Xenogears Part #60 - Episode LVII: Kahran Ramsus and Fei Fong Wong

Part 60: Episode LVII: Kahran Ramsus and Fei Fong Wong – Arch Rivals!

Episode LVII: Kahran Ramsus and Fei Fong Wong – Arch Rivals!

Those two are definitely cruising toward a steamy hate fuck.

"Hey, that's..."

”Ugh. Her again...? Hey, Elly. Do Solaris bozos only fight for best three out of five?”
“What?”
“Well, I beat up those Gebler guys you used to run with three times and they haven’t showed up again. This is the third time for this crazy bitch. I was hoping I’d be off the hook after this one...”
“I...don’t think it works like that, Fei...”
“Dang.”

Music: Knight of Fire

Time for a third round against Dominia. This time she’s actually piloting her proper Gear, Bladegash. She’s not too tough to take out. Though, Bladegash is sporting a gimmick we need to deal with.

Dominia’s Gear can imbue itself with one of the four elemental for added damage. An elemental sword will do around 500-600+ damage with a bit more if the Gear it is attacking is equipped with any weaknesses against said element. But, there is a trick to dealing with these swords.

Elly has access to magic spells of all four elements as well. By casting an opposing magic type (Earth and Wind or Fire and Water) Bladegash’s elemental sword will fizzle out leaving Dominia to either use a severely neutered regular melee attack, or more often she’ll just re-cast her elemental power-up.

As such, this battle can be fairly easily dealt with by having Elly just troll Dominia’s magic buffs while Bart and Fei wail on her with Level 1 Deathblows.

Speaking of which, I decided to equip that Deathblower1 on Weltall and holy SHIT does the unlocked Deathblow kick ass. 1000+ damage for 10 Fuel every other turn? Yeah, I'll take that.

In any case, after a fairly short battle Bladegash will retreat for now. But, of course, the battle is not over yet. Xenogears just friggin’ LOVES back-to-back boss battles...

It is worth mentioning that Dominia does drop a STR Drive capsule upon defeat. Remember Drive? The drug that turned Elly into a hammy crazy faced villain briefly? Yeah...that is now an item that drops occasionally. STR Drive grants a permanent +1 Strength bonus to a single character with no-ill side effects whatsoever. There are Drive shots that give permanent bonuses to every single stat (for instance, HP Drive gives a permanent 20 HP bonus.)

So despite that whole psycho Elly episode, drugs are great!

”Well, except for just now when she quit...”

“Wh-what?”

"Below!"

"Is it what I think it is?"

”Really? Didn’t we just kick that thing’s ass yesterday?”
“...I guess it got better! I suppose they’re not sweating the details either. C’mon!”

The party jumps into the ocean...

"Yes, he's in the black Gear in the center there."

"Right. I've got him!"

”Why does everyone keep calling this a ‘black’ Gear? It’s dark-blue, if anything...”

"Uh! You again!?"

”I think preppy boy has a hard-on for ya, Fei.”
“Terrific... At this rate you’re gonna have some white haired Solaris jerk riding your ass too by the end of the week, Bart.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“So, what happened to your 'other Gear'!?"

"What are you talking about!?"

"Not to matter... At any rate, until I eliminate you, there will never be any 'light' for me!!"

”Aww. Hear that, Fei? He wants you to fill his dark soul with liiiiiiiiiigggggghhhht!”
“Oh ha-ha...”

Time for a re-match with Haishao. Now that Ramsus is piloting it, the pink fish-Gear suddenly does twice as much damage. Most annoying is its Electric Arm now hits three random party members each time for a cumulative 1500 damage between the three impacts. This means it could hit all three party members for around 500-600 HP or else just completely ruin a single one’s day for 1500+ HP. This can add up quick. So the first order of business is to slap on Booster and to nip this attack in the bud.

As with the first round against Haishao, Wild Smile is very useful. But that is doubly true for this boss battle. Miang is also fighting alongside Ramsus in her Gear and is providing the same supporting role as she had in the on-foot battle against our Arch Rival. This means every few turns she’ll heal him for 750 HP. For some reason, we’re not allowed to target Miang to make her knock that shit off. So instead, we can just use Wild Smile.

Now, instead of healing Haishao every few turns, Miang will burn off her support role dispelling Wild Smile instead. Miang prioritizes dispelling magic over healing Ramsus. So, just having Bart hang back and spam Wild Smile will both cause Haishao’s primary attack to become a joke and Miang to become a non-issue. Meanwhile, Weltall and Vierge can just beat the hell out of the thing with Deathblows.

If the party takes too long sinking Ramsus, he’ll pull his Mirror Stance crap again wherein he’ll stop attacking, dodge any attacks thrown at him, and immediately counter-attack with the Nereid Cyclone group attack from the first battle against this Gear. But, we’d really have to take a while for him to pull this out.

After the battle...

“Well too bad! No matter what... I can't let you live!"

Haishao uses its uncanny ability to completely ignore the fact it had its ass handed to it in a boss battle and proceeds to kick the shit out of Weltall for Critical Cutscene Damage™.