Introduction ~ Danger vers (US)

Introduction ~ Pray vers (EU/JP)

Muladhara
Svadhisthana
Shanti
Manipura
Anahata (Part One)
Anahata (Part Two)
Manipura ~ The Second Movement
Co-Ordinate 136 (Part One)
Co-Ordinate 136 (Part Two)
Co-Ordinate 136 (Part Thr-Hee)
Deserted Ship
Samsara Tunnels
Svadhisthana ~ The Second Movement
Ajna
Samsara Tunnels ~ The Second Movement
Sahasrara
The Si Xiang
Yellow Dragon and Silver Wings
The End of the Junkyard
New Game+ ~ The Demi-Fiend



Random Encounters plague the thread! (by blankd)



Nirvana?
Occupied Sector
Underground City
Underwater Cable
Internment Facility (Part One)
Internment Facility (Part Two)
Karma Society Tower (Part One)
Karma Society Tower (Part Two)
Karma Society Tower (Part Three)
The EGG Facility (Part One)
The EGG Facility (Part Two)
The Power Plant (Part One)
The Power Plant (Part Two)
The Corrupt EGG Installation
Five Years Before
Yahweh's Angels
Airport (Part One)
Airport (Part Two)
The Sun
The Third and Fourth Layers
The Fifth and Sixth Layers
Conquest, Destruction, Preservation and War
Full-Fiend Satan
Enlightenment

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jun 13, 2015

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Mar 21, 2015

Welcome to the Junkyard

As mentioned before, and will be the case in basically every instance, it is much, much easier to just watch this if you can.



But if not, then you should probably know that the first 30 seconds or so have this weird trippy background.



They also have a disembodied voice talking. We have no context for this, nor does it make a lick of sense right now.



Sorry, make that two disembodied voices. Thankfully it is easy to distinguish between the two.

...And with that, we're dropped into the midst of a rainy, ruined city with a giant tower lurking in the distance.



Much more importantly, we have our main characters all assembled right here. There's actually five of them, but the ones on the far left and right might be harder to spot.

Also, there's that weird oval thing kind of in the distance. That's pretty important.





That eyepiece she was looking through, wasn't the scope on her rifle or anything. It was an actual small device of sorts and she hands it off to our grey haired friend here.



He looks through it too, and we get a pretty cool first-person view of what it displays.



Namely we get to survey an entire set of dudes, including this Harley fella.



So we know that we can get some vague information from this thing. What about that strange egg-like thing with tentacles?



...Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Weird.



Strange as that is, there's still a job to do. Thankfully, it seems like our grey haired friend there is a commander of sorts. With a mere wave of his hand, the other three who were standing by...

Tribal War

Get their assorted weapons ready. For his red-haired buddy that means an assault rifle.



Purple dredlocks has a submachine gun.



And, uh, Steve Blum has... another assault rifle.

Yes, everyone has a gun or ranged weapon of some kind.

And with that, we begin the Steel Ball Run.

drat uh wrong thing wai-



Y'know, to say he has four unique modeled characters heading his way right now, Harley sure is looking rather smug about something.



Perhaps he already knows that even after their leader gets into position he will be distracted by...



A kitty with a drat weird bell on its collar.



Not much of a distraction, but it does last long enough for this guy to get some shots off.



Right before he gets headshotted by our no-scoping sniper.



Thankfully, the grey-haired leader gets away just in time because those crossbow bolts explode.

Sure, why not.



Oh, and while everyone else has either automatic weapons or a sniper rifle? He just has a handgun (now; he had an assault rifle but threw it away by mistake just before this). Makes sense, since he's the guy in charge so he probably doesn't come out to the battlefield proper often or something.

Also he only needs it anyway. Can shoot those bolts out of the air like it's nothing.



A barrage like this might present more of a problem, though. But that's what the backup is for.



Here's your requisite reminder that all of this is over that betentacled egg thing. Complete with a requisite explosion.

Silence

Huh, it seems neither side knows what this thing is. And both think the other is to blame for it being there.



And while they're trying to figure out what that could possibly mean, this thing starts glowing green.



Then it gets hit by lightning. Because of course it does.

That's not an accident though...



It sure seems like it should be, considering that is what makes the egg-thing finally explode.



That releases these weird beams of light that run through everyone. Harley and the rest of the Vanguards...



Along with Mr. Grey hair and the rest of his group...



This, in turn, leads to Bad Things happening.



Like, dudes turning black and having these weird purple lines all of over them.



Schizophrenic voices in their head suggesting cannabalism.





And that Harley guy... being replaced by some zebra... looking... thing that sliced a guy in two.



It's at this point, you may have noticed our conspicuously silent grey-haired protagonist finally starts yelling out in pain.



Or at least Yuri Lowenthal's closest attempt to it.

This view is through that eyeglass lense thing by the way.



At some point, it cuts away from that and shows... this pseudo-silhouette of that tall thing with a blade coming out of his hand. In motion, it looks like he's eating something. There's even some sound-effects of chewing and the like.



Strange that it shows a blue sky here, ain't it? Not jarring in the least. Not to mention that the place we were just at sure as hell doesn't have a blue sky.



Oh well, seems we passed out during all that and are awake now.



Eh, probably just imagining things. Seems like everyone else passed out too.

???

But it does seem like there must be something else in there...



Oh, it's just a naked girl.

...Wait, hang on. What?

Hurray, our protagonist finally has his name mentioned.



And if you think him being named "Serph" is lazy (yes, like surf)... oh boy. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Silence

Embryon

End

Muladhara

Oh good it's finally over. Now we can wander around Muladhara for a bit, talk with our other party members, learn their names indirectly, see what bits of tutorialising there are...



And find out why Heat thinks the Vanguards would know anything.

It's pretty much just speculation though.



Anyway, since everyone has a gun we can choose the ammo they use. We have none yet spare, of course, but since we can't get to a stats page yet this lets us see them anyway.

Serph, being the main character, doesn't really have any inherent speciality. He can do just about anything and it won't matter too much.



Heat, on the other hand, is very blatantly a Strength guy. This won't change, like ever.



Argilla (it's Italian for clay) also seems like a bit of a blank slate, much like Serph. Only difference between the two at first glance is she prioritises Magic and Luck a little more, whereas he prefers Strength and Agility.

We'll go over stats and their various uses later, though. They're mostly self-explanatory but there are some subtleties that are less obvious.

Sadly, Gale (green-haired Steve Blum) and Cielo (dredlocked Dave Wittenberg) are sitting this one out. Despite seeming like they're totally party members, you can't actually sub 'em into the party, unfortunately.



Most of the nameless members of the Embryon just exist to spout basic unimportant exposition or give you dry tutorials. None of which is worth our time; it's all blindingly obvious or not necessary.



That guy out there, for example, was basically just telling us "there are treasure chests." That is what these purple eggy things are.

Lots of egg like objects in this place.



This particular one just has a basic revival item in it. As a nice change, to what most people may be used to by now, even if Serph drops he can totally be revived. That "leader dies, game over" thing does not apply to actual gameplay. At least not for us.



Opposite our free loot, we can find our black haired... kidnapee (I guess?) sleeping. Nothing else though.



Anyway, this door has a golden quincunx on it. This is the weird shorthand symbol for "this room is a shop."



Regular items are mostly uninteresting for now. Dis- items just cure the ailment in their name. Panaceas cure a couple extra. All very simple stuff.



We can also buy bullets from Vendors if we wanted to. Even though these are twice as good as our current bullets, we can only get two right now and we don't need them anyway.



Much like the vendor having a shorthand symbol, we can also find doors with a red lotus on them.



These ones are large terminals. Specifically only ever large terminals. They function, well, like terminals in the rest of the series. Save points and teleport spots. They also have the added bonus of letting you heal too. How nice.

There are smaller ones too, of course. They don't have dedicated rooms. You can't teleport to a smaller one, nor can you restore HP/MP there.



Ah well, let's keep poking around Muladhara a bit more. Argilla and Heat are waiting up ahead, but for now we'll head through that door up on our right.



This one just has a couple rooms beyond it. And a weird blue light... wall?



Yeah, it's a wall. Looks like we'd just be able to walk through but no dice. We'll be back for this later. So what about those other 4 rooms?



Three have items in them. A Soma Drop here (full HP/MP recovery for one person).



Three Chakra Drops (50MP to one person) in a different room and two Dis-Poisons in the third.

The fourth? Empty. How boring.

Argilla gives us some minor exposition. Heat, not even that. The only important thing here is that since we control Muladhara, there's no fights here. It's our home base, so of course its nice and safe.

It may be hard to see from here, but that purple light behind that pillar?



It's an item container we can't get to yet. It's easy to see, and you're constantly reminded of it since it's on the way to the exit.



Speaking of which, this guy by the exit proper is a dick. He asks you if you're low on healing supplies. You'd think if you told him "yes" that he'd give you some. Instead, he tells you to go buy some.



This guy, meanwhile, cares about our wellbeing a bit. He just thinks we'll be at a disadvantage since we're going into the Vanguard's territory.

Junk Yard

Well, we will head there shortly. First things first, we're off back to Ground Zero briefly.



...When we do, we get this message. It doesn't mean much though. We just lost a couple HP.



What we're actually here for is to talk to this guy by the crater. He just gives us 5 Rations for free, no questions asked. Nothing else here but these. Nothing else left to do back at Muladhara either.



Let's go see what Harley knows. He'll answer our questions, one way or another.

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Aug 25, 2014

Svadhisthana

Heat's a classy guy and totally not talking about eating our men at a-

Oh, wait, he is a dickhole and is totally talking about doing it. If only Argilla would let him.



In some cases, it would certainly be an acceptable loss. This guy, eh, not so much. He knows what's up. Since we just murdered and ate Harley, his men now belong to us as does Swadhisthana itself. To accommodate this fact, we can run around inside freely and no random battles will accost us! If we missed some loot or the like, this would be a great time to head back in and get it. I got everything we could though, so for now it's just like running around Muladhara but without the random NPCs to pretend like they matter.

Speaking of Muladhara, we'll head back there now. Nothing else to do here, and Argilla's doubled over from hunger.

Pray

Some Awesome Thing That Isn't On The OST.

Oh, those gunshots were being fired at a demon.



Cielo is already proving that he is very much not like Argilla, because he cannot hit this thing. And he's firing waaaaaay more bullets.



Dude's so bad a shot, this thing has the time to prep itself and jump into the air. Even when it was stood still, Cielo couldn't hit it.

Silence

Sera

Silence

End

Sahasrara

Sahasrara's named after the seventh and final primary tantric chakra. It's name doesn't refer to an area, but rather a thousand petaled white lotus. Primarily deals with intuitive knowledge, conscious awareness, duality and a connection to spirituality.



Unlike all other areas we've seen so far, Sahasrara isn't under the control of any one tribe. It's considered the property of the Karma Temple and thus serves as neutral ground. We can talk to dudes from all other Tribes here (but they're condescending assholes so we won't) and, uh, that giant lady machine thing isn't called the Dissemination Machine for nothing.



The place is mostly a boring straight line, which is weird considering it's a several thousand foot tall, has a tower ascending to Nirvana itself and is... somehow... not falling off that tiny, tiny piece of land its perched precariously on.

Also Argilla and the kitty from earlier
(it is indeed the same cat)



So, yeah, the place is a boring straight line. Let's just skip to the plot.

Angel

Silence

...Man, the Dissemination Machine is even weirder now that it's not a hologram.



Also, as Serph walks up to his little stand, every other leader turns to look at him. That red tattoo under her eye isn't her brand. I'll give you three guesses where it is (freebie: it's not her chest, since that's Argilla's fanservice area).









Everyone seems to already know we killed and ate Harley, because they were just waiting on us to get here. Or maybe the machine springing to life and doing its weird hand thing clued 'em in.

So, uh, weird creepy voice lady speaks out of the aether and then shocks the machine because, um, kicks? It clearly isn't necessary to speak to us or anything.



I get the feeling most people in this place are just dicks, frankly.



Oh, wait, it for this holographic projection. Never mind, carry on.

Eat Them All

Silence

In case you didn't pick it up from his complete lack of dialogue so far, yes, Serph is a silent protagonist. Anytime he says something it's a dialogue option presented in game. Some are worth our time to care about for reasons that will make sense MUCH later. Others are not.



This one is in the latter. Regardless of what we say, Angel freaks the gently caress out.



Like, a lot.

End

So that's two down. Again, we get a bit of a small interlude before running to the last one.



In this case, it's because we just unlocked THE biggest moneysink in the entire game.



Like, it's not even close. Mantras are a thing that we need just to get by, and they're hella expensive later on; by going to any Karma Terminal (size doesn't matter), we can now use this option.

Mantra

This lets us get this big-rear end board. It's a PS2 RPG, of course our abilities are determined by a big-rear end board. Naturally, just because one character gets a Mantra it doesn't mean poo poo for anyone else. This wouldn't be too bad for the most part, but you see all those nodes that are already there?

There are more. They just won't turn up until much, much later.

The best part? Getting new abilities from here costs Macca. Lots and lots and lots of loving Macca.

In total it takes 20,728,000 macca to get everything. And that's just for 1 character. So, yes, over 101 million for all Mantras for everyone. Doesn't that sound like fun!

Be glad you're not me, and aren't insane enough to do this for the not-at-all-worth-it reward in DDS2.

...Honestly, I say that but even I probably won't bother in the end. Like I say, the reward is not worth the effort.



Filling it out, in terms of mastering the Mantras, is easy as all hell at least. The hard part is the cash flow.



So, I'm currently committing a cardinal sin. You don't have Serph learn Earth Spirit first. No, because he's weak to Fire you "absolutely must" drill him down the Fire Spirit path to alleviate it.

I am not doing that, sorry. I think that's pretty dumb. It's hella slow, hella expensive and hella niche. In the time it takes to do that, you could have so many better things that the weakness to one element is moot.

Instead, I prefer to focus on alleviating a crippling lack of offense. If I need to patch a weakness in a hurry, that's what Void spells are for. By the time it becomes a real big deal, the time and money investment to patch things in more convenient ways will be significantly more managable.



Also doing the patch weakness thing immediately leaves other people unable to keep up with how fast Serph can master his Mantras. He picked up Devour by default from having it equipped well in advance. Heat and Argilla did not. Giving them even the first one is plenty for now.

Oh, and beyond this little bit I won't really post the mantra board and me buying things particularly often. A rundown at the end of future updates of "here's what skills we learned from this dungeon and what they do" is plenty sufficient. Plus that way you can skip it if my eclectic sense of "here's what will chump the next boss" annoys you or you just don't care or something. (Also, the full boards will be in the second post as a testament to me being an insane, grind-loving lunatic.)




...Now, where were we? Ah, right. Running back to Muladhara.

Gale's Plan

Silence

Operation

Silence

And with that, we're FINALLY done with all these cutscenes this time around. We'll celebrate by finishing up with some optional bonuses.



Now that we know Gale's plan, we can head back to Svadhisthana and pick up something that wasn't here beforehand. If we came back here anytime before now, we wouldn't be able to get it (and I know from checking at every possible opportunity).



Once this guy is here and tells us about these rookies, we can get it. This is just the in-game reason for...



Why random encounters are back here. They're basically dudes who are unaffiliated with any Tribe, trying to band together to form their own.

That they also just happen to all be the exact same demons as the Vanguards is just a gameplay concession you'll have to ignore.



At least it's nice enough to let Argilla nab the Earth Spirit mantra she was nearly done with anyway. Since she's decided to do anything to get to Nirvana, she'll eat dudes now. Just in time for fights to return too. How nice!



Tera's the basic Earth spell, yadayada you get the idea. Also comes with Void Earth if you've forgotten already. I'm having Serph also learn this for a reason that will make sense later, I swear.

In the meantime, Argilla can join Heat in getting Devour. Because Hunt skills are super-useful, everyone should have them.

Nothing in the dungeon itself, but if we run all the way back to Harley's room at the back?




We can see that the window there is totally still broken. Also this guy gives us something that was Harley's. We get all his old possessions, which is... just this key.

We don't get his sweet crossbow. I would've preferred that.



Well... okay. Preferred isn't quite what I meant after all. More along the lines of I would've liked this and the crossbow.



But, hey, remember this wall way back at the entrance to Svadhisthana?



We can get past it now. There's only one room back here...



Not that you need me to tell you that. We could see this from the other balcony, remember? The contents of these item pots is way more important anyway.




Noise items are permanent stat boosts for whoever you use them on. They give +2 to the stat in question, as well as fully restore your HP/MP. Naturally, then, there are an infinite number of these things.

There's nothing else we can do here now until we get a way past the Yellow and Red walls in the basement. Now is there anywhere else that had a blue wall...



Oh, right. Back to Muladhara. Again.



Thankfully this one's near the entrance and we don't have to slog through trash demons we can beat without even trying.



Even though this place totally feels like it SHOULD have random encounters in it. That one might just be me though.



There's a small area actually down here, but it mostly serves just to taunt us with three items we can't get. We won't be getting those for a loooooooong time.




It also gives us some more Noise. HP and MP at least get to go up by 10.



There's also this weird door down here. Wonder where it leads. Guess we won't find out for quite a while!



Oh, and there was another Blue Wall just before the rooms with the HP and MP Noises in them.



This one leads to that item we saw near the entrance. Great Chakras are a full MP restore for the entire party. Pretty darn handy!



That's all we can get for now with our new Blue Key, though. At least it's gonna help out get through any blue walls we'll see in the future.

Next time, we'll go see the Maribels and hopefully trick them into an alliance that really only benefits us.



(ps there may be a new thing in the op now. )

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Feb 25, 2015

Sahasrara

Muladhara

Jinana and the Maribel

Silence

So this time around, we're visiting the Maribel at Manipura. The third primary tantric chakra, its name means the "City of Gems" and it primarily deals with a sense of belonging, personal power, success, will and the ego.

Like all chakras, it has an animal associated with it (most of them are just Also This Is A Thing). In this case it's the ram which is only noteworthy because that is also Agni's personal vehicle.



Oh, and the regular ol' grunts from the Maribel are watching us the entire time we're here. I guess this is just so we don't try something but it's amazing they didn't try to gun us down on sight.



Oh well, let's just get this over with so we can focus on the important stuff.

Sera

Silence

End

Manipura

Now we can run around Manipura for real. Like with when we went to Svadhistana, this place is wonderfully light on cutscenes so we can focus on the important stuff.



We'll start off by running all the way to the far, far, far east. So far you'd have no reason to expect there to be anything over here.



It just leads to a small area with a Revival Gem in it. On all accounts, it does seem like this place should have random encounters in it but thankfully it doesn't.



Nothing else in the outer area of the base, so let's dive on in and go track down Jinana.

Hunting Field

To the surprise of probably no one, Manipura proper does count as our second dungeon.



Unlike with the Vanguard's Base, we get random fights from the very beginning. No free respites this time around.

So, those two doors dead ahead? The one on the right leads to a Vendor (the one at Swadhisthana's more convenient still) and the left is a small area with our requisite Large Karma Terminal to make warping out easy.



There's... hm. There's also this door we can't open yet. Maybe it's a shortcut if we wanna backtrack later or something.

Hunting ~ Compulsion

Oh well, for now here's a tutorial that's given as a random encounter for some reason.



Micro Nova's a special skill we can only get in this specific way. We'll cover it in a minute, but for now "tutorials!"



First, we hit the Ghoul with a Tera or Agi. Doesn't matter which since its weak to both. Get lucky enough and those blue line circles will appear above its head indicating its terrified of us now.



Follow it up with a Devour, and we deal actual proper damage with it. Since this also finished it off, Serph eats the dude whole and gets more Atma out of it.



...Well, he would were it not for this. When you eat an enemy demon, there is a chance of this happening. Stomachaches are a pain, for two reasons.

1. They have a chance of making you skip that character's turn. Always happens when you don't want it to.
2. Might just be my poo poo real luck, but these always seem to happen at the end of a fight where you can't heal them.



Finish a fight with a Stomachache still intact, and whoops. No AP for you!

It's a balancing mechanic, but its a dumb and annoying one. It's even pointless when you start grinding AP for real but we'll get to that later.



For now, we do a rarity and head to the Vendor. This lets us buy a few Dis-Aches; more than enough for the rest of our stay at Manipura anyway.



Aside from the Ghouls that are tougher than the tutorial ones, the enemies here are mostly identical to Svadhisthana for now. No Myo-Ruous or Alps or the like, but the tougher stuff like this guy or Empusas are still hanging around.



That's better. Serph just got a giant boost to his AP from eating the giant chickenman. No fights between the tutorial one here and this one either.

Hunting Field

Alright, so we'll now go all the way north and see... a locked gate with a 05 on it. No way of opening it from here either.

(The small alley behind us just has a couple Dis-Poisons in it.)



Backtrack a little, and this time we'll make note that there is a path we just ran straight past without much of a care.

Hunting

Y'know what? It's only a couple Pretas. They'll do.



So, combo attacks a bit more special. They require 2 or all 3 party members to have certain skills set. Mostly these are just ways of getting certain spells a bit earlier than usual (like with Mabufu).

In a few, very specific, cases they give us unique spells we can't get elsewhere. Micro Nova is one of those. It takes 5 MP from everyone and uses all of our turns in one go.



Worth it, though, when we blast everything for pretty decent Almighty damage. It's only really useful in fights like this one or a bunch of Empusas, since the damage isn't stellar (that's Heat's fault for having crap Magic though).

Hunting Field

We'll head off towards that door in the distance now; on the way there, there's a turn that leads onwards.



Worth getting the optional stuff here though. Gold containers like this one are going to be even more commonplace at this point, since it contains...



A cell. Cells are special items with one use: we sell them, and after gaining certain amounts of Macca from them we can buy more things from the Vendor (to open up everything, you need to gain 1.99 million from selling Cells... so that's gonna take a while).



Speaking of which, on the way back there Serph mastered his Mantra. I know I said I wouldn't post these for the most part, but this one's a special case.




With that done, he now has mastered 3 Mantras of 1-star difficulty. This opens up two more further down the tree. Yaksa and Angel are the starts of the Death and Expel elemental lines, respectively.

They're also where we get stat buffs and debuffs. Much more worthwhile for that.



So, Cells! We can sell the Error one for around a minimum of 3600.

Oh, minimum? Right. We can get more for this but first we need to finally pay attention to something.



That gauge in the top-left corner measures the current amount of Solar Noise. It counts up from 0 to 8, and then cycles back down. Thing is, it doesn't move on its own accord; it changes as we move around.

Which is why Svadhisthana's vendor is useful as hell. Area right by the entrance with no random encounters to deal with? Perfect for selling Cells and buying stuff.



At MAX noise (8), the Error Cell now sells for 4800 macca. 1200 more isn't much now, but it does add-up over time and even here it lets us pick up either a more expensive Mantra or more cheap ones than we could before.

Solar Noise also does some other things that we'll cover as they come up.



So, back on the main path in Manipura now.



Very near where we doubled back, there's the first gate we can get through. And that "!" on the map?



Yeah, that's how we can get through the gate. Most of them are right next to it, which helps keep things moving.



No, we don't have Jinana right away. Be nice, but we're not that lucky.



...Huh. They turned tail and ran before we got a fight with, uh, whoever it was.



So, we'll follow the path ahead the little way it goes and then make a detour. Up some stairs that are completely optional (skipping them brings us straight to Gate 2), we'll take this ladder up to the roofs.



This leads us to a new Cell which... I don't know why this one comes after the Error Cell. It sells for less macca.



Double back to the ladder, and head a little further north now. There's a pair of doors here, but we'll go through this one first.



It doesn't just lead to a new demon, but the Blob here is a mild nuisance.



We can deal with it without much issue, but its gimmick is weird. It starts with 9 MP, and loves to use MP Thief. This gives it enough MP to cast Teradyne. Thankfully, no one is weak to Earth and its Magic is so bad it can't even really hurt Heat much.

On the other hand, it can cast Dormina which tries to put the entire party to sleep. Regardless of whether that succeeds or not, if it tries it first then it runs out of MP to use MP Thief with.

Still a nuisance, though.



Anyway, the real reason to come here is because there's a Blue Wall here. We'd normally have to come back later, but we picked up the key at the very first opportunity so we can just waltz in.



This leads to a couple rooms where we can pick up some neat new items.

First is the Wild Card. Holding onto this for a moment when we really need it, since it deals Almighty damage to every enemy. It's more effective than Micro Nova but we only have one of 'em.



Further in, we can find another new Noise. Not much else to this one.



Oh and there's a Yellow Wall that's easier to see on our way back out. Gonna be back for that one much later.



The other door also leads to an optional area, but its arguably one that's more useful right now.

Like before, there's two areas. First one has a Brave Ration in it, which just heals 150 HP to one person.

I say "just" but that's more than we have right now, and nearly a quarter of our absolute max possible.



Through a different door, there's this weird guy who thinks he can take us.



He's just a Cockatrice, but at least there's a bit of a twist with this one.



Namely, he is actually weaker than a regular random Cockatrice.



He very swiftly gets dealt with, and we can pick up a new bullet. It's a good thing this was here, because it will be very useful very soon.



It's four times more powerful than a normal bullet, has a chance of inflicting Freeze and is going on Serph for, um, thematic reasons.



So, we'll double back to go to Gate 02 now. Hit the switch next to it, do whatever we need to at the small Karma Terminal and move on.



Like before, we can "feel a presence" behind the door. I imagine it'll be a repeat of last time and thus be completely empty on the other side.



Naturally, then, it's not. Obviously, right?

Hunting ~ Compulsion

So, the Yaka in the middle is kind of a new demon but its more interested in buffs than anything else. Likes setting up Void Fires but that's more for its cohorts benefit than his own, since he's immune to Fire by default.



Naturally, then, they're also weak to Ice spells.



Good fodder for feasting on, though. Weak, relatively low HP but gives decent-ish Atma compared to what we're used to.

Hunting Field

With those down, we're about halfway through Manipura now.



There's still not too much to particularly worry about from the dungeon itself. More occasional detours that lead to nothing or nowhere, but not too many.



This one just leads to another Active Cell, though. Arguably not worth it, but hey free money.



Backtrack to that door we just ignored on the minimap. It leads to a small corridor with a door at the other end. We actually do need to come through here, but there's a Blue Wall we'll head past first.



On the way to our prize, Serph hits level 10 which gives a minor bonus. This lets Serph set two more skills; more than enough for what we need it for right now.



The main reward back here is a Great Chakra though.

Since we can see Gate 03 from here, the opposite also holds true. If we didn't have the key, we'd be able to see the Chakra but not reach it yet.



Back on the main path again, we come to another ladder. We don't know it yet, but this detour is mandatory.



We can run into Nozuchis at this point. They're weak to Electricity, but we haven't got any of that at the moment.



Weirdly, they cast Matera and Tera on their own turns pretty often.



And yet they have no Earth resistance of their own. Instead, they drain Force.



This path just leads to the switch needed to open Gate 03. There's an item pot up here with some Chakra Drops too, but eh. We have plenty of 'em already.



Loop around to Gate 03 now, we get the same generic message as usual.



Like before, there IS a fight here. Unlike before, this fight is potentially a little tricky.

Hunting ~ Surprise Raid

This fight is sort of a tutorial too. This one just demonstrates that we can fight in our Human forms too. Most of the time this isn't that helpful. There are a handful of exceptions, but they're just that. Exceptions.



Thankfully, these guys are weak to Gun elemental attacks. Unsurprisingly, our guns all deal Gun elemental damage. Convenient!



Heat's gun is the only one that's particularly different right now since it hits every enemy at once. His bullets aren't as good as Serph's here, though, and he deals slightly less damage to compensate for his gun's ability to shoot everything too.



Argilla's are even more disappointing.



You might think, then, that having Argilla transform back to Prithivi is the right thing to do here. After all, it ups her damage potential right?



Um... no. Machas have the mid-level Force spell. This is quite a predicament.



Thankfully the game seems to have a hatecrush on Serph and just throws it at him. Still, 37 damage to neutral resistance says bad things for if it hits Argilla.



...And now it gets worse. They have Makakaja, which is problematic.



It only buffs the entire enemy teams Magic stat. And can be stacked upto four times.



Two of them, and Zanma deals nearly half of Serph's max HP in one go. This would oneshot Argilla if it hit her.

Hunting Field

Other than that, they have no real tricks up their sleeves and its just essentially a slugfest. Thankfully, there's a Life Terminal immediately after them.

Anyway, due east from the Life Terminal here we can head on up the stairs to advance or stick around on this floor a bit more.



Down here, we can find... a friggin' Devil Cell. These things are the worst Cells (but are few and far between); at their highest value they sell for 1200. Active Cells, the second worst, sell for 1600. At minimum. Mostly obtained as drops from Machas, but not worth the hassle.



Man, that's annoying now I feel the desire to run around slicing things to bits for a while. Good thing this door directly opposite the room we just came from has...



Just the thing. Field Hunts are special areas that are really, really good for grinding right now. But, appropriately enough, could prove hard to manage right now.

Manipura Field Hunt

Blade

The way they work is pretty simple. We run around as Varuna and slice these weird purple balls of energy under a time limit. These things follow a pattern in each field hunt and aren't really that hard to manage.



Once we get through all of that, a Mitama appears at the end of the course and we get to fight that.

Hunting ~ Rare Devil

Each Mitama has fixed stats, and Ara Mitamas here are the easiest/weakest. They have 300 HP and are weak solely to Ice spells. Nullify most everything else.



...They've also got a loving ton of magic defense.



Fortunately, they scare pretty easily so it's not hard to get Devour to deal proper damage to them. Even with 70+ damage a pop, they don't go down easy though. They can buff their physical defence, and their magic, which makes things quite annoying.



Plus if you don't kill them quick enough, they do this. Rare demons, regardless of the source, really love running away! So, yeah, we didn't get anything this time around. Mostly putting that down to me being a forgetful moron though.

End

Thankfully, the field hunts appear on the map in a different colour after you find them. This is a pretty great thing that makes repeating them convenient, and you can repeat them. After 5 full solar cycles while you're in the same area, they become reaccessible. Annoyingly, it counts them a bit different to how you think; a cycle for this case does not start until the Solar Noise hits minimum. It then carries on until it returns to minimum; so if you enter at 1/8 counting up, you've got a lot of runnning to do before it even starts to count.

Either way, here's a tip: you don't get random battles inside the field hunt areas.



But, eh, can grind them out later if I really feel like it. For now, let's just carry on. We do have to find Jinana in this place after all.



There's a couple rooms right up the stairs but there's not much in here that's particularly worthwhile. Odd Morsels are a double-edged sword; they heal a fair bit of HP but in return inflict ailments. Not worth it.



The Revival Gem in the same room is very nice, though.



Little bit further ahead on the main path, we come to a ladder leading back down. On the roof opposite, we can see a golden item container that we can't get to just yet. I haven't missed anything, and there's no opportunity to double back for it either.



The path down here is very straight forward and leads to that guy around the corner. Good time to heal up, I think. Kinda wish Argilla'd already mastered her current Mantra but no dice.

Big Battle ~ Prelude

Oh, and this guy's not alone.



No, we're already surrounded. This mostly just makes this take a bit longer.

Mini-Boss: Demon Gyu-Ki

Hunting ~ Compulsion

First part of this fight is pretty simple. It's just three Yakas. Nothing particularly frightening.



Take them out, five more jump in. Again, still not really an issue. These eight are all exactly the same as the normal ones we can fight in random battles.

They make for a good lunch break, though.



The real problem is this guy who comes after the 8th Yaka gets dropped.



He does all of one thing, but he does it every single turn in this fight. He's our first enemy that gets 2 actions and he uses one to Power Charge.



And then he hits you absurdly hard with a Body Rush. If he crits, and he can very easily crit these, you'll probably die. He then uses his third action to just continue the pattern, for all the difference it doesn't make.



Thankfully, he doesn't have that much HP and he has a weakness to Earth spells. Rather handy that.

Although even with that, it is possible for things to go wrong here.



...Like so. Heat, you just ruined everything jesus christ.



Um, never mind. Getting a crit immediately after missing isn't quite the same as getting two regular hits in a row, unfortunately. At least it functionally replenishes the turns we missed before.



Not worth much AP, but the Karma is nice and he even replenished the Dis-Ache we had to use on Argilla. How considerate!

End

Hunting Field

Moving on, we can get the switch to Gate 05. This isn't particularly useful for leaving from here (there's a small Karma terminal around the corner), but it is getting back quickly. It's actually kind of necessary especially compared to somewhere like Swadhisthana. This place is quite large, sprawling and windy in comparison.



Before we head to our real destination, though, we'll head a bit further west and head through this door a little out of the way.



It just leads to a Chakra Pot, but that's a 150MP restore and it functions basically identically to a Great Chakra right now. Only difference is that it can only be used on one person instead of the whole party.



Nothing else here worth doing, so let's flip that gate switch and... run back to the Vendor real quick to sell off these Cells before I forget.



In doing so, we can now buy two new items. Hurray!




Muscle Drinks are pretty cool. They heal you like normal healing items, but they also give you a minor boost to your max HP for that fight. Nothing overly amazing, and less useful later, but it could help for trickier fights.

Spyglass is just Analyze but in item form. You buy it once, and you're done. Analyze is now permanently worthless because the Spyglass is infinite-use.

Of course, if you can read this you don't need it. Just use the MegaTen wiki or GameFAQs or something. Gives you the same information, only better. Except for bosses where it gives you more information.



Money in-hand, new items available but unbought because I am a cheapskate horder need it for Mantras right now, let's finally head on through Gate 04.

The Laziest Name

Sonic Wave

Hey, we found you. We didn't die either. I guess we win this little game!





Well, uh, we didn't come to fight her but I guess she doesn't mind fighting us. Or at least having her weird, silent lackey there do it.



His "thing" is meant to be that he's really good with knives. In a place that mostly used guns before, but now uses demons.

I have no idea how he survived this long.



So, his name is Bat. He's our next boss fight.

Guess what his Atma Avatar is. Go on. Guess.

Figured it out yet? Because you're about to find out.



...Yeah, no surprises there. Let's just ruin his day and move on

Boss: Asura Camazotz

Big Battle

Camazotz here is a Mayan deity, for a nice change of pace. They're monsters that were around in the underworld of Xibalba and plagued some twins. His name is K'iche' (yes, that's how its really spelt; it's a Mayan language) for... "death bat". I'm pretty sure this is peak laziness right here.

Anyway, Camazotz in-game just has absurd Magic, so we don't hurt him much with spells. At least not yet. He doesn't actually resist any elements; he's just that resilient. It's totally possible to have an element-boost passive by now. That'd push this up from 6 to an amazing 8!



Physicals, in comparison, ruin his day pretty effectively. So, sticking to those then.



Oh, and he doesn't use his great Magic for anything but defense. He has no offensive spells, so we can cast Tarunda to neuter him somewhat.



All of his attacks are physicals, so this deals with them nicely. We can even cast this three more times to reduce it further and there is nothing he can do about it.



He's a very nice step-up from Hayagriva because we can't just sit here and nullify his only real means of attack. He's also kind of a bastard in comparison because...



He can inflict Panic. Panic is basically this game's version of a more standard Confusion ailment. There's a chance that Heat will now just do whatever he feels like. Try and run, attack other party members, revert to human...



Fortunately, Patra or Panacaeas will cure it up immediately.



108 damage on the second boss, as a crit, isn't too shabby. That's ~1/6th of his max HP in one go (he has 670 for what its worth).



Bat's main gimmick is that he quite likes to use Rage, which is an annoying move. It is one of an ilk that is known to make Nocturne players very, very angry.

It gives him two more actions right now. For free. No questions asked. And there is no way to stop it.

Thankfully, Bat doesn't use this to its full evil potential.



Instead, he just follows it up by using Spiral Edge which is not that fancy.



It hits everyone for middling physical damage. Whatever.



He also usually (but not quite always) follows it up with his gimmicky technique. It's basically a defensive action that gives him an absurd defence boost... and an Earth weakness.



We'll take advantage of that second bit, then. Hitting him with an Earth spell immediately breaks it too.



Oh and he sometimes casts HP Thief. It deals Almighty damage and, like the name implies...



Drains some HP. Not enough to warrant worrying about.



Sometimes when he uses Rage, he follows that Spiral Edge up with a regular physical attack but not very often. All in all, not too tough a fight either.



He's a good step-up from Hayagriva, but that's setting the bar rather low. At least Camazotz has the decency to have his main attacks not be straight up rendered worthless immediately.

At least not without spending far too long grinding.

He gives a lot of Karma though. No AP strangely...



Oh, Serph stops Agni from eating him. Okay, that explains that then.

What's Your Name

Silence

Oh, around now Bat gets thrown on the ground like the chump he is.



He's kinda right here, but only from sheer coincidence really.

End

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jun 13, 2015

Anahata Entrance

End

Anahata

Anahata itself follows the usual pattern of "safe area in front of the dungeon to talk to our party."



The one thing that makes it a bit different is that there isn't a singular transition to get into the Citadel. We have to climb that ladder in the background first.



This puts us on the wall, which still counts as the outside area. We can also see Mick's sweet cannons. Little wonder he was able to fend off even the top tier tribes without much hassle.



But there's nothing else out here of note. Let's dive into the Citadel proper.

Man's Tomb

Seems like our distraction was a rousing success, and we can blitz through this place after all.



Since we climbed in to get easy access, we'll be starting at the top and working our way down for once.



Of course, this being a giant citadel and all there's plenty of side rooms to explore. We'll hit up all of the important ones, naturally.



The first couple we come across are mini-barracks areas. More important is the loot here.



Dark Veils are pretty neat items. They try to inflict Death on every enemy.

They don't have a particularly great proc-rate, but they're servicable.




Room immediately next door contains two more attack items. Shock Bombs and Blasts deal middling elemental damage. Shock Bombs are, uh, electricity and Blasts are force. Better than the ones we can straight up buy from the Vendors at least.



Little bit further ahead on the main path, and there's a small area with four rooms that contain a variety of stuff. The door to continue is, uh, directly on the main path so they're wholly optional.





Wind and Bolt Walls are just their respective Void Spells but in an item form. Nullifies Force and Electric damage. Mouldy Rolls are another of those healing items with a negative ailment inducing side-effect.

There's also a couple Dis-Stuns, Dis-Mutes and Chakra Drops in other rooms. Nothing particularly stellar but it's still useful.



Door at the end of the corridor somewhat spoils that, no, the Maribel's diversion was not wholly perfect. They probably expected them to attack through more than just the front doors so they'd have naturally left guards posted throughout the citadel.



Like these chumps.

Hunting ~ Compulsion

No video for these guys, because they're just regular generic Archangels. They're completely identical to the ones we'll fight as random encounters afterwards.

They resist physicals so spellslinging it is, then.



They can kind of try to nerf that by inflicting Mute with this attack, but it's not really a big deal.



This is probably their biggest threat if only because it hits the entire party.



Damage is also pretty respectable for a random chump demon. And this is after a couple Tarundas too.



Naturally, they also have Expel spells. Thankfully these are not quite as threatening as you might expect.



In fact, most Expel spells actively cannot kill you. They merely deal proportional damage based on your current HP. This is mildly annoying but it's just that. An annoyance.

Anyway, we hit them and they die. They're not really a challenging fight or anything.

Man's Tomb

Now that we've had our first fight here, we'll be getting random encounters after this point. Archangels ARE on the higher end of possible fights right now, but that's not saying much really.

Anyway, there's two doors here. Southwest is progress, so we'll spin around to the southeast first and...



Immediately run into a fight with two Bicorns. Who got lucky as gently caress, jeez. Shocking Serph just means if they opted to hit him, much like with Freeze he would take a guaranteed crit. Unlike with Freeze, his resistances are still intact.

And Heat got Panic'd too. Swell.



The best revenge is an instant crit that makes the enemy scared of us. Lunch has been well and truly served at this point.

Oh, we can't poke Bicorns weakness yet. We'll do it soon enough though.



Room just has a cell in it. A new one that sells for more than the previous few, but it's still just a cell.



Nothing else back here, so let's head further onwards.



...By immediately proceeding to ignore onwards progress. The stairs to the east are progress. Path to the south is where we're heading first.



Badb Cathas pop up and have a mildly inconvenient weakness.



Because its fire. No one has Zan yet, so I can't combo-Maragi and Heat is the only one with Agi at that.



Oh, and did I mention before that spells can miss? Because spells can miss.

It normally doesn't happen often (barring buffs/debuffs throwing it off of course) but it totally can. And it's even more annoying than a physical skill missing.



There's a free Revival Gem on this path. I am glad, because this might come in handy later.



There's also a... yellow... wall here. Huh. I remembered this one being blue. Guess I got 'em mixed up.



Ah well, on the way back to where we want to be Serph gained another level and finally proc'd the last random level up bonus. There's a chance of a stat going up. Whether this is better or worse than the random full heal depends on your situation at the time, really.



'Nother new demon here. Ikusas are actually mildly annoying but they're also quite nice to run across. Not because of the Matera.



No, because they can call for Reinforcements on their turns.



This makes another Ikusa spawn in. If this sounds abusable for free EXP, you are right but it's not wholly reliable. There's easier things to grind off of anyway.



Doubling back and heading down the stairs we skipped and... here's the blue wall. Right around the corner from the yellow one.

...I'm sure you can see how that would be an easy mistake to make.



Surprisingly, this wall is probably the least lucrative one yet. It's just blocking two doors. The door to our right contains absolutely nothing.



The door on the left just had a Magic Noise in it. That's it.



At some point around now, Serph mastered his current mantra and gave him access to this beauty. Iron Stomach is like one of the best passive abilities in the game without exception, because it grants immunity to stomachaces.

AP Divide also implicitly grants immunity to stomachaches to everyone else. Because you slap 'em both on one person, they eat everything and everyone else reaps the benefits too. It's great!



Downside? Holy Beast costs 50,000 macca.

Not getting that one for a while then.



Back on the main path again, and we've come to yet another scenario where there are two doors to choose between. Door on our right leads onwards.



Door on the left leads nowhere. Yet. It's pretty transparently a backtracking convenience above all else, then.



Around about now, we start running into a couple new things again. This time it's Apis.



They're weak to Earth spells. This makes them quite easy to deal with.



They cast mid-level Fire spells. This would be a problem except for one thing...



Their magic stat sucks. 34 damage on a weakness? C'mon, son. Try harder.



The still rather linar path ends up bringing us face-to-face with this guy.



We can't avoid running onto the square in front of him.



This exists solely to show us that red eyed statues are trapped and drop us into Mick's creepy basement.

So, Mick's weird dungeon-y basement area (that isn't actually in his basement) is kinda big but also mostly optional. If we want to just leave, we can follow the main path and do so basically immediately.

Bugger that, there's some things to pick up down here. And lots of rooms with commotions in them.



The commotions are caused by Gyu-Kis unable to get out. These ones are both easier and harder than the one we fought at Manipura.



They don't always do a Power Charge and then a Body Rush. They also don't always do a Power Charge.

But they can do a Power Charge and then a Mad Rush. Mad Rush hits "randomly" which means the enemy will always hit you a lot more than you hit them with it.



...Like so. And yes, Argilla dropped from near full health to dead. Gyu-Kis don't gently caress around.



Well, sometimes. They don't hit that hard without Power Charge so it's mostly a non-issue.



We can also eat these ones. And they are super-delicious and worth it.



Each room with one in also has an item of some kind in there too. That also makes them worth it.

Medical Kits are like Brave Rations but instead of healing one person for 150HP, they heal the entire party for 150HP. Could come in handy.



Oh, sometimes while running around down here this happens. It doesn't really actually do much of anything. Just a short fade to black and then you're facing another direction. Mildly inconvenient, but not really an issue.



Also, the basement is where Mick keeps his catgirls. Nekomatas have a weakness we normally can't exploit.



It's Electricity. We throw Shock Bombs at them. These things are actually kind of annoying to fight normally.



Because of this. They have like two different ways of inflicting Charm. It kinda sucks! Charm is

Hunting ~ Suprise Raid

Speaking of annoying, Ambushes in this game are worse than in most since they force you to start in Human form rather than let you switch to it later. We've already sort of seen this with the Macha fight in Manipura though; it has its advantages (no one is weak to anything in this form for instance), but its share of disadvantages too (no resistances, weaker attacks, have to waste a turn transforming).



Oh, and sometimes random fights can get reinforcements too. It's wholly random here as well, but it doesn't really make things any harder. At least not at this stage.

Man's Tomb

It's a bit late now, but once we're close to the exit of the basement we can find a couple members of the Maribel. They've each got a hint for us about the dungeon itself, but this one is redundant. We were railroaded to walk in front of a red-eyed statue which in itself taught us not to do that... for the purpose of then being actively told not to do that. So close.



Round the corner, there's also this guy. This is a hint for an actual sort-of puzzle we'll see later. Door past him actually leads to an optional side area.

With nothing in it.



So we'll spin around and head through a door that leads onwards instead. The ladder is right there once we do so, which is our ticket out of here, but there's an entire area up here we haven't explored yet...



There's a couple more items through here. Again, each one of these is guarded by a Gyu-Ki.



This one sells for a decent chunk regardless. At Min noise, it outdoes the Error Cell at Max noise. Pretty great.



Not much else up here, though. Another side area to the south-east with nothing in it.

And this door at the northern most point of this circular area. There is also nothing past it.

Yet.



So we spin around, climb the ladder and come to an area with two red-eyed statues facing one another. Uh, we'll deal with this later.



Thankfully there's a side door right next to them.



This leads to our first Large Karma Terminal (at last!). We'll stop here for now, but first...



Serph and Argilla gain access to the Ancient God mantra. This one's pretty great, not for itself (which is just HP and MP Thief; sound useful but very situational) but what it lets you get later. It costs 15,000 macca so we'll skip it for now though.

Hunting

Here's some weaknesses we never exploited. Archangels are weak to instant death spells. So are Apises are that matter.



Bicorns are weak to Ailments. Like all ailments. MP Thief is handy for this since it deals Mute damage which does count as an ailment.

Just putting this one to sleep, though. I do that quite a fair bit, since it raises your Crit rate (not guaranteed to happen, despite what you might think) as well as normally makes them skip their turns. In a nice change of pace hitting a sleeping enemy with a physical does not automatically wake them up; it has a chance to, but it's not something that happens all the time.



Lots of actual new skills this time around, so we'll start to do this now. Feed Frenzy and Devil Feast are new Hunt skills; Feed Frenzy hits every enemy unit rather than just one. Devil Feast hits just one enemy but has a small chance of proccing instant death in lieu of dealing damage... unless they're frightened; it always works then. Ingest Mana only works on a successful hunt but it gives Serph 10% of his MP back for every enemy devoured. Venom Fang, Death Spray and Vile Blade are all just new physical skills. Death Spray hits one enemy a bunch and can inflict Curse; mostly use it for the Bunch Of Hits aspect though. Mudo is straight up instant death if it procs without any gimmicks attached. Quick Escape makes it easier to run from fights; it also stacks with itself so stick it on everyone and you're virtually guaranteed to flee from a fight. It has its uses if you're running low on resources or something. Dream Haze and Foul Breath inflict Sleep and Poison on enemies. Void Charm/Panic are like the Void element spells but for the listed ailment instead.

Taunt is the best of this lot, though (Ingest Mana being second). Taunt is

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 3, 2014