Part 39: Sealed Evil in a Crystal

Last time, not too much happened. I finished grinding up to Lv 100, and emotionally traumatized Rudy by making him continue to fight Mega Apples. Don't worry Rudy, you don't have to fight them any more.


Ancient Civilization had two different faces
I don't know if I've gone here yet in the LP, but you can actually return here at any point of the game, unlike the original game where you can never return. Instead of the ACE, you get the destroyed area. However...


This guy is sitting in a corner, all lonely. Let's sing him a song to cheer him up!


I don't think he liked it.



Welp, looks like we pissed them off. Meet the Scrap Figure, they'll be our first third bonus boss to fight. These three are only Lv. 55. They have 25k HP each, and are weak to water, which is strange. Every game after this, lightning attacks deal more damage to machines. I guess that's because starting from 4 onward, they scrapped the 8 element system and replaced it for a simpler 4+1 element system, with the fifth element being Lightning which was only good against machines.
Music selection, one of my favorites from Rocking Heart. Song is also from Wild ARMs 3, like the boss.


They only have three attacks. Desperation, their basic melee, Hyperion Blaster, which is downloadable and deals some damage, and Wheel Laser, which hits everyone. They would be dangerous if we weren't so high leveled.


They are also vulnerable to Confusion and Sleep. Confusion doesn't affect them much, because they seem to just skip turns this way; better to put them to sleep instead and not worry about that stuff.


So I toy around with Jane using Finest Arts to kill them and--- Was not expecting THAT much damage! To make things even better, Jane's only at Good luck, only has Great Booster and Brave Seal active, and wasted a few bullets to even get this off in the first place, because Finest Arts randomly triggers on attacks.


Let's fix this, shall we? She's now at Best luck, but that's not the highest; using RNGs Blessing? when they are at Best luck takes them to "Super-Best," which the game calculates. It's nice making the RNG my bitch, instead of the other way around.

_{Don't let it know I said that.}
: I heard that.
Fuck!


I also went shopping a while back and picked up several Blocker 1 and 2's, one for each of the three girls, because they are my primary Abyss team and I need them to be fully equipped. I'm going to go into this right now actually.
Critical, Counter, Blocker and Defender are each random occurrences that happen when you put on those skills related to them. Critical and Counter have a 1/32 chance, Blocker and Defender have 0/32 chance with no skills equipped. The Lv 1 skill adds 3/32 to the chance, and the Lv 2 skill adds 5/32 to the chance. In addition, Luck factors in as well, adding 1/32 for each step above Worst (Worst doesn't add anything). You cannot use Blocker or Defender if you don't have the skills equipped, no matter how high your luck is. So with everyone having Blocker 1 and 2, they have a 8/32 (25%) chance MINIMUM to negate physical attacks sent their way.
Oh, and Zed is different. Instead of his chances being divided by 32, his chances are divided by 24 instead. So having Blocker 1 and 2 equipped changes it to a 8/24 (33%) chance instead. He's just better at raw physical combat.


...waiiiiit a second here. Jane just used Finest Arts...how does she still have 18 bullets? It looks like Finest Arts doesn't use up any bullets, although it seems to keep track of how many she currently has in the ARM. Another oddity. Each status effect is in blue at first, to show that it's temporary. After Infinity is used, it turns green to show that it isn't temporary. Luck Up from RNGs Blessing? automatically started green, and I used it after Infinity. Luck Up must be always permanent, although it can be negated and reversed by the Luck Down status effect.



Yet another feature I need to explain. Remember PS Assist Blitz? It's a completely useless skill, until you have a second row of party members. Then it's semi-useful. When a Vangaurd character (Jane) has Assist Blitz equipped, the person in the Rearguard slot directly behind them (Zed), has a 31~42% (based on Luck) chance of dealing a free Attack or Shot from the Rearguard after the Vanguard character uses Attack or Shot. Zed has a unique 41~56% chance here because he's awesome, although I don't know if it's for giving someone else a free Attack or giving himself a free Attack from the Rearguard.
This attack deals normal damage, and gives the person in the Rearguard FP for the attack as well. It's nice to have, but not incredibly useful, but you should put Jane and Zed in opposite spots, because they have the highest chance of using Attack/Shot compared to the others, who have useful spells or Fast Draw or Cartridges to deal more damage.


I made an Animated GIF of Jane's Finest Arts, and I'm going to do these for everyone's ultimate attacks as well. Pardon the small size and low quality, this was the only way I could get it under 2 MB and still have good speed. You may need to use Chrome or Firefox to view this properly, since I think Explorer defaults to a certain fps for animated GIFs.
Basically, Jane just shoots the enemy several times, and deals a lot of damage at the end. Did you see that? 221540 damage? Fucking awesome! And Jane doesn't even have Super-Best Luck! She also has Penetrator equipped (ignore DEF on critical hits) but I don't know if it's calculated in Finest Arts. But if it did...imagine what it would do to Ragu...
Unfortunately, this is tricky to pull off and still have it be at max power due to Bullets. I spent several minutes just sitting waiting for this to happen.


Oh, and did I tell you there was a unique thing to Assist Blitz? You can occasionally pull off Combination Arts with it as well. I think the game calculates the chance for an Assist Blitz free Attack/Shot, and then the chance for a Combination Arts before the Vanguard character's attack, because this replaces the Vanguard character's attack. There's a base 128/512 (25%) chance of this happening, which increases by 1/512 (0.001953125%) for each battle the two party members spend in opposing slots. Zed doesn't get a bonus here.


Each Combination Arts varies from character to character, and no I won't show them all off (but I'll show them if I happen to record them). When it's between two members of the original 3 characters, it's against a single target. When it's between an original character and a new character, it hits a group. Between two new characters, it hits all enemies.
For this, Jane shoots at Zed, who deflects the bullets causing them to ricochet everywhere. Since they are both new characters, it hits everyone.


Cecila? What were you doing standing between those two? Anyway, the Combination Arts deals damage based on the sum of the levels of the two characters, and the characters used again. For Lv 100 characters, a Combination Arts will deal 8000 damage on average for two original characters, 7000 for a mix, and 6000 (seen here) between two new characters. As you can see, these aren't very good, because they don't get boosted by ANYTHING (except Luck, but what doesn't?), but on the bright side, they bypass Defense and Resistance


The prize for this battle is a Migrant Seal, which brings us to 16!


I pick up Chop-Chop, because I realized that I really need it. Although in order to get it, I had to sacrifice another spell. Bye-bye Phoenix. You're a good spell to have, but not while I'm running around curbstomping everyone.


The next bonus boss on my hitlist is at Gento Soen. I take a moment to look out from the top of the world, and notice that the landforms visible from up here seem to be...well..miscellaneous landforms that aren't actually Filgaia. But it's also hard to tell because Gento Soen is right in the middle of clouds, with clouds above and below.


Somehow, I actually forgot to screenshot the Crystal, but this is the one. This picture is from my update at Gento Soen ages ago.



Meet...Sadas...or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. Sadas is Lv 65 with 55k HP. Sadas completely resists all elements, but has a relatively low RES so non-elemental is the way to go if you want to use magic. This boss though really isn't a challenge because it won't attack directly, only through minions.
The Mini-Sadas there, or Sadas Jr as I'm going to call them, have only 2k HP, and are weak to all elements. Low DEF, but high RES. However, they are dangerous, because they have an attack called "Don't forget me!" where they run up and explode in your face for 2000 damage. (Or maybe their HP in damage, I don't know.) Every turn, Sadas can revive one of the Sadas Jr with "Life is beautiful", and the Sadas Jr themselves have about a 50% chance of skipping their turn with "A Journey of Self-Discovery." Sadas will also skip its turn if it already has four Sadas Jr out.
Music choice is "I Look Up To the Sky Because This Song has a Long Title," which is the opening theme to Wild ARMs 4. Of course, this is the Rocking Heart version, so it doesn't have lyrics. I chose it because...well, we're in the sky.


First things first, kill the Sadas Jr. Gale Claw wipes them away very quickly. You'll notice I have Jack out. I decided it's his turn to get shown off, like how I showed off Jane's power last time.


While Cecilia restores FP (because I'm too lazy to spend a Force Carrot), Jack just sits still getting buffed with RNGs Blessing? and Great Booster. Great Booster also boosts his Reaction, so I don't need Quick Step anymore.


As Sadas revives the Sadas-Jr, Jack kills them like the baby murderer he is.


Cecilia also uses Chop Chop on Sadas to decrease it's DEF to give Jack all the more chance to shine since Laser Silhouette hits multiple times and is quickly diminished with high DEF enemies. After this, Cecilia uses Brave Seal to get Jack even more of an attack boost.


And with it, he shines like a glorious star. Laser Silhouette is very powerful as well. Half as powerful as Jane's Finest Arts, but remember, hers is random, Jack can use this a lot. Plus, he can have Ambrosias used on him to keep firing away, something Rudy and Zed can't use. Toss on a Rinse & Repeat, and he can start ripping shit to shreds.


And the reward is crap. In fact, most of the bonus bosses give crap rewards. This resists a status effect, but if I ever need to resist status effects, I'll just use Castle Defense instead. That's much more reliable.


Next up is the Demon Lab, which has yet another bonus boss for us to destroy. This is past the Wind Staff orb that's fairly early in the dungeon, which is good; this place is pretty much a maze.



Oh these fuckers. I'm sure lots of people who 100% cleared Wild ARMs 3 remember these fuckers. You had to fight them 100 times, and each time they would get a level stronger. Fortunately, I just have to fight them once at Lv 65. There are six Egregori's, and they all share two out of three attacks. First is "Looks like I'm up" a basic physical hit. Then they have Aiming Zone, which increases everyone's accuracy, including the party like all Zone effects. But their Accuracy isn't that great to begin with, so it's a change, but not a significant one.
Now for their third attack, it's unique depending the Egregori. The first one does "Go back to sleep!" Physical damage with 80% chance of sleep. Second one does "You love my kick?" which deals amnesia as well. Third is "Ratchet down the tension!" for helpless, "I'll make you see stars!" for confusion, "Stand still" for 2-count Petrify, and the last one gets "You won't feel a thing" for Fallen. Fuck these guys.
I was going to use a Wild ARMs 3 remix here...but it turns out I may have used up all of my Rocking Heart remixes already, except for this one, and one last song that I'm saving for a very special boss. Gun Blaze is Wild ARMs 4's battle theme.


Yoink. Jane used Follow Me☆


Wipe the Egregori and their low 9k HP away, Rudy!





Thank goodness Jane and Emma have Defense and Blocker equipped. Defense also seems to prevent the status effects from triggering...not that it saved Rudy from falling asleep.


Did I mention they are weak to all elements? They are weak to all elements.


The reward is more crap.


The last bonus boss I'll do is found in De La Metalica. But not the old De La Metalica, the "fake" De Le Metalica that got sealed by Zepet. In order to get in it, we need to use the Savvy Key we got from the other De Le Metalica. Confused yet?



What's provided from the book? ...It depends on you.
Welcome back to the land of infinite red and purple, De La Metalica. You start off in the area next and generally below the original path. If you remember, there was a maze of other pathways that winded around. Now you get to walk on them!
Music selection is 1st Ignition from Wild ARMs 2(nd Ignition. Get it? ) I don't know where this song plays exactly, but it'll do for here.


You can also find enemies in here. They are about as dangerous as the ones in Malduke. The Jack-O'Lanterns are about as dangerous as their palette swaps in the Arena, only they seem to use Spontaneous Combustion less often, and die faster.


Be careful running around. The edges here will cast you into the abyss INSTANTLY. No "flail your arms to stop you" checks like you would if there was a platform below. You just fall straight down.


Dantalions have a lot of HP, but aren't too tough. When exposed like this, they are weak to physical attacks, and when in their shell, use magical attacks.


These guys don't do anything but skip turns and use Reset. If you don't have Reset yet, get it now because it is awesome.


Say hello to the puzzle in De La Metalica. It's a block puzzle using the Power Gloves. The puzzle is that when you punch one block one way, the same block on the other side goes the opposite way. You need to get the blocks to the middle and standing upright to get the loot. You can skip these puzzles if you want, but LOOOOOOOT! The reward for this one is an Alter Part. Hmm, I also got a lot of Alter Parts that I never used when I was grinding. I wonder how many I have now.


Welp. Better use them soon.


The next puzzle room introduces the yellow block. Also, note the blockades, and note that they are not symmetrical. If one block is blocked by the blockade, you can't punch the other block because the other block is blocked. So you got to move the blocks around the blockade so you can get the blocks next to the other blocks. You get a PS Penetrator so you can use critical hits to go through Defense which would block some of your damage.
Dammit, what is this dungeon doing to me?


This room you'll enter twice, and it's fucking annoying both ways. You need to take a long windy path (with no railings) to get this switch, and then you need to go back (with no railings) so you can use the Change Staff to get across (with no railings) so you can get to the next door (with no railings). And then you have to do the same on the other half of the room after the next puzzle (with railings for the puzzle).


There's also the Targum book enemy in here. Decent Magic, likes to use Graviton for 50% HP damage, and Dispel to get rid of the buffs I never use for random encounters. Usually wastes time using Feeble Mind.


I never liked these puzzles much anyway. This one gets more asymmetrical, and more frustrating. To top it off, the prize is 1/100th of a MP Repair's worth of Gella. 10,000 is pocket change by this point.


Okay, this is just plain mean. At least this is the last one. Prize is a PS Defend 2. Kind of Meh, since I already spent a ton of Gella on them.


...huh? Anyway, time to sing a song to the crystal. Wakey-wakey!



Balaam here is...curious. He has four masks that get switched around at the end of each turn, and the mask itself determines what abilities Balaam will use. One does physical attacks, the other uses Dispel, another uses The Uncertainty Theory, which uses tons of status effects at once, and the last one uses Suppressed Curse? which is a powerful Dark-elemental attack. You can target the mask, which will get revived with Balaam moves, effectively canceling his attack. This bugger has 120k HP at Lv. 75, so be prepared for this one to last a while.
Music selection from Alone the World again. Resistance Line is Wild ARMs 2's second opening song, and works for a boss theme.


Yoink. Zed's turn to shine.


As I mentioned, the face changes every turn. I guess the damage might stack when the face comes back...but they only have 2500 HP, so that doesn't matter since it's so weak. Anyway, Typical set up. RNGs Blessing? Brave Seal. Great Booster. Infinity. Let's see what Zed's made of. Here come Star Blast!


I may have seriously overestimated the power of that attack. I also forgot to use Chop-Chop on Balaam before doing this, but I don't think that would have doubled the damage.
Post LP Note: Polsy is still awesome.


Not that it's a big problem. Zed revives with Cecilia and gets boosted again. Star Blast only has one charge, so I start using Secret Sword as well because it's a pretty safe move to use on a boss because Zed won't take damage unless the enemy dies.
That's one of the main problems with Zed. He has decent abilities, but they are just too costly for Alter Parts, and have a high chance of backfiring.


Fuck Up Count: 36. This is supposed to make them more vulnerable to negative statuses, not more resistant. Oh well, Balaam already 100% resists everything, and I don't think this makes him vulnerable to any status effect now. I don't know, never bothered to check.


Eventually Balaam goes down, but the view of his death animation is blocked by Jane's hair.


Here we go, a PS that doesn't suck, it's just useless. Well, I take that back, one of the Golems is Wind-elemental, so maybe this might get some usage. Maybe.


Right, anyway, here is the real reason to bother with De La Metalica, besides the chests and the bonus boss: Necronomicon. Remember how I mentioned that Suppressed Curse? was a powerful Dark-elemental spell? Necronomicon also has it's twin Unbreakable Spell? which is Light-elemental. To make matters worse, Necronomicon also has 999 Magic, so it's fucking deadly with this thing. Fortunately, it's a rare encounter in here, so I had to waste time finding it. But why do this?


The Necronomicon has a low chance of dropping the PS Necronomicon, which is just fucking awesome. You can get it easily by using Hazardous Material 666 (30% chance of success, but you can use Gimel Coins or Reset if Emma survives) followed by Fuck You RNG!!
So, what does Necronomicon do? It makes Cecilia and Emma a force to be reckoned with. Whenever you hit an enemy's elemental weakness, the TC of the move is increased by 1, which will get tripled because you hit the weakness. This applies to all elemental attacks, like Gems, Materials, and Emma's slowly growing collection of wacky enemy moves.

Anyway, I'll end the update here. Next time, hopefully I'll finish most of the bonus bosses.

End of update status:
: Level 100
--ATK Bonus: 114 (Lv. 8)
--Bullets: 10 (Lv. 7)
: Level 100
: Level 100
--Obtained the Necronomicon.
: Level 100
--Obtained the Necronomicon.
: Level 100
--Bullets: 20 (Lv. 15)
: Level 100
Migrant Seals: 16
Ex. File Keys: 13/25
Fuck-Ups: 35

Version Differences:
More bonus bosses to fight in this game, all they drop is crap because they can't drop ultimate equipment this time around.
You can return to De La Metalica and get multiple Necronomicons. Still as awesome as the original game, just in a different way.

Ex File Key:
None this time.

A Saying A Day
: (October 8th) Today's saying is, 'throwing in the towel.' Throwing in a spoon or towel means giving up. But if a stone or a die are thrown, it means to set something in motion. What's wrong with a spoon or a towel? I want to think of throwing spoons as something good.
: (October 9th) Today's saying is that impious crime is uneconomical. So don't commit an unworthy crime, this saying tells us.......... So, we must commit a worthy crime? Some parents said that the kids may interpret it this way. They had this saying removed from the saying book of this year. The parents did such a sinful thing. Casting aside a saying........ This is really uneconomical.
: (October 10th) Today's saying is, 'history repeats itself.' This saying solves the mystery of 'if a possibility is not 0, then it may come true some time.' The universe is infinite and time is infinite, too......... Somewhere, someday, a person looking exactly like me may be born and tell your descendants all these sayings.
: (October 11th) Today's saying is that everybody is rested. This saying is about holidays and vacations and such. Especially New Year's Day.......... It is not that everybody gets arrested.

Next Time:

Oh god, I remember this puzzle all to well. But I don't remember the solution..