Battle time! Keeping with the theme of the difficulty ramping up after chapter 3, this fight is actually hard. I barely won on both my first playthrough and this one.
This is the boss’ supermove, and it will wreck you. Like Pazatto’s Telekinetics, it’s an extremely hard-hitting single-target attack. I’m lucky it hit Lani here; she’s the only one who can really tank it, since she resists physical and has good soul. Everyone else is looking at around 20 damage (or more), which is one-hit-kill territory for most of them. You need to keep everyone’s health topped off, because they will not survive if they’re even lightly injured.
To make matters worse, as you can see, the battlefield is covered in energized squares; if a character’s standing on one when they’re hit with God’s Gift, they’re toast. As a result, this is pretty much the only battle where Rehm’s Wavecaller would be useful, if only it could clear energized squares. (Still bitter about that.)
And unlike Pazatto, you have flunkies to deal with. They’re basically palette swaps without the palette swap; they have the same abilities as tu’nuok and na’hrin but have more health. (Unique thought snippets, though.) They’re a lot of trouble; hrin devout have mind and body spells to hit you on all three fronts, while the aides deal soul damage to soften you up for God’s Gift.
Careless mistake #1: bringing a mental character into this battle. Careless mistake #2: putting that character on the front lines to let the enemies make mincemeat out of him even before he got hit with God’s Gift. Sirush’s offensive capability is tempting, but you need to be very careful if you want him to survive. His short attack range places him in a lot of danger.
And just to give you an impression of how dangerous this battle is: God’s Gift inflicted 24 damage here. That’s more than Sirush’s max health.
To add insult to injury, the rain will sometimes blast you with full-party debuffs. Lani, Falitza, and Kulkumatz are essential because of this. Curiously, this actually seems to have been toned down from previous versions; I remember the status effects always hitting everyone, but here it’s random, and only a few people get hit usually. Still nasty, though.
And just in case the rain wasn’t enough, the warden can do this too. At least it doesn’t inflict wither.
Very rarely, the rain can turn to your advantage. This lowers the warden’s defenses for the next turn. It’s not very useful if you haven’t defeated the flunkies yet, but it’s something. I’m not sure if it’s random, or if you can do something to trigger it; I didn’t see it often, regardless.
Careless mistake #3: using Sanctify and then moving a character onto a blessed tile, forgetting that na’hrin have a divine attack. Sorry, K.
Finally, I’m down to just the warden. He’s tough as nails; 250 body, 250 soul, and 200 mind. He also has all three buffs, because the game hates you. Unfortunately, with Sirush down I don’t have much in the way of mind offense, so I elect to beat him through soul damage. (This is, however, one of the few times Falitza’s Mana Twist comes in handy, as it deals mind damage to this guy and you won’t gain a benefit from divine soul attacks anyway.)
Careless mistake #4: leaving Santes in melee range of a boss with a crushing attack. I thought she could survive it but I was one point off. I really should have moved her back, regardless.
Ah, this is the other good thing the rain can do, I guess to throw a bone to the people who didn’t bring the full-party buffers. Doesn’t happen nearly often enough, though, and it generates more energized squares. (I thought Moke said the rain was noxious, though?)
Yikes. I lost three party members and had two at the end of their ropes, but I finally won. Lani’s good at tanking God’s Gift but not the warden’s regular attack, as you can see. If she had fallen too I’d be done for.
And I guess Falitza, Rehm, and Lani will be overleveled now. Ah well.
It’s a bit weird that there’s no lead-up quest to this. If you lose then there’s no point in taking the retry option, since all you have to repeat if you restart is the cutscene.
The rain stops. The warden says they have to give him an honorable death, then he notices Moke.
“Then… the end has come. Fragmentation among the Si’Shra… dissention… failure…”
Ooh, this is a nice parallel to what Skint was saying earlier. The si’shra are stronger than the shra because they are unified.
Then the warden dies somehow. Moke says “His spirit has chosen to rest in this place.” Is that just a nice way of putting it, or did he actually commit some kind of weird suicide ritual? I wonder if he’s one of the bodies of the Black One. The fact he spoke Human so eloquently is certainly suspect.
Havan: “Such a vile philosophy. To destroy one’s own being to appease illusory gods.”
Indeed.
More si’shra appear.
…There is no way that is not a reference to the “where is your god now” meme.
So, now that the warden’s gone, they need a new leader. We see Skint’s theory in action as they attach themselves to the guild, but of course Dehl’s having none of it.
“Victors. Devour the Warden’s flesh.”
…Now I’m wondering if Havan had to do this at some point.
Havan takes the opportunity to order them to leave everyone alone and stay put. Everyone leaves, triumphant in the knowledge that they helped a slave trader continue capturing slaves. Our heroes.
Si’shra: (“We must await the return… alone? But… who will protect us from Him…?”)
This, though, I don’t get. It just seems here to be edgy, because it’s not brought up ever again. Why are they enthusiastic about his return if he’s dangerous to them? They don’t seem to just be worshiping out of fear, they really seem to think Tezkhra’s return is a good thing.
So…hm. Like chapter 2’s final quest, I think this was well-done but a bit of a non-sequitor. No one’s talked about the si’shra before now despite being right next to them, and the major threat being bad weather just seems kind of…lame. I get the feeling the developer just wanted to finally show off the si’shra. Skint would have made for a much more narratively satisfying final battle.
“Ah, we’ve reached Rank 23. A fascinating and mysterious number, don’t you agree?”
It appears the developer couldn’t think of anything meaningful to say about this one.
Back at the camp, Yacatec’s all yay my work is saved you’re so great :D and Qualstio grumbles about him being an evil slave trader.
Then his wife shows up. See, it turns out Yacatec was actually really poor (???) and was only selling countless individuals into slavery to make enough money to support his family. This means he’s totally a good guy beneath it all and we should forgive everything he’s done.
Tehgonana: (“So, like you were saying… How greedy was he, again?”)
Qualstio: (“Yehhhh shut up. He’s still more snake than man, even if he DOES have a wife and kids.”)
For once I agree with Qualstio. (Although wow, racial slurs? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this point.) Being a family man doesn’t automatically canonize you or excuse all your other actions. Instead of ruining the lives of hundreds for personal gain, he’s now ruining the lives of hundreds for the personal gain of four people. That’s not a meaningful improvement. Is this what I’m supposed to be thinking? Qualstio has always been the voice of truth before this, but given how even Tehgonan is disagreeing with him this time, I can’t be certain if this is the one time he’s supposed to be wrong or what. Regardless, despite this story supposedly caring about the greater scope of things, it sure does seem to favor the needs of the few over the needs of the many.
Yacatec’s wife warns everyone that the fih’jik are on the brink of war. The Wadassian food shortage (yay past events mattering) destabilized Kir’Ssha, and they believe it to be a punishment from their god. They’re convinced their only salvation lies in destroying the more free-thinking Do’Ssha. Dehl takes it upon himself to stop the war, at which point all the fih’jik in the party freak out. Even the normally-stoic Fero is terrified of the prospect, which does an excellent job at building terror and suspense. Dehl solves this by pulling the “I’ll go it alone if I have to” gambit, to which the fih’jik finally concede. It’s hard to tell if he’s sincere or if he’s learned the ways of being a manipulative douchebag. Probably a bit of both.
Dehl: “I shall not rest well knowing that people are suffering at the edge of chaos.”
Confirmation: he doesn’t see shra as people.
This is a good development in general. It’s exactly what I suggested in my rewrite: the guild is discovering the problems in their society and taking initiative in fixing them. Unfortunately, the whole theme of war is hell we must stop it rings pretty darn hollow after Dehl just incited a war himself. The whole Skint plotline should either have been cut or something the story revolved around; you don’t just introduce something like that then drop it in favor of some unrelated war. The last chapter of the game should be about Skint putting his plans into motion and the downtrodden people we have seen all game rising up as society crumbles, exposing all the corruption the guild has seen but could do nothing to stop. That would be a truly epic conclusion that builds on everything we’ve seen so far. This is just kind of… there.
But! This was a good chapter, overall. There was an actual plotline, lots of side stuff to do, and good isolated set pieces, which was always the game’s strongest point. It’s really a shame the shra reveal taints everything else.
In other news, Lani now has triple-digit body defense, making her practically unkillable. This pleases me. I was surprised to learn that 99 isn’t the stat cap; if there is a cap, I don’t know what it is. I’ll treat 100 as the cap regardless and focus on her other stats for now.