I've been pushing these off at night from tiredness and wanting to play other games. By the way, Shining Shooting Star's a pretty fun game.
Ino-Shika-Chou Act: Part 4- Pluto's CavernI'll be legitimately surprised if someone knows what game I'm referencing.
Once again, I fiddled with OBS upon loading my save, and once again it stuck me with an encounter. Xianglui here is uh... a mini-boss, to put it bluntly. A Dragon with 4000 HP, high damaging attacks, and no real weakness, it's either a long, hard fight, or death. I sadly thought of swapping Marisa to Sanae too late (since right now she has the fortunate distinction of having Schwarze Katze on her as of the moment), and I nearly wipe before deciding to book it. Since this is a rather rare encounter, I'll probably not run into another one unless I specifically try to hunt it down.
But that's enough of messing around the Great Wall of China, time to go into this cave.
And it's... just a cave. No new music either, just the Snow-Covered Road theme (actually on that note, I retranslated it as Snowy Road and, like with the Healing Water mistake, I went with my older translation over my newer translation, good job self).
This place is all about Light and Dark, and that's plain as day with the Ghosts and Mikos (Shrine Maidens) here. Ghosts pretty much can't be touched by physical attacks unless they have an element tied to them (so attacks like Flame Whip, Thor's Hammer, and Icicle Javelin will hit). Otherwise weak to Light. I make use of these ones to proc some sparks, but otherwise isn't too useful for that purpose.
Otherwise, the Mikos are weak to Dark and Guns, but can Silence you and blast you with Light attacks. Be wary of them.
...Damnit, Skype notifications strike again. Anyhow, that weird looking thing is a Murei, who uh... just kinda is there. Weak to Light as per usual for Undead, and not really much of a thing.
In the back we got a Fighter, an upgrade to the Fairy Warriors we saw earlier. Coming in sword, spear, axe, and bow types, they're weak to Dark and Gun, but are not too much more powerful than Fairy Warriors.
So Murei here is a Medic/Synergist who has a variety of healing spells, and pretty much nothing but them. The passives are weirdly all over the place, but they're one of the few doppels to give the almighty Moonlight healing spell.
Mikos are also Medic/Synergists, who have their own healing spells. They are the first to grant you a resurrection spell, get the Sunlight spell (I don't think it's as good as Moonlight but it can be fairly handy), as well as getting Dispel, which allows you to rid either an ally or enemy of all Variety effects, both buffs and debuffs.
And we find one of the two exits. This one leads to the third dungeon, and there's still another exit that leads to an optional area.
We're all the way over here in the east now, but there's a cave exit up north too.
On the way further east, we have a Blue Door Area. I'll deal with it soon.
This over here is the Volcano Road... because you know, there's just random entrances to the PITS OF HELL in Japan.
We find another Waypoint over here.
Looks like another part of the Great Wall of China, but there's a large gate. Going up the hill triggers...
Cutscene: The Large Gate...a cutscene that more or less spells out that "we're stuck for the time being, gotta go back".
There's three images above the door. If you look carefully, you can see a boar, a deer, and a butterfly... hmmm... I wonder what it is we have to do in order to get through?
Back in the Cave, we get our first upgrade to our number of hits. In this case, it's our best number that's getting upgraded from 4 to 5. Later levels will increase our not-so-high numbers, as well as our Evasion Chances across the board.
Looks like we found the other exit. This is the last Waypoint we can get that isn't inside a dungeon for this act (technically there's the end-of-dungeon Waypoint in the Volcano Road, but again, doesn't really count).
Our ultimate reward for taking this path is a Blue Door Area, which is probably one of the larger ones of this act.
Of course, we sneak around up top to grab a Power Extension. Niiice.
Inside ye ol' Blue Door, we find Creepers and a Pink Agar. Creepers are... kinda unnotable. Throw Fire at them and they just sorta vanish. They can self-destruct, but you should have an all-targeting Fire attack from the Magician. That can wipe every Creeper out in one shot. The Pink Agar is just a stronger Agar, otherwise weak to Electric and Stab as usual.
No need for this, buuut
As you would expect, Marisa's Last Word is Master Spark, which is a penetrating Mystic attack. It doesn't do as much since she's right now a gun user, but it's still there.
Mamizou Danmaku in Ten Transformations, Mamizou's Last Word, is a lot like Kappa Camoflauge from GoS and DoD. It gives all allies a barrier that prevents one attack. This cannot be bypassed in any way other than having it being dispelled beforehand, so it's a good way to take a nuke that Quadruple Barrier otherwise wouldn't.
Niiice, a Dragon Maid. A Ravager, she starts off with the three basic breath attacks and later on gets the three basic Hand skills. The Hand skills aren't nearly as good as in DoD, and they cost a lot of Power to boot, but the breath attacks are pretty solid. A good doppel to have around for the early game.
Recipes, yaaaay.
And a gap on top of it, giving us Kanako, Utsuho, Kogasa, and Momiji.
Kanako is a Ranger with a big focus on power and attacks that hit multiple enemies. Her passives grant bonuses mostly to HP and MDEF, and otherwise boost the power of all-targeting or row-targeting attacks. Meteoric Onbashira, her skill, is just a high-powered all-targeting attack.
Utsuho, a Magician, is the LGT/DRK/MYS equivalent of Patchouli, granting every possible bonus to those elements. Her skill, Mega Flare, is just an all-targeting Mystic attack that hits hard.
Kogasa is a weird Magician, with high MP and a focus on single-target spells, mostly on making sure they come out really, really fast. Otherwise granting bonuses to EVA and Weight reduction, her skill is Umbrella Cyclone, which is an all-targeting Water attack that restores MP on hit.
Finally, Momiji is all about chasers, boosting the speed, power, and number of times chasers can activate, alongside some nice ACC bonuses. Her skill is Rabies Bite, which just is a full-on "chases all physical attacks" skill. I never really used Momiji since I don't know how good chasers are. The big problem with her also is that her number of hits on Melee and Ranged attacks are not too good, and it's in fact her Defensive Support number of hits that's high. After some quick tests I did after I otherwise finished screenshotting (which ended up in accidentally getting a doppel I missed, which I'll append to the end of this update), I've concluded that they use Melee/Ranged number of hits and are otherwise not that strong. Maybe her passives make them relevant, buuuut I'm not willing to give it too much of a shot.
We transition to the Blue Door Area that was near the Volcano Road. Wanyudo down there can stun your party and otherwise screw you over with Fire, but can be taken down by Light and Water. Up top is a Fallen Angel, which, oddly enough, is still weak to Dark. It uses Light attacks and can Blind your party members, which make it a high priority target. Too bad they're a bit tough to kill.
Oh boy, a Caviar. Possessors of the infamous HDD Crash, they can inflict Removal on your party. Removed party members cannot be revived, but all that happens to their main doppel is they get unequiped, but not KOed. At the same time, all sub doppels won't get any XP after the battle. Caviars can thankfully be taken down by Electric attacks.
Uggh, a Nashorn. They have Main Cannon, that good ol' dangerous as all get out attack, and while they can be taken down by Water, being too slow on the draw can really screw over the party.
Up top there is an Amikiri, who uh... exists. He has Drill, which can debuff defense, but otherwise he's not too bad. Weak to Light, and possibly something else I don't remember.
Moar recipes.
And our last gap for the act. We're actually almost out of gaps in the entire game, there's only... I think two or three left, and they're all in the next act. Anyhow, this one gives Nitori, Kaguya, Byakuren, Nazrin, and Alice.
Nitori, much like Momiji, focuses on chasers, but she works mostly with FIR/ELE/WTR chasers and elemental attacks. She boosts the power of chasers as well as the power and element power of FIR/ELE/WTR attacks, and on top of that, she shores up an... interesting thing related to sparking weapon skills. I'll describe it after I finish listing this batch of doppels. As for Nitori's skill, it's Ghost Cucumber, which chases all FIR/ELE/WTR skills. Eh. Not too great but at least she can shore up that weakness I'll talk about later.
Kaguya is a Magician who is all about Land manipulation. When she casts spells, the Land will change extremely rapidly. In fact, it might be a good idea to start off certain battles that rely on Land manipulation and have her use, say, the Fairy Maid's Land Control to basically shunt an element extremely far. After that, you can switch back off to, say, Patchouli, Utsuho, or Rumia to keep up on the damage. Her skill, Tree Ocean of Hourai, is an all-targeting magic spell of the same element as the highest Land power. It otherwise is Mystic elemental if the Land is fully neutral.
Byakuren is your answer to a general use status effect Magician with good things all around. She focuses mainly on boosting IND, and later on she raises Offensive Support number of hits passively, which ultimately makes her a good buffer and debuffer. Her skill is Star Maelstrom, an all-targeting Light elemental spell that can inflict Silence.
Nazrin is more or less Sanae, but with single-target buffs. Another Priest, she boosts the casting speed of all Defensive Support skills, and otherwise grants high bonuses to single-target buffs. Her skill, Pendulum Guard, reduces the amount of damage done to a single ally by 75% for a couple turns.
Finally, there's Alice, a Specialist with a focus on tanking magic. Right off the bat, she gains a passive that doubles the activation rate of shields against magic attacks, and otherwise boosts the casting speed of skills that defend against elemental attacks, and also gets some hefty MDEF. Her skill, Marionette Parrar, reduces all magic damage done to the party by 90% for that turn. A very, very, VERY good skill against big magic nukes.
Right, so that thing I was going to mention. All skills that can be sparked have a type, a number from one to eight. Much like in DoD, each character has a hidden proficiency or weakness to what skills they can learn. If a character has a 0 associated with a type, they cannot learn skills of that type... UNLESS they have a certain doppel equipped, which will convert that 0 to a 1. We haven't gotten all the doppels that can do that yet, but we actually have quite a few. For example, Nitori shores up type 7 skills, which Marisa and Mamizou are bad with. As for the eight types of skills, I'll try to describe them as best as possible.
Type 1- General skills and Slayers
Type 2- High powered single-target attacks, sometimes ignores defenses
Type 3- Penetrating attacks and defense piercing attacks
Type 4- Row-targeting attacks
Type 5- All-targeting attacks
Type 6- Permanent Effect inflicting attacks
Type 7- Elemental attacks
Type 8- Other attacks (usually have special effects or otherwise high powered); the "ultimate" attacks of each weapon type are usually this type
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses with different types. People have a 0, 1, or 2 in each type. 0 means they can't learn it, 1 means they can, 2 supposedly means they have a better chance of learning that type, but according to the blog I get all this information from, there's no real difference between 1 and 2. Each character has the following strengths/weaknesses:
Saya: Can learn- 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8; Can't learn- 2, 5
Yukari: Can learn- 1, 2, 3, 5, 7; Can't learn- 4, 6, 8
Mamizou: Can learn- 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8; Can't learn- 2, 7
Reimu: Can learn- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7; Can't learn- 6, 8
Marisa: Can learn- 1, 2, 4, 5, 6; Can't learn- 3, 7, 8
Long story short, everyone can learn type 1 attacks, while Saya and Mamizou pretty much get type 8 attacks to themselves. As it turns out, Yukari, being my spear user, is in a bad spot, because there are a good amount of type 4 attacks that spears have. Fortunately for her, if I really wanted to, I can give her Komachi to shore up that weakness. On that note, all of the seven types that people have various weaknesses to have both a Warrior and a Ranger that shore up a weakness to that type. They're as follows:
Type 2: Suika/Hatate
Type 3: Remilia/Eirin
Type 4: Komachi/???
Type 5: Sakuya/Kanako
Type 6:
/???
Type 7: Nitori/Koishi
Type 8:
/???
When we get the doppels that are missing from that list, I'll make sure to note them down when we get them.
Also, nearly forgot to add this, but when testing some chaser stuff briefly after I thought I was done, I ended up getting a Yuki-onna. Like the Raijuu, it's a Water-based Elementalist that doesn't suck. She'll be useful for the upcoming area.
...That said, we're actually done with this update. Lot of explaining here near the end, CJD2524 if you're around, if you've got anything else to note on what you've found out about sparking on your end (since I remember back before the expansion came out, you were doing a lot of testing all over the place), feel free to mention it. Next time, we're heading into the Volcano Road, the last dungeon for this act. After that, we'll be taking on the three bosses of this act, which will be a mostly video update (I'm planning on making a video of my winning run of each boss fight).
Summary:
New Doppels: Murei (Medic/Synergist), Miko (Medic/Synergist), Dragon Maid (Ravager), Kanako (Ranger), Utsuho (Magician), Kogasa (Magician), Momiji (Specialist), Nitori (Warrior), Kaguya (Magician), Byakuren (Magician), Nazrin (Priest), Alice (Specialist), Yuki-onna (Elementalist)
Doppel Levels: Shugenja (Penetration, MDEF +5), Sanae (Defensive Support Skill Casting Speed +5), Suika (PATK +4), Magician (Electric Element Power +5), Slime (Physical Defense, POT +2), Hinoenma (DEX +1), Succubus (Temptation, POT +2), Raijuu (INT +1), Zebra Volnehem (VIT +1, Alignment Shelter), Miko (...Empty level? Really? Okay then; Sunlight; Dispel), Murei (Moonlight; Clearance; DEX +2), Rumia (FIR/ELE/WTR/LGT/DRK/MYS Element Power +20), Patchouli (FIR/ELE/WTR Element Power +10; FIR/ELE/WTR Power +15), Eirin (ACC +7), Crazy Undine (AGI +2), Schwarze Katze (DEX +1), Remilia (PATK +3), Sakuya (PATK +8), Dragon Maid (HP +5; ○ Stun, Element Shelter)
Major Equipment: Battleaxe, Gale Boots (Marisa), Soul Charm, Lightning Rod, Daihannya (Reimu), Fluid Axe (Saya), Type 38 Rifle (Marisa), Nambu Pistol, Joukahainen, Sniper Anklet (Marisa), Steropes (Yukari), Surukuku Neri, CD-ROM
Synthesis Recipes: Sacred Down Feather, Wicked Cardigan, Hide Armor, Fascination Armor, Hero Armor, Glacis Robe, Strength Obi, Joseon Dynasty Armor, High Class Sailor Suit, Ice Chain Mail
Synthesis Done: Hide Armor (Yukari)
Sparked Skills: Weak Point (single-target attack that inflicts Stun, the chance to stun increases if the enemy is inflicted with a Variety effect, Yukari), Flame Whip (single-target Fire attack, Reimu), Power Hit (single-target attack, Saya)
Update Death Count: 0
Total Death Count: 1
