I was going to let him go, but then I remembered I let Giygas go in EarthBound just a short while ago. It’s not like I win a prize for every last boss I kill, but as a gamer I have my gamer’s pride to uphold. I can’t overlook too much evil. It would be one thing if Polaris was really hard, but he’s not. The last SMT boss I gave up on was Mem Aleph, and he sure ain’t no Mem Aleph. Not even close! Plus if JRPGs have taught me anything, it’s that “mankind needs no gods!” so no matter how you look at it, I just couldn’t let him live.

And so it was that I went with Option 2 from the last post. Grinded MC up to level 64 and fused a Koumokuten with Deathbound (wanted Multi-Strike but couldn’t get it at short-notice) and Phys Repel. Gave it to Keita, who also had Phys Repel and Multi-Strike, plus a Behemoth for Devil Flash. All three forms of Polaris went out with a nary a whimper. I think MC got a hit or two in with Holy Dance, but Fumi and Io didn’t even get near the boss, it was over so quick.

The ending I got is has the survivors in Tokyo/Nagoya/Osaka being the only ones left in the world. Everything else is deep blue sea. Not only is this ruined world ending A-okay with me, but I’d actually love to play a world-rebuilding game set in an environment like that. A lot will depend on the facilities and personnel we have (fishing boats, harbors, carpenters, farmers), and exactly how many people have survived (10,000? 1 million?) but with JP’s and the SDF and the civilians all working together, we should be able to work things out somehow.

Even tricky issues like, ahem, repopulating the human world shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Obviously as the savior of the world MC gets first crack at every baby-making attempt. Strictly speaking Keita killed the last boss, but he doesn’t seem to care for girls so he probably won’t complain. Once we’ve guaranteed the succession of MC’s superior genes, we can work out some sort of hundred-year-long pairing system that makes everybody happy while ensuring that population doesn’t grow too fast. In the meantime we can work on land reclamation projects, floating cities, see if any undersea volcanoes have created new islands, and so on and so forth. It would make a great game!

*cough* This is the kind of game developers should be making through Kickstarter instead of generic-JRPG-redux #200.*cough* So anyway, that’s the kind of ending I imagined for Devil Survivor 2 (option 4) and it’s a very satisfactory one at that. I got a cleared save for my trouble after finishing the game, but I can’t imagine any of the other endings topping this one, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead. On to other games, for real this time!

12 hours, MC level 34, just about to revive Kama and Shiva so I can take down Alioth. I’ve played enough JRPGs that I’m not even surprised to hear there’s a monster that can only be turned on by having a 10th grader act sexy in front of it. It’s just business as usual in Atlus-land.

Things are going well, though. My MC is an unstoppable magic nuke with 22 MAG, 14 VIT, Drain, Ice Dance, Ice Boost, Media, Life Surge, Mana Surge and Battle Aura. I’m wondering if I should throw on Anti-Phys to make him even more un-KO’able, but maybe I’ll stick with this pattern for a while. All the other party member pale in comparison to Mighty MC, but I’m using Otome, Hinako and Keita for now. Try not to get in my way, losers!

As you can tell, I’m starting to get juuust a little bit cocky. This happens to me quite often, halfway through a game. The frustration of the early days is behind me, I’ve gotten the hang of the system, the story’s starting to take shape and everything seems to be going my way. Knowing SMT, they’re probably going to drop some powerful magic-reflecting boss on me and say “What now, punk?” but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Story-wise, I’m still not interested in what’s going on, but I have at least settled on a path to follow. I’m going to help Ronaldo Kuriki take down JP’s and Yamato. Why? Because Yamato is a white-haired prettyboy and as a true hero it is my destiny to beat him up. Barring any further major revelations – and I’m certain there are big ones coming – I don’t think Yamato is wrong about the whole hoarding food and supplies thing. Rescue and assistance after a disaster is all good and well, but not if the people actually doing the rescue and assistance are starving to death or dying for lack of medication. If 100,000 people have died already, what’s another 100,000 deaths if the problem can be stopped once and for all? Now, the real question is whether JP’s is actually helping any at all or whether they’re up to something fishy that will send things spiraling from bad to worse in a hurry. I remember clearly that messing with the Dragon Streams caused a lot of trouble in Tokyo Mono Hara Shi (another Atlus game), so it might be more of the same here.

Well, I’ll find out soon enough if I continue playing Devil Survivor 2. Meanwhile I haven’t been able to find the time to continue  Dark Cloud 2. I’m putting it on hold until November, when I should hopefully have a few days off. I’ll just have to resist the temptation to start anything else in the meantime.

Jungo! Nooooooo!

I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle…*sniff*

It might also be wise to keep a spare save at the beginning of each day, just in case it all goes pear-shaped. Ah well, I hardly knew him anyway. Just, why couldn’t it have been Daichi instead? I hate that punk.

As Paul wisely noted last time, Devil Survivor 2 does pick up a bit on Day 3. Just a bit, mind you. The choices are still stupid, characters are still annoying (and I got the one decent one killed! ;___;) and I don’t really care about the story. In fact, the Nicaea death clip site is one of the most tasteless and most off-putting ideas I’ve ever encountered in a video game, even though they try to portray it as actually good. I don’t want to see any more of it, much less unravel the mysteries or find out who’s behind it.

The gameplay has picked up as well, which is always good. I’ve cracked a few good skills (missed Ziodyne, but I bet Elec Dance is better anyway) and picked up some useful demons. The Compendium has taken some of the stress out of fusion, now that I know I can always get the better demon skills back if I need them. I’m not moving very fast because I focus on killing the leader in story battles and save most of my cracking for free battles. This is keeping me rather low on the EXP scale, but that’s fine. An SRPG is no fun if it’s too easy.

I’ve had enough of the rioters and all the whining and crying over food and supplies. It’s not like these aren’t valid concerns in a major disaster, but we covered all this ground in the last game. It’s stuff you can take for granted and assume it’s going on, along with things like eating and going to the bathroom in video games, but it shouldn’t be allowed to waste valuable time that can be spent on the “real” story. Still, it’s only Day 3. If we deal with all the unrest today and the next 4 days are more sensible, I won’t have a problem. Well, actually I’m not that easily satisfied, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So, Day 3, level 23-ish, just finished the Ronaldo fight, about to take on Phecda. My current party is MC, Fumi, Daichi and Io, but I think I’m going to bench Daichi and take either Airi or Joe instead. There’s not much to choose within the three.

Dark Cloud 2 I haven’t gotten back to yet.  I really want to but since you can’t save anywhere I’ll have to devote a block to time to playing it. Now’s just not a good time. Someone asked me once if I could see console gaming ever dying out. It was a while ago, and I said “Hell no!” but now I’m not so sure. It’s just so darned inconvenient, *grumble grumble*. But that’s a topic for another day.