The Let's Play Archive

White Knight Chronicles I & II

by nine-gear crow

Part 49: The Search For Caesar (Part 2)


CUTSCENE: The Netherwyrm

Caesar: Woah, guys, you came all that way just for me? Thanks, I guess.
Caesar: Don’t know why you waited till we got back to the house to tell me that, but whatevs.


Yulie: Glad you appreciate it.
Leonard: So was it worth the trip?


Caesar: Man, it was SO worth it.


Caesar: You know about the purple mist that’s causing the pyrexia – the fever that’s broken out in the city?
Yulie: Yeah, we got that bit already.

…Wait, that’s actually in the game? That’s not italicised? Wow, a line like that is rare. And of course, it’s Yulie that calls out the narrative redundancy. Way to go, Yulie.


Caesar: Okay, well…


Caesar: I found some old documents which talk about a similar illness that hit the city before. A bunch of times, actually. The last outbreak was forty years ago – we’ve got it on record. And here’s the really strange thing…


Caesar: The symptoms are a lot like what my old man had.


Eldore: So you think there’s some connection to the Count’s death?

See, I told you we’d find out what did in Count Drisdall.

Fun fact: If you listen to the Live Talk while wandering around Greede after this chapter's done, Eldore cops to actually forgetting that Count Drisdall died of an illness. I’m not making that up.


Caesar: Yeah. The monument in the Flandars, and the old Papitaur in Frass Chasm both mentioned a monster…


Caesar: A black dragon that causes the purple mist and the fever symptoms. It’s called the Netherwyrm, and it’s been bringing disease and death to the world since ancient times.


Leonard: A black dragon?
Caesar: You know, I’ll bet you anything when it showed up in Greede forty years ago, it crossed paths with my old man.


Eldore: Hmmm.


Yulie: Okay, so let’s go take this dragon down.
Caesar: Yeah.


Steward: Master Caesar! Come quickly!
Caesar: What’s up?


Steward: The black dragon! He’s appeared!


Caesar: Well, speak of the devil.




CUTSCENE: Dragonbowl MMXIV

The citizenry begins to panic as word of the Netherwyrm’s arrival spreads through the city.

By the way, isn’t Netherwyrm such a badass name? It sounds like a death metal band name.








And now we’re ripping off Skyrim.




This thing needs to get its carburetor checked. It’s smoking like crazy.




“I am ALDUIN! First-born of I used this joke before!”


Yulie: Is that it – the Netherwyrm?


Caesar: Damn! I’ve got to keep it away from the city.


So being the not-Leonard of the game, Caesar runs off to do some more actual heroism.




Caesar: VERTO!






CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Crimson Dragon” (Disc 1, Track 5)

Somewhere in a parallel universe where YouTube’s ContentID system doesn’t exist, “Shoot to Thrill” by AC/DC is playing over this cutscene right now.




























Caesar lures the Netherwyrm into chomping down on Larvaint and spins it around, tossing it towards the ground with centripetal force.








Caesar: Where are YOU goin’?!




















Yeah, we’re definitely blowing through the budget on this one.








Caesar: Alright, let’s settle this here and now!








BOSS FIGHT: The Netherwyrm

So this fight is the inverse of the Wyvern Rex fight, wherein it forces you to use the Dragon Knight. But that’s okay, because the Dragon Knight is awesome.

This is also the point in the LP where I go full on the prospect of doing commentary for these boss fights because I pretty much explain everything about them in text for anyway and I am just burnt out on it it anyway. So from here till the final boss gauntlet, you’ll be getting just the raw videos of these fights and I’ll leave you to make your own commentary on how the game plays.

Cheers. Now back to the game itself.




There’s not a lot to say about this fight. The Netherwyrm is weak against slashing attacks, and that’s about it.


The only interesting aspect of this fight is that this is the only fight where you have regenerating MP for your Incorruptus.


There’s a reason for that, by the way that I’ll get into in a minute.




The Netherwyrm has only one real attack to worry about, this kind of multiple energy blast attack thing that knocks the Dragon Knight around a bit, but thankfully doesn’t knock it off its feet.


The thing you’re actually fighting in this battle isn’t actually the Netherwyrm, it’s the MP regeneration mechanic.


Higher cost MP skills, like Healer’s Soul or Wyrm Dance really cut into your MP reserve, and the regeneration mechanic only gives you like 1 MP back every 10 seconds. And if you run out of MP, it’s game over. However, Slash and Thrust have a 0 MP cost for this battle, so you can spam them to your heart’s content if you like.


The reason for the regeneration mechanic for this fight is this. You have a complete blank slate when you get control of Caesar again for the first time since the end of the first game. That means you don’t have any MP regenerating items like Mana Potions. You would if you continued your game over from the first one, but I started this save file fresh at the beginning of game 2, so I get nothing to work with here.

It’s a rare example of the game compensating for plot contrivances. It’s kind of cool, but there's an equally big turd in the punch bowl to balance that out.


Really though, you are sort of up against a wall if you aren't playing with a game 1 save file. Because ideally by this point you would have Fiendslayer and a boat load of HP and MP replenishing items in Caesar's personal stock from the end of the first game to make this fight easier.

Not having those advantages REALLY makes this fight a luck-based boss for people starting this fight fresh from game 2. I got game over'd quite a few times trying to record various pieces of footage pertaining to this stretch of the game. Moreover, because the Netherwyrm is a boss buried in a mountain of cutscenes, your only two options if you lose are to retry the fight and hope you can pull out a win with a tweaked strategy under identical conditions, or abandon the battle all together.

Though that second option won't help you one bit. Because if you bail out of fight completely, you not only have to fight the Netherwyrm once again eventually, you also have to fight the Wyvern Rex battle all over again too, because there was nothing but cutscenes between it and here.

And you still can't do jack shit to level up or better prepare Caesar for the fight anyway!

Thanks, Level-5 . You guys are really great at game design. I don't know why so many people were complaining that game 2 has a hair-tearingly huge difficulty jump to contend with.


The Netherwyrm also has a charge up attack.


But I Turn Break it before it can pull it off, because enemy charge up attacks are always the worst in this game and usual immobilize you for a good long time in addition to doing crippling damage.






By this point in the fight the Netherwyrm has been crippled and is on its last legs in terms of HP, so I throw caution to the wind and just Wyrm Dance the crap out of it until it falls. Because it actually does more damage to it, interestingly enough, than Caesar’s regular slashing attack, despite being not being a critical attack against the boss.






CUTSCENE: “Deathless Monster”




CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Victory Fanfare” (Disc 1, Track 9)

Caesar: And that’s the end of that.


Caesar: Bitch.


Leonard: He did it!
Orren: I am in awe of your basic competence, good sir… Never leave us again. Never. Leave. Again.


Eldore: No… He didn’t.


Orren: Gods fucking DAMMIT, ELDORE!
Caesar: Huh?!

The purple mist begins to swirl around the Netherwyrm and it begins to stir again. But Caesar, being competent, at least doesn’t pull a Leonard this time and remains in Dragon Knight form.


Well, someone’s looking a tad pissed off. Okay, this thing has GOT to be something serious if it can shrug off all that damage from motherfucking Caesar of all people and still keep on trucking.


Yulie: What?
Orren: oh no. i am completely shocked by this turn of events. who could have foreseen something like this?




The Netherwyrm roars… at no one in particular, if you’re paying any attention to the cutscene blocking.


And tears off outta there.




He who plagues and runs away plagues again another day!




Ya know, I’m probably being too harsh on them this time. At least the game flat out told us “this thing is unkillable” before we tried to fight it. So I can’t be mad at Caesar for failing to do something that is essentially impossible.

Then again, you could end that sentence with “I can’t be mad at Caesar,” and just leave it here.



Eldore: The “deathless monster.”


CUTSCENE: Consulting Count Drisdall


Caesar: Sure, he was pretty tough—


Caesar: But immortal?


Yulie: It is kind of hard to believe.
Orren: So’s giant autonomous suits of armour, time travel, an old fart living as a tree, Leonard’s stupidity, and the fact that Caesar is still dressing like THAT and ruling a city of 12 million people… Yet here we are.
Leonard: We have to take that thing down, or people in Greede are going to keep getting sick.

I will admit, it is good on him that he’s concerned about something for once other than Cisna’s lady parts. He’s growing as a character… kind of.


Caesar: Hey, man, I know.
Eldore: Caesar.


Eldore: I believe you said Count Drisdall may have had some sort of interaction with the beast when it appeared in Greede forty years ago?


Caesar: Yeah. They must have crossed paths. Before my dad got sick.


Leonard: Of course! I didn’t think of that.
Orren: So. Many. Jokes. Can’t. Settle. On just… one!


Yulie: The Retrospecticon!


Caesar: The Retri-whatsa? Oh, is that the thing you got in Faria?
Eldore: Exactly.


Eldore: It’s a book that allows us to step into past events. We might be able to use it to learn more about this Netherwyrm.


Caesar: No kidding? Well, better get reading. I’ll be out by the gate. Come see me when you’re good to go.


Well, at least we knew what we were dealing with now when it came to the Retrospecticon. And we had Caesar back with us again, so the odds of complete failure had dropped significantly.

Still, I didn’t envy the guy, given what we were about to do. I wouldn’t exactly want to go visiting my parents when they were younger. …Because I just don’t, not that I have a traumatic childhood that’s informing why I get so angry at everyone around me.

Plus, the last time Caesar actually talked to his dad, the dude fake-disowned him. That’s GOTTA make for an awkward reunion type thing… Untill Leonard accidentally murders him or something.


CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Monolouge ~ The Ancient Hearbeat” (Disc 2, Track 22)