Firstly, I’m sorry. I was unable to finish the game tonight. It turns out there was still a lot of plot to contend with that blocked me from getting to the final boss. I’d say I’m ready for it tomorrow, but I wouldn’t trust me at this point either.
What I did manage to do was step into the point of no return and find the last remaining Moon Sigil. Sadly, we're unable to defend it. As we reached the orb of light, Zieg showed up and repelled a transformed Dart with ease. As dad breaks the Sigil, a CGI scene shows the Moon begin to fall. It then cuts to a suddenly appearing Divine Tree. The Moon falls and lands on top of the tree, as though it was always meant to land there. The Moon is not nearly as large as I thought... The parry walks back outside of Mayfill, and our wings, Coolon, catches up with them. The party jumps on his back, and he carries up to the tree.
As we approach, another CGI scene shows us countless amounts of Virages emanating from the craters on the Moon. They spread out across the planet and attack us. One manages to hit poor Coolon, who can only glide to a location somewhere in the middle of the tree. He apologizes that he can no longer fly. As we leave our landing zone, Dart says to/about an unresponsive Coolon, “Poor Coolon.” The savior of the game has died. I say savior because I wouldn't be doing any sidequests without him.
As we walk our way up the tree, we see several pits containing fruits from either former species or never born species. One such creature, disregarding thousands of years of existence, ends up fighting us.
What starts out as a small larva and turns into the Pokémon Metapod before turning into demonic Butterfree. Imago is the only three-stage boss in the game thus far. His first form can poison, which is why I went Dragoon so early. His second form just sorta squirms around, and his third form is annoying. He can make characters Despirited, which keeps them from gaining SP to go Dragoon. Once he’s inflicted someone with that, he’ll straight up kill them with a special spell. He also has an attack that deals massive damage, at least to Rose. After his defeat, the party ponders about fate. It's apt, seeing as we’re going against the will of a god, and enters into the Moon That Never Sets.
We enter a world of blocky techno looking decor that resembles the modern-day parts of Assassins Creed III. It quickly turns into a mishmash of past, current, and future timelines. The music in these places are tunes from past areas with a deep remix over them and the beating heart of the Virage Embryo. The first place we come to is a snowfield that Miranda recognizes.
She runs ahead and finds a lone rose in a small forest clearing. It reminds her of the day her mother left the family. The mom was sick of being in her family with a terrible husband and left her daughter behind to run off with some random guy. Miranda never forgave her mother. Her resentment leads to a giant flower spider forming in front of her.
I don’t think you can lose this fight. Even with Miranda’s terrible stats and unable to go Dragoon, her boss doesn’t do a lot of damage. At certain damage thresholds, the flower opens up and reveals the face of her mom. The two argue about what happened. Miranda feels abandoned, and her mom says she tried to bring her with her. Eventually, to end the fight, Miranda has to forgive her mom. I’m not feeling this. Her mom flat out left. She could have brought her with her from the start but didn’t. She could have fought harder against the alcoholic father but didn’t. Never a letter or anything. Miranda is right to feel how she does and doesn’t owe anyone mercy. I did get her White Dragon spell after the accidental grind, so there's that.
Regardless, Miranda regrets her life choices so far, joining the palace to teach love but being abusive to everyone instead. She joins back with the party, and they discuss how her past could be on the Moon. Unable to answer anything, they carry on.
The next area is an...inn? An establishment selling items and weapons on the Moon? Albert notices the drunk we met on disk one, but when he was a rich man and mentions this is a place in Bale from twenty years ago. Haschel sees a small child that resembles his daughter leave behind a mirror and, since a guard is blocking the normal entrance, we follow after. On the other side is a Minoto village, where the inhabitants say "what we see is based on our psyche" and is "filled with people we NEED to see." We follow the child into a portal. As Dart enters, Haschel says that this is Clare and “she doesn't know you yet”, indicating that Haschel’s Clare is also Dart’s mother. It’s never officially stated, but it’s clear that is the intent of the dev.
Haschel's fight is hard. His child, upset by her father’s strict discipline, rebels against him. At some point, she is possessed by the God of War, causing the two to fight. Clare has an attack that leaves the "poor old man" with one HP. The shop sells potions, and we’ll be back there a lot, so don’t be afraid to use them. Haschel tries to sacrifice himself to exorcise the god but is able to succeed with dying.
As we walk forward later down the road, the party gets split up when Rose’s dragon attacks. She and Dart go one way, and everyone else goes right. We’re in control of everyone else on the day the Gigantos Village was attacked by bandits. We see Dole saving Kongol, who knows what he must do. He goes forward, alone, and sees his brother, Indora. The Gigantos do trial by combat to see who’s strongest, and Kongol needs to know he’s the strongest now to protect his friends. After a flat out brawl between the two, Kongol wins and gets his brother's axe as his beat weapon. Albert wants to know when Dole changed and killed his father.
We then cut to Rose and Dart. Rose tells Dart about her dragon, Michael, and where the dragons come from. At some point, Mike went crazy, and Rose needed to kill him. Is this why he’s asymmetrical when you summon him?
Guard here until the dragon reveals his core. Two hits, and he dies.
The two parties catch back-up at the inn and head out through the door. We’re in Kazas, where we fought Dole to end disk one. Like all others, Albert goes ahead and enters the cypherpunk throne room.
Dole has two swords that can be destroyed. Use the Psyche Bomb to get rid of them at the same time. During the right, Dole says he killed Carlos because he was weak. Dole believes true strength comes from within and not from others. There are some political reasons why, which, honestly, makes me think Dole has a point, assuming he isn’t lying. It's not a good reason to kill your brother, mind you, but maybe try for a democratic approach. In the end, Dole recognizes Albert’s skill and blesses his reign over Sandora.
Next up is Meru in the Palace of the Winglies. A light bridge between the palace and the party drops, leaving the winged Meru alone before being forcibly teleported into a throne room occupied with the Seventh Goddess. We were introduced to her in the Forest as the only known religion of the race.
This fight is Meru overcoming the hate towards humans her race has/had. She wholeheartedly rejects the idea that Winglies need to control the world and even states that she loves humans. Watch out for the spell the Archangel uses that leaves Meru with one HP. Treat it like you did with Haschel's.
Afterwards, the party gets back together, and I make a mistake. Return to the inn first! I didn’t and carried on, leaving me a bit understocked for the end. Eventually, the cyber look returns, and we meet-up with a gatekeeping Super Virage. It’s even weaker than the one we went up against in Kadessa. The usual stat works.
And here’s where I called it. I’ve been playing for four hours and rued having to write all this. Can you imagine how rough this would be had I carried on to the end? It’s gonna be hard not to beat LoD tomorrow, so...actually...nevermind. I won’t get our hopes up.
So tonight, we faced our pasts. Everyone had baggage they needed to drop before facing the future. Some reminded us that tradition isn't good, while others cast off dark shadows. But I have some questions first. How many gods are there? We know of the Creator, Soa, and tonight we learned of the God of War. We may never know... We guess all of this was to answer a few unresolved questions. I still have more, clearly, but they’re probably lighter, and what can ya do a do? Next up are Dart and his dad, Shana, and probably one last twist!
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