Part 36: Update XXXVI - The True Grand Finale
Update XXXVI - The True Grand Finale
This is it, folks. Update soundtrack. Proceed without playing at your own risk. Now, I believe we had an appointment with von Junzt during the evening?

Well, not quite. We've still got some walking around and some things to be doing. Surprisingly, the door to the harbor master's office is open this night.

Yeah, when I said Artifex was going to get a visit from a certain vampire, I wasn't just pulling that out of my ass. Who do you think I am, somebody who doesn't know this game inside and out at this point?

So yeah, now we get to beat the shit out of Artifex. Standard vampire battle, nothing special.

Like with Trudel, he doesn't have the common courtesy to explode when we beat him up...

...and much like Trudel, his coffin is right downstairs.


Looks like he's gotten used to it by now. Also, the chest back there? 9000 bucks. Which you literally can't spend. None of the shops are open, and we can't even spend the money on beer because we now get it for free. Now that's a nice kick in the balls. Here, have this free money! This utterly useless free money!

Now, let's check in with Genji, see how the date went.


...what am I supposed to infer from that? God damnit, game, stop pussyfooting around this stuff, you're making me very confused as to whether or not you actually went there or it's just my dirty mind!

Anyway, the next step is to just walk around for a while until this happens.





This is basically a reminder saying "oi, you dumb cunt, you forgot to go to von Junzt". The way I read the FAQ, it seemed like this was not an optional thing, but it is. Oh well. Off to von Junzt it is!










Let's get moving!


We see the guards run away from the church, and Reyven stagger forwards, then collapse.


Good riddance to bad rubbish.



Yeah, why not. Not like I was going to use the stuff anyway. This nets us a bit of experience... and not using the fire nets us the same amount of experience. I only just now realized this. What the fuck is up with that? There's no consequence if you don't blow the guy up, so that's just confusing.

Final look at our party. We managed to get some pretty good level numbers together - I recall being somewhere around 30~35 when I first played this, and with not nearly as much fruit roids in my system, and with not as top notch equipment either.



Just one last "save your game now" warning.

Are you playing "Mars, Bringer of War" now? Because you should.

Let's do this.




Then we're set upon by bats.



However, that's all we're being set upon by. However however, that is because we were diligent in our hunting duties. The vampires we didn't stake would turn up here, so if we didn't stake the one at Wahnfried's mansion, Trudel and Artifex, we'd end up with six enemies, three of them strong vampires and two of them bats that love fucking with your stats. It would get rough. As it stands, though, this isn't a big deal.

The bats then evaporate in a massive holy magic effect. Guess that would have made more sense if there were vampires in that group.



















Suddenly, a bat comes flying in from the left.







So yeah, surprise! Wahnfried had one final ace up his sleeve, and it's one hell of a card to pull. Turning a family member and then sicking them on the family - he did the same thing with Doria, and it worked really well there too. However...



Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down just a second.
So, this is it. You've been expecting it all this time, and here it is - it's finally time to explain the Good Thing and Bad Thing... thing.
Now, the thread had some theories...
DmitriX posted:
Alright I think I figured it out- the Bad things you mention are the same bad things you could do at the fair in Chrono tigger, and will end up relevant in the same way.
That, or you fight a monster who counts bad things and powers up accordingly but that would be disappointing.
bathroomrage posted:
I think I've just figured out what all of those Bad Thing/Good Thing choices are.Grandy's gonna have to convince Tarius to not be a bad guy, isn't he?
Tin Tim posted:
Tarius will be the final boss and you have to fight him with a powerpoint presentation about the pros and cons of being evil or good
...and Tarius being involved was right on the money, but it's not Tarius you have to convince, it's Malthur.
Welcome to the "Malthurmeter", the most mysterious thing about Unterwegs in Düsterburg. The way it works is that during the entirety of your visit to Königsberg, a lot of your actions have an impact on Malthur's opinion of you, which is represented by a number starting at 0. If you can get it higher than 3, then you'll get this option during the final battles. Now, what has an impact on the meter? Nobody really knows. I suppose one could go through the entirety of the code in RPG Maker and find out just exactly what impacts it, but as it stands, only a certain amount has been found. I'm now going to list everything listed in the walkthrough, plus a few extra I found.
Good Things:
- Insisting Malthur use the Brain Melter on Grimor is a +1.
- Letting Tarius go out when he wants to on the first night is a +1.
- Saying "listen here, Tarius" when Tarius comes home late is a +1.
- Giving Natascha her treasure is a +1.
- Shouting at Libra to get herself together when you find Tarius's corpse is a +1.
- Blowing up in Reyven Krähenschwinge's face after you exit the ransacked church is a +1.
- Helping Göfla by paying his debts is a +1.
- Digging deeper when talking to Malthur in your room in von Junzt's house is a +2.
- Supporting Malthur in the scene in front of the church after Tarius has been killed is a +2.
Bad Things:
- Giving Frägelschö a dragon slayer sword is a -1.
- Eating the eyeballs out of the little bag is a -1.
- Going "We're the wild highwaymen" in Naggash Izzar's house is a -1.
- Threatening Grimor with violence is a -1.
- Being down for a night on the town yourself when Tarius wants to leave on the first night is a -1.
- Saying to "just forget about it" when Tarius comes home late is a -1.
- Changing the topic when talking to Malthur in your room in von Junzt's house is a -1.
- Accusing Tarius of killing von Junzt is a -1.
- Letting Libra stay with Tarius's corpse when you find it is a -1.
- Getting caught breaking into Katzengasse 5 is a -1.
- Getting drunk at the Flying Fish is a -1.
- Stealing the 6000 bucks from the dark priest's house without having visited him during the daytime is a -1.
- Destroying Trudel's husband's corpse with Sarabian fire, even though you wouldn't have enough to destroy Wahnfried's coffins if you did that is a -1.
- Trading in Natascha's treasure at the fence is a -2.
- Supporting Libra in the scene in front of the church after Tarius has been killed is a -2.
- Fucking up the monster cat sidequest by not going into the shack after hearing Julie, then later going into the shack and finding her dead is a -2.
- Talking to Natascha after trading in her treasure is an additional -3.
- Attempting to steal Baha's holy sword is a -3.
- Talking with Tibor Arekna about the eyeballs after having eaten them is an additional -3.
For those that aren't mathematically inclined, that's 11 possible plus points compared to 28 possible minus points, with room for more. And if you don't know what you're doing (like when you're playing for the first, second or probably even third time) you don't have an idea what's going on, because bar a few comments by Malthur calling Grandy an idiot for doing the Bad Things and lauding Grandy for doing the Good Things (and they don't happen for all of them either and happen for some that don't actually have any impact) there is no indication something's actually happening here that's different from the rest of the game, and odds are you won't end up with the +3 you need at this point unless you're aiming for it, since it's about as opaque as they come.
Now, in our run, we ended up with 9 of the plus points (missed the one about digging deeper) and 1 of the minus points (intentionally got caught breaking into Katzengasse 5 for the prison scene), coming out to +8, which is still one of the highest possible values. So getting to +3 is a pretty major accomplishment, given all the pitfalls strewn around Königsberg. Anyway, what does this even do? Well, if we go through a round of combat...


And after another round (after which we've already taken out one of the two other vampires)...




This doesn't really have any gameplay impact, since you can just select who you want to attack. If Julie kills Tarius with her random attacking, you've been doing something terribly wrong. So we bang on the other guy a bit longer...


Read: We need to get his HP down to a certain amount. I can't find an exact number for this, though. Suffice it to say, this is quite tricky, especially given how powerful our party is. Then, in the next round...



Well, we don't, given that the incapacitation could just trigger the moment we hit the right HP threshold. I guess the game didn't expect us to go this fast...



And with that, Grandy knocks the shit out of Tarius.








Oh, so that's why the windows didn't get messed up in the attack on the church, they needed them for dramatic effect here.




So now we get to beat up on Wahnfried's personal guard. This is significantly harder than you'd think - the vampires beforehand had roughly about 1000~1500 HP. These guys have 3000, and have a healthier MP pool to lay the hurt on our guys with the dark magic that hits every party member. This would be tough enough if we weren't already a man down, and if...

...Wahnfried wasn't also slinging around resistance-avoiding, party-attacking magic. ~100 HP damage to every party member is quite painful, especially on Libra. However, we still manage to take out one of the guards, and then...




And now the fight is officially on. 4300 HP, even bigger MP pool, stronger defenses, and since we're above level 37, Wahnfried actually won't use regular attacks - instead, he'll just use his powerful dark magic, bite attacks and strong double attacks. At this point, I have to whip out those Gifts from the Gods, because other healing items are just not efficient enough for this shit, and I even chastise myself for not buying more, because they come in real handy. And as the fight goes on...





That we do. However, with the numbers advantage shifted further into our favor and getting Tarius's anti-vampire songs back...

...Wahnfried eventually goes down for good. And I do mean eventually, this took quite some time and I got lucky with Grandy's aimed attacks to make it end this quickly.

And then he goes and stakes himself on a cross for good measure.














Grandy walks up to the altar and picks the baby up.



Next time, the ending, and the credits!