Part 43: .hack Quarantine - //Update 05 - Ω Cruel Vindictive Scars (Tarvos Edition)
//Update 05Greetings everyone! Today's update has yet another phase fight and then after that, well I don't want to give too much away. You'll see.
But first, we have to fight The Avenger.
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Yeah. We're starting off in front of the boss fog. We're back in Ω Cruel Vindictive Scars.
I do appreciate that all of the phase fights so far have all been pretty fucked up. They all have a really monstrous quality to them that I appreciate. Tarvos in particular really reminds me of something you'd fight in Okami.
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Tarvos has an interesting gimmick. It's immune to physical or magic damage, and occasionally swaps between the two.
Naturally it has status spells, but at this point those have long since been a joke.
When the boss wants to change between tolerances, it stops moving and a really gross brown puddle forms beneath it.
There's also no way to miss when he changes tolerances, because this cutscene plays every time it happens. Mercifully, it's skippable.
Occasionally the boss stops moving and a metric fuckton of nails appear above someone.
You want to heal them with a potion, because a spell will be too slow to save them.
Unlike Macha who used thunder and fire spells, Tarvos solely uses this darkness elemental spell.
Malice Light is painful, but ultimately survivable if you've gotten this far in the game.
Data Drain, as always, is an annoyance more than a threat. Though I have to admit that it's cool as hell to use the giant nail to aim the data drain.
Finally Tarvos has "Cursed Death Play." This is his signature move and it actually makes him the most dangerous phase fight in the entire series because of it.
There is no way to mitigate the damage it deals. Whoever he targets with this ability will die and there is no way to prevent it. However, because of the way these fights are set up, immediately after killing someone, he spends the next 10-15 seconds gleefully running around the battlefield doing nothing.
Just because he's dangerous doesn't make him a threat. Yes, his abilities hit super hard, and yes he can instantly kill someone with no way to prevent the damage, but he doesn't press that advantage. I said it for Gorre and it's stayed true ever since - these fights would be a lot more difficult if the bosses attacked more than every once in a while.
Here we are at the tail end of the series, with only two major boss fights left, and the fights are still dead simple. Honestly, more than anything else, Tarvos just runs away from your party. To actually get a game over here, you'd have to willfully not heal anybody from any damage they suffer.
The fight is basically over once he protect breaks. He's got a lot of health to go through, but he no longer has any tolerances, so your party is free to kill him to death.
Just watch out for PhAni Zot.
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Tarvos actually starts screaming in agony as his epitaph stones crumble.
: One more left...
: No, there is still Cubia...
Oh hey, it's these guys. We last met them way back at the end of Mutation when we first came to Net Slum!
"Cool-huh-wuch" is how he says his name, in case you're curious.
: (Dorin) There's no way AI don't dream.
: (Tartarga) This is good.
This image shows just how long we've been playing and what level we are. In this case, the answer is "3 hours" and "level 77."
I included this because we just arrived at the end of the game. I'm serious. With these guys showing up, we're about to get five area keywords. Four of them are data bug dungeons, and the last one is the final dungeon in the game.
So as of right now we've officially arrived in the sidequest portion of the game. We've got a few updates worth of sidequests and whatnot to go through, and then we're tackling the endgame.
Buckle up guys!
Oh and there are an absolute shitload of e-mails below. Feel free to skip them if you like. I wouldn't blame you, to be honest.
?
Ω Obedient Someone's Knights is added to the Word List.
Sidequest count: 1
I'm finding it difficult to believe that this bike story is of this much importance. Between massive worldwide communication and hospital equipment failures, bike deliveries shouldn't be getting this much attention.
CC Corp is gonna have a lot to answer for when all's said and done.
Of course a terrorist group would claim responsibility for what The Wave did.
This is where we're gonna get the last five area keywords for the story.
You can kinda read Aura's e-mail here. I'm not sure what a few of the words are, and more than half of the e-mail constitutes massive story spoilers. If you've managed to parse what she's saying - it's not difficult - please do not say anything about it!
But let's touch on Morganna. We've been dancing around the subject for the past three games. Senerio even posted a bit of lore where "An Shoji" warned users against someone named Morganna.
Morganna is the AI that Harald created to oversee Aura's birth. The Cursed Wave boss fights are called "phases" because they are all phases of Morganna's programming. The World is fucked up every time we've data drained one because we're not data draining a virus - we're data draining the core programming of the game itself.
Being an AI, Morganna is of course sentient. She understands that to fulfill her programming - to give birth to Aura - means she would no longer be necessary. That means she would have no purpose and would effectively die. But if Aura weren't born, she could continue living.
It was to this end that poor An Shoji was kidnapped from her abusive father, taken away from her awful life, and prevented from logging out. Morganna had turned her into the first coma victim. She somehow wired An's mental state to Aura's development. If she experienced pain, loss, hurt, and other such negativity, then Aura would grow corrupt and never awaken.
An experienced all of that, but thanks to some very good friends, she experienced all the good things that life has to offer as well - friendship, hope, happiness, even love. Despite Morganna's best efforts, An managed to awaken Aura, and was freed from her coma as a reward
Yes, that is the story of .hack//Sign. An Shoji, as you've probably guessed, is the real name of the young girl that played the Wavemaster Tsukasa.
Δ Reincarnated Purgatorial Altar has been added to the Word List.
These are the keywords to the final dungeon in the game. It is a 10 floor dungeon packed to the gills with data bugs, and at the bottom, one of the two remaining boss fights await us.
It is also a level 90 area. We have a little bit of level grinding to go through between now and then.
Sidequest count: 2
Sidequest count: 3
I will never tire of Kite's asshole answers. Try and tell me that the wrong response to Moonstone isn't the funniest thing. (Anyone who makes claims contrary is lying.)
As we're about to find out, Ryoko's dad is out of his goddamn mind.
Anyway, Blackrose told us to check out the message board. So let's go get our area keywords.
Ω Splendid Emerald Nobleman is added to the Word List.
Ω Dreaming Moonlit Gravestone is added to the Word List.
Ω Muted Starving Dry Sea is added to the Word List.
Ω Rotting Countless Sacrifice is added to the Word List.
Gee, thanks Rachel.
I actually forgot, we already had one of the endgame sidequests. It was the one Moonstone sent us at the beginning of the volume so...
Sidequest count: 4.
The end of the game is in sight guys!
NEXT TIME: We meet The Crimson Lance and tackle the wall of quests in front of us.