Arg, couldn’t finish by the end of the year after all. Oh well. Final boss time!
…After some other stuff. There’s another quest mode area for last-minute training, which also means more flavor text!

Once again, there’s an explanation for the party limit. It doesn’t actually make sense in practice as you’ll see shortly, but it’s good that the game is trying.

It’s odd that he places so much importance on surface happenings when they’re irrelevant to his primary goal. I suppose he does need to deal with the emitters, but he’s strong enough to do that regardless of the state of the world. From his point of view, this should be nothing but a distraction.

(“Although, given the state of the Watchers, I may have to finish the cycle myself…”)

Ah, he finally admits he’s a selfish sociopathic prick. So even here, he’s planning to finish the cycle, which means all that stuff about him being ~a friend~ was total crap. You may think I’m being harsh here, but wait until the ending.

Qualstio: “It’s messed up for sure. Who the hell knows what was going on in that weird room?”
Moke: “Those people who watched over us… oohhh, I never wished any harm upon them.”
Qualstio: “Yeah, that’s still got me anxious. Think that third one would really kill his own mother?”

Tehgonan: “Keep it! There ain’t no Fortifel now, but, there’s still gotta be Fortians out there! They might need, like a leader, or a mentor, or whatever. And who better to do it?”

You know, it’s really quite depressing that Tehgonan latched on to this psycho for his father figure and idol. As much as I thought he was unrealistic in the beginning, Tehgonan does seem to be a genuinely good person who’s matured a lot since then. But Qualstio’s more childish than he is, and can only erode the progress he’s made.

Qualstio: “Yeah, maybe. Maybe they’re better off being knocked down a peg, though…”

Truly, the leader Fortifel deserves.

“To build and grow my power, to defeat my own faults, to support and protect him!”
Qualstio: “Hey, don’t forget everyone else. We’re not here to protect. We’re here to set it right.”
Tehgonan: “Yeah! Dehl can protect his own damn self. We’re here to topple the big bad, got it?”

This is just kinda disappointing. Like I’m not even sure what it’s trying to say. Dehl was their protector, so reversing the paradigm at the eleventh hour would have been clever. Instead they just desperately dodge responsibility and tell someone who’s clearly not in their right mind to handle themselves. Can you tell what an inspiring tale of friendship this is? They haven’t changed their tack at all, they’re still just as lazy and irresponsible as they were at the start.

Santes: “You got it! But only if I can retire too! All this fightin’ made me age ten years already!”

Zargos: “Ehh, howsabout we keep our minds on th’ battlefield right now, all right dear?”

9_9

Once again, very pretty and important-sounding, but ultimately nonsense.

“I can only die when I ssee that it was not all a dream, a figment. It musst return to me.”

Aw. This is sweet, and a good conclusion to his arc.

“Or her. M-maybe. It ain’t like a woman can’t take over th’ world just as easy as a man!”

Eugh. Protip: If you purposefully write women out of your story by reducing them to their ovaries, you should consider that maybe it’s not a good idea to draw attention to how your cast is a sausagefest, especially not in such a condescending straw-feminist-type way. Though really, the lord-god being a woman would not help things unless Dehl was gender-flipped too, given their backstory and general portrayal.

Rehm: “Yeah.”
Lani: “Almost like… we’re flyin’…”
Rehm: “Yeah…”
Lani: “A girl could get used to this, you know?”
Rehm: “It is nice an’ quiet up here. No screamin’, no yellin’, just the stars an’ the ocean.”

…So what, is this supposed to be the basis for their romance? I’m pretty sure this is the first time they’ve interacted.

Fero: “No matter, friend. Both our homes are lost. Let us make our new one truly blessed.”

Yfus: “You mean me, don’t you? We’ll find some way to rebuild. We have to. It’s… only natural.”

You know, it’s pretty weird how much the game plays up the idea that revitalizing civilization is impossible when they seem to have no difficulty doing so. I guess it’s supposed to be subversive or something but no, it’s just really muddled. Stuff has to make sense and fit together thematically, it can’t just be there and then not go anywhere.

Is there really anything to say at this point?

Ques has no soliloquy for us, since he just acts as the portal to the previous area in case I need to grind.

Everyone’s aged up again (so another year has passed), though again unevenly. Most people haven’t aged past the chapter 3 increase, and the ones that didn’t age then have only gained 1 year. That looks to me more like the entire game took place over a single year, and people aged at different times as their birthdays were hit. Dehl is still HN 22, much to my annoyance, and none of the other shra have visibly aged either. Zargos is only 34 – that’s retiring age, really? Yfus is still HN 19, but he joined late so that makes sense. Qualstio has finally turned 27; I guess while he was away from Wadassia he started slacking on his baby blood baths. Ques hasn’t aged a day, so perhaps he stole Qualstio’s supply.

One last thing: Now that we’re in the endgame, I can discuss a certain balance issue, that being passive skills. They are not balanced at all. Just look at this:

Qualstio’s ultimate skill grants him a permanent regeneration increase to all three aspects, which can be increased further by buffs. Santes’ ultimate skill gives her a temporary regeneration increase to an area she doesn’t need, in-battle only, and if she’s withered it’s all down the toilet. Other passives mostly take the form of either massive stat increases or weakness plugs (adding an asterisk to armor or element), which are not equivalent; stat increases are superior nine times out of ten because they’re useful in all situations, while weakness plugs only come up in certain circumstances. And if you boost your defenses high enough what do you even need weakness plugs for? (Some of the stat boosts also provide the unique advantage that is agility bonuses.) And even the stat boosts vary wildly in usefulness; Tehgonan’s massive hit point boost just puts him on par with everyone else and is practically required to make him useable, while Sirush’s defense boost makes him a god by compensating for the one thing normally holding him back. Dehl’s boost is also inferior to Tehgonan’s and Sirush’s just numerically, though he does get a gradual boost throughout the whole game instead of having to wait until the end, and I heard it was nerfed in the latest patch too.

And I have no idea what’s up with these two, who have the miscellaneous skills. Fero’s rank IV was removing the disable infliction from Arrowstorm, which I personally think is way more useful than a regular attack upgrade or whatever that is. Starting a battle at full health is also completely useless for bosses, and only useful in dungeons for people who lack patience.

Passives in general don’t seem to have been thought out too well. Some are practically necessary for using a character (hello agility boosts), some are gamebreaking (Qualstio’s rank IV lets you disable-lock bosses indefinitely), some only improve useless gimmicky abilities, some I just can’t figure out a use for. This game could have used a lot more balance testing.

Speaking of balance testing, onto the final boss, for real now.

The cutscene begins with the camera away from the scene, and there’s a long pause to heighten the suspense. Then…

Dehl: “…YOU?!”

…Okay so I spoiled this one pretty thoroughly. In my defense, there’s not much else to talk about in Havan’s scenes.

But this? This is the best reveal in the entire game and it’s an utter masterpiece. I’ve done a lot of complaining about the plotting, but I really have to hand it to the developer here: this is simply brilliant.

And it is so utterly perfect for a jRPG. Why?

Dehl: “But, why? Why YOU?! Havan… you…”
Havan: “Hah! Let ME ask YOU why! Why YOU were the favorite. Why YOU were so damn special! You’ve no idea how much we did to appease that old woman… but she chose YOU! For years we toiled under her boot! The gods had chosen US, and only us, she said!” […] “What a waste of time. I’d have not bothered at all if I knew you would ride my coattails.”
Dehl: “Don’t be ridiculous, Havan. You fought for the good of the people. For Wadassia.”
Havan: “Hah! What good is all that work when your reward is destined to be snatched away!”

Because Havan is not just the typical jRPG hero. He is the jRPG player. Oh sure, he’ll play hero when it suits his fancy, but at the end of the day what he really wants is power. He’ll do all the quests, he’ll fight all the monsters, he’ll play along with the sacred important mission from the heavens, but he only does it for the rewards he knows he’ll get afterward. The story chatter, the flavor text, it might not be totally irrelevant to him but it’s not the most important thing. He is the player who fights the matterfiends against the desperate protests of his escort, because he knows he’ll get something from it. He is the player who kills the monsters in UnderTale. He is the player who plays with a walkthrough in his lap, always picking the most optimal choice without bothering to explore and enjoy the game for what it is. He is not a munchkin, precisely – the jRPG doesn’t allow for that level of obsessiveness – but something much stranger. His is a sociopathy that can only emerge from the sheer dissociation experienced in the relationship between game and player.

This is perfect for a deconstructionist jRPG, and why it’s so disappointing that the game isn’t that. The game allows us to be Havan without any repercussions or condemnation of our behavior. This reveal doesn’t sweep the rug out from under the player – there’s no pointed jab about how we’re just like him – it just presents an enemy for us to defeat and further our own power fantasy. There is absolutely no self-awareness here. I dunno, maybe I’m digging too deep and this wasn’t the intention at all?

But storywise, this is still excellent. Unlike every other reveal and plot point, this really rewards a replay – everything is just so blindingly obvious in hindsight, and you can see everything set up so perfectly. This plot had the true build, progression, and cohesion that everything else lacked, even the berserker reveal. This is, I believe, the reason why I fell in love with this game all those years ago, and I still have to respect it today.

(There is one instance where this doesn’t jive with the greater plot, and that’s that a power-tripping egomaniac should be a perfect fit for Fell’s criteria. But eh, the Watcher plot never made sense anyway.)

Dehl: “Helping others is not a matter of rewards.”
[beat]
Havan: “Oh don’t give me that, Dehl Sikohlon! You are as guilty of ambition as any of us. So what sparked your flint of fervor, hmm? Wealth? Glory? Power? Atonement…?”
Dehl: “Drrrrmmmmm…!”

It stumbles here, though. This is the closest it gets to acknowledging that we are Havan, Havan is us, but so deftly misses the mark by making it entirely about the story and not about the game. We’re spared the uncomfortable comparison while Dehl, who is very much not a player avatar, has to take all of it instead. It’s also a weird comparison because they really aren’t alike at all. It’s particularly contrived that Havan stumbles on the silver bullet, especially since “atonement” is in a completely different ballpark than those other three; someone who cares about atonement must have a functioning empathy center and care about more than just their own ambition, pretty much by definition. There are certainly issues that can arise from doing good things out of moral obligation to yourself or some such, but I’d argue they’re completely different issues than doing something for pure power. This also loses its impact since Dehl’s motivation is still shrouded in mystery – if it was explicitly spelled out at some point like I proposed last update, this would be more meaningful. Instead it’s just kind of confusing for people who still haven’t figured it out, like me on a first playthrough.

So, infodump time now. As you can see, Havan’s “artifact” is glowing. Apparently at some point he figured out how to activate it, and it provides eternal youth.

Tezkhra: (“What?! Where did he find it? And how did he manage to activate it? Urgh…”)

Yeah, uh, how did he? It can’t be something as simple as a switch if it took him this long. We’re never told how emitters actually work so this is left unclear. But whatever, he had years to figure it out, I’ll accept it.

“I was able to bring it to life… just in time, too! While the world died, we became stronger! So here I’ve reigned, and waited… years passing as seconds! Just us and the Si’Shra!”

I don’t have anything significant to say about this, I just really like it.

He reminds us of the event in chapter 4 where the si’shra demanded a new leader but Dehl declined. When Havan ordered them to stand down instead, he became the new warden, and was able to command the si’shra army. Hooray for Chekhov’s guns! Apparently the si’shra became so devoted they find treasures for him even without his explicit order, giving him access to what few useful items remain.

Havan: “The world is ruined! There is nothing to save! The gods swept you away, then tore apart everything you left behind! You’ve come back here, not a day older nor a limb weaker? Where are your gods now?”
Dehl: “They never came.”
Havan: “WRONG! Your god sits here before you now! The glorious shadow over all that remains! The world’s feast is over! Now, any man would fight to the death for the crumbs!”

Havan has been studying poetry, it seems. This continual ALL HOPE IS LOST FOREVER THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO is getting pretty tiring, though. If the game actually committed to that and gave us a bittersweet ending that might have been interesting, but as-is it’s just so hollow. The heroes never comment on it, never have any difficulty rebuilding, it’s just there to provide a facsimile of grittiness. Just, blah.

Then Havan finally explains what happened with the Watchers.

“You could have done something. ANYTHING! But instead, you were having tea with gods! That’s why I came after you. The desert may have gone black, but that ladder still stood!”

So apparently the Watchers are idiots and nobody ever tried climbing the ladder before this. Oookay.

The Watchers blocked his path, so he killed them. Conveniently, he did this right as Donz returned, allowing Havan to capture him. He tried to torture some information out of Donz, but he can’t talk so Havan just ended up killing him.

So hold on a moment, let’s go over the logistics here:

1: The guild climbs the ladder and waits in the Watcher’s room. They spend two years there, even though according to IMTS the constant stimulation of talking should make them perceive time normally.
2: During this period, Donz walks the path and activates the pillars. This apparently takes two years.
3: Fell notices Donz’s absence and sends the guild after him. They walk the path and reach the pillars, which I presume also takes two years.
4: Presumably while they’re doing this, at some point after the disasters (months?) Havan returns to Do’Ssha and climbs the ladder.
5: At some point while this is all happening, Donz sneaks past (?) the guild and returns to the watchpost.
6: Havan arrives at the watchpost with the purpose of confronting Dehl. The Watchers block his path. He murders them; Kott and Nath do not move from their seats while he does so. He takes Donz captive.
7: Instead of continuing along the path now that the obstacle to his goal is removed, Havan goes back, sabotaging the ladders but finding himself unable to retract the last one. Somehow he manages to climb down a ladder while carrying someone else.
8: The guild returns to the watchpost and waits another eight (six?) years. This I will accept, since they seemed to spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing instead of talking.
9: The events of chapter 6 occur.

Once again, they make no sense. Why didn’t the Watchers retract the ladder or set up some kind of safeguard when they were so particular about who was allowed to ascend? How did it take Donz two years to activate the pillars? Why did Havan give up and turn around for absolutely no reason? Why did he leave his sword there??? Willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far, this just does not make physical sense on any level.

So after that, Havan advances dramatically, the screen shaking with every step. I imagine armor that heavy should be so cumbersome as to be useless.

Dehl tells him to leave Adi and Cort out of this, but…

Y’know, originally I felt bad about killing them, but if they’re supporting him in this they’re bad people too. What is even the point of their existence? In the main plot they express concerns over Havan’s obsession with the artifact and are trying to steer him onto better paths, yet here they’re just mindless supporters? But they look pretty beat-up, so are they really on board with this? What happened between them?

Havan: “It sounds like the game is afoot, then! The winner shall inherit the ashes of the world!”

:D As much as I rag on the plotting, the literal writing of the game is actually very good.

Normally the battle starts here, but because I got Tez something extra happens. He says he has to remove the artifact before the mortals can continue their silly conflict.

Havan: “Huh! And how does it feel knowing your children all worship ME now?”
Tezkhra: “What you do to them is irrelevant. But I demand that you release the device at once!”
Havan: “Waahahahah! What a loving god YOU are!”

You know, horrible as he is, I do have to give Havan props for finally calling him out on this. The heroes are way too accepting.

Tezkhra: “I shall not hesitate to annihilate this entire structure if necessary. It must be disabled.”

An ally and a friend, huh?

He tries to shove Havan aside, but it triggers the same reaction as Rulian.

It’s a bit more extreme this time though.

Dehl: “Rejoin your rank, Tezkhra. If he will not be felled by gods, then he will be felled by men.”

:D

Havan starts babbling nonsense, then it’s finally time for the fight. There’s a slightly special fight woosh – a slower fade-to-white than usual – which I appreciate. I always love little details like that – as you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of the many different fight wooshes in the later Pokemon games.

You may notice that the battlefield actually reflects the terrain instead of the abstract gameboard thing. This is supposed to be deeply symbolic of how the Watchers were using everyone like game pieces and this shows how things have gone off the rails etc. etc. Sure, that works. I like it because it makes the final battle visually distinct. The battle music is okay but nothing special – rather repetitive, though it does have a nice beat to it. I think the name is clever, too.

As for the battle itself, it’s insultingly easy. First off:

You literally cannot lose. If your party is defeated, the battle will just restart. You do retain health values while they’re fully healed, but even at such a disadvantage it’s pretty easy to win. A Final Fantasy VI style thing where new party members come in to replace the fallen would work pretty well here, especially since the flank guards turn out to be unnecessary.

Secondly: I’ve said before that the only thing that makes bosses truly threatening is their lackeys. Surely, since these two are actual named characters and not regular mooks, they’ll give me a hard time, right?

Nope. Not even interesting thought snippets. Their weakest aspect is exactly as strong as the mooks before this, and that’s all that matters. They don’t even have any special equipment – even regular mooks had those as far back as chapter 4! Their defenses for their strong aspect are actually pretty impressive, but who in their right mind defeats bosses through their strong aspect.

Regardless, they are the only difficult part of this battle. Adi’s skill is pretty weird – it takes on her element (which fluctuates), but reverses the typical elemental rules. This seems to have the interesting effect of bypassing elemental weakness plugs, making most of the rank V passives even more useless. It can hit pretty hard, but the aspect is random so she can’t coordinate reliably. Even if she hits a weakness, healing the damage before her next turn is trivial. Cort’s area-effect skill is probably the most threatening part of the battle (fortunately for my current party the description lies, it actually deals piercing damage), but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Tez can just keep him disabled forever if it’s really a problem. As for the big man himself?

He has no special attacks. Literally none. Both his skills are passive. He’s pretty fast and his regular attack is respectable (~10 damage), but like with Adi its aspect is random. I like the idea of that in theory – it seems like it was intended to prevent you from being able to defend reliably and require you to keep an eye on every health meter – but in practice it just cripples them. Focusing on a single aspect is the only way to defeat someone, and it’s impossible for them to do that. The end result is that they spread their damage around too much and can’t actually kill anyone.

Defensively, Havan looks pretty weak – the previous boss had twice his amount of health, after all. He has an ace up his sleeve, though:

Alito: “Master! His resolve is too strong! You must vanquish his body, mind, AND soul!”

This I like. It’s a fitting trait for a final boss, and since (almost) no one can hit all three aspects it forces you to use all your party members effectively. This is one area where I think IMTS actually regressed; since there there are no limitations on what aspects people can hit in that game, it isn’t terribly impressive there. Here, if you lose too many people, you’re screwed. It does force some party members to sit on their hands after two lifebars have been depleted, though.

Still no trouble. He also gives essence, even though you can’t use it after this; the developer has told me this is just because he dislikes final bosses giving no rewards, even though it would be useless. I think that’s fair, it does bother me too. (Kinda tone-deaf what with the whole only doing stuff for rewards thing, though.)

Then I have to mop up Adi and Cort. I kept them around because that’s the only way to make this battle halfway challenging. They don’t surrender at this point, which throws out the possibility that they were being coerced into helping him. I think that’s a bit of a missed opportunity; I would have liked to see showing mercy have some impact here. But nope, guess they’re psychos too. I really want to know their perspective on this.

Bye, bit characters. Still feels bad to kill them, but there’s nothing to be done for it.

Havan reverts to normal because [not found], then flees through an escape tunnel instead of doing as Dehl politely suggests. I get the feeling this is supposed to be some kind of dishonorable warrior code violation to make him more hateable or something. They run after him, but Tez stays behind to disable the artifact. Havan makes it to the exit, but…

So apparently they took Ques’ rowboat suggestion seriously. And yes, every single person gets a “!” bubble. It’s pretty hilarious just how many there are. This allows the guild to catch up and murder him. The si’shra are dealt with too; as before, their leader was usurped, so they follow the heroes now. Don’t worry though, they’re not going to screw it up this time! Qualstio’s on it!

Qualstio: “We’ll find some way to deal with them. For real this time. Don’t worry about it.”

Such comforting words. I foresee no troubles here, nope.

Tehgonan: “Hey… y’know… Havan did have a point. He’s gone, but… What do we do now?”

And just like that, Dehl is back to normal. Well that was anticlimactic. Once again, nobody reacts. And yes, after all that CIVILIZATION IS OVER YOU CAN DO NOTHING TO REBUILD this is the first time they raise this possibility. The next scene is a time-skip to after the rebuilding, so apparently there weren’t any obstacles after all. I guess the idea is supposed to be that the guild, not having lived through this, is the only group who has the drive to rebuild, and with Havan gone it’s now possible. The problem is that none of this is ever stated. It seems pretty clear that people had the will and capability to rebuild and the lord-god was just keeping them down, but that’s not how they frame it; we’re continually told that even if the lord-god is defeated, too much has been lost to have any hope of restoration. If a story makes such a bold claim, it needs to back it up, not ignore it when it’s convenient. Even simply having them refute Skint and Havan by saying there’s still hope instead of just shuffling their feet awkwardly would be enough. It’s all just so muddled and scattered.

That’ll be the end of this update. Next time, I’ll finally wrap this up.

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