Last Words



: “What is it, Tear?”



: “What's that?”

: “...Legretta's final letter.”



: “If you are reading this, then I am no longer alive.”

At this point, the voice changes to Legretta.

: “So it is time that I confess something to you. Tear... I am a criminal who tried to kill your brother, Vandesdelca. Van killed my brother, though even that was written in the Score...”

Flashback!





: “...Are you an Oracle Knight?”

: “You bastard! Marcel trusted you! And you still sent him to the Battle of Chesedonia! You read the Score! You knew he'd be wiped out!”

: “...The penalty for an ordinary soldier uncovering the Closed Score is death.”

: “So what? Kimlasca was clearly losing at the North Chesedonia battlefield. There was no strategic advantage, no reason for Daath to intervene!”



: “You pulled him into your plans for the Order, and you killed him! How can you say that?!”

: “It was your brother who offered to assist me. I never once forced him.”

: “...Grr!”

: “...Do you hate me?”

: “Yes!”



: “Don't mock me!”

: “You can stand at my side, wait for an opening, and kill me at any time.”

: “...What are you trying to do?”

: “Heh... trying to see whether my life can defeat the Score.”

: “You'll regret this. I'll kill you... I swear it.”



This is actually a pretty creepy scene when you listen to the voice acting. Legretta is sounds absolutely enraged and suicidal, while Van sounds almost... unhinged. It's eerie.

: “And so I became Van's adjutant. I became your instructor in order to use you to kill Van. But through that, I learned of Van's past, and it resonated with me. So when your training was complete, I resolved to part with my former self.”



: “I do not ask for your forgiveness. But I was concerned at your unquestioning view of me as an ideal. I am a mere human being. I wish not for you to follow me, but for you to follow your own ideals.”



So Legretta's name was fake too. That makes Largo, Asch, Dist, Legretta, and possibly Sync having false names. Only Arietta seemed to keep hers. Just an odd observation.

: “So Legretta had her own painful experience with the Score...”

: “...Would you... please leave me alone for a bit?”

: “Okay.”





: “I'm sorry... I'm fine now.”

: “Okay... just don't push yourself... but I guess you always push yourself.”





This is actually a costume title which gives Tear her officer's uniform from the flashbacks.

So that's the end of Legretta's arc. It isn't discussed in the game (I don't think, at any rate), but in supplementary material, Legretta's issues with the Score went a bit deeper. Van sent her brother to die just as the Score foretold. So she goes to kill Van, but ends up serving and eventually falling in love with him... then she finds out that her failing to kill Van and falling in love with him was also in the Score. So she wanted to destroy the Score because either way it was a win-win for her: if it was destroyed and she fell out of love, she could get her revenge. If it was destroyed and she still loved Van, then she'd know that her love came from her own feelings, not because of the dictate of the Score.

If you haven't picked it up by now, Van's whole thing is that he feels kinship with people who have been wounded because of the Score. Legretta lost her brother, Sync was born as a throwaway pawn because of it, Largo lost his wife and daughter, Asch lost his future, country, family, and fiance, and Arietta... well her island was destroyed, but she was actually harmed by the Score in another way too. She fell in love with the first Ion, but then the Score dictated that Ion would die.

The only God-General who doesn't conform is Dist, but that's kind of his whole thing. Distortion: not being in harmony with everything else. He's the clear outlier of the God-Generals, professing no loyalty to Van and not having really been harmed by the Score in any direct way.

Sorry for the barrage of , let's move on to the main attraction for this update: the resolution to the catalyst weapons sidequest.



Deep, deep behind Mt. Roneal is our destination. To get here, you need to have both flightstone upgrades, since the whole area is covered in a blizzard.



Music: Flow When Being Dammed Up

Sealed Memories



: “Yes... I suppose this is the fonic glyph for the planetary arte.”

: “According to the fonic glyph, the Rem and Shadow catalysts must be placed in the proper positions. Otherwise, the fonic glyph won't activate.”

: “Hmm! So let's do it!”

: “Wait... there's something strange about this fonic glyph. It's been added on top of an older one. And the new fonic glyph seems to be some sort of seal.”





YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

: “Dist the Reaper?! You're alive?!”

: “It's Rose, damn it! ...Though I have no more need for that old God-General moniker.”

: “He actually lived through all that... he really is as tenacious as a roach.”

: “Quiet, you! To think that you would spare me the effort of searching for those catalysts... Heh heh heh... please, go ahead and place them in the fonic glyph.”

: “...Even though we have no idea what may happen?”



And bam, we just cut to our party putting the catalysts in.

Yeah, I have no idea. Jade expresses some legitimate credibility in a non-sarcastic tone, and then the writers obviously couldn't figure out how to make Dist convince Jade to do it in a logical manner. So they just cut to us doing it. Okay.







: “Yes! I've done it! I've brought Professor Nebilim back at last!”

: “Professor Nebilim?! Dist what is that supposed to-”



: “Yes, exactly! The very first replica you made is right here! Our beloved Professor Gelda Nebilim!”



: “Professor Nebilim! Professor, there's so much I want to tell-”



: “Down, now!”





: “Professssoooooorrrrrr...!!”



: “Dist?!”

: “Something's wrong. There's a really scary monster in there...”

: “Hah hah hah. My, how rude of you to call me a monster...”





: “She's... strong...”

: “Thanks to those catalysts you brought, I've finally recovered the fonons of Rem and Shadow that I lacked. Thank you.”

: “What are you doing here...?”

: “Nice to see you too, Jade. You used to be such a cute boy... now you look so scary.”

: “I said what are you doing here?! Answer me!”

: “Oh, scary scary. I was just taking some fonons of Rem and Shadow from a few fonists, and wound up sealed in here.”

: “You mean... you're the one who destroyed an entire company of fonists?!”

: “With these catalysts, I'll be complete at last. Jade... you discarded me, and even tried to kill me, didn't you?”



: “...Professor...”

: “Sh-shut up! How can you call yourself perfect?! Dist is your original's pupil! And you killed him without even blinking an eye? There's no way you're perfect!”





: “But he made Tokunaga for me and helped me out. I'll avenge him.”

Yeah, that's the backstory on Tokunaga. Remind me to dump that manga chapter some time.



: “At this point, whether you're perfect or not is irrelevant.”

: “I hereby place you under arrest as the prime suspect in the serial fonist killings.”

: “What an interesting approach! Well then, why don't you try? Although... I'm afraid I will win!”





Nebilim is, without a doubt, the hardest boss fight in the game. Bar none. She is a complete fucking monster who can use 90% of the Mystic Artes in the game (yes, even some of your own party's second level ones!), cast every fonic arte, dish out almost any attack or arcane physical arte, has crazy high health, even higher stats, and won't stagger. She can even stop fucking time and then drop a party wiping mystic arte. She's that bad.

Why am I telling you this? To justify what I did to counter that. Take a look at my party's numbers down below. You'll notice they're a bit higher. That's because my team has gotten stronger.



Much stronger. Max level stronger, to be precise. With every AD Skill to boot. The reason I did this was because there's a certain reward we get for beating Nebilim on Very Hard or above. I tried to do this with my party as usual, but everybody did 1 damage to Nebilim, even Luke and Guy with their best weapons. Even Jade with artes could maybe hit in the low 100's for each hit of the spell. At 640,000 health, it would have taken me the better part of a day just to beat her, and that's without her instantly wiping me with meteor swarm, which she did several times.

Along with the usual boss video link, I've also uploaded an alternate version with some of my commentary. I talk about why I punted my party up to level 200, Nebilim, and talk a bit on the Tales combat system in general. Give it a listen if you feel compelled to listen to my horrible voice.

Boss Battle: Nebilim
Boss Battle: Nebilim (Commentary)



Okay, so the battle. The very first thing Nebilim does is drop mystic cage on us.



I am at max level. Also this isn't even unknown, just very hard. Nebilim can still hit over my max health with it. Thankfully, mystic cage is an all field arte and thus can't KO.



There are a few perks that come with being level 200, but most of them come from the high level AD skill you get with high level and a good capacity core. First of all, Guy has every single “combo plus” skill, which lets him get in a full seven regular hits, plus a base + arcane + base arte chain in before his combo ends.



The second, though it's hard to show in screen shot form, is Angel's Tear. It auto revives you back to 1/3 health the first time you get KO'd, and has a fairly high chance of doing so again throughout the fight. It's a life saver.



Another thing is that I can now move during mystic arte animations. I'm not sure what AD skill this stems from, but it's very nice.



Also note Guy took no damage. Another AD Skill which occasionally negates all incoming damage if you use Guardian.



But the big one, the master stroke, the great equalizer, is Glory. Glory is a godsend. Why? Because it makes you completely immune to stagger. Spells don't stop you. Attacks don't stop you. A handful of mystic artes can't even stop you. As long as it's not a lethal blow, Your character is nonplussed and can keep hacking away. It's hard to overstate just how clutch this skill is.



Of course, even Glory can't save me from damage.

Another problem with Glory is that it can make you a bit too cocky, and you end up attacking when you should really retreat and heal up.



Meteor Swarm is particularly deadly because the meteors come so fast you don't have time to put up guardian most of the time. Thankfully with our new high level status, they don't 1HKO.







We have a mystic arte off for a bit. One thing I will give the devs props for is that Nebilim has a different cut in image for every single mystic arte, and she has a lot of them. It's nice attention to detail.



Even with all my power, this is a long fight. 640,000 is a lot of HP to grind through.







This is one of Nebilim's bigger dick moves. Time Stop freezes everybody in place, and Nebilim gets to wail on whoever. Normally she'll just attack somebody for a bit, but I've seen her drop mystic artes and cast meteor swarm, too. It's a pain.

Speaking of which....









Rending Saber is Asch's mystic arte, which you haven't even seen him use! And she dropped it on Guy during time stop, so I couldn't do shit.

Now once Nebilim hits about half health, she breaks out her only original mystic arte.













Fragmented End is basically overkill. It does something in the neighborhood of 50k damage, enough to kill anybody five times over and then some. The true danger of this one, however, is that it's hitbox is deceptively large. She can and will wipe your party with it if they're bunched too tightly together.





Speaking of being bunched together, I thought Nebilim was going to wipe me with Indignation here. Luckily it only hit Jade and Guy, and Jade Angel Tear'd out of it.



Yeah, Fortune's Arc, too. Luckily she doesn't get the extension, so no healing for her.



It hurts like hell, though.



Finally, after a lot of effort, she's on the ropes.





And Jade, fittingly, runs in to deal the final blow.

The Planetary Arte



: “Jade, the original fonic glyph that was inscribed here... do you think it was for the planetary fonic arte?”

: “Let's see!”



: “O wrath of the heavens and cries of the earth... let fall the sword of judgment to dispatch all that is evil! Perish!”





: “What incredible power...”

: “Yes... it's a fonic arte that uses the Sephiroth to release the planet's power.”

: “Then you have learned it?”

: “Regrettably, no. The glyph had been modified, so I couldn't use even half of the arte's true power. Dist may have had more information on the original planetary arte glyph, but...”

: “...Dist is...”







: “...Jade, I was wondering. What was that about Professor Nebilim being a replica?”

: “I suppose I can't hide it anymore. I'll explain when we report to the Emperor.”

: “...Do we just leave Dist here?”

: “Oh he'll come after us. I wouldn't worry.”

Skit: Nebilim

: “That was a frightening creature. To recover so quickly after being defeated...”

: “She likely had good battle skills to begin with, and then when she was replicated...”

: “And the Colonel created her? What's going on here?”

: “We'll find out at Grand Chokmah. You'll just have to be patient.”

Peony it is.

Closure



: “Colonel, you promised to explain things to us...”



: “I experimented on myself to see what would happen when one who could not use the Seventh Fonon tried. The fonic arte went out of control, setting Professor Nebilim's residence on fire.”

: “Professor Nebilim herself was near death. I enlisted Dist's help and took her to the edge of town.”



: “Yes. It's my fault, It's too late to save her now. But with fomicry...”

: “Oh! You're going to make a replica of the Professor? But we don't have a fomicry machine...”

: “I'll use fonic artes to do it. I did it once with Nephry'd doll, so it should work.”





: “Wow! It worked! Jade, you're amazing!”



: “Ugh... ugh... ugh!”





: I tried to dispose of it – to kill her, but she disappeared before I could.”

: “So that's what lead to this incident.”

: “But Jade really regrets what he did... that's why he forbid the replication of living things. Please don't hate him for it!”

: “Luke...”

: “Hey, stupid, nobody said anything about hating him. We've all seen how he's tried to stop the use of fomicry.”

: “Absolutely. Colonel, thank you for telling us about what must have been a trying experience.”

: “Not at all... it's rather uncomfortable to be thanked. If anything, I deserve censure for what I've done.”

: “Colonel, there's one thing that bothers me. As I recall, fomicry uses only the Seventh Fonon in creating replicas, not the First through the Sixth...”

: “Yes, that's why replicas vanish when the Seventh Fonon separates.”

: “Huh? But Nebilim was saying something about needing the First and Sixth Fonon...”

: “Nebilim was the first living replica. The technology was different then. Right Jade?”

: “Yes. The original theory was based on fonic artes, which is how I created the Professor’s replica as well. However, that method results in some fonons missing from the replica.”



: “So that's what happened to Nebilim's replica.”

: “Yes. To overcome that problem, Dist and I modified the process to use only Seventh Fonons.”

: “And Saphir's alive, huh? He was always tough, wasn't he?”

: “He's a criminal, you know. Aren't you going to capture him?”

: “We'll keep watch for him, of course. If you see him, bring him in. Oh, and you keep that sword for a while longer. It might come in handy in your coming battles.”

Peony knows what's up. Now then, let's-



: “He really did come after us.”

: “How could you be so cruel as to leave me in Mt. Roneal?!”

: “Dist, weren't you to receive Professor Nebilim's replica data from Mohs?”

: “Wh-what's with you, all of a sudden? That was my intention. But by the time I recovered from the Tower of Rem, Mohs was dead and Van was alive... Van's not especially kind to traitors, so I can't go back there anymore.”

: “I see... so that's why you made contact with the original replica. You stole the documents on the planetary fonic arte from the intelligence division, didn't you?”

: “There wasn't much in them. All the important information was destroyed in that fire.”





: “Who is whose friend?”

: “I, Dist – no, Saphir – am Jade's friend!”

: “I'm glad I don't know any Jade with such poor taste in friends. Now, come on.”



: “Please do.”

: “Traitor... I'll hate you forever!”

Well, bye Dist. It was fun having you around again while it lasted.



: “That's unfortunate, but perhaps it is for the best.”

: “Maestro Tritheim, about Heart of Chaos...”

: “It may prove useful to you. Keep it with you for now.”

: “Really?! Thanks!”



With that, the catalyst weapons have now become “unlocked.” From their base attack, they receive +1 attack for each enemy you kill. It's still not better than our current weapons (because I didn't grind those levels out ) but if you're willing to invest the time they can become godly.

One last thing. Remember how I said we had to beat Nebilim on Very Hard or above? The reason is because, if you do so, you get this scene:



: “Pere, are you still working as a servant?”

: “I still don't have a replacement yet. Besides, I've grown quite attached to the job. Hah hah.”

: “Sure, after being a servant for as long as you have. I can kind of relate.”

: “Master Gailardia, that's not funny... by the way, what are those items you have there? They appear to be more than just ordinary artifacts...”

: “Ah, these were the catalysts for the planetary fonic arte.”

: “What happened was...”

Fade to black!



: “Yet you took on an enemy of that caliber in a fight even more perilous than usual and still managed to emerge victorious.”

: “It was pretty tough. I doubt I could have handled it alone.”

: “Yes, she possessed a power strong enough to threaten the entire world.”

: “We beat her because we all worked together.”

: “Indeed.”

: “I see, I see. Master Luke has grown into an admirable tactician and leader.”

: “My, my. Don't you think that's going a bit overboard?”

: “Not at all. He focused all of your strength together to challenge and ultimately defeat a powerful foe. He's a fine tactical leader.”

: “Hah hah, I'm not sure what to say...”

: “Say Pere, how about giving him those clothes?”

: “Hmm? You mean the outfit worn by Hod's tacticians. Yes, it would suit Master Luke well.”





A slightly better view. Yes, I went though all that bullshit for a costume. The things I do for you, thread...

Next Time: One final sidequest interlude.

No Synopsis for this update.