I beat Ao no Kiseki!

August 9, 2012 by awesomecurry 2 Comments

…And now I’m slightly depressed. Playing the waiting game sucks, especially if you’re doing the true waiting game where the next game isn’t even released yet rather than simply not localized. With the way Ao ended off though, at least you know Falcom is working on another game in the Kiseki universe because I trust them to not give us the middle finger. Still, holy fuck I need something to take my mind off the awesomeness that is Ao, because the less I think about the waiting game, the less times I lose the game (I understand the “I LOST THE GAME” concept, finally).

In case you can’t tell, spoilers beyond this point.

The ending of Ao was pretty much hinted at for a good portion of the game, but fuck I’m still depressed. At least by the looks of the final CGs, things worked out alright. Go Crossbell! Ouroboros is probably the most competent evil group I’ve seen in an RPG. It just keeps gaining members, stays in the shadows well, and everything goes according to keikaku. Damn these guys are amazing. I just can’t wait to bring them down eventually. Ian being evil was totally unexpected, but makes so much sense and blew my mind. Mariabell I semi-expected because they gave her a voice and I concluded that she either fights you or at least becomes extremely important. Interface spoilers lol. Falcom is great at teaching you to second-guess everyone’s actions.

Ouroboros moved their actions to Erebonia, so I’d naturally expect the next game to take place there, unless Falcom surprises me (which itself isn’t too surprising). Maybe they’ll set it in yet another land that was briefly mentioned in this game. I want to see Erebonia though, and what Olivier and Muller have up their sleeves for the next game. DSfhdsofdshifkdshfdflkdslkfds FINE I’LL ACCEPT MY FATE OF WAITING FOR THE NEXT GAME, AND I’LL DO THAT WHILE TRYING TO REFILL MY ETERNALLY EMPTY WALLET. ああ～神ゲーだった…

On the boss side, damn Ao has the bitchiest final boss in the Kiseki series. Okay fine, I played on Hard instead of the usual Normal, but I found Zero on Normal easy so I chose Hard this time. Regular battles didn’t feel any different (I don’t care if you up their stats, they ain’t gonna murder me if you’re sending one normal monster against my team of four), but certain bosses really game me a beatdown. Arianrhod comes to mind since she was at level 120 and my team was 92, so I expected the story to continue even when I got wiped out by her S-craft. Imagine my surprise when it brought me to the Game Over screen. A certain mecha also gave me a painful time, I certainly wouldn’t have beaten it if I didn’t reflect its strongest move that 1-hits my entire party. Certain bosses didn’t even take damage from unbuffed characters unless it’s Randy with the Force master quartz.

Then the final boss…where to begin? First, the fact that it summons 4 helpers that have 29K+ HP and re-summons them if you destroy them all is very annoying. They dealt 2-3K damage each time, there’s 4 of them (usually move after each other), and their AI actually knows to gang up on one party member and always choose the one closest to death. The boss itself dishes out some painful damage, and can dispel Zero Field (and it WILL do it). Then, when it gets down to around 40K HP or so, it will prepare its ultimate attack that will murder all your characters no matter what. The only way to survive that is to defeat it before its next turn comes up, so if you don’t have your burst ready or 200 CP on everyone, have fun with your retry! I think I beat him on my 3rd or 4th try, because I was stupid and thought I could Zero Field it/didn’t have burst ready. I brought in Lloyd, Tio, Randy and Rixia, although I could have replaced the latter with Elie for more healing and arts. Rixia came in handy too though, with her all-target S-Craft and speed. I refuse to kick Lloyd because that violates my unspoken RPG rules, and Randy + Force is where most of my physical damage comes from. Tio is never leaving my party.

Master Quartz are wonderful. It’s fun to level them up, and they give you so many more options. Car was nice too, and collecting recipes was fun. Apparently there’s 2nd-playthrough only monsters and bonus boss too! Hnnnng. Of course I did my final kizuna event with Tio, but I also reloaded and saw Wazy’s because I liked him more than I expected. It revealed his backstory, which is pretty neat. Next playthrough I’m gonna spend time with Randy, because fabulous bromance is always fabulous.

tl;dr: Marry me, Falcom. Or, as a more reasonable demand because I can’t marry a company, never stop making games. I won’t forget the 90 hours I sunk into my first playthough in Ao no Kiseki, or any of my time spent playing the Kiseki games.

Before I realized, summer break is over halfway over. Fuck, I didn’t do anything that would benefit my social life, education, or future employment. That’s okay, I had Ao no Kiseki.